Then came the catastrophe.
The dog died.
Gandhi was prepared for anyone’s death, but not the dog’s. Gandhi, like everyone, thought about death, and death, according to him, resembled his father, lying in the open coffin, teardrops stuck to his lower eyelids. He thought about his wife’s death, and other people’s deaths. Gandhi lived with death, the babies died before being born, death came before all things. Death was life. But the death of the dog never crossed his mind, and when the dog died, and Gandhi saw Mr. Davis transform into a ghost, he was beset with fear and worry. He tried to console the American, he tried to say to him what the Reverend Amin used to say when he’d visit him after all those still births that happened to Fawziyya, his wife. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.” He tried to console him but Mr. Davis went nuts. Davis would talk about how the murderer got out and spat, and he’d say he wanted to leave the country. His blond wife, who had some white strands in her hair like pieces of cloth planted on her scalp, sat with her head down in the corner of the house, curled up like a snail, hardly moving. Gandhi would go in and out, serve coffee to the few people who’d come to offer their condolences, and Davis would refuse to be consoled.
Gandhi’s problem began two days later. He went to the cafeteria and was kicked out. The American head manager said “no more” and wouldn’t let him in. The Arab manager who was peeking out the opening in the door said to him, “No more, there’s no more food, the dog died, God rest his soul.”
Gandhi tried to negotiate with him. He offered him double the six liras he was paying him every day, and half a bottle of oil every six months. The man refused. It seemed he wanted to take the leftovers himself, or he’d contracted them to someone else. Gandhi thought about asking Mr. Davis to talk to the head manager for him. But he was afraid of his grimace, he’d look at him with disgust and think he was despicable. The dog was dead and all this man could think about was his own disgusting financial gains. He tried to bring it up with Davis, but he backed off, worried about the possibility of those looks of disgust coming from the tall American.
The idea came from Madame Lillian.
He was sitting outside the entrance to his house, shining his customers’ shoes, when he brought up the subject with her. He didn’t tell her about the restaurant in Nabaa. He told her his future was ruined and that Davis had gone crazy after the death of his dog Fox.
She suggested he get another dog. At first Gandhi refused the idea completely, it gave him an eerie feeling, like some strange plant climbing up his feet, and he felt itchy all over. After two days of careful thought, and the Reverend Amin’s advice, he changed his mind. He went to a store in Rawshi where they sold dogs, and paid a lot of money for “Little Fox.” Little Fox looked exactly like the late Fox. Same color, same look, same movements, and same tongue. Gandhi picked him up and took him to his house in Nabaa. And there Fawziyya cried. “What a disgrace,” she said, and cried.
Davis wouldn’t take the little dog, and Suad nearly died with fear when she found him next to her in bed, and Fawziyya would mop ten times a day trying to purge the house of this uncleanliness.
Gandhi picked up Little Fox and went to Davis’s house. Davis wasn’t home. His blond wife was there. When she saw the dog she started sobbing and crying. Gandhi, who was hugging the dog to his chest, tried to give him to her, but she refused to hold him. He went to hand the dog to her, but she didn’t reach out for him. The dog fell to the floor and started barking in the middle of the house. Gandhi chased after him. He’d hid himself under the couch and was yelping. Gandhi laid down flat against the floor, on the orange carpet, and got him out. He picked him up again and went outside to wait for Mr. Davis.
When Davis came and saw the dog, he said no and started speaking in English. Gandhi didn’t understand anything except the word no, and could see fear and confusion in the American professor’s eyes. Gandhi picked up the dog and went home.
When Gandhi told Alice how he killed the dog, he was trying to change the subject from Nuha Aoun’s murder, which had stirred up quite a commotion in the quarter. That day Malku the Assyrian decided to leave the country. He closed down his store for a week and told everyone he was going to sell it and go to Sweden, since the city was no longer ours. People were dying and the cats gnashed at them. Madame Aoun died, with all her hungry cats around her. There were three cats around the woman’s dead body, and when the stench pervaded the area, people were shocked by the sight of the dust-covered cats with disheveled fur that looked as though they were wild.
Before she died, Madame Aoun had made up her mind and decided to marry Constantine Mikhbat. During their last telephone conversation, Constantine was in the hospital, having some routine tests, and asked her to come. She agreed, she said she’d come and marry him and live with him. Husn had known from the beginning that Madame Aoun would leave him to get married. He knew everything. That’s what he told Rima, and Rima believed him. He said he didn’t kill the woman, and she believed him. But no one believed him. Zaylaa would wink at him whenever he saw him and say, “Way to go, hotshot.” Gandhi would avoid talking to him, and Master Ahmad became afraid of him.
Gandhi told Alice how the Reverend Amin gave him some Dimol and told him to mix it with milk, and how when he remembered the incident he thought about his daughter. “But I seek refuge from God, God forgive me.” He took the Dimol and decided to finish with the whole story. The dog staggered. He drank it and started to stagger and fade, as if he wanted to sleep. The dog fell asleep, so Gandhi picked him up, wrapped him in newspapers, and threw him in front of the trash bin.
He told Alice he thought about the dog a lot the first few days of the war, when they were trapped in Nabaa and were choking from the smell of bombs falling everywhere. When they came to Hamra Street, things got better. It was no longer possible to go back to shining shoes. No one had his shoes shined anymore; we almost died of hunger and became destitute, until Zaylaa solved our problems.
Zaylaa said the quarter needed tidying up, and that was how it was. Gandhi became the general overseer of cleanliness for the people’s committee.
Spiro with the hat came to only one of the committee meetings and then stopped coming. He told Zaylaa he was with them heart and soul, but he didn’t like to be active in politics.
Spiro was surprised at the first committee meeting. He didn’t see any of the respected residents of the quarter there. Abu Saeed al-Munla was absent, Muhammad Ainati didn’t come, and the Maqdisi boys had disappeared. All that remained was a group of people who’d been kicked out of their homes from other parts of the country, Zaylaa, Gandhi the shoe shiner, and women from the Montana nightclub.