It wasn’t until she’d sat down opposite him that the truth behind his words really socked her. “You …
knew
I’d gone to Greece?”
He spread his hands and grinned. “Of course. Just as I knew that poor Yusif flew off to Thailand to console himself when he heard.”
Leila looked down at where her hands were clasping and unclasping themselves in her lap. She’d known that Yusif was going to be on the agenda, but she had not expected him to show up quite so soon. Funny, though: Halib’s tone, when he spoke of Yusif, had sounded almost mocking.
“I wrote to him,” she said in a low voice. “It was very difficult.”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t worry about it. Father’s relieved.”
She raised her eyes at that, but only in an attempt to discover why he was playing with her so cruelly.
“Yusif took off for Thailand and what do you think, angel? Marty Chamoun is having drinks at this hotel in Bangkok and who should mince across the lobby but Yusif and a boy who Marty swears can’t have been a day over twelve. So Marty put a little money about, you know? And he discovered that these boys—there were quite a crowd—spend every night in Yusif’s suite. You had a lucky escape, poppet. I’m so glad, Father’s glad, we none of us knew.”
She wasn’t sure if she believed any of this. Her engagement to Yusif had been more or less arranged, she hadn’t known him particularly well either before or since the ceremony, although of course they’d spent time together. One of his more appealing traits had been an avowal of how much he respected female chastity before marriage; he’d never once suggested they do more than kiss. Even so …
“I had no idea,” she muttered.
Halib spread his hands even wider. “Water under the bridge. Shall I have the girls bring some coffee?”
She accepted, not because she was thirsty but because she needed time to think. When dealing with Halib, Leila often felt herself to be a piece on an invisible chessboard, incapable of determining her own moves; the sensation had never been stronger. She had spent the summer cavorting with an outsider in circumstances that had destroyed any pretense she might still have to a reputation. Many an Arab father would have had her whipped and then banished, even now, at the end of the swinging sixties. Beirut in general was not like that, but Feisal was, and Halib never did anything that might upset their father or jeopardize his status as only son, putative successor.
When Roxanne brought coffee, Halib paid her rather less attention than he might have given a waitress at the Ritz, although he was careful to ensure that she’d closed the door behind her before speaking again.
“Now, angel,” he said, in the let’s-be-reasonable voice he saved for family manipulations. “We have to talk about a few things, mm? I know you had a wonderful time in Europe. From the family’s point of view, let me speak frankly, not so wonderful, but"—he shrugged—"that’s the world of today. And fortunately Colin, we have nothing against him, he maybe saved your life one time, who knows? And you love him, of course, you want to marry him?”
When she said nothing, his face clouded.
“Leila. I sincerely hope that you want to marry this man, that he wants to marry you. An engaged couple go on a spree, what the hell? But if you’re
not
engaged …”
His voice dropped lower and lower, until she could scarcely hear him. He was most dangerous when absolutely silent. He held himself immobile, hands clasping the arms of his chair, and she knew he was judging her. He had the power to do that. He could sentence her too.
“I would like permission,” she said, “to become formally engaged to Colin Raleigh, and to marry him"—she had been on the point of saying
as soon as possible
but wisdom prevailed; they must not think she was pregnant—"after a reasonable interval, to ensure that we can all get to know him better than we knew poor Yusif.”
“Well said, poppet. Of course, I can’t speak for Father, but having met this Englishman and liked him, I feel sure I can make your case for you.”
“Should I come home, speak to Father myself?”
“Not necessary, unless he calls for you. Does this mean you won’t be continuing your education?”
“I …” She realized she had not thought about it; the prospect of confronting Halib had been so terrible it left no room for anything else.
“And where do you intend to live? Should we find something for Colin to do in Beirut?”
“No.”
“I thought not. And after all, why should either of you want to live in Lebanon? Things there will get worse, angel, much worse; much better to make your base somewhere safer. England, I dare say?”
“I like England,” she said defensively.
“I’m very fond of it too; you’ll see a lot of me.” He seemed to become positively jovial at the prospect. “Colin wants to teach, perhaps?”
She stared at him. It was true that Colin had decided to pursue an academic career. But he’d only made up his mind the night before. How could Halib have known?
Halib’s knowledge must stem from careful analysis of Colin’s character and past history. Which opened up another field of inquiry altogether: how had he found out about Colin’s background?
He’d been spying on Colin.
She knew herself to be part of an endgame now, and the bedroom turned cold.
“I think,” he said carefully, “you should marry very soon, poppet. Or people back home are going to talk.”
She almost hated him whenever he called her “poppet,” but this time she swallowed her rage and said, “How soon?”
