Fiction from The Literary Review
When it was time to go, Bassam drove because Nayla realized she was seeing triple. The Finn was uncertain about directions home, so they sloughed him off on a group that was heading for a beach club. Raghida's head lolled on Nayla's shoulder in the back seat.
"I get to smell Nayla's skin in the morning," Raghida mumbled. "Aren't you jealous, Bassam?"
When Nayla slept, her skin smelled beautiful. It was a phenomenon. Something would happen in her body and this astonishingly sweet, fresh smell filled the room.
"I've never had the pleasure," Bassam said. "So I don't know what I'm missing."
Nayla examined Bassam with new eyes. She was hurt that he had kept his plans secret until now, when he'd already decided. Plus, he was being rash. She imagined kissing him because then maybe he would stay in university. He knew nothing about fighting; he couldn't even fight with her properly.
"Why did he stop?" Raghida cried.
"What?"
"Why did he stop kissing me?"
"You kissed the Finn?" Nayla laughed. "You didn't tell me."
"He stopped. He said I was drunk."
assam said over his shoulder, "You're always drunk."
"Ha! That's what I said!"
"Still he stopped?"
Nayla smacked his shoulder. "Don't be sarcastic."
"O.K.," Bassam warned. "That's enough. Straighten up."
They approached the checkpoint, emerging from the darkness into the thin glow from the hut. Ziad was still on duty. Bassam switched on the cabin light. Ziad peered into the back seat, found Nayla and Raghida. Nayla smiled up at him, trying to appear sober.
Ziad jerked his chin at Bassam. "Who are you?"
Bassam offered his identity card. There was a silence as Ziad examined it, just barely, and flipped it back without looking at him.
Nayla struggled to decide which form was really Ziad's. She widened her eyes a few times and he came into focus. She cringed at his cold expression.
His thumb jabbed in her direction. "What happened to them?"
"They're fine," Bassam said easily. "Just felt like riding in the back." He looked at Ziad, his hands on the steering wheel. It came to Nayla that for Bassam, Ziad was like any Syrian at a checkpoint, handle with care, and she wanted to explain that no, this one was harmless.
"You're staying with her?"
Bassam shook his head. Nayla's mind fumbled with this odd conversation. She was annoyed with Ziad, who had taken on that threatening look typical of self-important boy-soldiers. He should not be behaving this way towards her friends.
"Hey, let us go," she said, rolling down the back window halfway. "We're sleepy."
Ziad stepped back. He waved the car on and Nayla glanced over her shoulder. In the weak light she thought she saw him walking back to the hut, but by the time they reached the bottom of the hill she had focused again and he was just standing there.
"It's four o'clock," Mrs. Ayyash cried. She was in her dressing gown. "Did you drive home alone?"
"Bassam drove." Raghida patted her arm, stumbled to the bathroom.
Nayla ran to the balcony and saw Bassam trudging up the hill. At the checkpoint, Ziad stepped into the road, and they stood there for a few minutes. Another soldier emerged from the hut to join them. Then, suddenly, the three broke apart and Bassam kept going, and from the window he looked small and solitary, so that she wished he had asked to borrow her car. He had at least a twenty-minute walk ahead of him.
"I hate them," her mother whispered. Nayla jumped. Her mother was standing just behind her shoulder. "I feel like I can't walk out of my own building without them watching. And the way they look at you. I've seen it."
"Mama, you're so silly," Nayla hissed, then noticed that her mother looked awful. Her face drooped. Nayla wondered if she had been crying, and then made the odd association with her own tears earlier. "I'm sorry," she said.
At two in the afternoon, Raghida was still snoring. Nayla, half awake, secretly watched her mother, who sat on a chair opposite the bed. A tray of sandwiches and tea and water lay on the bedside table. Mrs. Ayyash had also brought her darning and now she spread a shirt across her knees and threaded a needle, contorting her face to look through the tiny eye. It was like this every time. They came home late, and the next day her mother was calm as could be, peaceful even, and Nayla was twisted up inside with guilt for all that love.
Her mother noticed she was awake. "Eat," she whispered. "How was last night?"
Nayla hesitated, then said, "Bassam's joining Amal."
Her mother's face fell open in surprise. "Bassam?" She dropped her darning and slapped her hands together in dismay.
"Aaaah," Raghida moaned. "My head."
"He says it's hard for guys, or something," Nayla began, then regretted speaking at all. The expression her mother reserved for dramatic occasions had reached full-blown, her tongue clicking and eyes luminous with sorrow. "Wake up," Nayla said, jostling Raghida. Her mother kept making that noise with her tongue. "What?" Nayla snapped.
"I just can't believe it," her mother said. "He'll end up like all the young men of his generation. This war has ruined everyone."
Nayla scoffed. "He'll be fine."
