Yalo (8 page)

“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.”

“I swear to God, I loved her and I'm sorry, I did wrong by her. I raped her, and I loved her, and I'm sorry, and that's it. Now I don't love her anymore, please, sir.”

Why did the interrogator ask him about the sea?

“Yes, sir, I took her and we went to the beach at Ramlet al-Baida.”

“. . .”

“Yes, I combed her hair for her there, and asked her never to cut it.”

“. . .”

“Yes, I told her I could walk on water, like Christ.”

“. . .”

“Yes, I walked on the water, and I didn't sink.”

“. . .”

“She said, too, that that she saw me walking on the water.”

“. . .”

“Yes, I tied up her hair for her, and made a
kokina
.”

“. . .”

“That's what we call it in Syriac.”

“. . .”

“No, actually, I mean, I know a few words that I heard from my grandfather.”

“. . .”

“Yes, I told her I'd bury her if I saw she'd cut her hair.”

“. . .”

“Bury her, yes, I said bury her.”

“. . .”

“No, that wasn't a death threat, it was just talk, I mean, a way of talking.”

“. . .”

“Yes, yes, it's all true, but a boat, no, we didn't see boat lights coming from the sea.”

“. . .”

“Me, no. Yes, I had a flashlight with me, only no, I did not use it to send signals.”

“. . .”

“That's what she said!”

“. . .”

“She's crazy, sir, yes, she is a crazy woman.”

“. . .”

“What does it have to do with me, what she thought? I wanted her to learn things, and learn about life, and be convinced that love can work miracles.”

“. . .”

“Yes, yes.”

“. . .”

“After that she wanted to go, but I told her that she couldn't.”

“. . .”

“She's a liar! I didn't take money from her.”

“. . .”

“She put a hundred dollars in my pocket and left. I discovered the money when I got home and I got very angry, and I meant to hide it for later – someday I'd marry her and spend the money on her.”

“. . .”

“Yes, yes.”

“. . .”

“No, there was no boat.”

“. . .”

“I was wearing my black coat because I never take it off.”

“. . .”

“I had the flashlight with me because it's always in my pocket.”

“. . .”

“Sir, that is just a habit from the war.”

“. . .”

“And now I don't feel whole, not only because you took my coat and consider it a piece of evidence, I'm lost because I don't have my flashlight, so I feel blind, even in broad daylight. I only see right when my flashlight is on.”

“. . .”

“When the guys came and grabbed me, the flashlight was about to go out.”

“. . .”

“I swear to God, sir, it's a habit, just a habit.”

“. . .”

“No, no, that was not my intention.”

“. . .”

“That's just the way I am, that's the way I've been all my life. I didn't want anything. I swear to God I did not want anything from Shirin, right now even if she wanted me, I wouldn't want her.”

“. . .”

“I was thinking . . . I wanted . . .”

“. . .”

“I don't know – I don't know.”

Y
alo tried.

He listened to the questions and answered them, or tried to answer them, but the interrogator kept going back to the flashlight, to the fact that he forced the girl to drink seawater, and kept insisting that he was sitting here not with another human being, but with a savage beast.

“I have seen plenty, I've interrogated a lot of criminals, but I have never seen a beast like you. I want you to tell me everything, why you committed these deeds. And I'm warning you, it's not enough to tell me that you put that fellow in the trunk of the car and fucked the girl, it's not enough to tell me that you ripped off the watch and the money and told them good-bye. And I don't want the story of that guy who asked you to sleep with his girlfriend, or the one about Bernadette who pretended to be hitchhiking and you found out she was a whore. When you got to the forest and the guy tried to do her, she began to scream that she wanted money, and you got out and made him pay her, and you divided the money up with her, and you laughed like crazy people, and that poor guy, what was his name? I can't remember. Tell me, what was his name?”

The interrogator started searching through his papers without success.

“Tell me his name. What are you waiting for?”

“I don't know his name, sir, you told me his name was Najib Hayek and that he was a lawyer. I didn't know his name. In my line of work we don't
ask names, they don't mean anything. But her – I wish I'd never heard her name. I don't know what happened to me.”

“What happened to you? Now you're pretending to be innocent and that this has nothing to do with you. I don't care about these stories. I want to get to the bottom of this flashlight story, why you had it, and who you were signaling to from the beach at Ramlet al-Baida. And you can explain to me how anyone could drink seawater and make others drink it.”

How could Yalo respond? What could he say?

He said that there was no boat. He said that the flashlight was part of him, exactly like the long black overcoat, but what could he say about the seawater? Should he tell the interrogator about Cohno Ephraim and the night of the baptism? Should he tell him about Gaby and her hair, which flowed golden in the moonlight as her father combed out the long wet strands and young Daniel sat at their feet, shivering with cold.

The
cohno
would take his small family to the beach to await the Sacred Spirit that would arrive when it could. On the beach at Ramlet al-Baida, after night fell and the small stars appeared through the clouds over the sea, the
cohno
bent over the water and drank, took a few steps in the cold water and high waves, grasped his grandson's hand with his right hand and his daughter's hand with his left, and they proceeded into the sea. When the water reached the child's waist, the
cohno
bent over, murmured a few strange words in a strange language, then filled his hands with water. He let the mother drink from his hands, then her son, and then finally drank himself. After each of them had drunk three times, they went back, walking backwards. When Yalo's hand slipped from his grandfather's and he ran back to the beach, shivering with cold, the
cohno
ran after him and led him back into the water, holding his hand tightly.