The Gendarme (17 page)

It is dark. The light of stars shines down on a pathway, on a group, moving. Prisoners. They are tied together, their wrists bound behind them, connected by rope at their hands and their waists. They do not struggle or crane their necks, their shoulders bowed, the light glinting and shifting against the dark sweep of their hair. At one point one of them stumbles and pulls half the line with him. Men emerge then from the shadows, prodding them upward, with grunts and curses and pokes of long knives. The clinking starts again, having stopped with the man’s fall. The men march now with the prisoners, exhorting, demanding. There are many knives, sometimes two or three in one hand, in my hand. They clink together as we walk.

We reach a clearing, lit only by the stars. The prisoners stop. Some raise their heads, some kneel and collapse others to the ground alongside them. The clinking stops, replaced by the sound of sobbing, by pleas for deliverance, by bitter and sorrowful prayers. And then it begins, the rush and thrust of weapons, the screams and grunts as metal meets flesh meets bone. I lie back, unsure, taking care not to be cut in the frenzy, even as something stirs within me, an excitement, a rage that expands like a great bubble and bursts. I lift my weapon. I am an attacker, one with the attack. I am a man. A thing like a wave grips my shoulders and pulls. Gasps come, escapes of air and fluid, moans as my knife make its punctures and exits. I strike again. And again. Their liquids splatter, wetting my face, down my neck.

“Papa!”

I awake slowly. My hands tremble. The car is not moving—we perch in a driveway. I am wet, my chest and hands. I look down at my body as if from a cliff. Blood seeps from my chin, staining my shirt a burnt red. Violet thrusts something toward me.

“Here, take this. Are you awake? You’ve got a nosebleed.”

I accept a tissue, tilt my head back. The warm slide of blood continues, now down my throat.

“What happened?” I ask. My voice echoes and hums.

“You had one of those spells. Your hands started shaking, then your body. This time your nose bled, too.”

I shiver, the drying blood slick and rubbery. The clinking has vanished, though its imprint remains.

“I fear I am losing my mind,” I say to . . . whom? To my daughter.

“No, you’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” A trickle of a smile breaks and falls down her face. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

We drive to a McDonald’s. I wait in the car. Violet returns to swab at my face, the blood turning the napkins a dirty mud brown. The rain starts again, spitting, then strengthening, wetting her back as she bends to her work. She finishes, closes the passenger door, rushes around to the other side.

“Jeez.” Her hands pull hair back in place. “It’s okay,” she says, turning to me. “It’s not your fault.” She examines her face in the rearview mirror. “Not your fault.”

She pauses, her gaze forward. She turns again. “I don’t know about today, Papa. I’m thinking we should go back, check in with Dr. Wan. I’m worried you’ll have a big one of these and I . . .”

I protest, but weakly. I lift my head . . . If I could only lift my head higher my life might come back then. There are matters still to prepare, analyze. There are things I must do. I examine Violet and wonder what I have passed to her, what weakness. Cruelty? An orange light burns and I slump back in my seat.

I sneeze.
It is dusty amid the rubble of the knife maker’s shop: the chisels on their racks, the unfinished product from the day before, the bucket of water, the anvil, the dulled fire. I stretch, rubbing my stomach, scratching my head. I remember the conversation with Abdul the night before, about the man looking for someone like me. The plan.

The door to the shop creaks open. A woman’s head appears, covered in a black scarf. She lingers in the doorway a moment, her eyes adjusting. Then she focuses on me.

“Abdul is dead.”

“What?” I take a step toward her. “What happened?”

“He died in his sleep. He coughed and coughed, and then he was still.”

She glances around the shop, as if she has never seen it. She is a short woman, her head barely rising to the level of my chest, her eyes far apart and set deep in her face, like a bird’s.

I look down, unsure of what to say. I have grown to like Abdul and his quiet, competent ways. He has treated me fairly, even covered for me. Now he is gone.

“You must leave,” the woman says, without a trace of emotion.

I nod, set about gathering my extra shirt, my tunic, my meager coins. I place my knife in my pants, the knife I bought from Karim. I straighten the bedding I had only just risen from. It all takes longer than it should because my hands are stiff and trembling, my vision watery. I want to look at her but do not. I finish gathering my things and stumble to the back door, conscious of her gaze still fixed on my back. “Good-bye,” I whisper, as the door closes behind me. I hear the latch fasten shut.

