The Hakawati (85 page)

“Well, the only working movie theater, running on generators, is the Pavilion, which was showing nothing but porno. My friend even bought my ticket. We walked in, and the theater was completely full of guys with rifles and machine guns. The ones in the seats had theirs leaning against the seats in front of them, and there were probably a hundred guys standing with their weapons propped against the walls. There must have been more than six hundred fighters in that theater, all completely engrossed in four couples fucking around a pool in Beverly Hills. All of them, and I mean all, had their pants open, their dicks out, whacking off to the unfolding American dream on the screen.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“I need money,” Elie said.

“I figured,” I replied, but he wasn’t listening.

“I want to get out of here. I want to have a family, kids. You know, the normal life. I can’t do it in Beirut now, so I have to go away, maybe the Gulf or Brazil or Sweden, somewhere nice. I need money. Can you get me some? Ask your father. Tell him for old times’ sake.”

“For old times’ sake?”

“Yes,” he said. “I always respected him.”

“It wouldn’t do any good. I’d have to ask Lina. She’s the one who’s in charge now.”

“Oh.”

“She’s the one who runs the company.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want me to ask her?”

“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea, definitely not. I’m not crazy.”

By the time my sister began work, the dealership had moved to the safer suburbs—safer, but not safe. The danger was not a physical one. The company was apolitical, and even militias needed cars every so often. What was unsafe was that the company was profitable, maybe not as much as it was in the years before the war, but enough to tempt a few unscrupulous mafiosi, otherwise known as Lebanese political leaders. For a while, cuts had to be paid to various powerbrokers for every car that was sold. During one of the numerous peaks of the war, the bey walked into the company’s offices and offered protection. In exchange, he would buy into the firm for 20 percent of the net profits. Of course, he couldn’t pay anywhere near full price for his share, what with the country’s precarious financial situation and all. The bey became a partner in the Lebanese dealership. Had my father still cared about his company, that fact alone would have killed him. Unfortunately for the bey, it wasn’t a successful investment. By the time the current bey succeeded his father, he was the main shareholder in a company that wasn’t the cash cow it used to be. Their family had spent a fortune investing in the corporation, and our family had long ago sold out of it. A bad deal.

My sister was a good businesswoman, but her true talent lay in understanding human hunger. Everyone in the family had become rich,
which meant there was no one left who had the drive to keep the company successful. Slowly, she began to disinvest, breaking up the various dealerships and selling them. She sold the last dealership, the one in Kuwait, four months before the Iraqis invaded. There were many good reasons for selling off the company bit by bit. My sister correctly understood that other companies would mimic the Nissan and Toyota plan, and the market would soon be glutted with competition. The gold mine of my father’s day had turned silver in hers. And she quickly got tired of constantly having to pay people off so she could do her job. In essence, she had to bribe partners to let her make money for them. It wasn’t just the bey. She considered him small change. In every country, the company had to have a local partner who did nothing but sit back and rake in money.

“Look,” she once said, “I’m not averse to bribing, but after a while, you have to say enough is enough. I decided that when I turned forty I wanted to look in the mirror and not feel any guilt or remorse about the way I’d lived my life. I know it sounds silly, but I felt that running the company was nibbling at my soul. I waited for the right time for each division and found the buyers. On my fortieth, I’d been free for years, and I ran to the mirror to check. And you know, I wish I’d seen guilt or remorse. They would have distracted me. On my fortieth birthday, looking in the mirror, I couldn’t see anything but goddamn wrinkles.”

Eighteen

T
wo days after her arrival and my mother still looked tired; jet lag did not become her. To the uninitiated eye, she looked well enough, maybe needing a bit of rest, but one had only to look at the weary eyes, the dollop of extra foundation under them, to see that she wasn’t as robust. My father’s gaze fixed upon her as she poured herself a glass of water. And we had a dinner to go to.

“You don’t have to come if you’re tired,” I told her. We sat in my kitchen, midafternoon. “It’s a casual dinner. Clark only wants to meet you. I can ask that we do it later.”

In the fifteen years since I’d lived in Los Angeles, my parents had visited me three times, but this, in 1992, was the first since I had bought my new house. My father had met Clark, my supervisor. He had wanted to. Since he didn’t understand much about computers, he equated programming them with magic, and he wanted to meet the arch-magician, the high priest of binaries. And now Clark had suggested he give a dinner for my parents in order to meet my mother, whom he had heard so much about.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ll be fine after a nap. He’s your boss. It can’t be that casual.”

I chuckled. “It’s different over here, very laid-back. They don’t take their dinners that seriously. I’m not sure they take anything seriously.”

