The Sirens of Baghdad

NIGHT VEILS BEIRUT’S…

Night veils Beirut’s face again. If the tumults of the evening haven’t awakened her, that just proves she’s sleepwalking. According to ancestral tradition, a somnambulist is not to be interfered with, not even when he’s headed for disaster.

I’d imagined a different Beirut, Arab and proud of it. I was wrong. It’s just an indeterminate city, closer to its fantasies than to its history, a fickle sham as disappointing as a joke. Maybe its obstinate efforts to resemble the cities of its enemies have caused its patron saints to disown it, and that’s why it’s exposed to the traumas of war and the dangers of every tomorrow. It’s lived through a life-size nightmare, but to what end? The more I observe the place, the less I get it. It’s so trifling, it seems insolent. Its affected airs are nothing but a con. Its alleged charisma doesn’t jibe with its qualms; it’s like a silk cloth over an ugly stain.

I arrived here three weeks ago, more than a year after the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. I could feel the city’s bad faith as soon as the taxi deposited me on the sidewalk. Beirut’s mourning is only a facade, its memory a rusted sieve; I abhorred it at first sight.

In the mornings, when its souklike din begins again, I’m overcome with silent loathing. In the evenings, when the party animals show off their gleaming high-powered cars and crank up their stereos to full blast, the same anger rises inside me. What are they trying to prove? That they’re still having a great time despite the odd assassination? That there may be some rough patches but life goes on?

This circus of theirs makes no sense.

I’m a Bedouin, born in Kafr Karam, a village lost in the sands of the Iraqi desert, a place so discreet that it often dissolves in mirages, only to emerge at sunset. Big cities have always filled me with deep distrust, but Beirut’s double-dealing makes my head spin. Here, the more you think you’ve put your finger on something, the less certain you can be of what exactly it is. Beirut’s a slapdash affair: Its martyrdom is phony; its tears are crocodile tears. I hate it with all my heart for its gutless, illogical pride, for the way it falls between two stools, sometimes Arab, sometimes Western, depending on the payoffs involved. What it sanctifies by day, it renounces at night, what it demands in the public square, it shuns on the beach, and it hurtles toward its ruin like an embittered runaway who thinks he’ll find elsewhere the thing that’s lying within reach of his hand….

“You should go out. Stretch your legs, clear your head.”

Dr. Jalal’s standing behind me, practically breathing down my neck. How long has he been watching me rant to myself? I didn’t hear him come out here, and it’s irritating to find him hovering over my thoughts like a bird of prey.

He senses my discomfort and points his chin in the direction of the avenue. “It’s a wonderful evening,” he says. “The weather’s lovely, the cafés are packed, the streets are full of people. You should enjoy yourself, instead of staying here and brooding over your problems.”

“I don’t have any problems.”

“Well, what are you doing here, then?”

“I don’t like crowds, and I detest this city.”

The doctor jerks his head back as though a fist has struck him. He frowns. “You’re mistaking your enemy, young man. Nobody detests Beirut.”

“I detest it.”

“You’re wrong. Beirut has suffered a lot. It’s touched bottom. But it’s been miraculously cured. Although it seemed to be on its last legs not so long ago, now it’s starting to recover. Still groggy and feverish, but hanging on. I find it admirable. What’s to criticize? What don’t you like about it?”

“Everything.”

“That’s pretty vague.”

“Not to me. I don’t like this city. Period.”

The doctor doesn’t insist. “Well, to each his own. Cigarette?”

He holds the packet toward me.

“I don’t smoke.”

He offers me a can. “Would you like a beer?”

“I don’t drink.”

Dr. Jalal places the beer can on a little wicker table and leans on the parapet wall. We stand there shoulder-to-shoulder. His alcoholic breath strangles me. I don’t remember ever having seen him sober. In his early fifties, he’s already a wreck, with a purplish complexion and a concave mouth furrowed at the corners. This evening, he’s wearing a tracksuit stamped with the colors of Lebanon’s national soccer team. The top is open, revealing a bloodred sweatshirt, and the laces on his new sneakers are undone. He looks as though he just got out of bed after a long nap. His movements are languid, and his eyes, usually lively and passionate, are barely visible through puffy lids.

With a weary gesture, he pats his hair into place on the top of his skull, camouflaging his bald spot. He asks, “Am I disturbing you?”

I say nothing.

“I was getting bored in my room. Nothing ever happens in this hotel — no banquets, no weddings. It’s like an old folks’ home.”

He raises the can of beer to his lips and takes a long pull. His prominent Adam’s apple makes each swallow visible. I notice, for the first time, a nasty scar running all the way across his throat.

My frown doesn’t escape him. He stops drinking and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Then, nodding his head, he turns toward the hysterical lights of the boulevard below us.

“Once, a long time ago, I tried to hang myself,” he says, leaning out over the parapet. “With a length of hempen twine. I was barely eighteen.”

He takes another swallow and continues: “I had just caught my mother with a man.”

His words are disconcerting, but his eyes hold mine fast. I must admit that Dr. Jalal has often taken me by surprise. I never know what to make of his frankness; I’m not used to confessions of this sort. In Kafr Karam, such revelations would be fatal. I’ve never heard anyone speak like this about his mother, and the doctor’s casual way of spreading out his dirty linen confounds me.