The smells of early-morning Aleppo rise, odors made sharper by my numbed, shaken state. I slip past a flock of bleating sheep, past men on camels who look like they’ve ridden all night, past corpses facedown in the street. I have no idea where I am going, no plan of what to do next. I stick to alleys and side streets, to the dark of Aleppo’s passageways. I find myself near the hospital, and then backtrack, through a wealthier section comprised of courtyards and chiseled stone, past the missionary-run Armenian orphanage and its crocheted socks and blankets arranged hopefully and pitiably for sale. I walk for what seems like hours but may be only minutes. I count the minarets near the citadel, one to twenty-nine.

I stop at the first cries of the muezzin, there before a white-domed church. I kneel, orienting myself toward Mecca, my lips forming the familiar words, my forehead bent low to the ground. Each time I raise my head I see the cross at the church’s top, odd and blasphemous but at the same time familiar, as if I have been here before, knelt in this spot, bowed before both of these things all my life. I continue, prostrated, the prayers spraying from my lips and merging with others as my mind bends to my need. I ask Allah for help. I ask the Christian God for help. I ask for strength, for sustenance. I pray for deliverance, from a something I cannot name.

The prayers end. I stand for a moment, counting my coins. I have only eight lira, a handful of
gurûş
. Glancing up at the church spire, at the sun’s first foray into crevice and shadow, I deposit a coin in the alms box before continuing down the walkway, my remaining wealth in my hand, glancing in doorways, slowing at the sound of voices. I ask for work at khans, at cafés, at almost every open establishment, but each time there are only blank stares, disdainful looks, quick and forceful rejections. I backtrack, searching for businesses I might have missed, trudging through passages and corridors until finally I arrive in a sunny little courtyard, an opening of a stone street and shops in which several corridors converge.

A young woman with unusual red-colored hair sweeps dust from a stoop. She smiles as I approach.

“I am looking for work,” I say in halting Arabic. “Do you have anything?”

She wrinkles her nose, two moles equidistant across its top. I realize as I grow closer that they are tiny tattoos. “Perhaps.” She shrugs. “I will ask Sasha.”

She calls back through the doorway. “Sasha! Sasha!”

I wait, my stomach growling, wondering what kind of person this Sasha is—businessman? Teacher?

A broad-shouldered woman makes her way through the doorway, squinting in dismay at the late-morning light. Her uncovered hair is askew, as if she has just awakened, her mannish-looking face thick and blotched like a curd.

“What is it?” she asks in Arabic.

The redheaded woman points her broom at me. “This boy is looking for work.”

I flinch but say nothing. Sasha looks me over, as if appraising a goat at the bazaar.

“Perhaps,” she says, flipping hair from her eyes in an exaggerated way. She wears a strange-looking dress that reveals her broad shoulders, then drapes shapelessly below. Her large feet are bare.

She glances at the younger woman, then back at me. “Come inside,” she says, with a corresponding pull of her neck. “Be quiet. The others are sleeping.”

I follow her through the doorway into a surprisingly large room. At the back several rows of mats and low divans have been arranged, all facing an elevated area beyond. Separate doorways lead in opposite directions from the room’s sides, another, attached to the elevated area, from its back. The smell of stale incense mingles with tobacco and perfume, spices and sweat. The room is dark, with no window or exterior light. A single candle burns near the back doorway.

Sasha reaches under her robes and, to my astonishment, emerges with a cigarette. She strides to the candle and bends, cupping her hand. She rises in a bright cloud of smoke.

“What is this place?” I ask, almost without thinking.

Sasha smiles, draws a deep breath, exhales. “You have not been here before?”

I shake my head.

“You are new to Aleppo?”

“Yes.” I do not elaborate. She does not press.

“This, my boy, we call the
klimbim
. A dance hall.” She smiles, waving her cigarette at the area through which we entered. “We entertain.”

I look around again, realization slowly dawning. I stare at her, then back to the doorway, where the red-haired woman has now disappeared. I sputter, in search of my voice. “What would you like me to do?”

She shrugs. “We need help cleaning. We had someone, but he left. When the girls awaken, I can show you more.”

“How much?”

She shrugs again. “You are a bargainer, eh? A few lira a week, maybe more if business is good. You will eat with us.” She pauses. “Can you cook?”