Raghida sat up slowly, holding her head. "I can't see Bassam with a gun. He'll probably shoot his own foot the first time he tries to load it."
"You're lucky to be girls," Mrs. Ayyash said.
"Some girls become martyrs," Nayla countered. Beirut was full of posters honoring these heroines. They wore passionate and sad expressions, and their uniforms were crisp and clean for this photo that would be used only in the event of their deaths. "What about the lipstick girl?"
"Oh, God," Raghida said. "That was awful."
The lipstick girl had spent one morning with her mother putting on make up and styling their hair, and then left to get lipstick, but instead went on the suicide mission. The lipstick was mysteriously delivered to the mother a week later, with a note of apology from her dead daughter. This girl had planned that whole morning. Sometimes Nayla imagined being one of those girls, but without dying, of course. She'd be a guerrilla fighter, a leader, and everyone would love and fear her.
"Those girls are abnormal," Mrs. Ayyash said. "In general, you are not in danger, not like men."
Nayla conceded to herself that this was true. The only time she'd ever been at risk in the war was during bombing, and, she supposed, when she'd stood on the balcony. After the soldier had chased her inside, she'd been ashamed that men were being taken away to their deaths while she had been merely flirting with danger. But there was nothing to stand up for in this war anyway. That was why Bassam's decision to join a militia was so stupid. He was acting like he'd found a moral to fight for, but he hadn't, he would just get killed, and then who would escort her and Raghida on weekends? Whom would they make fun of?
"I'm going to talk him out of it," Nayla announced.
Mrs. Ayyash said, "How?"
"He'll listen to me," Nayla said smugly.
Raghida laughed. "He's in love with her, Tante. Didn't you know? He'll do anything she tells him!"
Mrs. Ayyash looked dubious. "I saw him more as an older brother."
A faint irritation tickled at Nayla. She got up and stretched noisily. "Let's get going, Raghida. Your mother's lunch is probably growing cold." She pointedly glanced at her mother, who pretended disinterest as she tidied her darning and folded it into the bag.
The soldier who was on duty had no expression. He waited until Nayla had come to a complete stop before languidly waving them on. "God, I hate that," Nayla said.
Raghida lived in the wealthy district, but even this area had become ugly and stank like the rest of Beirut. Still, the section of sidewalk in front of her building had no garbage and the marble steps up to the entrance shone from the concierge's daily mopping. The residents had electricity several hours a day because they could afford a huge generator, whose engine could be heard a block away.
Entering Raghida's home was like disappearing from Beirut entirely. Now she thought Bassam should move in here so that he would relax and forget about becoming a soldier. The bathrooms had marble floors and gold-plated faucets, and Raghida's bedroom was the size of Nayla's living room. The verandah, around three sides of the apartment, was crowded with dark leafy plants from Africa looming above the chaise longues. A small greenhouse riddled with bullet holes patched with clear plastic took up one end. There was even a pool on the building roof, but it had been left empty ever since a sunbather from the second floor had been shot by a sniper.
Raghida had been shot three years ago. A fight had broken out on the street one day, but because she was so close to home she had just kept going. But a jeep suddenly came around the corner, the mounted machine gun spraying bullets, and a one had caught her in the thigh. The scar on her leg was puckered like the inside of a fig. It enchanted the U.N. soldiers and other foreign men she met on the beach.
Raghida's father, a banker, had been in Paris now for a month, and her mother went to the central telephone office every day to call. Whenever she got drunk, she moaned about the prostitutes she knew he was visiting. Raghida's mother was tall, of mixed African descent with walnut skin. She wore headdresses and silk kaftans and gold rings on every finger, even her thumbs. Her mournful black eyes were always lined with deep blue kohl. She had insisted for years that everyone call her Madame, ever since she had discovered her husband's habits.
They found her in the kitchen sweeping the parrot droppings from around the perch. "Bye-bye," the parrot croaked, feet shifting slowly.
"What did you do last night?" she screamed. "Are you fuck-fucking now? In the middle of a war?" She swept past them, leaving behind the scent of rosewater and cigarettes. Raghida winked at Nayla, who trailed behind mother and daughter to the verandah. Madame settled on a chaise longue, pulled her kaftan up over her knees. She had a tattoo of a flower on her thigh. Nayla could not tolerate that Madame knew they were not virgins, but Raghida always said it didn't matter.
Madame inserted a cigarette into her three inch ivory filter and sighed a cloud of smoke. "Gigi," she said. Raghida flinched at the childhood nickname. "Your father wants us in France. He doesn't like all these Syrians around you."
"Really?" Raghida glanced at Nayla, then said, "But what about classes?"
"Classes? Tfuh! Your professor moves the exam date because some thugs demand it? The other one, they threaten him with guns for a good grade?"
"Not all the classes are like that," Nayla countered.
