June Rain (25 page)

When he got to the camera, and at this point he found himself unsupervised, he opened it and removed the film. He closed up the room and went back to his shop to develop the film, hoping to discover even one of that strange photographer’s many secrets.

First Nishan examined the pictures that were in Jorge’s sack. Lo and behold, what he found was an extensive collection of pictures of women. Countless portraits. Nishan raised his eyebrows in wonder. Most of them were of a woman by herself, the same woman, and sometimes pictures of two women. Women and fabrics and a bed. The same bed. Why all this waste of film and photo paper, wondered the ever-thrifty Nishan. The women in the pictures were naked, but their nakedness was veiled with fabric – either silk or satin. The pieces of fabric were the same but sometimes the woman would drape them around her breasts, or if her breasts were covered up by her pose, she would toss the fabric over her shoulders with an unaffected coquettishness. No picture was exactly like any of the others. The woman’s pose was always different. There was a variety of poses that were mildly provocative and expressions that wouldn’t offend anyone. The fabric served a variety of purposes. Jorge’s collection seemed to be a series of practice exercises leading to the perfect shot, which of course Nishan Davidian never found. He wondered only if the women who appeared in Jorge al-Indari’s pictures were from their same town or were strangers. Or had he taken the pictures in far-off Montevideo, where Nishan imagined a much freer society in which girls could pose in front of a photographer with a level of ease he felt wasn’t possible here.

The next day Nishan planned to develop the film he had found in Jorge’s camera up on the tripod in the studio. It was clear the man had an odd style and a tendency to waste rolls of film. Nishan was quick to notice that all the photos Jorge shot before he died were nothing but pictures of himself, twenty or more self-portraits of Jorge al-Indari, which were difficult to tell apart on first glance. In all of them he appeared the same way: sitting on a chair and looking directly into the lens – nothing more, nothing less. Nishan realised that Jorge must have set the shutter release and then rushed back to sit for the picture each time.

Nishan looked closely at the pictures and noticed that when he looked at them in the order they were taken, he could see the fatigue on Jorge’s face gradually increase. In photo after photo, his eyes wandered more and more and his facial features tightened as if he were suffering from a gradually worsening pain. Nishan concluded that the young photographer had sensed his impending death and thus tried as best he could to make the final moments of his life last forever, which led the Armenian to further conclude that Jorge either poisoned himself or was poisoned by someone and when he realised he was in the final death throes he decided to photograph his own death. It was an idea that was supported by the fact that in the pictures Jorge was wearing the same clothes he was wearing when they found him dead, and sitting on the same chair, the one he used to invite his customers to sit on.

His relatives divided up the contents of his house amongst themselves. Later, one of them tried to sell the photography equipment to Nishan, but he refused. Not only because he didn’t need it for his work, but because a strange feeling overtook him that he shouldn’t go near Jorge’s belongings; he felt they might be cursed and would rub off on him.

A Bigamist Caught!

Mrs. M.N. formally accused her husband, 54-year-old Mr. S.S., of attempting to marry another woman, in a fraudulent manner and in violation of the personal affairs law for non-Mohammadans. Mrs. M.N. made the accusations before a judge in Tripoli. Court police officers arrested the accused Mr. S.S. in the remote village of Abra, where he had persuaded a priest to lead the ceremony of his marriage to Miss T.F., a young woman twenty-five years his junior. When police arrived, the accused attempted to flee but tripped over the bride’s wedding gown, falling to the ground, right into the hands of the law.

