We were at a loss as to how to assess the ongoing events; we no longer knew whether a given attack was a feat of arms or a demonstration of cowardice. An action vilified one day might be praised to the skies the next. Clashing opinions led to incredible escalations, and fistfights broke out more and more frequently.
The situation was degenerating, and the elders refused to intervene publicly; each father preferred to give his offspring a talking-to in the privacy of his home. Kafr Karam was reeling from the most serious discord in its history. The silences and submissions accumulated through many years and various despotic regimes rose like drowned corpses from a muddy river bottom, bobbing up to the surface to shock the living.
Yaseen and his band — the twins Hassan and Hussein, the blacksmith’s son-in-law Salah, Adel, and Bilal, the barber’s son — disappeared, and the village entered a period of relative calm. Three weeks later, persons unknown set fire to the disused pumping station, a deteriorating structure some twenty kilometers from Kafr Karam. There was a report that an attack on an Iraqi police patrol had resulted in some fatalities among the forces of order, along with two vehicles destroyed and various weapons carried off by the attackers. Rumor raised this ambush to the status of a heroic action, and in the streets people began to talk about furtive groups glimpsed here and there under cover of night, but no one ever got close enough to identify or capture any of them. A climate of tension kept us all on the alert. Every day, we awaited news from the “front,” which we figured was coming soon to a neighborhood near us.
One day, for the first time since the occupation of the country by the American troops and their allies, a military helicopter made three passes over our area. Now there was no more room for doubt: Things were happening in this part of the country.
In the village, we prepared for the worst.
Ten days, twenty days, a month passed. We could see nothing on the horizon — no convoy, no suspicious movements.
When it looked as though the village was not going to be the target of a military raid, people relaxed; the elders returned to their barbershop antiphony, the young resumed their tumultuous meetings at the Safir, and the desert regained its stultifying barrenness and its infinite banality.
The order of things seemed to have been reestablished.
6
Khaled Taxi was in his mid-thirties. Wearing a pair of cheap sunglasses, his hair oiled and slicked back, he was prancing around in the street and looking impatiently at his watch. Despite the ferocious heat, he’d squeezed himself into a three-piece suit that, in a former life, had known better days. A tie fit for a clown costume — garish yellow streaked with brown — spread across his chest. Now and again, he reached inside his jacket and took out a tiny comb, which he passed through his mustache.
“Are they coming?” he shouted up to the terrace, where his fourteen-year-old son was stationed as a lookout.
“Not yet,” the boy replied, keeping his hand over his eyes like a visor, even though the sun was behind him.
“What the hell are they doing? I hope they haven’t changed their minds.”
The boy stood on tiptoe, carefully studying the horizon to show his father how conscientious he was.
The Haitems were making them wait. They were an hour late, and still no cloud of dust was rising from the midst of their orchards. The part of the wedding procession that was due to set out from Kafr Karam was ready: Five automobiles, polished and beribboned, were parked and waiting across from the bride’s patio, their doors wide open because of the heat. With an exasperated gesture, the man keeping an eye on the cars shooed away the flies that were buzzing around his head.
For the umpteenth time, Khaled looked at his watch. Disgusted at what he saw, he went up to the terrace and joined his boy.
The Haitems hadn’t invited many people from Kafr Karam. They’d presented a rather short list of handpicked guests, among them the eldest of the tribe and his wives, Doc Jabir and his family, Bashir the Falcon and his daughters, and five or six other notables. My father was not eligible for this honor. Although he’d been the Haitems’ official well digger for thirty years — he’d dug all the wells in their orchards, installed the motorized pumps and the rotary sprinklers, and laid out a great many irrigation channels — he had remained, in the eyes of his former employers, a mere stranger. This casual ingratitude had offended my mother, but the old man, sitting under his tree, couldn’t have cared less. And in any case, it wasn’t as though he owned clothes he could wear to such a party.
Evening crept up on the village. The sky was sprinkled with a thousand stars. The heat nevertheless promised to maintain its siege until late in the night. Kadem and I were on the terrace at my house, sitting on two creaking chairs, a teapot between us. Like our neighbors, we were gazing out toward the Haitems’ orchards.
Swirls of dust lifted by the wind occasionally traversed the whitish trail, but no vehicle turned onto it.
Bahia appeared regularly to see if we had need of her services. I found her a bit nervous and noticed that she kept coming back upstairs to bring us biscuits or fill our glasses. Her little game intrigued me, and soon, by watching the looks she gave us, I realized that my twin sister had her eye on our cousin. She blushed violently when I caught her smiling at him through the window.
Finally, the Haitems’ procession approached, and the village went into a frenzy of car horns and ululations. The streets were jammed with unruly kids; only after much supplication was the first flower-laden Mercedes allowed to pass through the crowd. The Haitems had spared no expense. The ten vehicles they sent were all luxury cars, excessively decorated; they looked like Christmas trees, with their multicolored sequins and spangles, their bright balloons and long ribbons. All the drivers wore identical black suits and white shirts with bow ties. A photographer brought in from the city immortalized the event, his video camera on his shoulder and his every step accompanied by a swarm of children; flashes went off wildly all around him.
Superb in her white dress, the bride issued forth from her family home and was greeted by bursts of celebratory rifle fire. As the procession made a small detour past the mosque before returning to the dirt road, a powerful movement rippled through the crowd in the square. Kids ran behind the vehicles, shouting at the top of their lungs, and the entire throng accompanied their virgin to the outskirts of the little town, joyously kicking stray dogs as they went.
Kadem and I were standing against the railing of the roof terrace. We watched the procession moving away — he captivated by his memories, and I amused and impressed at the same time. Off in the distance, in the growing darkness, we could glimpse the party lights amid the black mass of the orchards.
“Do you know the groom?” I asked my cousin.
“Not really. I saw him at the house of a friend, a fellow musician, about five or six years ago. We weren’t introduced, but he seemed like an unpretentious guy. Not a bit like his father. I think he’s a good match for her.”
“I hope so. Khaled’s a good man, and his daughter’s adorable. Did you know that I had my eye on her?”
“I don’t want to know about it. She belongs to someone else now, and you have to put such things out of your head.”
“I was just saying—”
“You shouldn’t have. Just thinking about it’s a sin.”
Bahia appeared again, her eyes glowing. “Will you stay for dinner with us, Kadem?” she chirped in a quavering voice.
“I can’t, but thanks anyway. The old folks aren’t well.”
“But no, you’re staying for dinner,” I said peremptorily. “It’s almost nine o’clock. Don’t insult us by leaving just as we’re about to sit down.”