Gaby did not pull out a pack of American cigarettes from her handbag; instead she extracted a small white mirror and began to talk in a way that made Yalo want to escape.
Yalo tried to explain to the interrogator that he had gone to France to escape his mother, but the interrogator didn’t seem to understand.
He said that he went to France because he had become afraid, so the interrogator thought that the suspect had fled Lebanon from fear of prison. Many such youths had left after the end of the war; Yalo was only one of them. More likely than not, thought the interrogator, he had been implicated in some crime.
The interrogator asked him who he was afraid of, but Yalo did not reply, since he could not think of any way to tell him about his fear of the mirror. Should he talk about that? And what would he say?
It was nighttime and the power was cut. The woman lit the house with three candles. How old was she? How old is my mother? Yalo never asked himself this question because mothers are ageless. When his grandfather spoke of his mother, and of the red eyes spread through her hair where blood had frozen, he became like a little boy; his shoulders reared up just as children straighten their shoulders when they try to appear taller than they actually are. Now, when Yalo remembered his mother, he squared his shoulders and saw a woman full of life, carrying a candle in her hand, approaching the room of her only son. She was wearing a long blue nightdress, her hair down to her shoulders. Yalo opened his eyes and saw the long chestnut hair, curly and shoulder-length, and asked her about her chignon.
“Where is your kokina, Mother?”
It was as if Gaby did not hear. She murmured a few nervous words from which he gathered she wanted him to get out of bed.
“What’s going on, Gaby?”
“Follow me, for God’s sake.”
Yalo got up and followed her to the bathroom, where she stood in front of the mirror and put the candle close to her face. She asked him what he saw.
“How do I know?” he answered. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She said that she had undone the kokina and let her hair fall down over her shoulders because she was afraid, because when she looked into the mirror she did not see her image.
“I look at the mirror and I don’t see my face. The mirror has swallowed it. Do you see anything?”
Yalo looked at the mirror and saw his long tan face next to his mother’s round white face and her curly chestnut hair.
“Tie your hair up again. It’s hanging down like a witch’s.”
“Can you see my face?” his mother asked.
“Is this what you woke me up for?”
The woman lowered the candle from her face and froze in front of the mirror.
“Take a good look. Do you see anything?”
“Of course I do. Now go to sleep.”
“I can’t see myself,” she said. “Poof! Gaby’s gone. The mirror has swallowed my face, it’s as if I’ve disappeared.”
“That’s enough of these games. Go to sleep.”
Yalo went back to bed but his mother stayed in the bathroom. Then she started spending nights in front of the mirror and Yalo grew afraid of her. He did not understand what was happening to her. During the day she was fine and did not talk about her image, but would stand in front of the mirror, combing her hair. At night, however, the mirror became her obsession, her face disappeared, and the woman was terror-struck.
Gaby began coming into her son’s room almost every night, would wake him and ask him questions, claiming that all she could see in the mirror was a white spot.
“My face has become a white spot. Oh my God, that means I’m going to die.”
And the fear set in.
The fear led Yalo to agree to run away to Paris with Tony.
“I went with Tony. Yes, we robbed the barracks, and left.”
However, the interrogator did not believe a word of what he said, so how could he tell him about his mother?
Why had his mother said that he had fled Beirut?
The interrogator said that his mother had told him everything, but he did not divulge what that was. So, what could she possibly have said when she did not know anything, indeed when there was nothing to know? And what did this man want, bathed in sunlight, blocked from Yalo’s closed eyes?
“Yes, sir, I confess that I raped her.”
“. .”
“Yes, yes, I took money from her.”
“. .”
“Yes, I called her every day.”
“. .”
“Yes, I used to wait for her below her house, and then when she left I’d follow her to work, and wait, and then follow her home.”
“. .”
“No, I wanted her to see me, I did not hide. I wanted her to know.”
“. .”
“I was wrong, yes, but she was wrong, too. Why did she come to Ballouna with that man who left her and ran away like a rabbit?”
“. .”
“. .”
“. .”
“Men are all afraid. Women are braver than men, sir, I saw then, how they abandon the women as soon as they catch sight of my rifle. Women are different. No, no, I did not rape her because I am a coward. Just as you say, sir, just as you say.”
“. .”
“I am ready to confess to everything I’ve done.”
“. .”
“That’s untrue, love killed me and disgraced me and humiliated me, if it hadn’t been for love, if she hadn’t known that I loved her, she wouldn’t have come and complained about me.”
“. .”
“Sir, it never occurred to me. She made me feel that there was hope. I wanted her, I don’t know what I wanted from her, she’s the one who made me feel that way.”
Yalo smiled.
He said nothing, but he smiled at the thought that he was on the verge of saying these things. These things could never be said in an interrogation, but he said them to himself.
Tony got angry and asked him about so many things, and Yalo replied that he had already told him all about them. That made Tony even madder, and made Yalo enter the lethargy of one who was persuaded of having said things that his friend denied and pretended not to have heard.
Then Yalo discovered that Tony was right, in fact he had not spoken, he had only been talking to himself, thinking that he had spoken to his friend.
When Tony fled from the hotel in Paris, leaving him stranded, and when his tightened throat made him swallow his words before Monsieur Michel and turned him into a lone sheep, he imagined Tony saying to him: “But I told you I was going to rub her out, I had to, man, do you get it? Forgive me, man.”
“Stop calling me man, you piss me off when you say man.”
But Tony said nothing, nor did Yalo.
Yalo stood alone, wishing that his image would disappear like Gaby’s, wishing that he could be invisible to all those who probed his soul with their questions.
“Sir, I confessed, and that’s it. Put me on trial and let the court rule as it pleases, but that’s it.”
However, the interrogator was deaf to Yalo’s entreaties.
“We want to know everything,” said the interrogator. “Do you really think we’re going to swallow this story of voyeurism and perversion? We want all the information about the network that planted the explosives that blew up downtown.”
“Me?!”
“Yes, you. Maybe you thought I’d be satisfied with the story of your love life that I know all about now. What we want to discover is the stopper, the plug. Listen to me — I know there is a stopper. Pull it out for me and you’ll be fine, and we’ll be fine with you.”