Sabra Zoo (15 page)

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean you don't need to be here, in this city. You have a foreign passport, no?'

‘Yes I do, but –'

‘Then you should be in Europe, studying. Did you know I went to the Sorbonne in Paris?'

‘For real? What did you study?'

‘International law,' he said, smiling. ‘But seriously, Ivan, you have choices, you should consider them.'

Samir was back in the room. His right eye was now a dark red.

They left shortly after three in the morning and I considered going to bed, but I was too jazzed up. Instead, since the electricity was on, I picked out one of my mother's opera records, one with a woman dressed as a gypsy on the cover. I sat all the way through it, at first as a test of perseverance, but after a while I was absorbed in the music. I could feel myself drifting off to sleep on the sofa as it began to get light outside.

Soon there was buzzing in my ears, like a bad-tempered mosquito. I swatted at the noise but it just got louder and turned into ringing. I woke on the sofa – it was the doorbell. The needle on the turntable was cutting a new groove into the end of the record. Eli was on the other side of the peephole. I opened up and she took in my hair and clothes.

‘Still asleep?' she asked, coming in with a plastic bag. ‘I have breakfast.' She held up the bag and my hunger hit me, catching up with me from the day before. I made tea while she fried eggs. I asked her why she wasn't at work. She told me she'd taken the morning off.

‘I want to say goodbye to people before I go. I'm going to work this afternoon.' We dipped the fresh bread in the salty yolks, sharing a plate. She let me mop the plate up. I gulped the hot tea and leant back into the sofa.

‘You were hungry,' she said. We were sitting next to each other. She was wearing a perfume that she'd bought from a market stall in the camp and her braids had black ribbons in them. She sipped her tea. I was agonisingly aware of how close she was, of her jasmine scent.

‘How's Fiona?' I asked.

‘She'll live.'

‘Did she say why it happened?'

‘Does it matter? It shouldn't have happened.'

I told her about Faris and Samir; how Samir now had the same black eye as Fiona. She looked unconvinced.

‘Samir will probably lose his driving job with the Red Crescent,' I said. I didn't know why I was defending him. I just wanted everyone to get on, like before.

‘I'm not sure Fiona will make a complaint. Maybe if she sees him she'll think they're even.' We smiled at the image of them meeting.

I sensed an edginess between us as we made small talk. It was like a physical tension that was waiting for the right trigger to snap and be released. I didn't know what that trigger was or what to do. I was worried that it would go away, an unknown opportunity lost for ever, or that I would dispel it with the wrong word or gesture. But Eli knew what to do. She took my hand, got up and led me to the bedroom. I stood by the bed paralysed as she wound down the shutter, restricting the sunlight to narrow strips on the bedcover. Then she was undressing and helping me undress until we were standing naked before each other. She was looking me up and down and smiling at my erection which felt like it would explode and kill us both. She pulled me onto the bed and things were happening more quickly. She was guiding my hands and my mouth. My senses were overwhelmed by her smooth curves and smells and softness and whispers. I was immersed fully in the experience; nothing else in the universe mattered, nothing at all. Soon I could hear people crying out and something was welling deep in my pelvis. Then I got the flash I had before my fit and an explosion ripped through me, again and again. When I opened my eyes I was still alive and looking down at Eli to make sure she was
OK
. Her eyes were unfocused and she was breathing rapidly through her parted lips.

‘Next time,' she said, her voice coming from somewhere deep in her chest, ‘we'll try to take it more slowly.' We lay next to each other for a minute, catching our breath. She started guiding my hand over her breasts and down her damp belly; ‘next time' was happening now.

At some point we had lunch and at some point we shared a cold shower which served to rejuvenate us to try it all again. Now we were lying on our backs on the bed after an involuntary nap. Eli looked at her watch, the only thing she was wearing apart from her redundant wedding ring, which she took off and handed to me.

‘This may be useful,' she said. ‘In case you need to sell it or something. It's good quality.'

