“All the same” emerged hesitantly and falteringly from his lips. He was thinking there was no other way: joining the rising Islamic movement was the only way out if the organization was to continue and preserve the boys’ fighting spirit.
The next morning an envoy arrived from Sheikh Ramadan Esawi to announce that Khaled had been appointed emir of Qubbeh and asking him to come and meet the sheikh at the mosque. Khaled went — to object to his new title.
“I don’t like the title emir,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole life in struggle against emirs and feudalists.” The sheikh looked him in the eye and gave him to understand that the title of emir didn’t mean belonging to a noble line. “In Islam, ‘emir’ derives from imra, meaning ‘authority,’ and you now have authority over Qubbeh. Whatever you wish, though. We can call you whatever you like,” said the sheikh.
“My name will be Abu Nabil,” said Khaled, “and my boys will have full control over Qubbeh and Bab el-Tabbana.”
Khaled returned from his meeting with the sheikh at ten at night to find the boys waiting for him at the bakery. He informed them of what had been agreed upon and said nothing would change. The organization was the organization and the work was the same work. “We were the army of the poor and shall remain so, and it’s revolution until victory. That was our slogan in Fatah and will remain our slogan until death.”
“No,” said Radwan. “One thing has changed. Perform your ablutions, boys, so that we can pray.”
“But I don’t know how to pray,” said Khaled.
“Of course you do,” said Radwan. “Islam is the religion that needs no teacher.”
The boys formed rows behind Radwan, who led the prayer, and Khaled found himself with them, praying the way they prayed and believing what they believed.
Radwan stood after the prayer was finished, turned to Khaled, and said in a loud voice that all could hear, “You are now our emir and I pledge to you my allegiance.” Then he held out his hand, shook Khaled’s, and kissed him on the shoulder. The young men stood in a single line behind Radwan, each waiting his turn to ask Khaled to hold out his hand and accept his allegiance.
Khaled reached home at midnight. Hayat was waiting for him. He patted her belly, rounded with pregnancy, and said he was tired. They drank aniseed. Khaled cleared his throat and said he wanted to tell her something.
“Before you tell me, let me tell you. I’ve decided to cover my hair and tomorrow I’ll be another woman.”
Khaled came to visit Karim twice before his death. The first time he said he’d gone to Danny’s apartment in Tall el-Khayyat but hadn’t found him so he’d come to Karim. The second time he came to Karim to give him the news of his impending death. It was six p.m. Karim opened the door in surprised welcome. It was the first time Khaled had come to see him at home. Khaled entered carrying three packages containing an assortment of sweet pastries of the kind in which Tripoli specializes.
“So those are for Danny, not me? I’ll get them to him, don’t worry.”
“No, they’re for you and Danny,” said Khaled.
“What will you drink?” asked Karim. “I have a bottle of village arak that came to me yesterday from Douar, great stuff. Shall I set up a small one?”
“Still playing the bad boy?”
“We’re your students, boss. You taught us everything we know.”
Khaled said he’d prefer a glass of tea.
Karim made the tea in the kitchen. He carried it into the living room and found Khaled gazing at the floor and smoking avidly, his mind so far away he failed to notice when his host entered.
Karim sat, poured the tea, lit a hand-rolled cigarette, and looked at his friend. Khaled, however, neither raised his head nor reached for the tea.
Karim cleared his throat and said, “Welcome.”
Khaled raised his head, rubbed his face as though waking up, and asked Karim about Danny.
“I haven’t seen him for a long time,” said Karim. “It seems he’s busy organizing the paper’s archives. Last time I met him, which was about three weeks ago, he told me he was organizing the archive on the civil war and writing a book evaluating what happened.”
“But the war isn’t over,” said Khaled.
“Come on!” said Karim. “It’s finished. The Syrians have taken over the country, the boys in Fatah have decided to go back to the theory of ‘all guns against the enemy’ and gone to the south, and the subject’s closed.”
“And us?” asked Khaled.
“You and we and everybody else have to look at things again and think about what to do.”
“But we’re still fighting,” said Khaled, and he recounted in detail the battle for Qubbeh that he’d waged with the boys. He spoke of the agitation everywhere, from Tripoli to Homs and Hama, and said the revolution had started to reshape itself.
Karim said he wasn’t convinced that kind of agitation could make a revolution, and he was tired of revolutions anyway. He told him of his project to write a book about Jamal.
“So you and Comrade Danny are still writing books and leaving us to die like dogs. No, Karim, we aren’t done and we won’t be till we’ve squared the books with you.”
Then Khaled smiled and said, “In fact, though, your writings have their uses.”
From his pocket he took two blue cheaply produced copies of a book and said he’d come especially from Tripoli, in spite of all the dangers, to give them to their authors — “you and Danny.”
Karim flipped through one of the copies, then went back to the blue cover, where he read the words Organization for Righteousness and Proselytization, and the title Arms and the Lebanese Balance of Power.
“We wrote a book that’s been put out by the Islamists? You’ve got to be joking!”
“Anything goes in this war, as Danny used to say.”
“But we’re atheists, and everyone thinks we’re Christians!”
Khaled took the book from Karim’s hand, opened it randomly, and said he’d put “Islam” for “the working class” and “socialism” wherever they occurred, “and it worked fine.”
“What! Islam! You too, Khaled? And what are you going to do with the memory of Yahya, who died a Marxist and struggled for socialism?”
“Don’t bring Yahya up. I know what you and Danny thought of him, you thought he was a populist and impulsive. And Danny used that French word which makes my skin crawl every time I hear it. What was it again — lummen? That’s it — lummen.”
“Lumpen,” said Karim.
“Lummen, lumpen. Nonsense anyway. You had a very low opinion of Yahya, so spare me, don’t ask me what he would have thought. If my uncle were still alive he’d have done what we’re doing now.”
There was silence and all that could be heard was the sipping of tea.
“You, comrades, can give up, but not me. What would I do with the boys? Leave them to split up and go back to being neighborhood hoodlums working for Intelligence and taking drugs? We’re poor, we live in the low-income neighborhoods, we don’t have apartments in Hamra and Tall el-Khayyat like other people, and without a belief to bring us together we split up. Without Islam everything will fall apart.”
Karim wanted to say that Khaled’s new choices were wrong but he didn’t. What was he supposed to say? It was true, the war hadn’t ended and perhaps never would, but this phase was over. When those who had struggled started writing their memoirs, it meant they were finished and it was time for them to withdraw.
A deep silence reigned which Khaled broke by getting up to open the boxes of pastries from Hallab’s he’d brought with him.
“I bet you brought feisaliyeh,” said Karim.