We went to church. I was feeling joyful and rapturous. We reached the heavy door that was always open. It was shut. My father knocked on the door, no one opened. My mother knocked, no one opened. My father said what shall we do. I knocked on the door, kicked it. Leave the habit at the door, answered my mother.
— And the candles?
— We’ll light them next week.
I knocked on the door, kicked it. No one opened. My father helped me out of the habit. I began to cry. My mother took the habit, placed it at the door and made the sign of the cross. I was in tears. My father held me by the hand and we walked home. No one opened the church door. We left the habit at the door, and I went home miserable. No candles were lit the following week.
They came.
Five men, jumping out of a military-like jeep, carrying automatic rifles. Five men wearing big black hats with big black crosses dangling from their necks. They surround the house. They ring the church bells and bang on the door.
Five long black crosses dangling before my mother as she opens the door. She mutters unintelligible phrases. She slams the door shut in their faces and cries.
Five men break down the door and ask for me. I wasn’t there. They find a book with a picture of Abdel-Nasser on the back cover. I wasn’t there. My mother was there, trembling with distress, resentment, and fear. My mother was there. She sat on a chair in the entrance, guarding her house as they, inside, looked for the Palestinians and Abdel-Nasser and international communism. She sat on a chair in the entrance, guarding her house as they, inside, tore up papers and memories.
My mother was there.
I wasn’t there.
I was in the East, searching with short, almost barefoot men in rubber shoes that didn’t keep the cold out. I was in the East, looking for Little Mountain stretched across the frames of men, the sea surging out of their beautiful eyes.
* The popular name for the Ashrafiyyeh area of Beirut.
** That is, a feast day, festival, or holiday of religious origin or significance.
† Burghul is the crushed wheat used in two major national dishes in Lebanon; it is known in the West as bulgar. ’Araq, the national drink, is a distilled grape alcohol, aromatized with anis.
* The president of Egypt from 1954 to 1970 and the most revered leader of Arab Nationalism.
** That is, the Beirut River and Olive Grove roads, respectively.
* In the Eastern church, Palm Sunday is an important festival especially for children.
* As-Sagheer means the little one in Arabic.
* The area known as Qarantina was the site of a military quarantine hospital under the French Mandate. Later, it became Beirut’s principal garbage dump and part of the urban slum area that constituted the city’s “belt of misery.’’ (See note on p. 28.)
* The Cairo-based pan-Arab radio listened to extensively throughout the Arab world in the headier days of Arab Nationalism.
** A region of Syria which is part of the larger Jabal Druze, i.e., Druze Mountain, area that led a famous revolt in the mid-1920s against the French Mandate. See Chapter 2.
* There was famine in Lebanon during World War I owing to the requisitioning of grain for the soldiers by the Ottoman authorities and to hoarding by grain merchants.
* A corruption of the French “un-deux,” obviously meant ironically by the author.
Chapter 2 The CHURCH SCENE ONE
Nine p.m. Drizzle and the sound of gunfire getting closer with every step. We run cautiously, clutching rifles and dreams. We leap across a very long street, called France Street, to take up a new position at the end of it: the church. The voice of the unit commander is resolute and clipped. Go in carefully. Don’t shoot unless absolutely necessary and only at a visible enemy. According to our reconnaissance information, they’ve abandoned the church and set up their fortified positions on Hwoyek Street. We race down the middle of France Street. We can see the church ahead but we can’t see anything in the dense darkness, broken only by flashes of the Doushka* up there close to the sky where the Murr Tower silences the Holiday Inn keeping Wadi Abu Jameel** out of range of the isolationists’* gun-fire. If they want a battle, they’ll have to fight in the streets, for the tall safe building is no longer of any use. We rule the streets, Sameer says. I run, the thin rain trickling between my hand and the rifle butt. The church — I see it, don’t see it. Our dreams are right there in the street, and the shells fly and crash into the small, low buildings. ’Atef greets us. Fighting comrades from the various organizations and parties deploy themselves in the buildings and amid the fallen stone. And the sounds of the battle grow louder.
BAB IDRISS QUARTER
The unit commander is up in front, leading us toward the east. The church is in the east.
We come up from behind. Through the torn-down electricity cables, puddles of water, and mounds of sand. Going through the fine-arts school, we can see the fire the fedayeen have lit in front of their bedding, on the platform that was once a stage. We come up from behind and race down a broad street, bullets exploding in the air and on the pavement.
— Deploy.
We deploy.
The first group jumps through the window. Five minutes of silence when every breath is held and fingers stiffen around triggers. The second group jumps. Darkness. We scatter. Then everyone moves forward. The unit commander assigns the groups to their places. We block off all approaches. Darkness, gunfire, not a soul.
Guard-duty is assigned, hide-outs secured.
Butros is walking around looking for the church.
— Butros, were in the church.
— But I don’t see anything. Butros takes a taper and lights it in a corner of the church. A pale light quivers. Salem stands up, with his short hair and tall stature; he’s like the carpet-seller I saw as a child carrying the streets on his shoulders. Salem carries the B-7 rocket launcher on his shoulder, and laughs that soft laugh which rings out between the walls. What’s this? This isn’t a church.
Christ is on the floor. The statue of Christ lies twisted on the ground, his right cheek to the floor, his left hand open toward the sky, searching for his broken right hand. The picture of the Virgin practically smashed. Water everywhere. The rain coming in through the windows. Christ stretches his left hand out near the window to catch the rain but it trickles between his fingers and nothing remains in his hand save a wetness that recalls the rain.
— What’s this? cries Salem. This is a smashed up church.
— Quiet!
Sameer improvising on the Grinov* and shells of all kinds raining down on us. The first battle in the church. We plunge ahead like arrows, in a blast of noise, then everything is quiet. Our groups slip through, striking deep. Sameer on the Grinov and Jaber firing like someone embracing the rain. The sacrament is complete. We’ve got to know the church — every stone, every recess, every smashed figure — as we pounce, advance, and conquer. We’ve silenced them. The church is a support position, the commander says. Tomorrow, we’ll go on to new positions and take the Bab Idriss intersection. We’ve no losses — except for Ahmed’s slight wound. Rest now and be careful.
Butros in the corner lights his taper and hums faint tunes to himself. I move up and sit beside him. A pale light flutters with the movement of the wind and shapes stretch across the long empty space, empty but for the broken benches, strewn vessels, and twisted statues. Butros gets up and begins to look around. He takes Christ’s hand, stands him upright. Christ stands up with his one outstretched hand. Butros sets off, I fall into step. He picks up a priests brown robe lying in a dark corner. Look. He shouts. We look. Things tremble against the wall and spaces lengthen. He stands at the altar, in his right hand the B-7 rocket launcher transformed into a priests staff. Softly intoning a Latin chant,* his voice rises gradually. All eyes turn to the priest standing in his brown robe with his staff and his beard tracing endless circles to the chant. The voice soars. The melody pierces the walls, the words as pebbles under our feet. Eyes widen and the priest grows tall against the wall, advances gradually, swaying. Between phrases, a few shells and red and green shots.**