Awromele was standing in front of Xavier, naked.
“So come up with something new,” Awromele said. “Make peace, start a new war, start painting again, come up with something — but look at me. Look at me the way you used to look at me.”
“But how, but who?” Xavier shook his head; he didn’t look at Awromele, he was looking at the security man in the garden. This was a new one, just a boy.
“You need a common enemy,” Awromele whispered, running his hand over Xavier’s back, down his leg. “If you want to turn your enemies into allies, you need a common enemy. You know that — you told me that once.”
Awromele was shivering now, too; it was cold in the bedroom when you weren’t under the blankets. “All peace, every alliance, every pact starts with a common enemy,” he whispered, laying his hand on Xavier’s crotch.
For the first time, Xavier felt old, truly old. In the light of the flood lamps that had been set up in the garden to protect the prime minister against intruders, he looked at his hands, he saw how old his hands had become. They had changed color.
“But who?” he asked. “What common enemy?”
“How should I know?” Awromele said. “The West, as far as I’m concerned. Look at me. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
But Xavier kept looking at the secret-service man in the snow. He was standing perfectly still in the garden now, almost like a dummy. As though he had seen something.
“The West,” Xavier said. “Okay, the West. As far as I’m concerned.”
“Take me now,” Awromele said. “Please, take me now. Can’t you see how I’m standing here? Really, can’t you see that? Take me the way you used to. Before it’s too late.”
Xavier turned to look at Awromele. He had heard something in his voice that worried him. “Why are you crying?” he asked. “I thought we weren’t going to feel anything.”
“I’m crying without feeling anything,” Awromele said.
“Put on some music.”
Awromele put on some music, then Xavier took Awromele.
Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms, exactly the way they used to, and Xavier said: “The West, okay, the West. Where are the dogs, anyway?”
“In their room,” Awromele said. “Where they always are.”
TO MAKE IT EASIER to find a common enemy, ha-Radek began selling nuclear weapons. First to Turkey, and later a couple of little ones to Armenia, in order not to disturb the balance of power in the region, and because of historical sensitivities.
Then he sold a few to Colombia — he got along very well with the president of Colombia — and to Argentina. It cheered him up; his somberness began melting away. And he became too busy to be somber anymore.
The special envoys from the EU and the United States, who were not pleased with ha-Radek’s latest ventures, were thrown out of the country.
And Xavier told the leader of Hamas, who occasionally met Xavier and Awromele for tea at a discreet location, and who always played discreetly with Awromele afterwards: “Who’s to blame for our being here? Who got us into this mess? Who created this stupid situation? It wasn’t us. I wouldn’t have been the one to come here. If I’d known all this beforehand, I would never have come here. We’re here because of Europe. Because of the United States. The United Kingdom was here long before we were, and look at the way they left your country behind.”
“I’m too ill to be particularly interested in the past,” the leader of Hamas said. “Too old.”
“You shouldn’t think that way,” Xavier replied. “You should think about the oppressors, you must never forget the oppressors, even if they have left your country, because you’re still living with the mess they left behind.”
The leader had his head in Awromele’s lap. He always did that when he was visiting ha-Radek. “I’m not sure,” he said, “what are you trying to pawn off on me now?”
Whenever the leader came to visit ha-Radek, Xavier tried to pawn something off on him. Sometimes it was only a special tea that helped against rheumatism, sometimes a few weapons, other times a few garden implements.
“I’m not trying to pawn anything off on you,” Xavier said. “I’m trying to make something clear to you.”
“We’ve already talked about everything there is to talk about,” the leader said. “I’m tired. And your friend is so quiet today.”
Xavier got up. He knelt down beside the cushions where Awromele was sitting with the leader’s head in his lap. The leader had been smoking the nargileh, and was pleasantly drowsy. Ready to surrender himself to Awromele’s still-youthful body.
“I’m trying to explain to you that we have a common enemy.”
“A common enemy?” said the leader, baring his bad teeth. “Thousands, tens of thousands. Nothing but enemies. Everywhere.”
His hand was resting on Awromele’s stomach, which had grown a bit plumper — not much, just a little. But the leader of Hamas didn’t notice that. These days, the leader mostly smelled things — he didn’t taste much anymore, either, but he could still feel, with his hands he felt everything.
“We’ve been divided and conquered,” Xavier whispered. “We’re nothing but lightning rods. Without us, the whole region would go up in flames, from Egypt to Syria, from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, but things don’t have to stay that way. Right now we’re still pawns. We’re messenger boys, don’t you see that? But do you know what scares them most? That we’ll start working together. My mother said, if fascism hadn’t turned against the Israelites, it would still be a vital European movement. We’re not doomed to play this bit part forever, we don’t have to protect other people’s interests until the end of days.”
“I’m too old for that,” the leader said, licking lightly at Awromele’s nipple. “Let’s go on doing what we’ve always done, a few attacks each month, a few reprisals. We can do that — it works out quite well. And it has been working out well for years. My Gaza Strip is full of NGOs, full of sweet, young, enthusiastic Westerners who wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they didn’t have us around. When I look out my window, I see them driving around in their jeeps. Their lives would be empty and meaningless without us. Without us they would have no goal — think about them. The first time I visited you, you told me we must take the shapeless pain, the meaningless pain, and provide it with meaning. That’s what we’re doing. Let’s go on doing that.”
“But don’t you see?” Xavier asked. “Is it really that hard for you to see?”
The leader was planting kisses all over Awromele’s stomach. He liked kissing the stomach, pushing his tongue into the navel — that’s why he liked to visit Xavier and his friend at this discreet location. There really wasn’t much left to talk about anymore. They’d already said everything there was to say.
“So who is this enemy?” the leader asked, after he had done enough kissing for the moment. “He’s the enemy,” he said, pointing to Awromele, and he laughed. “Come, show me your buttocks, don’t make me wait any longer. I’m tired. And old. I want to see them now. I want to feel them.”
“The West is our common enemy,” Xavier said. “If you’re able to see that, then I do indeed have something to offer you. Something you might find particularly interesting. Everything is finite, but we poets, we artists, we have to give form to the finite, to keep it from sinking away in a formless mush.”
Xavier had to pee. So he left the leader of Hamas and Awromele alone. They found each other blindly, Awromele and the leader, they knew each other’s bodies like old lovers.