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RABEE J ABER not gone away – his limbs were still shaking – but the blanket had helped. Then his face had swollen up, and his tongue had grown so huge inside his mouth that it felt like some outlandish creature that had found itself a burrow in the strangest of places. He had tried in vain to chew a piece of bread; his jaw slipped and his molars sunk into his tender gums. Drops of water, which were dribbled onto his lips from a wet piece of cloth, had prevented him from dying of thirst. At one point, something had happened and he had felt hands turning him over and moving him.After that, they had done something that had made him scream in agony: powerful fingers had groped his bare knee, then grasped his leg in two different places and twisted the joint. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve such torture.They bound his knee tightly and left him.The aroma of spices filled his nostrils and he struggled to keep from sneezing lest he make the pain even worse.The voice asked him to open his mouth. A hand as big as a shovel slipped under his neck and raised his head. The drops flowed sweetly, fragrantly, down his gullet. He gasped and wept, because he hadn’t died yet and because, despite the heat, he had recognized the taste of oranges. The place was dark as usual, but he gave it a try: he opened his eyes until it hurt and tried to see the Druze’s face. He could not see a thing. From the confused mass of sounds, every now and then he could make out a clear phrase, like a piece of yarn that had come loose from a knitted sweater. He realized he was being talked about when he once heard someone say “that poor Christian” and when, more than once, he heard “that Christian donkey”. He wasn’t able to connect the voices of the Druze around him with their faces.When he tried to, he discovered that he remembered the face of the freckled officer at the port and the soldiers who had beaten him as he lay on his back. He could not recall the faces on the boat, but he did remember his teeth and the huge drops of blood in the pool of water that had collected.The rumbling noise would sometimes become more distant and he would feel a slight warmth on his swollen eyelids, as though they had made an opening in the roof. “I’m Qassim. If you want anything, just call me!” said the voice.Yet he felt as though he were all alone, inside a black bag. Later, they took him out to the deck of the ship. Blinded by the sun, he imagined himself running down the long road to the house, along the dazzling strip of beach, which runs from Akka to Sidon. He blinked, then his famished body gave up on him and he fell.They had to carry him and as they were pulling him onto shore he heard the roll call. His good ear picked up on an ill-fated, mysterious name: Suleiman Ghaffar ‘Izz al-Din. He shouted himself hoarse in the underground chamber: “I am Hanna 116 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
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2012 INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION Yacoub!”The dampness was sickening. Mildew began growing on his neck and insects crawled over his body. He banged his head against the wall. He felt dizzy from the pain. He didn’t understand.The sea was like a black abyss. Before it was his life, and after it was this darkness that seemed to stretch to infinity. “Be patient, Hanna!” said his father in the darkness. The Belgrade Fortress – 2 Some time later, they transferred him to another underground chamber. In a place that was meant to hold ten prisoners, they had put seventy Druze men. On the way to the new underground chamber, he tried to talk to the guard, a square-bodied man who could see in the dark and who gave off a limy smell – it was as though he had been carved out of limestone. After releasing him from the ring on the wall, the guard grabbed him by the neck like a rabbit, lifted him up, thrust him forward and shook him. Hanna cried as he tried to explain to him what had happened at the port of Beirut. The guard wasn’t interested. In the hallway outside, Hanna heard a strange language.The words fell like hammers on his ears and, in a moment of revelation, he knew for certain that the ship had brought him to the ends of the earth and dumped him there. Some torches passed through the maze with lightning speed and he saw why his guard acted as though he were deaf: his ears had been cut off. The guard bound him and went away. In the new, cramped darkness he heard the Druze men asking after each other and exchanging greetings. Hanna realized that the men had just been reunited and that, like him, they had been scattered among the other underground prisons.This time their voices sounded familiar, agreeable; at least they were speaking a language he understood. He listened for a particular voice in the midst of the jumbled sounds, but hunger had made him drowsy and the dearth of air put him out like a candle. He sank into a slumber so deep that even the clanging of the door – were they bringing someone else in?Were they bringing food? – didn’t wake him. At a late hour of the night – or so it seemed, since they had lain down and gone to sleep and he could hear heavy snoring – he heard a voice near his ear, and gave a shudder. He didn’t know how he had managed to find him in the pitch black or how he had discovered he was there; he hadn’t made a sound the entire time, since he didn’t want the others to know he was there with them – he, “the Christian”. However, the Druze man had found him. He asked him how his mouth was, and how his knee was. “Better.” He asked him whether he had recognized his voice. BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 117

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RABEE J ABER

not gone away – his limbs were still shaking – but the blanket had helped. Then his face had swollen up, and his tongue had grown so huge inside his mouth that it felt like some outlandish creature that had found itself a burrow in the strangest of places. He had tried in vain to chew a piece of bread; his jaw slipped and his molars sunk into his tender gums. Drops of water, which were dribbled onto his lips from a wet piece of cloth, had prevented him from dying of thirst. At one point, something had happened and he had felt hands turning him over and moving him.After that, they had done something that had made him scream in agony: powerful fingers had groped his bare knee, then grasped his leg in two different places and twisted the joint. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve such torture.They bound his knee tightly and left him.The aroma of spices filled his nostrils and he struggled to keep from sneezing lest he make the pain even worse.The voice asked him to open his mouth. A hand as big as a shovel slipped under his neck and raised his head. The drops flowed sweetly, fragrantly, down his gullet. He gasped and wept, because he hadn’t died yet and because, despite the heat, he had recognized the taste of oranges. The place was dark as usual, but he gave it a try: he opened his eyes until it hurt and tried to see the Druze’s face. He could not see a thing.

From the confused mass of sounds, every now and then he could make out a clear phrase, like a piece of yarn that had come loose from a knitted sweater. He realized he was being talked about when he once heard someone say “that poor Christian” and when, more than once, he heard “that Christian donkey”. He wasn’t able to connect the voices of the Druze around him with their faces.When he tried to, he discovered that he remembered the face of the freckled officer at the port and the soldiers who had beaten him as he lay on his back. He could not recall the faces on the boat, but he did remember his teeth and the huge drops of blood in the pool of water that had collected.The rumbling noise would sometimes become more distant and he would feel a slight warmth on his swollen eyelids, as though they had made an opening in the roof. “I’m Qassim. If you want anything, just call me!” said the voice.Yet he felt as though he were all alone, inside a black bag. Later, they took him out to the deck of the ship. Blinded by the sun, he imagined himself running down the long road to the house, along the dazzling strip of beach, which runs from Akka to Sidon. He blinked, then his famished body gave up on him and he fell.They had to carry him and as they were pulling him onto shore he heard the roll call. His good ear picked up on an ill-fated, mysterious name: Suleiman Ghaffar ‘Izz al-Din.

He shouted himself hoarse in the underground chamber: “I am Hanna

116 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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