Everything I wrote about my life is true, but there is one thing I want to clarify, without meaning to hurt anyone, God forbid. I am now as pure and white as this white page upon which I am writing the story of my life. I just want my conscience to be clear, and to close out my past life by confessing everything. This is not to degrade M. Michel, as I hold the greatest respect for him, but the truth must be told.
I want to confess to something I tried at every phase of my torture and confinement not to confess, to preserve the reputations of these people. But I discovered that confession was my only way of becoming a human being again and beginning a new life, and I was confident that you would take my circumstances into consideration and pardon me. It would be unthinkable for the amnesty to include all the war criminals while I should spend my life in prison because I slept with a woman, or with several women.
I was desperate, sir, when I returned from France and started working at the villa. Everything seemed black before me, I could no longer distinguish colors. Now I feel remorse for those days. I was living in a villa amidst a green pine forest but wasn’t seeing the colors of nature. Is there anyone who cannot see nature?
Yalo did not see colors, he was living with his eyes closed. Yes, sir, I kept my eyes closed, I wanted to stay in the heart of black. Black was my life, I lost all sensation, I was living as if in a long dream. Then a woman entered my life, a respectable woman for whom I had nothing but esteem. This woman, whose home I lived in as a guard, viewed me as a poor and solitary kid, she had compassion for me. She then taught me to love my body. Had it not been for her, my black and blocked pores would never have opened. The first time she spoke with me, she asked, “Why are you a shade of blue? I am olive-skinned and tan easily, and I didn’t know that my skin had turned such a deep blue-black. When I went back to my house below the villa, I looked in the mirror and discovered that my skin had turned as black as the things I had seen. This mirror had restored to me my color and my sense of life. The sex and love I tasted with Madame Randa Salloum were greater than the love tasted by all the men in the world. Her love brought me back to life, but opened in my heart a bottomless well. I became, when I stood in the garden and breathed in the scent of pine, I felt excited. Yes, sir, I became a part of nature, and nature knows no boundaries between things. That is what led me to the cars and all the trouble. Right away I felt as if I were living in a dream — up at the villa, with the lady teaching me the subtle art of love, and down in the woods I felt as if the cars were animals constantly mating with one another. And the odor of sex was everywhere.
I lived in the Villa Gardenia, which belonged to Michel Salloum, near the Church of St. Nicholas. I only went to mass once, because I missed the icons and the fragrance of the incense. Ballouna became like a triangle: the villa, the forest, and the church.
Yalo went astray by stealing, but stealing was not his objective. He stole by chance; he stole because they made him steal. That is, when he went down to watch from up close. He fell into the trap of money, and the lure of jewels, and that is not right, sir, not only because stealing is a sin, but also because money distorts things and dilutes pleasures.
As for rape, it is true that I raped, but I did not know that it was called rape. I thought that was what sex was — you came upon a woman and didn’t need to explain anything. That was stupid.
Yes, Yalo was stupid, because later on he discovered, when he was stricken by the affliction of love, that this sort of sex was meaningless. Even so, not even love could prevent him from having this sort of sex, because human beings are sinful by nature.
I was confused, sir. Yalo was Shirin’s lover and thought only of her, but even so continued to take lovers and have sex with women whenever the circumstances permitted him to. Perhaps it was the place — the place, sir, the forest was full of devils that swarmed around the fragrances of pine sap and wild grasses. I don’t know, I never lived on the mountain. My grandfather lived in a village that was said to resemble Paradise, but me, I have only lived in the city, in the Syriac Quarter in Mseitbeh and al-Mrayyeh in Ain Rummaneh. Our first house had a yard full of trees, mostly acacia trees with white and yellow flowers that have a beautiful scent. But the smells of our yard have nothing to do with the smells of the Ballouna forest. When the fragrance of pine mingled with that of cypress, the place became strange and lust-inspiring.
I am sure that Shirin loved me. My problem is that I didn’t understand her love and I didn’t know how to deal with it. The girl had a nervous breakdown after her fiancé left her, and she fell in love with the doctor who gave her an abortion. Yalo’s relationship with her would have worked if Yalo had shown his true personality, but he played games with her and scared her away. He had a true passion for her and dreamed of marrying her. When in love, a person takes risks, sometimes everything is lost, and this is what happened. Shirin was afraid, and she was right to be. When a person wants something too much, it escapes from him. This is what happened to Mme Randa with me, I began to feel like an object in her hands and that she could no longer do without me, that’s why I took off. The same thing happened with Shirin, only she loved Yalo. I can assure you, sir, she loved me. She would tremble with love whenever we met, I realize that now. Before I thought she was trembling because she was afraid, and that I would make her even more afraid, but now I know that she loved me and was jealous of Ballouna. Instead of telling her that I was an artist, a calligrapher, and educated — that is, an intellectual — I told her about the crimes I had committed, and some that I had not committed, which made me fall from grace with her, and that’s why she wanted to be through with me by any means possible.
Sir, I am sure she is tormented now. Shirin and I committed a grave offense against love, and I want her to know that I am ready to correct it. I am ready to turn over a new, clean leaf with her, and if she wants marriage, I have no objection. I want Shirin to know that I am ready to marry her whenever she wants, and she’ll know I am saying this because I love her.
I did not sleep with her only in Ballouna, when I surprised her in the car with that worthless doctor; her fiancé was not with her, as she claimed, but I don’t want you to interrogate her because I know how fragile she is. Her delicate body could not bear torture. But I slept with her several times after that in a hotel in Jounieh. I beg you to forgive her for lying and saying she was in the forest with her fiancé, Emile, — a despicable coward, that guy — he shook with fear during my interrogation, even though I was the one who was being tortured, not him.
And concerning the explosives, I am prepared to go along with my confession about Haykal and al-Naddaf, if you judge it necessary. That would be my sacrifice for the sake of civil peace in Lebanon.
I hope, sir, that this new information will be useful, and helpful toward closing my case and proving my innocence. I rely on you, sir, for I am an orphaned young man. I do not know my father, my grandfather is not my father, and my mother is not my sister.
Finally, sir, I would like to thank you, to thank the interrogator and all of his assistants who permitted me during this period in captivity to make peace with myself and discover things that had never come into my mind.
Yalo closed his eyes and spat on Satan. He was sitting in the interrogation room, his insides churning. The interrogator’s face reached him through the glow of the dim fluorescent bulbs fixed in the ceiling. Yalo stood under the light and looked around. The interrogator’s gray hair had a yellow tinge to it, his small face seemed planted on the table, he turned the pages and looked at the tall specter under the fluorescent light.