"You can finish in Paris." Madame fluttered her lashes. "Paris," she added meaningfully. The word hung in the air.
"You can't just pick up at another university," Raghida said.
"He is quite determined, thank God."
Madame's tone in the last sentence closed the subject. Raghida's hair glowed red in the sun, and her hands rubbed circles on her knees. Madame swatted at a fly with her straw fan then snapped it shut, and the sudden motion startled Nayla, who was frozen up inside, already picturing the solitude of her room on weekend afternoons with the curtains hanging still and her mother moving through the house from room to room, plump and lonely.
"You can't," she whispered.
Raghida was frowning. "I'll try to talk her out of it," she whispered back, but Nayla heard the lack of conviction in her voice. Who wouldn't want to go to Paris? Nayla was pricked by jealousy. She said softly, "I wish I could come, too."
"What are you two psst-psssing about? You want to stay in this terrible place? Finally, I rescue you from this dust and malignancy and you look like you're being sent to Tunisia! Or, tfuh-tfuh, Zaire!"
Nayla lowered her eyes. She imagined broad streets glittering with lights and noise and people.
"Paris is not Zaire," Madame continued. "Paris is Paris."
"But what about Nayla?" Raghida said.
"You should come too," Madame suggested kindly. "We have the space."
In the evening on her way home, Nayla passed by Bassam's house. She honked until he appeared on the balcony. "Come down!" she shouted.
In the car she told him about Raghida leaving. Then she said, "You can't join Amal. I'll be all alone."
Bassam smiled. He touched her arm. "I'll be around. It's not like I'm leaving Beirut."
Nayla shook his hand away. She focused on the road. She could see the weeks rolling by. She'd just sleep and sleep. She would just lie there, alone, while her mother lectured about school and jobs and everything else.
She slowed at the checkpoint, intending to keep going but the soldier raised his hand.
"What idiots," she said. "They know me, and still they insist on this."
"Don't talk so loud," Bassam muttered.
"Papers?" The soldier bent near her window.
"He's a friend," Nayla complained, but Bassam leaned across her anyway, handing the soldier his identity card. Ziad emerged from the hut with one of the mukhabarat. He was in his undershirt, faded military green, and she was surprised by the taut strength in his pale, sinewy arms. He had looked dwarfish in his jacket. He gestured at the soldier dismissively, said, "Let them go." The man from the mukhabarat went inside, flicking his cigarette into the dirt.
The soldier handed back the card. Nayla called to Ziad, "You would think he'd know us by now," and laughed.
He shrugged, touching his forehead in a sign of apology, but he did not smile back, instead turning away as if he did not know her.
Nayla let the car coast down the hill and turned into the parking lot. Bassam slammed the door getting out.
"It's better to be friendly with them," Nayla said, exasperated that Ziad had behaved so rudely, making her look foolish. "Why get on their bad side?"
"They have a good side?" Nayla winced at the sarcasm. Bassam continued, "You cannot be friendly with these poeple, only careful. Yes, sir. No, sir. Thank you, sir. Then you go on your way."
Nayla didn't answer and they climbed the five flights in silence.
Inside, Nayla changed into an oversized tee shirt and threw herself on her bed. Her mother was banging around the kitchen as usual. She drank coffee creamer in hot water, four teaspoons per cup, even though Nayla kept telling her it was carcinogenic. Bassam settled in the easy chair and lit a cigarette. Nayla became conscious of his eyes on her legs, so she raised her knees and pulled the shirt over them in a tent, then wiggled her toes at him.
"You can't stop me," he said, and she felt caught.
"I wasn't really trying," she retorted. She looked at him sideways. "You'll look good in uniform."
He laughed. "I don't think I'll have one. It's not the army, after all."
In the following quiet, Nayla felt a sadness growing in her. "Why are you doing it, Bassam? What if you get hurt?"
Bassam smoked, staring out the window. The canvas curtain shading the small balcony off her bedroom ruffled in the breeze. He said, "It was inevitable. If you don't join one of them, everyone sees you as a target."
"You'll be safer this way?"
"Ultimately."
Nayla examined his face. His round glasses gave him the air of a young, mild-mannered professor. She wanted to kiss him, suddenly. His eyes met hers, and after a moment, he shook his head slightly.
"Your husband will have to be a patient man," he joked, and Nayla threw a pillow at him, breaking the tension.
After he left, Nayla lay on her bed, overcome again by the fact that Raghida was leaving. When Madame had become tipsy enough to lean on the walls, she had bequeathed the parrot to Nayla. Madame seemed to have come to life with the prospect of moving to a place that offered theatre, bars, grand social events. She probably thought her husband would fall back in love with her, become furiously romantic like he'd been thirty years ago in Africa. Raghida had said the story of their courtship was wild and dangerous; it had happened during a revolution, but ever since then they'd been sliding down towards one big denouement.