(
The Telegraph
, 10 October 1959)

No one knew how Shafiq al-Semaani had been able to convince his wife that the reason for his persistent absence from home was to pursue profitable job opportunities. However, people who knew the wife, who was both obstinate and observant, said that there was nothing stopping her from knowing her husband’s true doings, but deep down she loved him and wanted him to stay away from the town out of concern for his life, even if everyone laughed at her for being so naïve. Shafiq cheated on his wife, but she was perfectly content. She was happy whenever he came home and then made it easy for him to take off again. She did his laundry and cooked his meals. In fact, some said she actually seemed proud of her husband’s success with the ladies and always had a smug smile on her face. One could not mistake her pride one time when a woman came up to her at Samih’s Bakery and whispered some advice: to watch her husband. She used to ask about the details of his escapades and wanted to know everything – names, places, how beautiful his lovers were – but she never confronted him about it. Above all else, she didn’t want him to go down the same path as his brother, Farid. Farid Badwi al-Semaani, the Bear Plum, who was versed in every manner of evil. She herself found it hard to believe that they were brothers, except when she looked at her husband’s face and saw the wart on his left cheek. It was in the exact same spot as the one on Farid’s cheek.

Shafiq loved pleasure and loved women and no doubt had discovered the quickest way to their hearts: enjoyment and laughter. He loved his ‘conferences’ as he called them. He had an insatiable appetite for re-enacting the same scenario whenever it was within his means: a banquet at some country restaurant or one with a view of a river or the sea, spread with a colourful, garden-like display of hors d’oeuvres. Food was to be enjoyed with the eyes, as he put it so succinctly, while gazing at all those appetising
mezze
dishes laid out on the table, waiting for his dinner guests to arrive, a handful of friends, none of them from Barqa. He would arrive at the restaurant before them in order to put his personal finishing touches on the feast.

He chose his friends from distant places, knowing they wouldn’t broadcast his news where he didn’t want it to go. The group would not be complete without the inclusion of some women at the table, even if they were generally much fewer than the men. And these women were unusual. They had loose tongues, smoked hookah pipes and drank
arak
. Undoubtedly they were of lowly backgrounds, women he alone knew how to coax out of their dens. As a general rule, he also made sure to befriend an
oud
player with a beautiful voice. He wouldn’t prompt him to start singing until after the spirits had had a chance to go to everyone’s heads a little, at which time he would pull out the
oud
from its cloth case, hand it to the singer himself and let the party begin.

In reality, despite the presence of waiters at the restaurant, he spent half of the evening standing, unable to refrain from serving his friends. That was the ideal he constantly tried to emulate, every day. Every action he undertook before and after noon, all of his daily activities, could be summarised as one long effort to prepare the table for dinner. And Shafiq got much more enjoyment from watching the others eat than from eating himself. Food was to be seen with the eyes, after all: all those dishes spread out on the table, and all the people eating it, too. He offered little bites to them and invited them to taste the various dishes carefully arranged. Those dinners, even though they took place in restaurants, were never without some dish he had brought himself. He would order the
shankleesheh
specially from Rahbeh, the village he knew was famous for it, or he would buy some green onions from a seller who planted them behind his house and gave them clean, fresh water. He didn’t care about what was going on in town, but if he was forced to put his two cents in he would say he loved everyone, everyone was his friend, and life was short and should be lived to the fullest.

Nothing muddied the purity of his pleasure except the daily reminder of his brother Farid’s propensity for fighting and guns. He had anticipated hearing the news of his brother’s murder right up until the day it actually reached him while he was on one of those outings of his through the towns of Mount Lebanon. His eyes filled with tears. He said he had been expecting that news for ages. He asked if Farid had suffered and was told he had died instantly, which gave him some solace before he headed home to his family. The killing of his brother Farid was a devast­ating blow to Shafiq’s life. The call to revenge beckoned him and along he went with his relatives. They tried to block roads and mount ambushes, but weren’t successful, so he started wearing a gun at his waist and justified it by claiming he had been struck. In other words, he’d been struck by the disaster that befell his brother. His carrying a gun was merely a way of showing his agreement with the basic premise of revenge, but actually going down the path that led to it was another matter altogether. He cut himself off from his buddies for about a month, but then little by little went back to his old ways.