“Such things happen,” he adds.

“I agree,” I say, hoping the conversation will move on.

“Agree with what?”

I’m embarrassed. I don’t know what he’s getting at, and it’s tiresome to have nothing to say.

Dr. Jalal drops the subject. We’re not cut from the same cloth, he and I, and when he talks to someone like me, it must be like addressing a wall. Nevertheless, solitude weighs on him, and a bit of a chat, however inane, will serve at least to keep him from sinking into an alcoholic coma. When Dr. Jalal’s not talking, he’s drinking. He’s a fairly serene drunk, but he doesn’t trust the world he’s fallen into. No matter how often he tells himself he’s in good hands, he’s never convinced it’s the truth. Aren’t those the same hands that fire weapons in the dark, slit throats, strangle people, and place explosive devices under selected chairs? It’s true that there haven’t been any punitive operations since he landed in Beirut, but his hosts have a record of bloodbaths, and what he reads in their eyes is unmistakable: They’re death on the march. One false step, one indiscretion, and he won’t even have time to understand what’s happening to him. Two weeks ago, Imad, a young fellow assigned to taking care of me, was found in the middle of a square, squelching around in his own excrement. According to the police, Imad died of an overdose — and it’s better that way. His comrades, who executed him with the help of an infected syringe, didn’t go to his funeral; they pretended they didn’t know him. Since then, the doctor checks under his bed twice before slipping between the sheets.

“You were talking to yourself just now,” he says.

“I do that sometimes.”

“What was the topic of your conversation?”

“I can’t remember.”

He nods and goes back to contemplating the city. We’re on the hotel terrace, a sort of glass alcove overlooking the main thoroughfare in this part of town. There are a few wicker chairs and two low tables; in one corner, there’s a sofa, and behind it shelves with books and brochures.

“Don’t ask yourself too many questions,” the doctor says.

“I no longer ask myself questions.”

“A man who isolates himself often has unresolved issues.”

“Not me.”

Dr. Jalal had a long career as a teacher in European universities. He made regular appearances in television studios, bearing witness against the “criminal deviationism” of his coreligionists. Neither the fatwas decreed against him nor the various attempts to abduct him sufficed to silence his virulent attacks. He was well on his way to becoming a leading figure among those who castigated the doctrines of armed jihad. And then, without any warning, he found himself in an ideal position for the fundamentalist Imamate. Profoundly disappointed by his Western colleagues, aware that his status as useful raghead was outrageously supplanting any recognition of his scholarly accomplishments, he wrote a tremendous indictment of the intellectual racism rampant among respectable coteries in the West and performed some incredible pirouettes in order to gain admittance to Islamist circles. At first, he was suspected of being a double agent, but then the Imamate rehabilitated him, made him their representative, and gave him a mission. Today, he travels to Arab and Muslim countries to lend his oratorical talent and his formidable intelligence to jihadist directives.

“There’s a whorehouse not far from here,” he proposes. “Feel like dropping in and getting laid?”

I’m flabbergasted.

“It’s not really a whorehouse, Madame Rachak’s place, not like the others. It serves a very restricted, very classy clientele. When you’re there, you’re in distinguished company. You drink together and pass joints, but nothing ever gets out of hand, if you see what I mean. Then you take your leave. All very discreet. As for the girls, they’re beautiful and inventive, real professionals. If you’re inhibited for one reason or another, they’ll straighten you out in no time.”

“That’s not for me.”

“How can you say that? At your age, I never passed up a piece of ass.”

His crudeness flusters me. I can’t believe an educated man of his stature is capable of such crass vulgarity.

Dr. Jalal’s about thirty years my senior. In my village, the idea of having this sort of conversation with an older person is unimaginable and has been so since the dawn of time. I remember a single occasion, in Baghdad, when I was out for a walk with a young uncle of mine, and someone cursed as we passed. At that instant, if the earth had opened under my feet, I wouldn’t have hesitated to jump in and hide myself.

“So what do you say?”

“I say no.”

Dr. Jalal feels sorry for me. He hangs over the wrought-iron railing and flicks his cigarette out into the void. Both of us watch the red tip tumble past one floor after another until it hits the ground and scatters in a thousand sparks.

“Do you think they’ll join us one day?” I ask him, hoping to change the subject.

“Who?”

“Our intellectuals.”

Dr. Jalal gives me an oblique look. “You’re a virgin, is that it? I’m talking to you about a whorehouse not far from here—”

“And I’m talking to you about our intellectuals, Doctor,” I reply, firmly enough to put him in his place.

He grasps the fact that his indecent proposals have upset me.

“Are they going to join our ranks?” I say insistently.

“Is that so important?”

“For me it is. Intellectuals give everything a sense. They’ll tell our story to others. Our combat will have a memory.”

“What you’ve gone through isn’t enough for you?”

“I don’t need to look behind me in order to advance. The horrors of yesterday are what’s pushing me on. But the war’s not limited to that.”