‘I would never sell it.' I tried it on my fingers but it was either too big or too small so I laid it between her breasts and watched it rise and fall for a bit.

‘What are you going to do, Ivan?'

‘I'll get a chain for it to wear round my neck,' I told her, but I knew she wasn't asking about that. She raised herself on one elbow to face me. I searched for the fallen ring in the crumpled sheet.

‘Seriously, Ivan.'

‘I don't know – something will turn up.'

‘No, you can't just wait for things to happen to you. Have you thought about going back to Denmark?'

I shrugged and pulled the sheet up over myself.

‘Do you have someone you can stay with? Where are your parents?'

I studied the light through the slats in the blind. It had faded to a grey that meant it must have clouded over or else it was getting late.

‘I can give you some money to buy a ticket – I have money.'

I knew then that something between us was lost that could not be recovered. She'd taken on a different persona, behaving like a concerned aunt rather than a lover, sounding like Faris with his questions. The doorbell went and I welcomed the opportunity to slip on my jeans and go down the hall. Liv was trying to look the wrong way through the peephole.

‘Is Eli here?' she said, her face all serious. I nodded and she headed past me for the bedroom before I could say anything. I followed to find her sitting on the bed next to Eli, who had covered herself with the sheet. The room smelt of sex.

‘Have you heard the news?' Liv asked. We looked at her. ‘There's been a big explosion in east Beirut, at the Phalangist headquarters. They say that Bashir Gemayel has been killed.'

Samir was waiting in the car to take us to Sabra. Depending on which radio station you tuned into, Bashir had either definitely survived or definitely died. But by the time we got to the hospital it was clear that he had been killed, along with twenty-four other Phalangists, in an enormous explosion (even by Beirut standards) which had pulled down the building he was in.

At the hospital we had a little gathering on the orthopaedic ward for Donkey Man, who was being discharged into the camp and the care of his relatives. The nurses gave him a new walking stick and Asha shook his hand, saying he was her longest-staying patient. He had a new kufi on his head and tears in his eyes as he told me to thank everyone. Youssef was there, circling the get-together on his crutches, cursing and muttering.

‘He's going mad here,' I told Eli.

‘As his physio I recommend sea air. Why don't we take him to the Corniche tomorrow?' she suggested. ‘I'll have time before my flight if we go in the morning.'

I told Youssef the good news.

‘The sea? What do I want with the sea? I want to see a film,' he said.

I told her he was delighted with the idea.

She laughed. ‘I can tell from his expression.'

I left Eli to say some goodbyes and went to work in the clinic.

We met up at Asha's for dinner. Afterwards we went back to my place and I put into practice what I'd learnt earlier that morning. Eli told me I was a good student.

Low-flying and screaming Israeli
F
-16
S
woke me from a deep and nourishing sleep – this was no dream. Eli was next to me, naked on her last day in Beirut.

‘Are they bombing?' she asked, pulling the sheet over her chest.

‘No, they're just breaking the sound barrier. All the terror without the destruction. Well, apart from some broken windows.'

After a wordless breakfast we walked to Samir's falafel place where we'd agreed to meet him before picking up Youssef. Samir wasn't there but among the regulars I saw Faris huddled with his ‘brothers' at the back table. He hadn't seen me so I approached, catching him drawing a map on a paper napkin.

‘I can't see any other way,' he was saying. ‘We can't stand by while …' He saw me and flipped the napkin, then stood up.

‘Ivan. What are you doing here?'

‘Waiting for Samir.' As if on cue, squealing announced a Red Crescent ambulance stopping outside. Samir jumped out of the driver's side. He came in, his eye now black and blue.

‘A woman finally teach you some respect?' someone asked.

‘Exactly so,' he said, without smiling.

Faris and I joined Samir and Eli at a table.

‘You won't be going home today,' Samir told Eli. He helped himself to a cigarette from my pack. Eli and I looked to Faris.

‘The Israelis are invading the city,' Faris explained. ‘The airport is closed.'

There went Youssef's chance to see the sea. The regulars crowded round our table, firing questions: How far away were they? Would they come into the Hamra district? Faris just shrugged. They started to drift away.

