Tannous would tell how the white king’s story was extremely complicated. This young White Russian orphan, who was called George Ivanhoe, was picked up by Shahnaz the Turkish dancer, who turned him into her servant. And like magic he became one of the kings of Beirut’s nightlife. No one knew how it happened. He took over Kasparian’s business and things just took off for him. Then when the game was uncovered, he became the victim. Alice remembers her night with him; she remembers how handsome he was, how kind, how he reminded her of teardrops.
“He was something else, like teardrops in your eyes.”
Tannous was inflamed with jealousy.
“You love me only out of jealousy. You don’t really love me, you love being jealous. That’s how it is with all men.”
But Tannous was serious. He rented a house, furnished it, then took Alice to it and said to her, “This is your house.”
Alice refused to quit her job.
“Leave everything and I’m yours.”
She wouldn’t do it. “I wouldn’t,” she said, “because I knew he’d leave me. Men have always left me, and I’ve always been alone.” She looked around and laughed.
“See what I mean. Aren’t I alone now? I have no one except God.” She pointed up with her finger.
Tannous didn’t leave Alice so easily. He lived with her for three years. He used to wait for her everyday in front of the club and walk her home. He’d never stop smelling her all over. He’d tell her the smell of her body drove him wild, that he loved her body. She was very much in love. She understood that something that takes you nowhere and leaves you lost. Alice remained lost for three years. It’s true she never stopped working, but she could feel his eyes staring at her wherever she was. This young lieutenant’s eyes haunted her.
“I’ll give you the world.”
She loved him. She didn’t want the world; she wanted him. She loved him, and loved his children and his wife. He never talked to her about his wife. But she saw her once with him and his two children. They were at the amusement park. He’d mentioned to her they were going there that Sunday afternoon, and so she went. She didn’t put on any makeup, or high heels. She wore a simple dress and punt her hair in a ponytail and went. She sat alone on the bench waiting. Then she saw them. She wanted to hop off the bench and hug the children. But she didn’t move. He was playing and eating popcorn with the children, and every now and then he’d catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. Then she walked toward them. They were standing in front of the Pepsi vendor. As she got closer, she could see the fear in Tannous’s eyes, as though he’d seen the devil himself. She saw how his face twitched and the muscles contracted. She bought a Pepsi and left.
When he came to see her the next day, he was horrified. She said she loved the children and that his wife was beautiful, and that she cared for everything he cared for.
After that experience at the amusement park, he changed and became less talkative. Alice fell more in love. That’s when she realized that love is jealousy.
“Love doesn’t exist if you don’t get jealous, if you don’t feel that the other person is not really yours.”
This is what she used to say when she’d try to make excuses for the way Husn behaved around Madame Nuha.
“You see, my dear Gandhi, Husn is in love, in other words totally lost. He can’t stand to be without the woman for one minute, and that explains everything.”
“God help him,” Gandhi said and went to work. Gandhi didn’t have any more work to do. Being in charge of keeping the streets clean became pointless. With the deterioration of things as a result of the situation in Beirut in 1980 and 1981, explosives were all over the place. People became afraid of garbage collection areas because these had become the perfect place to plant bombs. So Gandhi was content with merely picking up the black trash bags from people’s houses and throwing them in the dump near Khayyam Cinema. As for driving the garbage truck around, he gave that up altogether, and with time he also stopped picking up people’s trash and taking it to the dump. The first of every month he’d make his rounds and take his pay, as if he’d become a beggar. And that’s how he felt; or as if he were blackmailing people. But it had become impossible for him to go back to his old line of work, and he didn’t decide to go back to it until the morning of September 15, 1982, when the Israelis entered Beirut and the city was filled with their black boots, their beards, and their stench. This was the day Gandhi would die, on top of his shoe-shine box, and the story would end. And when all trace of Alice would be lost, in 1984, after the war broke out anew in the city, we would lose track of all the characters in this novel. Even traces of the Reverend Amin, tucked away in the nursing home in Ashrafiyyeh, would be lost.
When Alice lost touch with Lieutenant Tannous, she became very depressed and would cry all the time. She’d be in the bar sitting with the customers until four in the morning, drinking with them. She’d let them get close to her and kiss her and she’d listen to their stories, and there she’d cry every night, with every story she heard. It got to the point where the owner wanted to fire her, but the impresario Abu Jamil saved her by sending her to Mosul. There Alice discovered a different kind of love and began to forget.
“The best part about love is forgetting it. Being able to forget is what makes us human.” That’s what she’d say while she told the story of “The Leader.”
Alice was tired of her work, of Beirut, of Tannous, and of her tears. The revolution of 1958 brought about a frightening increase in business, especially after the arrival of the marines, who would stay up all night carousing. Then the marines disappeared after the whorehouse incident when Abu Mansour kidnapped one of them while he was with the prostitute Samia the Copt, and didn’t release him until the president of the republic himself stepped in and after he got an unknown sum of money.
And she left.
This time she didn’t work in the nightclub as she had agreed with Abu Jamil. She went directly to Baghdad Hotel, and she was not allowed to leave the hotel or talk to anyone. At night the same man would come and take her to the black room, and the story that took place two years earlier repeated itself. But this time Alice had to sleep on the side of the bed next to the table, because that’s what he’d made her do the first night. She felt as though his left hand were tied to his neck, but she didn’t say anything. She went where he told her to go. He kissed her shoulder and lay down on his back, motionless. She spent the whole night waiting for him to move. Even his breathing was slight. And his old smell, the smell of dusty clothes and salt, faded away. Alice started going to that black room to sleep, and after two weeks she decided to go back. She couldn’t take the boredom, they killed her, boredom and this dark corpse that would get dressed and sleep next to her. But she didn’t dare talk about it. A whole month went by. Alice didn’t know where she got the courage. The man was lying on his back as if he were dead and she sat up and said she was going to leave the next day. No response. She said she was bored with spending the whole day in the hotel with nothing to do except crossword puzzles. No response. She said she missed dancing and asked him if he wanted her to dance for him. No response.