I nod. Can I?

Her head rocks forward and back. “You help us cook. In the meantime, help Isis sweep.” She indicates the red-haired woman, who has reappeared behind me.

I nod. I reach for her broom.

 

 

 

I adapt
to the ways of the
klimbim
. The dancing begins at dusk and continues, in one fashion or another, until almost dawn. As such, my sleep pattern changes, most of my work now done after midnight and in the afternoons. Often I see the sun rise. I sleep in the mornings.

My jobs at the dance hall vary. I sweep the stone floor and straighten the mats, I clean the elevated area they call the stage, and, most important, I change the cotton sheets in the back rooms in which the girls retire after their dances to consort with the highest-paying clientele. This requires adroit maneuvering and timing in dimly lit spaces, as there are only three such rooms and five girls (six, if you count Sasha). I am to retrieve the often-wet bedding immediately after one session but before the next, avoiding embarrassing contact with either group in the narrow corridor behind the stage. On the first night Sasha accompanied me on my duties, instructing me in the subtleties of determining when a coupling had concluded, of arranging the sheets on freshened piles of straw, of checking the candle to make sure it had not burned low. The rooms are small, almost cell-like affairs, with a large area of bedding, a small divan, and not much else. They smell of the same tobacco, perfume, and sweat as the larger room. Each has a small window opened to the alley outside. In the middle is a fire, sometimes lit, more often not.

I grow to know the five dancers: Isis, the redheaded woman I met the first day, funny and likable, originally from Egypt; Avi, the dark and solemn Armenian who never smiles but whose emissions during her back room sessions shake the building, it seems; Bibi, a woman with tattoos across her forehead who lived with the Bedouins for a number of years; Rasha, a crowd favorite, with very large breasts; and a stunningly beautiful Turkish woman called Sala, who is always in great demand. The girls sleep together in a small separate building behind the dance hall that also houses a cookstove, a small communal area, and Sasha’s quarters. I sleep on one of the pads in the rooms behind the stage.

Activities at the
klimbim
begin in the late afternoon, with the girls stirring as the first patrons arrive. A certain stealth about the operation makes me question its legality, although soldiers and government personnel are by far its largest clientele. I have been told that even Cemal Paşa, the military governor of Syria, once visited. Several large, stained narghiles are provided for the benefit of the customers, one of my duties being to provide tobacco (if needed) from a small pouch Sasha entrusts to me, and to periodically replace the stinking water in the pipe’s bulb-shaped bottom. Alcohol is served—again, somewhat surreptitiously—by means of goatskins and goblets produced from beneath Sasha’s robes. Sasha is everywhere, urging the dancers on from the back corridor, attending the front door, pouring glasses of rakı or wine, negotiating various payments. On my first night, and, as I soon discover, on many nights after, a patron would become intoxicated and abusive, whereupon I would be called to assist Sasha in escorting the individual out the front door. Sasha is large and deceptively strong, to the point where inebriated men often underestimate her willingness to provide a knee to the groin or an elbow to the face to help them on their way out. More than once a man has been left outside, doubled over and bleeding, to shout threats of reprisal as he limps off down the alleyway. I suspect the police are in some state of collusion, as we are never troubled with raids or with miscreants. The only time I ever see an official during the daytime is when a fat captain circles back to ensure that news of his collapse in a back room is not reported to his superiors.

After several days the girls take to me, treating me as an insider, sharing jokes, regaling me with descriptions of their customers. There are a number of regular patrons: one man they call “Long,” another the “Thirty-Second Man,” each for obvious reasons; the mustachioed senior military official who demands that his consort stand at attention while he undresses; the wealthy local merchant who pays for two girls but is unable to perform with either; the slender man the girls call “Dena” who weeps profusely at his climax; and any number of “first-timers,” men or boys out to prove their masculinity, usually exhibiting stage fright or performance anxiety that results in a quick and thereby more profitable session. I learn to anticipate the length of time a group will be in a room, to unobtrusively glide by parties I pass in the corridor, to sense when a patron is becoming unruly, to know when trouble is about to begin. I keep my head down, given the preponderance of military personnel, concerned that someone might ask for my papers or inquire as to my nationality. No one does. Their attention is focused on tobacco and wine, hips and flesh. Their thoughts are of backstage.