He did not even pretend to consider. “Next month.” She looked into a face that was suddenly stone and asked, “Why?” “Because we say so.”
Father plus son equaled we. The royal We. “I don’t have any say in the matter of my own wedding?”
“No.” He stood up. “Understand a few things, Leila. You’ve shamed us, to say nothing of yourself. But we’re not going to cast you out, we’re not going to cut off the money supply or destroy the man who ruined you.”
If he was waiting for her to thank him he waited in vain.
“Of course you have to marry this Englishman,” he went on, “if you’re to retain respect from beggars in the street. But you have to give something in exchange.”
“What?”
“Assistance.”
“What kind of assistance?”
“You’ll be told when it’s necessary for you to know.”
“And if I refuse?”
Thus did she make her final move, asking for bravado’s sake; don’t let the bastards grind you down, that’s what Colin always said. It didn’t alter anything.
“If you refuse, we shall wall you up in Beirut for the rest of your life. And if by any chance you were to escape, rest assured of this: you would never be able to find your fiancé, not if you tramped the world for a thousand years.”
Checkmate.
C
ELESTINE
spent the night of 21 July somewhere in West Beirut with her eyes blindfolded, listening to the shells fall and wondering who was responsible for this latest bombardment. Not long after sunrise, two of Feisal’s men pitched her into a car before driving off at high speed. She sensed they were leaving the city behind; then rough hands snatched her blindfold away and she knew they were on the coast road, heading south.
“Where are we going?” she demanded to know, although deep inside she had already guessed the answer; when Hassan looked around and said, “Damour,” it was merely a confirmation.
Celestine had all but forgotten about the beach house at Damour, just a few miles south of Beirut, until the odious Hassan muttered their destination in response to her request, and then how the memories came flooding back!—midnight swims, the speedboat, dancing on the terrace, the parties, oh, my God! how she remembered those parties…. Lebanon, Lebanon, she thought; gone are the days of my youth, and of thine also.
Yet some of her happiest times had been spent quietly at Damour, with just Ibrahim and a few books for company, and the radio banned except at weekends. Feisal had been conceived at Damour. When Celestine woke up next morning she’d had no coherent memory of the event itself, although she did feel certain she was pregnant and not even a hangover could dispel that. It had all seemed so wonderful at the time. She had no means of knowing, then, that one day she would come to fear her son, while he detested her.
“I thought the Israeli army would have burned our place,” she said to the glass, her voice tinged with disappointment. “On their retreat.”
“We have no trouble with the Israelis,” Hassan said complacently.
The big Volvo raced down a narrow track between banana plantations and the sea, sending a shower of dust billowing into the air. Celestine recalled how she and Ibrahim had gone to visit this place shortly after their marriage: just a spit of land overgrown with long grass, the rusty remains of an abandoned tractor, and a hut. The banana plantation that occupied most of the hinterland was owned by an old school friend of Ibrahim’s who had fallen on hard times. Ibrahim wasn’t interested in bananas, but he liked the view from the ruined hut. It would not, however, have occurred to him to bid for the hut minus the fruit trees; he was acquiring from a friend who wouldn’t stoop to take charity, and, since the land’s value lay in its produce, it was a case of all or nothing.
Actually, the bananas had done rather well; as had the tomatoes, avocados, oranges, and lemons into which Ibrahim had diversified, in his usual muddled kind of way. He had been an impulse buyer all his life, and almost alone among Lebanese businessmen his impulses had made him rich.
As they drew up in front of the beach house, Celestine wondered whether her late husband hadn’t, in fact, been a good deal less disorganized than he looked. But she didn’t like to think about that, because it implied that he knew what he was doing when he bankrolled the Palestinians, thereby courting the death that took him away from her, along with reasons for living.
Hassan pattered into the house, leaving the driver to bring their bags. Nothing much had changed, Celestine discovered as she mounted the steps to the terrace, with its view of the bay, sand left in untidy piles in corners, and the beach umbrella with the hole in the canvas propped up against one wall. The house was a simple, one-story structure of concrete blocks and wood, but it was big. She’d stipulated it must be big before Ibrahim had it built, because she knew it was going to be the most spectacular venue for her parties. So there were plenty of bedrooms, although walking through now she could see signs of damp and decay everywhere she looked and the sight pained her. Today was cloudy and humid; depression hovered like black thunderclouds over the Mediterranean on a sultry October evening.
“How long are we here for?” she asked Hassan. “You can pour me one of those.”
Hassan was, with habitual temerity, helping himself to whisky from a cupboard that in her day had been kept locked. Now, looking over his shoulder, she saw that this menial, this worm, possessed the key. Celestine had never understood what her son saw in this unpleasant little man. It was typical of Feisal to appoint Hassan her prison governor.
