The author interrupted to say how he had read in history books that the Sassanids had once used to refer to their enemies as magi, or ‘sorcerers’; those people who were conquered in Iran, and by our swords, converted to Islam. I’m amazed to hear that you still call them magi!
‘You are naïve, my dear Katib.† The magi never converted. That’s the official version, certainly, so that’s the line we’re obliged to take. But if they are not magi, then what are they? There’s no insult too bad for the enemy, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s walk over there and I’ll show them to you, and describe what they have done, case by case. I’ll also present you with credible reports of atrocities like the mass murder of prisoners.’
The nonplussed author made a mental note to go back to his history books and dictionaries and look up the exact etymology of such words, and as he walked out into the desert beside the prison camp’s officer, he focused his attention on two points: first, the meanings of words, and second, Hill Zero and what fate befell the characters in his story. He always obeyed the writer’s rule of thumb that you should read through the final passage of what you had written the previous night to get yourself properly steeped in the atmosphere of your tale, and when you got up from your desk at the end of the day, you should leave something hanging so you could pick up the thread the next day. Lost in his own thoughts, despite himself, all he could remember from last night’s writing was this phrase ‘prisoners must not be killed.’ Yet he was still not sure what he should write after that sentence; possibly something referring to a basic principle of international law on human rights. At the same time, he was worried about an injured captive lodged somewhere in the ditches of that hill. For he was certain that, contrary to his intentions, the healthy PoW in the trench on the hillside had been shot dead by the soldier, who wasn’t obeying an order from the corporal, but simply punishing the prisoner’s ‘crime’ of expressing his delight during an airstrike against the back-up battalion. And now that the bilingual captive had taken such a hold on his imagination, how might it be possible to save him from death? So as he walked beside the prison camp officer, his mind was elsewhere. He was preoccupied with the trenches below Hill Zero, and with how many of the soldiers had ultimately survived, what their condition was and whether they had received any orders from headquarters. He was confused, and those two flies would not desist from their lovemaking, and the children … Ah, another candle; the last one has burnt out. By now, the cigarette packet is half-empty and here he is, still caught in the grip of a phrase that is both self-evident and aesthetically unappealing. Yes, of course, it stands to reason that prisoners must not be killed!
But … this old black telephone, which looks like something from the Second World War, with its insistent and monotonous bell which cannot be turned up or down, will start ringing. He is certain that, come the morning, at the start of office hours, its insistent ringing will abruptly burst in on the suffocating, damp, grim atmosphere of his sanctuary. Immediately after doing a head-count of the prisoners, this same voice, that of the prison camp commander, will be there on the end of the line, summoning him and instructing him to wait for ‘the same car to pick you up!’ And at the end of the call, he’ll sign off by saying: ‘wasallam ya rais al-kottab!’‡ And then he’ll hang up. The prison camp commander has never enquired about how he has spent the night … because he has no idea either of what is going on inside the katib’s head or of what happened on Hill Zero, or of the mental turmoil brought on by grappling with two or three ideas at the same time. He has no real insight into these — as he sees it — inconsequential matters that hold the katib’s mind so firmly in their thrall. A hill and a group of soldiers whose task is to defend it, a healthy, young prisoner whose life was extinguished in the instant it took to fire a bullet, and his well-built body shoved into a pit at the bottom of the hill. And then there’s the other captive with his fearful eyes and coloured headband that’s still tied round his forehead, soaked in blood and mud, so that the slogan written on it is now largely illegible, especially in the inky blackness of the trench at night. What’s more, the prison camp commander is completely unaware of the fate of the people who prey on the author’s mind, the only person who knows what happened to them. He knows their fate alright, but just hasn’t yet been able to plot it properly. Then there’s that firing button, the green or red button — or is it a light, easily flickable switch with a hand outstretched towards it — or maybe there’s a finger poised directly over the button, waiting to press it? Also, the thought of that wandering object going round and round like a nightmare in the night in the mind of the author, and his concern about it flying or ricocheting; that nightmare has drawn sweat from the brow of the man who has been flatteringly referred to as ‘rais al-kottab’, the man whose eyes have been fixed on the two cavorting flies and whose mind is left mired in a sentence which would appear to signal the end of everything, not least the end of the piece of writing he embarked upon. The ending of the work’s beginning. The ink and that phrase written on the paper have been dry for hours, but he’s finding it impossible to venture beyond that point. Perhaps because he knows that the statement ‘prisoners must not be killed’ will be frowned upon and that he will be required to change it to ‘We do not kill prisoners. But our enemies, on the other hand, etc. etc.’, for he has already tried it out in spoken form and come to the conclusion that such a phrase is simply unacceptable to the mind of a military commander. And so it is that the author finds himself ensnared in the sentence he has written; the ink has long since dried and the comfortable fountain pen still nestles, unused, between the fingers of his right hand, while his left hand clutches a cigarette, as if he’s idling, and his gaze is drawn towards the two flies, darting to and fro, occasionally landing on his daughter’s cheek, or on his wife’s hair, or buzzing around the noses of his other children, and for a while his gaze is fixed on the black telephone, a memento of some time around the Second World War, with its insistent ring whose volume cannot be controlled, and a thought rushes into his mind: to hell with this pen, this paper, this text and all publishers. Since time immemorial, we poets have assuaged and mollified the drunkenness of caliphs with our grandiloquent oratory and the tenderness of our temperament, to the accompaniment of the lute; and now we are expected to use our words to applaud and encourage the insane intoxication of our leaders, leaden words that have to march at the speed of a printing press, draped in military clothes and paraded in front of eyes that cannot stand seeing any bad news in print.
‘Pretty as a bride, Katib! Look at their photos. I took them to the bath-house, to the barber’s and then to the underground solitary confinement cell. I filmed them on the first night and recorded their confessions. Their sentences will be mitigated by these confessions. I’ve given them a promise, man to man, that I’ll save them from being convicted at the trial. Because the way I’ve presented it, they were simply defending their honour — after all, two proud young men will naturally want to defend their characters in front of other prisoners! They say exactly the same things in the film. In it, they speak in fluent Arabic, because it’s been four years since they were taken prisoner and when they were captured they can’t even have been fifteen years old. I can show you the film so that you can see for yourself how easily and freely they speak. There are no signs of pressure or nerves on their faces, and no sign of violence. I extract confessions from every prisoner according to their individual temperament, age and beliefs. I find out the weaknesses of each person depending on their circumstances; and what are the weaknesses of two handsome and proud young men in a hellish situation like this? The answer is, the hope to be freed one day and to live their lives with pride for a long time to come!’