nipples.
She was anxious, looking around, watching for stray visitors, nature lovers and bird hunters, and when I pushed my hand inside her tight jeans, she said: Bassam, stop. Not here. Bassam, stop!
I did not stop. I was breathing like a hound and I forced myself on her; Rana froze, then gripped my hand and pushed me away. She pointed the gun at me.
When I say stop, you stop! You stop, she shouted in anger.
I walked toward her. I grabbed her wrist, pointed the gun again at my chest, and said, Pull it!
You are hurting my wrist, she said.
I took the gun back, and we both kept our silence, breathing heavily.
Then we drove farther up into the hills. We stopped and looked at the city again. A long, mushroom-shaped cloud sprang from the earth in West Beirut.
A bomb, Rana said to me. Look, a bomb just landed.
More like an explosion, I said.
As we drove back down the hill, Ranaâs hands caressed my chest. She drove her nail into my flesh and said, I could have shot you here.
MY MOTHER CAME shuffling up the stairs with bags in her hand: vegetables, meat, bread.
She called me into the kitchen. What is going on between you and Rana? This morning over coffee her mother asked me about you two.
What did she ask?
About your job, and if you are interested in visiting their house with me. She said Rana is at the age to be engaged.
We are just friends, I said.
Donât lie to me, Bassam. Rana is like a daughter to me, and she is not that kind of girl. If you are not serious, do not ruin her future. People talk here. People talk.
I walked away. She shouted at my back, Yeah, just like your father. He always left, and he kept on leaving. A good-for-nothing, he was a good-for-nothing.
I heard the kitchen door slam behind me.
MORE THAN TEN thousand bombs had landed, and I was stranded between two walls facing my trembling mother. She had refused to go down to the shelter unless I came with her. And I refused to hide underground. I, descended from a long line of mighty warriors, would die only in the open air above an earth of muddy soils and whistling winds!
My mother jumped at every explosion. She called upon one female saint after another but none of them, busy virgins, ever answered her back.
Petra, the little neighbour girl, crawled up the dirty marble stairs and knocked on our door; she looked suspiciously at my glittering sword and warrior face, then covered her lips and whispered a secret in my motherâs ear. My mother stood up and walked straight to the bathroom. She came back with a box of Kotex and said, It is empty,
habibti
, but do not worry; come with me.
The little menstruating body stood up, her face a deep, bashful red. She dashed inside, to my motherâs bedroom.
I walked down the stairs, out of the building, and across the deserted street toward Abou-Dolly, the grocer. The store was closed, but Abou-Dolly lived with his family in the back. I knocked. The grocer opened the door a crack. He saw me and frowned and asked me what I needed. Kotex, I said. We are closed now, he answered in a dry tone.
It is urgent! I said.
Come in.
I entered the house. It smelled of villagersâ soap, ground coffee, and rotting vegetables that had fallen under the loud fridge, and two cats that fed on brown mice, and the grocerâs daughter, Dolly, who was breastfeeding her newborn from her round white breast that made me thirsty. When I stepped in, Dolly covered her baby and her breast in a pink wool quilt. Um-Dolly, the grocerâs wife, was there knitting in the corner; his son-in-law, Elias, was wearing suspenders and gazing at the wall and smoking. They were all gathered around twopitiful candles that flickered in a wild, diabolic motion, projecting everyoneâs shadow on Hades and its burning walls.
Abou-Dolly, a middle-aged man who had never had a son, and whose nickname referred to his older daughter, handed me two packs of Kotex. Which kind do you want? he asked me.
I held both cases close to
She was anxious, looking around, watching for stray visitors, nature lovers and bird hunters, and when I pushed my hand inside her tight jeans, she said: Bassam, stop. Not here. Bassam, stop!
I did not stop. I was breathing like a hound and I forced myself on her; Rana froze, then gripped my hand and pushed me away. She pointed the gun at me.
When I say stop, you stop! You stop, she shouted in anger.
I walked toward her. I grabbed her wrist, pointed the gun again at my chest, and said, Pull it!
You are hurting my wrist, she said.
I took the gun back, and we both kept our silence, breathing heavily.
Then we drove farther up into the hills. We stopped and looked at the city again. A long, mushroom-shaped cloud sprang from the earth in West Beirut.
A bomb, Rana said to me. Look, a bomb just landed.
More like an explosion, I said.
As we drove back down the hill, Ranaâs hands caressed my chest. She drove her nail into my flesh and said, I could have shot you here.
MY MOTHER CAME shuffling up the stairs with bags in her hand: vegetables, meat, bread.
She called me into the kitchen. What is going on between you and Rana? This morning over coffee her mother asked me about you two.
What did she ask?
About your job, and if you are interested in visiting their house with me. She said Rana is at the age to be engaged.
We are just friends, I said.
Donât lie to me, Bassam. Rana is like a daughter to me, and she is not that kind of girl. If you are not serious, do not ruin her future. People talk here. People talk.
I walked away. She shouted at my back, Yeah, just like your father. He always left, and he kept on leaving. A good-for-nothing, he was a good-for-nothing.
I heard the kitchen door slam behind me.
MORE THAN TEN thousand bombs had landed, and I was stranded between two walls facing my trembling mother. She had refused to go down to the shelter unless I came with her. And I refused to hide underground. I, descended from a long line of mighty warriors, would die only in the open air above an earth of muddy soils and whistling winds!
My mother jumped at every explosion. She called upon one female saint after another but none of them, busy virgins, ever answered her back.
Petra, the little neighbour girl, crawled up the dirty marble stairs and knocked on our door; she looked suspiciously at my glittering sword and warrior face, then covered her lips and whispered a secret in my motherâs ear. My mother stood up and walked straight to the bathroom. She came back with a box of Kotex and said, It is empty,
habibti
, but do not worry; come with me.
The little menstruating body stood up, her face a deep, bashful red. She dashed inside, to my motherâs bedroom.
I walked down the stairs, out of the building, and across the deserted street toward Abou-Dolly, the grocer. The store was closed, but Abou-Dolly lived with his family in the back. I knocked. The grocer opened the door a crack. He saw me and frowned and asked me what I needed. Kotex, I said. We are closed now, he answered in a dry tone.
It is urgent! I said.
Come in.
I entered the house. It smelled of villagersâ soap, ground coffee, and rotting vegetables that had fallen under the loud fridge, and two cats that fed on brown mice, and the grocerâs daughter, Dolly, who was breastfeeding her newborn from her round white breast that made me thirsty. When I stepped in, Dolly covered her baby and her breast in a pink wool quilt. Um-Dolly, the grocerâs wife, was there knitting in the corner; his son-in-law, Elias, was wearing suspenders and gazing at the wall and smoking. They were all gathered around twopitiful candles that flickered in a wild, diabolic motion, projecting everyoneâs shadow on Hades and its burning walls.
Abou-Dolly, a middle-aged man who had never had a son, and whose nickname referred to his older daughter, handed me two packs of Kotex. Which kind do you want? he asked me.
I held both cases close to
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