“Until the unhappy business in Yemen is resolved,” he said, rising with a glass in either hand, “we shall stay. There is radio.” Hassan flicked dust off the old set and turned it on, producing a blare of pop music. Celestine told him to switch it off, but Hassan was jiggling about with an idiotic grin, snapping his fingers. She stormed over to the set. He got there ahead of her. The hand on her wrist was like a steel brace. She struggled, but his grin merely intensified.
As she threw herself onto the dust-sheeted sofa she knew that tears were very close. She wasn’t crying for herself. Every second she spent cooped up here was a second nearer death for Robbie and Colin. She yearned to be on the outside, doing something, anything … such frustration! She rummaged in her handbag for a tissue.
Her hand made contact with her perfume sprayer, fiddled with it absently. She was running low on Blue Grass; best to save it.
From far away, through the plantation, came the noise of a car. Celestine was old but her hearing remained acute, better than Hassan’s anyway, for he showed no sign of having noticed anything and continued to dance around the room, swigging whisky. She knew he was enjoying this. Hassan had always hated her ever since, years ago, she’d put up a fight with Feisal, his master, and so earned permanent exile to Yarze. She’d crossed her son once too often without having settled his hash, lacking the courage of her convictions in a society where the only discipline that counted was a good sharp dose of death.
Funny, she’d never been able to have another child after Feisal, only a series of miscarriages. There was something satanic about that: the devil child, having fought his way into the world, would not countenance a rival. She should have strangled him at birth, long before he’d had a chance to sire Halib and Leila. No, how could she think such a thing? Feisal had been a lovely child, so pretty
Celestine stood up and began to wander around the room. The noise of the car had faded away, but she couldn’t get it out of her mind. The engine had sounded so … so
homely,
that was the word. A part of her recognized it, deep down inside, without being able to give it a name.
She heard Hassan click his teeth behind her and turned around to find him shaking his head reprovingly. “
Thinking to escape?”
Celestine had unconsciously gravitated to the front door.
“Please, do not.” Hassan’s smile revealed a mouth full of old steel-gray fillings. “Emil will wake up and then who knows? Eh?”
Emil, she remembered, was the driver. She’d not seen him before, but he looked a brute: vicious and unintelligent. Who knew, indeed?
“Is the water still connected?” she snapped.
When he merely shrugged she went through to the bathroom without asking permission. Underneath the washbasin she found a plastic bucket full of cloudy water. There was no towel, no soap. The shower curtain crawled with mold, and it stank. Slugs and spiders occupied every vacant crevice. Celestine opened the lid of the toilet and immediately shut it again, but not quickly enough to trap all the flies that lived in there or to avoid a reek of what they lived on.
The square window above the toilet seat was too small to allow an adult to pass through. She gazed up at it with a sinking heart. Damn!
Someone had left a half-full bottle of bleach by the tub. Celestine lugged the orange bucket over to the toilet, sloshing water everywhere. She was just nerving herself to whip open the toilet for long enough to rinse it out with a mix of water and bleach when she heard something.
She raised her head. That noise had come from outside the house. Not Hassan: she could hear him bouncing to the music again. Emil must have wandered around to the back to take a piss.
But it didn’t sound like a man. Shushing noises, as if branches were being trodden underfoot, only very lightly … an animal?
Celestine climbed up onto the toilet seat and cautiously peered out. The glass was so encaked with dirt that she could see nothing except the green of trees outside. She fiddled with the catch and jerked the window open.
As the panel swung outward it made sharp contact with something; Celestine heard a muffled cry and leaned out to see Azizza below her, one hand held to her temple. Sensing someone above her she looked up, and for an instant the two old women merely gazed at each other, speechless.
“Oh,
Izza!”
Celestine was first to recover. She spoke in a loud whisper, praying that Hassan would stay wrapped up in his stupid pop music. “How did you get here? Oh, of course! That was the car I heard!”
“Yes.”
“But how did you know I was here?”
“I guessed. I knew he couldn’t keep you a prisoner in his own house, there’s too many visitors, and the apartment in town’s not safe. He kept you there last night, though. 1 couldn’t do anything while you were there, it’s crawling with his scum.” Azizza looked anxiously to right and left. “Can you squeeze through the window?”
“Not a chance,” Celestine hissed.
“And no back door.” Azizza cogitated. “How many inside?”
“Just Hassan.”
Hearing the name, Azizza made a face. “And only the one in the car?”
“Yes.”
“He’s snoring, don’t worry about him.” “
But Hassan …”
“I don’t know … you have to find a way of overpowering him.”
