What should he do with the papers? Should he leave them to turn yellow and disintegrate in the drawer? Did the Islamists, now the rising power, not have as much right to take control of their past as the leftists had had in their day when they’d made a turbaned sheikh and warrior like Izz el-Din Qassam an icon of the class struggle?
Though he had stolen nothing, Karim felt as frightened as a thief. Khaled had placed his trust in one who didn’t deserve it, true, but that was Khaled’s fault not Karim’s and he wasn’t about to give the papers to Radwan now, whatever the cost, even if they killed him. He would give them nothing. He would preserve them and let them disintegrate and disappear in silence into the frivolousness and meaninglessness of history of which Ahmad’s father had spoken.
Karim came to his decision as he sat in the café drinking lemonade and smoking a narghile next to the elderly man, who kept up an unstoppable flow of stories, none of which Karim heard.
He decided he’d pretend he hadn’t been able to find the papers. He’d phone Sheikh Radwan on Thursday morning and postpone the appointment because he hadn’t been able to locate them — and then let whatever happened happen. The decision was made.
Karim became aware that Abd el-Malek Dakiz was shaking him by the shoulder as though waking him from a coma, and saying that Gloria was waiting for them.
“Who’s Gloria?” asked Karim.
“I’ve been telling you about her for the past hour. What? Were you asleep? She’s the daughter of my father’s paternal uncle who knows the crusader language. We’ll go and see her for quarter of an hour and then we can go to my place. I’ve ordered a little grilled meat to go with the drink.”
“I’m stuffed. I couldn’t eat more.”
“Up with you, man. ‘The key to the belly is a morsel of food,’ as they say. The woman is waiting for us.”
Karim had never imagined that his night in Tripoli would be spent between two women, the first senile, or pretending to be so to escape Sheikh Radwan and his demands, the second insane and believing herself to be the last guardian of a language that had never existed.
“I’m tired, uncle. Let’s put Gloria off till tomorrow.”
Abd el-Malek explained that the woman was waiting for them, had phoned the café a few minutes before to say the tea was hot, and that he’d promised.
Karim rose sluggishly and went to the apartment, which exuded the smell of all closed apartments. The woman never opened the windows or the thick green curtains because she hated the sun. She told Karim her body had never been able to stand the sun and that even though all her life she’d worn long dresses closed at the neck with sleeves that covered her arms, the sun still burned her and left red spots on her skin, “and now the allergy has spread to my eyes. I can’t see at all in the daylight and I use only nightlights in the apartment.”
Abd el-Malek explained to her that his guest was a specialist in the crusader period and was interested in finding out about the language of the crusaders.
Gloria, who attached much importance to the title “Mademoiselle,” poured the tea, saying her memory wasn’t of much use to her now. She looked at Abu Ahmad and said he was responsible for the loss of the language because he’d promised her lots of times he’d come and record the words she knew and publish them as a special appendix to his book on the crusaders. “You, Abu Ahmad, are afflicted with the family disease, whose name is sloth!”
Abu Ahmad looked at her and said, “Cando mi intrate fi beit abusch, falso.”
Mademoiselle Gloria answered him, laughing, “I barra fuor casa mio.”
Then he said, “Gramerze cater ala cairech.”
“Did you understand what we were saying?” asked Abu Ahmad.
“I understood a few words. It sounds like Latin with Spanish and Italian,” said Karim.
“And Arabic. The most important part is the Arabic. This is the language of our ancestors. I know a few words but Gloria speaks it like a songbird. What a waste of the woman! She has a talent for languages. I have to get back to my work on the book because without me she’s mamamouchi. I swear, my boy, I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve made me feel alive again with your interest in culture. You should have been my son instead of Ahmad. Ahmad doesn’t have time for anything. All he wants to do is emigrate so he can make money.”
At his apartment Abu Ahmad prepared two glasses of local arak, saying it was much better than the commercial arak they’d drunk at the restaurant. “This is triple-distilled homemade arak.”
Karim didn’t eat any of the food — he felt a slight pain in his stomach — but he couldn’t not join Abu Ahmad in drinking the arak because he didn’t want to upset him.
Silence reigned, as though the elderly man had emptied his quiver with the effort he’d expended in trying to speak a strange language. Karim guessed it wasn’t a proper language but the remnants of spoken dialects that had formed a primitive means of communication among the hordes of Frankish warriors arriving from various parts of the world on the one hand, and the original Arab inhabitants of the land on the other.
To fill the silence Karim asked Abu Ahmad whether what Radwan had told him about his cleaning the tombs at the Castle of Saint-Gilles and placing flowers on them was true.
“It’s both true and untrue,” answered Abu Ahmad. He recounted that it had started with curiosity. He’d visited the tombs looking for the names of the slain and to confirm the hypothesis that his was a real crusader family. But he hadn’t found what he was looking for: the names were almost completely erased and the tombs themselves had been nearly effaced. After three days of searching Abu Ahmad had seen what seemed to him to be something like letters forming the name of his family. He said he couldn’t be sure but he “had his suspicions” and was very excited. On the morning of Eid el-Fitr, after he’d visited the tombs of his grandfather, father, and mother, he’d climbed up to the castle. “I didn’t wash down all the tombs, just the tomb of my grandsire, and I asked the Lord of the Worlds for mercy on his soul and forgiveness for his sins and those of his descendants.”
“But they’re Christians, Abu Ahmad, and Islamic law doesn’t allow that!” said Karim, borrowing Radwan’s logic.
“So what if they’re Christians? I’m a Christian too.”
“You’re a Christian? A little while ago you told me you were a Muslim, not to mention that Christians believe Christ is the son of God.”
“And so do I.”
“What?!”
“Jesus is from God’s spirit. It says so in the Koran.”
“But Christians say he was crucified, while you Muslims say, ‘They did not slay him, neither did they crucify him, only a likeness of that was shown to them.’ ”
“Correct.”
“What’s correct? You’ve lost me.”
“ ‘A likeness of that was shown to them,’ meaning they did mean to crucify him and the one they actually crucified looked so like him that his mother, Our Lady Mary, thought the crucified man was her son. Do you really think there’s a mother in the world who wouldn’t know her son? Do you get it now?”
“I get it and I don’t get it,” said Karim. “Anyway, what difference does it make to know if one’s forebears were crusaders or Arabs or Turkmen? In the end they’re all the same.”
“Right!” said Abu Ahmad. “But for one to be a descendant of the crusader hordes who occupied this land for two hundred years, and who left behind them only a few castles and a few descendants, most of whom have become Muslims — now that’s a lesson to learn from. I, my boy, am the last witness. The meaninglessness of history is engraved on my forehead. Everyone should read my forehead to understand what a criminal history is, and how trivial.”