I try to read his eyes, to see if he’s following me. The doctor stares down at a shop and contents himself with wagging his chin in acquiescence.

“In Baghdad,” I say, “I heard a lot of speeches and sermons. They made me mad as a rabid camel. I had only one desire: I wanted the whole planet, from the North Pole to the South Pole, to go up in smoke. And when someone like you, a learned man like you, expresses my hatred for the West, my rage becomes my pride. I stop asking myself questions. You give me all the answers.”

“What kind of questions?” he asks, raising his head.

“A lot of questions cross your mind when you’re firing blind. It’s not always our enemies who get taken out. Sometimes there’s a cock-up, and our bullets hit the wrong targets.”

“That’s war, my boy.”

“I know that. But war doesn’t explain everything.”

“There’s nothing to explain. You kill, and then you die. It’s been happening that way since the Stone Age.”

We fall silent, both of us gazing at the city.

“It would be a good thing if our intellectuals would join our struggle. Do you think there’s any possibility they’ll do that?”

“Not many of them, I’m afraid,” he says after a sigh. “But a certain number will, I have no doubt. We have nothing more to hope for from the West. Eventually, our intellectuals will have to face the facts. The West loves only itself and thinks only of itself. It throws us a line so it can use us as bait. It manipulates us and sets us against our own people, and then, when it’s through toying with us, it files us away in its secret drawers and forgets us.”

The doctor’s breathing hard. He lights another cigarette. His hand trembles, and for a moment his face, illuminated by the flame of his lighter, crumples up like a rag.

“But you used to be all over the television—”

“Yes, like some sort of mascot,” he grumbles. “The West will never acknowledge our merits. As far as Westerners are concerned, Arabs are only good for kicking soccer balls or wailing into microphones. The more we prove the contrary, the less they’re willing to admit it. If, by some chance, the Aryan inner circles feel forced to make some sort of gesture toward their homebred ragheads, they choose to anoint the worst and belittle the best. I’ve seen that happen close-up. I know all about it.”

It’s as though he were trying to consume his entire cigarette in a single drag. The glow lights up the terrace.

I hang on his words. His diatribes express my obsessions, reinforce my fixed ideas, and energize my mind.

“Others before us have learned this lesson, to their cost,” he continues, his voice filled with chagrin. “They thought they’d find a homeland for their knowledge and fertile soil for their ambitions in Europe. And when they saw they weren’t welcome, for some stupid reason they decided just to hold on as well as they could. Since they subscribed to Western values, they took for granted the ideals people whispered in their ears: freedom of expression, human rights, equality, justice. Bright, shining words — but how many of our geniuses have been successful? Most of them died with rage in their hearts. I’m sure regret still gnaws at them in the grave. It’s clear that they strove and struggled for nothing. Their Western colleagues were never going to allow them to achieve recognition. True racism has always been intellectual. Segregation begins as soon as one of our books is opened. In the old days, it took our leading intellects forever to notice this fact, and by the time they adjusted their sights, they were off the agenda. That won’t happen to us. We’ve been vaccinated. As the old proverb says, He who possesses not gives not. The West is nothing but an acidic lie, an insidious perversity, a siren song for people shipwrecked on their identity quest. The West calls itself ‘welcoming,’ but in fact it’s just a falling point, and once you fall there, you can never get back up completely.”

“You think we don’t have a choice.”

“Exactly. Peaceful coexistence is no longer possible. They don’t like us, and we won’t put up with their arrogance anymore. Each side has to turn its back on the other for good and live in its own way. But before we put up that great wall, we’re going to make them suffer for all the evil they’ve done to us. Our patience has never been cowardice. It’s imperative that they understand that.”

“And who will win?”

“The side that has little to lose.”

He throws down his cigarette butt and stamps it out as though he were crushing a serpent’s head. Then his angry eyes turn to me again. He says, “I hope you’re going to give it to them good and hard, those bastards.”

I keep quiet. The doctor’s not supposed to know the reason for my sojourn in Beirut. No one’s supposed to know. Even I don’t know what my mission is. All I know is, what’s been planned will be the greatest operation ever carried out on enemy territory, a thousand times more awesome than the attacks of September 11.…

Realizing that he’s drawing me into dangerous territory — dangerous for both of us — he crushes his beer can and tosses it into a refuse basket. “That’s going to be a mighty blow, a mighty blow,” he says in a low voice. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Then he withdraws to his room.

Alone again, I turn my back on the city and reminisce about Kafr Karam…Kafr Karam: a miserable, ugly, backward town I wouldn’t trade for a thousand festivals. It used to be a snug little spot, way out in the desert. No garlands disfigured its natural aspect; no commotion disturbed its lethargy. For generations beyond memory, we had lived shut up inside our walls of clay and straw, far from the world and its foul beasts, contenting ourselves with whatever God put on our plates and praising Him as devoutly for the newborn He confided to us as for the relative He called back to Himself. We were poor, common people, but we were at peace. Until the day when our privacy was violated, our taboos broken, our dignity dragged through mud and gore…until the day when brutes festooned with grenades and handcuffs burst into the gardens of Babylon, come to teach poets how to be free men…