“How?” Celestine waxed indignant. “You expect an old lady to barge in with a club, perhaps?”
“You always used to carry a gun in that handbag of yours.”
Celestine opened her mouth to protest that she hadn’t carried a gun in years when the reference to her handbag triggered something in her mind.
“Listen,” she said, after a pause. “I’ve got an idea…. ”
A few moments later, Hassan was startled to hear a scream high-pitched enough to rise above even Radio Liban’s raucous output.
“My eye!” Celestine staggered into the room, clutching her handbag to her chest. “For the love of God, Hassan, look in my eye, see what it is!”
He kept his distance while he examined her closely, suspecting a trap. “What’s wrong with your eye?”
“Something in it. In the water, oh,
mon Dieu,
but it’s bleeding!” she cried out. The radio could scarcely compete, though Hassan switched it off anyway with an ill-tempered sweep of his hand and advanced toward Celestine.
“Sit down,” he growled, as he pushed her onto the sofa. “And be quiet!”
But his words only caused her to keen more loudly. Hassan, hearing steps on the veranda, looked up in irritation to find that Emil, the driver, had come in to see what all the fuss was about. “Here,” Hassan said to him. “You hold her down while I look.”
Emil went around to the back of the settee and grasped Celestine’s shoulders while Hassan lowered his head until he could peer into her eye. Neither man noticed what she was doing with her hands. Celestine silently removed the scent sprayer from her handbag. She raised it and felt Emil’s hands tighten on her shoulders as he saw, too late, what she was about to do.
She injected a mixture of bleach and water straight into Hassan’s eyes.
He staggered back, screaming. Celestine half rose while she attempted to twist around and aim her spray at Emil’s face, but her reflexes weren’t fast enough and his hand released her right shoulder, flying to seize the wrist instead. The rubber bulb gave under pressure, evicting a small puff of vapor, and both of them turned away their heads, but the struggle went on. Celestine, acting from instinct, leaned forward, trying to pinch Emil’s hands into her waist and neutralize him; but now he moved his left hand to her brow and began to force her head back. She wasn’t strong enough to fight him for long. By now his other hand was gripping the spray bottle’s neck.
That was when Azizza ran through the door. She paused opposite Hassan, who was still reeling around with his hands to his eyes, drew an almighty deep breath, and butted him in the chest. He careened backward against one of the radio’s sharp upper corners. Azizza jumped onto Emil’s back and clung there like the Old Man of the Sea, thumping the top of his head with her fist.
Emil dropped Celestine. Realizing that this new assailant was a woman and lightweight, he thought to roll forward, pitching her over his shoulders onto the floor and, with any luck, breaking her back. But before he could act Celestine sat up, aimed her spray, and scored a direct hit on his face. He shut his eyes, flailing free of both women. Azizza went crashing against the wall. Emil, confident that he’d seen her off for the moment, turned his attention to Celestine. He launched a backhander at her chin with all the force he could summon, but he dared open his eyes only a crack and could not see to aim properly; the blow went wide by a foot or more, causing him to lose his balance. As he went down on one knee Azizza came at him, brandishing the whisky bottle. It landed on top of his crown. The bottle did not break, as in the movies, so she hit him again, and a third time, until the deep, dark red fountaining up through his hair signaled that she had won. Emil fell forward onto the floor with a thud that made Celestine grit her teeth.
Azizza held a hand over her heart. She was wheezing, her face had turned white, and for a fearful moment Celestine thought she might faint.
“Out,” she cried. “Out
now!”
But Hassan stood between them and the doorway. He had a gun in his hand. He was waving it around in a series of uncontrolled loops while he blindly sought the safety catch. Celestine caught a glimpse of his eyes, and she gasped: two orbs of off-white mucus with no pupils visible; she had done that, yes, she had blinded a man; her legs trembled, she reached out for something to support her … but when he fired, sending a bullet through the ceiling, that broke the spell. She grabbed Azizza’s hand and rushed straight at Hassan with her arm rigid and her free fist outstretched like a battering ram. It contacted with his Adam’s apple. He went down with a wet gurgle that made her think of eyeballs dissolving in acid, and she cried aloud, but she cried in freedom. There was warm salty air on her skin, the sound of waves in the distance, she was out, she was running. Azizza had concealed her old Citroën Dyane behind a clump of banana trees, not far from the beach house, the same sky-blue Dyane,
My God, this car is ten years old;
it was rusty, it was battered rather than dented, its hood had gone, but when Azizza turned the key it started the fourth time and when she put it into gear it moved off, sedately, and there they were, two old biddies in an old junker, going for a spin. Unworthy of anyone’s attention. Of no interest to Shiite gunmen or Phalange militia. Free.