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RABEE J ABER “You’re Qassim.” He asked him whether it hurt the roof of his mouth to talk. “No, but my tongue is heavy.” They spoke in whispers so as not to wake the others.Their conversation was broken up by the sounds of muttering, snoring and a distant commotion. “My name is Hanna.” “I know who you are. You’re Hanna Yacoub, a Christian from Beirut. Your house is at the wall of the Mar Elias Catholic Church. You nearly burst my eardrums with all your yelling at the port!” “What did I do for them to lock me up here? Is this the land of the Serbs?” “Do you have family in Beirut? What does your father do?” “My father’s buried in the Santiya Cemetery. He used to work at the furnace in the public bath.” “And your mother?” “She died when I was just a baby. I was alone with her at home one day, and when my father got home that night he found me still nursing even though she was dead.” “Do you have brothers and sisters?” “I have three sisters and I have my wife and my daughter.” “Is your daughter still little?” “She’s eleven and a half months old.” “Strange.” Hanna didn’t ask what was strange, but his silence asked for him. “Our brother Suleiman, who was released, has a daughter who’s eleven and a half months old. And like you, he doesn’t have any other children yet.” “Why are they keeping me locked up here? Why do they leave us without food?” He felt something stir and knew Qassim had moved away. Hanna ran his fingers over the wall until he found some moisture. He kept his hand on the spot until it was wet, then tasted the water. It was acceptable; it extinguished his thirst and relieved the itching in his swollen tongue. He could hear his stomach. Hunger was tearing his insides apart, and he didn’t know if he could endure any more. “I’m going to die now. That’s why I can feel my father’s presence. It’s been ages since he last crossed my mind.Yacoub the stoker. My father.That’s why I heard his voice. How did he find me?” Just then, an incredible smell invaded his nose: boiled eggs! Somebody was peeling eggs and eating them! He opened his mouth to swallow the smell. “Here! Take this!” said the voice. It was Qassim. He 118 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
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2012 INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION had brought him some strange sort of bread that had been dipped in soup. “Onion and oil,” Qassim whispered as he moved away. The Belgrade Fortress – 3 Later, the situation improved because the Pasha had given orders for them to be brought out to work in the orchards. In the beginning, however, they had endured things too horrific to contemplate. The darkness was a total, unremitting punishment. Even at mealtimes no light entered the underground chamber.The door would be opened a crack, letting in a slightly attenuated darkness, and two wooden pails would be sent inside. Then the door would clang shut and be locked once again.There was only one time when a ray of light would filter in from a lamp or candle at the end of the corridor. However, it was precisely at this time that no one wanted to look. Many of them would hold their noses and try to go back to sleep.Two diminutive slave boys would come in to clean out the “pot”. They would remove the wooden chest with the hole in the top and empty it with two shovels. The first one had a short handle, while the second, which was longer, would sink to a depth of two metres into the hole. Once, as they were carrying the filled pails outside, Hanna heard someone crying. He lifted his head and saw reclining bodies covering the floor. He couldn’t see a single face; all he saw was hair.The hair on their heads had gotten tangled up in their beards, while the darkness had covered their features with ink.They were pressed against each other, heads up against feet, and he was pressed in among them. If he wanted to turn over at night, it took a long time. He couldn’t imagine how any air managed to make its way into that tomb.When they released them from their shackles, they were still barely able to move. He had a nightmare in which he saw one of them kneeling on his chest and strangling him because he was a Christian. Another time, he woke to strange banging sounds and before he realized that someone was pounding his skull against the wall, he heard screams and moans.Then the bodies surged, colliding with each other as they climbed through the darkness in an attempt to get to him. “Leave me alone! I want to die! Leave me alone!” “It’s Ghanim Abu Ghannam. I can’t close up his head.” “Hold onto him!” He fought them off with the strength of a bull being slaughtered, but they managed to overpower him and wrap his wound with strips of torn clothing.The warm smell of blood filled the chamber. One of them continued applying pressure to his head but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. “For God’s sake, leave me alone!” BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 119

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RABEE J ABER

“You’re Qassim.” He asked him whether it hurt the roof of his mouth to talk. “No, but my tongue is heavy.” They spoke in whispers so as not to wake the others.Their conversation was broken up by the sounds of muttering, snoring and a distant commotion.

“My name is Hanna.” “I know who you are. You’re Hanna Yacoub, a Christian from Beirut. Your house is at the wall of the Mar Elias Catholic Church. You nearly burst my eardrums with all your yelling at the port!”

“What did I do for them to lock me up here? Is this the land of the Serbs?”

“Do you have family in Beirut? What does your father do?” “My father’s buried in the Santiya Cemetery. He used to work at the furnace in the public bath.”

“And your mother?” “She died when I was just a baby. I was alone with her at home one day, and when my father got home that night he found me still nursing even though she was dead.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” “I have three sisters and I have my wife and my daughter.” “Is your daughter still little?” “She’s eleven and a half months old.” “Strange.” Hanna didn’t ask what was strange, but his silence asked for him. “Our brother Suleiman, who was released, has a daughter who’s eleven and a half months old. And like you, he doesn’t have any other children yet.”

“Why are they keeping me locked up here? Why do they leave us without food?”

He felt something stir and knew Qassim had moved away. Hanna ran his fingers over the wall until he found some moisture. He kept his hand on the spot until it was wet, then tasted the water. It was acceptable; it extinguished his thirst and relieved the itching in his swollen tongue. He could hear his stomach. Hunger was tearing his insides apart, and he didn’t know if he could endure any more. “I’m going to die now. That’s why I can feel my father’s presence. It’s been ages since he last crossed my mind.Yacoub the stoker. My father.That’s why I heard his voice. How did he find me?” Just then, an incredible smell invaded his nose: boiled eggs! Somebody was peeling eggs and eating them! He opened his mouth to swallow the smell. “Here! Take this!” said the voice. It was Qassim. He

118 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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