‘And the rest of his things?’
She had given his father’s clothes to the poor as everybody there did with the clothes of the deceased. He also had had a deck of cards and some poker chips from the casino which she sent to Fuad and Butros al-Rami, his two gambling partners.
Eliyya was surprised he hadn’t been able to find the box himself. He went into the bedroom and opened it up. There wasn’t much inside: some money, a set of worry beads they’d been told were genuine amber, some papers, among which was a small card with the name of a travelling photographer on it: Nishan Davidian.
He asked about the photographer and was told he had moved to the city a long time ago.
At the café people didn’t ask him much. He sat with them, their faces frowning as if they’d been born that way. They were unemployed, yet some of them wore fancy clothes and Parisian ties. Their cell phones were placed in front of them on the table as they drank coffee and smoked incessantly. They asked him only about his mother’s health and his long stay abroad. Every once in a while he would get a glimpse of a gun at somebody’s waist as they were straightening up or taking some money out of their pocket to pay the shoeshiner who came in to shine their shoes.
They talked about him as soon as he left through the glass door after a useless attempt to pay the tab. They had winked to the waiter in advance not to accept any money from him. Their words were few but their opinions were final. They lived there, in houses they’d inherited from their ancestors. They rarely went into the city, because they had no business there, they would say. And if they decided to go anywhere, it would be only once and to a faraway place, to some town on the banks of the Orinoco River where they would open a shop and sell ready-made clothes and get involved with local women without getting married. It was either live in Karm al-Teen Quarter among brothers and cousins, or in San Felix City near the equator.
Eliyya joined them because someone had told him that the man sitting with them, the one who looked like Luca Brasi in The Godfather and the darkest and grimmest looking one among them, had been with his father when he was killed.
Once when the group parted company, Eliyya managed to corner him. He started at the beginning. ‘I was told you know what happened… Why did they kill my father?’
‘They killed him because he was standing there. Bad luck.’
‘Standing there?’
‘Yes. He was standing next to me in the square.’
‘You mean they killed him by mistake?’
‘No. They didn’t kill him by mistake.’
‘They meant to kill him?’
‘I don’t know if they meant to kill him. I know that they saw him, recognised him and shot him. They shot him in the back. Two bullets. I was told he didn’t die right away.’
‘Was he shooting?’
‘No. He was in the line of fire.’
‘How so? I don’t understand.’
‘He was in the middle of the battle although he didn’t intend to be. He was not one to rush into battle, your father. He was kind. He used to joke with everybody and put up with everybody’s jokes. When we used to count the men we could depend on in a fight, we never counted him in, nor did he want to be counted in.’
‘Did some innocent people get killed?’
‘Yes. Many.’
‘What made them innocent?’
‘They were strangers, had nothing to do with it. Their only crime was that they were attending the mass.’
‘Was my father carrying a weapon?’
‘Yes. To protect himself. We were all carrying weapons. He had bought his revolver only a few days before.’
‘Had he ever fired it?’
‘No. Your father was a good man…’
The conversation paused a little. Then the man continued. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘To visit my mother. I’ve been away for twenty years.’
‘Good for you. Want my advice? Don’t listen to anyone.’
‘I had thought that when I came back here from America I would be able to see the white almond blossoms. I remembered this is their season.’
‘Spring came early this year. The blossoms fell before you arrived. Say hello to Kamileh for me.’
Eliyya went back to the streets. He tried to remember where the boundaries were and to draw them again.
He wrote in his notebook: The places are the same… The people are the same… the women’s eyes… the men’s silence. In our childhood we played and wandered within our quarter, and here I am now doing that same thing, down towards the river. Not one house has changed. The adults used to shop in our quarter’s shops, pray in its church, and grind wheat in its mill… We used to hear about our enemies’ neighbourhoods, but we never saw them. Before I left for New York, I had never set foot in their quarter. We passed through it by car only twice. I dreaded even that quick crossing, dreaded that they would stop us, make us get out of the car, line us up against a wall and shoot us. That’s how I used to think, even though I used to see them walking in the streets, talking to each other, not paying any attention to the cars that passed by or the passengers inside. We never set foot in their quarter. When out on a stroll we knew that once we reached the crossroads we had left the safe zone, so we would turn back without discussing it, without warning one another. I will visit their quarter now, but I’ve lost track of where the boundaries are… Maybe I’m walking there now without knowing it.
Eliyya drew a compass rose at the top of the page. He sketched the main street and some of the side streets. He marked where the houses of the family headmen were located and drew crosses for the churches. Every neighbourhood had a church and a priest and a butcher and a shoemaker. When the people from the Lower Quarter were no longer able to bring their dead to the public graveyard, they resorted to using a small grove that was easier for them to get to. Eliyya went away, but kept coming back to the almond grove. His father was buried there. He thought about having a private grave built for him, but he knew his mother would object. They must stay together. They died together and should stay together, Kamileh said. And so did everyone else.
He took pictures of the headmen’s houses and the churches. He stopped a passer-by to ask him about the green line. He wanted to know where it had been.
‘Which one?’
‘1958.’
The man’s eyes nearly popped out of his head in shock, having suddenly been thrown decades into the past. Before answering he decided to ask, ‘Who are you? A journalist?’
‘Eliyya al-Kfoury.’
The man hesitated. ‘Where do I know you from?’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘Whose son are you, then?’
Eliyya was not going to get a single word out of the man before he knew whose ears the information might fall upon.
‘I am the son of Yusef Farid Mikhail al-Kfoury.’
That was a complete answer that went back four generations. The man knew who he was. He warmed to him and his expression lightened.
‘Are you Kamileh’s son?’
‘Yes, I’m Kamileh’s son.’
He gave Eliyya a hug. He had known him as a child. The man forgot Eliyya’s question and began asking how he was and how his work was going. Eliyya tried again, and so the man pointed right and left.
‘The barricades were set up on the roof of the olive press. Right there.’
‘Where does the Lower Quarter end?’
The man was confused. He knew where the Lower Quarter ended, but he didn’t know how to show him. He pointed with his hand, drawing a straight line through the houses. He found it difficult to talk, and he didn’t have anything to say. He knew what had occurred. He had either been there or had heard about it but he didn’t see any point in recounting the details. He changed the subject.