She finished her coffee. “Well, we have to.” She stood up and began walking to the bedroom. “After all, I’m getting old, and I want to spend more time with my son. So I’m going to insist that your boss, what’s-his-name, give you more time off. You’ll visit Beirut more often. We’ll do all that after my nap.”

I expected my father, who watched her get up, either to mention his
concern for her or to make a quip about my infrequent visits, but he did neither. He followed her into the room.

While my parents napped, I stayed in the kitchen reading
The Handmaid’s Tale
. I noticed a sputter of movement outside. A second glance showed a brown falcon on one of the branches of my avocado tree. Its beak was a striking, unnatural red, but then it bent its expressive head and tore off a sliver of flesh and feathers. The falcon had caught a city pigeon. Blood dripped from the carcass onto a lower branch. Momentary bright red streaked before the wood sucked the color in, turning it into a darker brown. A few drops fell on a leaf—poinsettias and Christmas.

I didn’t know what to do. Wake my parents? I wanted to call someone, Fatima or Lina: Look. I can see a falcon having a pigeon feast in Los Angeles. Who would have thought? I called Animal Control. “Hi,” I said. “This might sound strange, but I have a falcon in my yard.”

“So?” replied the Animal Control operator.

“I don’t know. Doesn’t it seem strange that there’s a falcon in my yard?”

“There are hundreds of falcons in L.A.,” she said.

Once, when I was a young boy—I must have been six or seven—my father took me on a business trip to the United Arab Emirates, where the corporation’s partner was one of the ruling princes. On the third and last day, the prince drove us out of the city for an excursion. That was my first encounter with the desert. Sand dunes everywhere; no plant could survive, no living thing should in that barrenness. Giant oil fires billowed black smoke that mocked the heavens. We rode for a few hours, until we reached a cluster of tents that had been set up to host us. An impressive meal was served, and my father glared at me to ensure that I wouldn’t slip and ask for utensils. I didn’t eat much, because I couldn’t figure out how to scoop the rice into my mouth with just my fingers, much to the amusement of our hosts. After lunch, as the scorching sun cooled, the prince decided to show off his falconry skills. He perched one of his three falcons on his leather-laden arm. Even blindfolded, it looked proud and regal. His servants unleashed a pigeon into the skies, and the prince unhooded his falcon. The predator took off and majestically dived into his prey’s path. Claws dug into
the helpless pigeon. The prince asked me, “Would you like to feel what it is like to have a bird of such magnificence on your arm?”

I was frightened. My father suggested I was too young. The prince boasted that he was younger when he flew his first falcon. One of his servants put a long, fingerless leather glove on my right hand. It was much too big and loose. The prince coaxed the falcon onto my forearm. The falcon’s eyes were mean and menacing. I shivered. The falcon dug in his claws, and the glove offered scant protection. I felt a sharp pain. The falcon jerked and flew off, screeching as it ascended. The prince couldn’t catch the leather leash in time. The falcon soared high and far.

The servants panicked, running around on the desolate sand with no apparent purpose. The prince shouted loudly and incomprehensibly. My father bent on one knee and removed the ineffective glove. Bright red bubbled from three punctures in my arm.

“Your son frightened my falcon,” the prince said.

“Damn your falcon to eternal hell,” my father replied. “My son bleeds.”

When my father woke up from his nap, I told him about the falcon and wondered whether he remembered the one in the Emirates all those years ago. He couldn’t recall a thing. I brought up all my markers—the desert drive, the grandiose flames of oil rigs, hands forming rice balls and flipping them into open mouths—but he dismissed my recollection. “I’d have remembered something like that,” he said. “Your arm was hurt?”

Uncle Jihad used to say that what happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of those events affect us. My father and I may have shared numerous experiences, but, as I was constantly finding out, we rarely shared their stories; we didn’t know how to listen to one another.

“It is time.” The woman sat under the second willow. “We must act without delay. Are you ready?” The emir’s wife lowered her voice so she would sound serious and resolute. “Of course I am. The dark one and his evil mother must disappear.”

“So they shall. Tomorrow, when the sun extinguishes itself in the sea, invite Fatima to tea. If you are able to remove the amulet from her person for a moment, I will make sure she never plagues your life again.”

“What about the boy?”

“The boy will be no trouble. I can handle him easily.”

“All you ask of me is to invite Fatima to tea and remove her amulet?”

“You must invite me as well.”

“I do not understand.”

“Invite me.”

“Will you join me for tea tomorrow evening?”

The woman smiled, and even though her face looked like that of an ordinary peasant, the emir’s wife was frightened.