Once Raghida left and Bassam joined up, Nayla would be alone. Bassam was being optimistic when he said he'd see her just as much. She wouldn't be able to go to the disco by herself. Even the beach would be boring. The war had started when she was seven, gradually stripping away the life she should have had, and now all she had left were the parrot and her mother.
She could join up too. She had strong muscles from swimming and dancing. She'd wear her beret sideways and look impassioned and threatening. She could see the poster now, larger than life, plastered on the university clock tower and her mother in black, mourning her daughter's heroic feats.
Her reverie was interrupted by shouts. At first she didn't understand, then she distinguished the words Help and Stop. It was a man. Other voices drowned his out. She jumped out of bed and ran onto the balcony.
Dust whirled up white clouds, obscuring the lot. She squinted, shading her eyes with both hands, then made out soldiers circling a man in civilian clothes huddled on the ground. He shouted again, and they started to kick him. His loud moans echoed across the empty space. He scrambled a few feet away and one of the soldiers followed, jammed the butt of his machine gun between his shoulders. The man crumpled forward. Nayla recognized the blue tee shirt, the jeans.
"Stop!" She screamed. "Stop! What are you doing!"
The soldiers looked up. She tried to shout again but it was as if the dust swirling around them had dried up her throat. The harsh sunlight momentarily obliterated Ziad's upturned face, then it came clear and sharp. He gestured her inside, then turned away. She knew he had said something because the others lost interest in her.
"Nayla," Mrs. Ayyash shouted from the hall. "Nayla, what is it? What happened?"
Nayla's heart banged. Her knuckles turned white from gripping the railing. The sky was open and blue and filled with cries, and across the street the refugee women crowded onto balconies, hung over the rails. A child was smacked back inside. On another floor someone was taking down laundry and folding it into a plastic basket.
She had no place in this. He was the water that wrapped around her when she swam, the road beneath her car, the molasses on her tongue in winter. His back was strong. She saw the muscles work through the undershirt. Bassam had curled up tight like a bug, arms wrapped around his head, and dust lifted from the ground in gusts. Someone laughed.
Nayla ran down the stairs, one hand on the rail and the other holding up her tee shirt so she wouldn't trip. Her mother's shouts followed her but Nayla's pace was even and fast and she burst outside, leaping over the three front steps. The glass on the road cut her soles but she did not feel it, only the fury of the hot afternoon and the groans around the corner, louder now, and then she stopped. She had never seen a person so beaten and bloody, not this close.
"Go back!" Ziad barked. The other soldiers paused, one of them toeing Bassam with his boot. His glasses were gone. He struggled to his knees, head hanging. Spit and blood drooled down his front.
Nayla looked up at the building, at the women on the balconies. She looked beyond the garbage strewn in clay dirt, the broken wall across the street, and the strip of bright sea hurt her eyes. There was a silence, broken only by the soft spluttering sounds of Bassam's breathing, and in the distance, cars, voices, the rest of the afternoon city.
She could go to the beach. Lotion smelled of other places, ads for Mexico and Rio. Her swimsuit was tiger striped and her skin went red in the smoothest places, just under her hips and the line along her buttocks, behind her knees, kissed by lips.
Ziad marched towards her. She watched him, arms held just away from her sides. He had to be able to see her whole body through this tee shirt, the black underwear, but she was immobile.
His hand gripped her neck, propelled her backwards so she stumbled, but his hold kept her up and she gasped. Her body slammed into the building wall. She groped at his undershirt, clung to it. A blackness sifted across her vision and the inside of her head became light and airy so that her feet fell away, separate. She struggled. Her head banged against the wall, a brilliant metallic pain, and the odd image of a grassy place, somewhere in the mountains, slipped by. His pocked face twisted closer and she thought molasses just before his tongue pushed into her mouth.
"Nayla!"
Her mother's voice broke through the darkness and she felt the slow drop of his hands over her breasts before he released her. "Get back upstairs," he hissed. "Who do you think you are?"
Her mother smelled of milk and coffee, the doughy arms wrapping around her pulling her into a soft, other world. Nayla stumbled, fell, but her mother kept pulling her, saying, "Come on, come on." From the ground, her cheek burning in the dirt, Bassam seemed closer. Nayla could crawl to him. His eyes crossed her face without seeing. He tried to lift himself but his arms crumpled. Through quick boots and hands she saw him yanked up, legs flopping. "Mama," her voice cried. His feet in the Adidas tennis shoes dragged past, leaving a trail like two snakes. Someone said, "Keep your bitch under control," but she didn't know if it was Ziad. Over her mother's shoulder, her mother whispering, "Get up, get up," she saw them drop Bassam in the garbage at the edge of the lot, then their forms melted into the sunlight as they continued up the road.
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