‘I should go to the Etoile, find out what's happening,' Eli said.

‘Good idea,' Faris said. I felt I should check in with Najwa and find out what I should be doing but instead I told Eli I'd walk her to the hotel. Faris called to his friends. We all spilt onto the street. Faris got in the passenger side of the ambulance while his mates got in the patient end. Samir shouted instructions for his café to close. He got in the driver's side and the ambulance accelerated onto the road, the siren wailing into life but dying seconds later. I imagined an exasperated Faris telling Samir to turn the fucking thing off.

At the Etoile a man from the Norwegian embassy was addressing a mixed group of Westerners in English, telling them that there was nothing to worry about as long as they stayed in the hotel. He took the details of those whose departure had been delayed so he could let their charities know. As soon as he was done Liv stood on a chair.

‘The last thing I'm going to do is stay in this hotel,' she declared in English. ‘I suggest we go to the camp – the more Europeans there the better.' She pulled her black hair into a tight ponytail as if preparing to go for a long run.

‘Why, what do you think is going to happen?' asked Fiona. Even with her shades on her anxiety was clear.

‘I don't know exactly, but history tells us that it won't be anything good.' She lit a cigarette, puffing impatiently, and a multilingual discussion about what to do broke out. In the end half the people there decided they should go to the camp. Fiona, however, had already left the room. Liv joined Eli and me.

‘I'll go with you,' Eli said to her.

‘Are you sure?' I asked.

‘She's right, Ivan, we can't sit here. Also, Youssef is there, remember.'

I nodded.

Liv hugged Eli and went to convince some others. I squeezed Eli's hand and left for Najwa's.

Najwa filled me in on what she knew: apparently the Israel Defense Forces were advancing along three fronts and would be in the streets below by tomorrow.

‘After all, who will resist them now – the fighters have gone, the mines have been cleared and most of the weapons handed over to the Lebanese army.'

She might as well have been talking to herself, pacing up and down in a trail of cigarette smoke. I yawned, feeling the effects of yesterday's marathon. I wondered, now that Eli's flight was cancelled, whether we'd be able to do it all again that night. I felt a pang of shame; we were being invaded and Eli's flight home had been cancelled and all I could think about was sex. Najwa was handing me a package; it was to go to Dr Ramina at the American University Hospital.

‘Probably the last for a while,' she said, as I tried to stuff the large envelope into my jacket without success. This time there'd been no attempt to camouflage it in newspaper.

The streets weren't as busy now and most shops were closed or closing, the shutters clattering to the street in a burst of metallic noise. I turned onto my street, thinking I would cut through
AUB
to the hospital, which lay to the east of the campus. Halfway down the street and someone was shouting my name from a shiny black Mercedes coming towards me. I could see an arm waving from the back window but couldn't see through the front screen due to the late sun reflecting on it.

At first I thought it must be Emile or one of his cronies, but when the car drew level I saw only strangers in the front, clean-shaven men in leather jackets. They were smiling. I stopped, peering into the back, and saw Lazy Eye Nabil alongside another man. He smiled when his good eye met mine and he started to open the door before the car had even stopped. My instinct was to turn and run but a calmer part of my brain told me to run in the direction I was walking, as they would have to reverse – already another car was pulling up behind them making that difficult. As I pulled away I knew I could easily outrun Lazy Eye, but I was panting by the time I reached a side street. I risked a look as I turned into it and saw them getting back into the car, yelling at the driver behind them to get out of the way. They were going to try to follow me in the car.

I ran as the whine of the reversing Mercedes' engine followed me down the road. I heard a screech of brakes, some horn blowing and swearing but I didn't stop to look. I reached the entrance to an alley and glanced back to see the Merc just turning onto the side street. I jumped into the alley, gambling on the fact that they were too far away to see me, and came to what looked like a dead end – a courtyard overlooked by apartment blocks on three sides and a high wall on the fourth lined with overflowing rubbish bins.