It was clear to those close to him that what he was really up to was chasing after women, and all the organised get-togethers were nothing but bait to catch them. Indeed, he was able to achieve some success in that area, more than he had expected. And his record continued to improve despite his advancing age. As he got older his conquests from among the fairer sex were increasingly younger. He did have faults, such as winking to his friends about women in their presence and signalling his ability to lure them into his trap. Similarly, he used a multitude of hand signals and facial gestures suggestive of his indomitable sexual prowess. He was known for pounding his fists rapidly against his chest to express his pressing need to have sex – which he would have done right then and there were it not for the presence of his friends. On the faces of his companions, before whom he put all his sexual ambitions out on display, were tepid smiles feigning belief in his heroic escapades. It would get to the point where he believed them himself and began cornering some young woman and applying his seductions until he coaxed out of her the kind of response he was looking for.

However, one particularly beautiful and realistic country girl laid down the condition, as he pounded his chest with his fists in anticipation, that before she would submit to him he had to marry her. He had kept his personal life hidden from her completely, while she was good at stringing him along with that natural instinct women possess, even those with little schooling. She was much better than him at plotting and scheming. She would let him hold her hand and let his hand stray onto her thigh only to burst suddenly into tears and claim she was being mistreated and men were always trying to take advantage of her innocence. He was just like everyone else, she’d say, interested in getting her now only to turn around and toss her aside later on. He was afraid of losing her, so he began to secretly plot to marry her, making sure to keep the plan from his friends. But eventually the girl talked and the plan fell on the ears of the spy his wife had planted among his friends. His wife had made an agreement with the spy to tell her only things that might put her husband’s life in danger or expose his family to ridicule or harm. And that was exactly what happened. He told her that her husband was going to get married on Sunday in Abra. She arrived right in the middle of the ululations, got out of the taxi, walked up to him and said, ‘Come on home.’ Then she turned to his bride with contempt and said to her, ‘Did you try him out first at least?’

Laying Claim to the Church and the Cemetery

The priest and parish council of the town of Kfarbayda have hired attorney Nasib al-Sawda to file a case in the North District Criminal Court against Mr. F.R., asserting that he counterfeited or aided in the counterfeiting of documents giving him the right to ownership of the plot of land upon which the town’s church – Saint Joseph’s Church of the Epiphany – is built. The plot includes the cemetery behind the church where the townspeople’s remains have rested for hundreds of years. Court documents indicate the defendant is outside Lebanese soil at the present time and has been served with a court summons.

(
Al-Nafeer
, 12 September 1961)

A thread of poor luck seemed to run through his entire life. In 1956 he almost won the special New Year’s grand prize draw in the Lebanese National Lottery, missing it by just one number. Of course, that was only because the people in charge of the lottery had fixed the results, having rigged them ahead of time in favour of their relatives and other people with whom they would split the winnings. ‘Crooks,’ he used to say, with emphasis and shaking his head like someone who knew what he was talking about. Then there was the time at the roulette table in the casino in Nice, France, where he had been a guest of one of those filthy rich people who enjoyed listening to his stories despite knowing they were a pack of lies, because they benefited from his talent with the ladies. The metal ball jumped onto number 14 after everyone around the table had been certain it had settled on 13; the number he had bet everything on. The only reason it jumped was to prevent him from winning big time.

‘It’s the mafia. They have magnets under the table to make the metal ball land wherever they want. It’s just not written for me to be comfortable . . .’

What he meant by ‘comfortable’ was being able to accumulate enough money to settle down. In Caracas, Venezuela, at the dog races, the same fate fell upon the animal he’d bet on. The dog had led for the whole race, way ahead of the pack, and then suddenly stopped. When he reached the final stretch, for some reason no one could understand, he stopped and looked behind, as if he were missing his friends and didn’t want to be so far away from them. He lowered his head and rubbed it in the sand while the other dogs sped past him and he ended up finishing last.