The School of War Read online

  Alexandre Najjar

  The School of War

  Translated from the French by

  Laurie Wilson

  TELEGRAM

  To the memory of Robert Najjar

  Contents

  Prologue

  Esthetics of the Shell

  Fireworks

  Snipers

  The Barber

  Loving

  Under Fire

  Home-schooling

  The Bullet

  Water

  The Corpse

  The Radio

  The Candle

  Grenades

  The Shelter

  Roadblocks

  Gas

  One Shell All

  Alcohol

  The Long Vacation

  The Hospital

  Refugees

  Car Bombs

  The Schoolteacher

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  All wars are alike. What I experienced in Lebanon, others experienced in France, in Spain, in Yugoslavia or elsewhere. Yes, all wars are alike, because while weapons change, the men who wage and are subjected to war do not in the least. As a child, I sometimes heard my Uncle Michel talk about ‘Big Bertha’. I thought he was talking about an aunt or a distant cousin. It was not until later – much later – that I understood that he had appropriated the nickname given to an enormous German howitzer during the Great War, so he could talk about the war without frightening us. ‘Big Bertha’ … Eighty years later, on the brink of the third millennium, in a country located on the shores of the Mediterranean, the same code-name, the same ugly war, the same tragedy.

  When I resolved to return to Lebanon, after a seven-year absence, I was seized by a double sense of anxiety: that of seeing the past catch up with me, and that of being disappointed by the postwar situation. I had left the Country of Cedars after fifteen years of having, with all my strength, resisted a violence that spared nothing. I had frequented the war like one frequents a lady of the night, had drained my cup to the last dregs. Once peace had been re-established, I had decided to go elsewhere for a breath of fresh air, as if, my mission accomplished, I suddenly felt the need to clear my mind, to forget the drama I had endured, under another sky.

  The war was an unbearable nightmare for me, but was also – how could I deny it? – an excellent schooling in life’s lessons. Hemingway said that ‘any war experience is priceless for a writer.’ I would like to believe that. Without the war, I would have been another man. All my life, I will undoubtedly regret not having had a peaceful childhood (I was eight when the war broke out, twenty-three when the guns were silenced) and having often seen death from too short a distance. But these regrets, these trials, have given me a new understanding of happiness. A day without bombings, a bridge that isn’t under sniper siege, a night without a blackout, a road without barricades, a clear sky across which no rockets shoot … for me, all of this will henceforth be synonymous with happiness.

  As for ‘Bertha’, now that I know the truth, I prefer to believe, as I did as a child, that she is a plump old lady who strolls through the streets in her big white hat, smiling at children and handing out candy to them.

  Beirut, June 1999

  Esthetics of the Shell

  ‘Ahlan wa sahlan!’

  Aunt Malaké greets me, and I give her a kiss and enter the living room, walking into a heavy aroma of tobacco and honey.

  ‘You still smoke your narghile?’

  ‘It’s my favorite pastime,’ she replies, shrugging her shoulders.

  Nothing has changed in this house: the slightly outdated furniture, the painting of the opera singer Umm Kulthum, the black-and-white portrait of Uncle Jamil, and the cat hair on the blue carpet. On a coffee table, near the buffet, a bouquet of white roses in a cylindrical container.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘A shell case. It’s decorative, don’t you think?’

  ‘Decorative’ … This word takes me back fifteen years. The first shell, like a baptism.

  The first shell was lying at the base of a 240mm gun mounted in a schoolyard in Achrafieh. Around the gun stood three permanently assigned militiamen who, on a day of truce, invited me to share their snack. Until then, I had thought shells were invisible – I saw them explode far off in the distance in a geyser of smoke, encircle the bombed villages with an ephemeral halo, set houses and pine forests ablaze; I heard their din as they crashed down on my neighbourhood, or their whistle as they sliced through the air over the house … To see a shell, to caress it, was a revelation for me. With its oblong, esthetically faultless form, its generous curves, its nose cone that recalls the contours of a breast, its elegant blue-grey colour, and the brilliance of its steel casing, polished like a piece of marble, a shell is beautiful, marked by perfect beauty. To the touch, it is cold and hard; who would believe it could explode into a thousand pieces? Oddly, it emits a sense of security. So who dreamed up this instrument that combines obesity and beauty so well? Was it to highlight the precariousness of all things beautiful or out of perfectionism that its creator took such care to polish this projectile that in the end disintegrates as it disseminates terror? I deduced that this unknown artist, along with the sniper, was among those who lend their art to the service of Death and who seek perfection in murder itself.

  The second time I saw a shell I felt a sense of fear that I had not experienced the first time. During the night a shell had crashed to the ground only a few yards from where I lived. Miraculously, it had landed in the road without exploding. At daybreak, the local baker noticed it and called the entire neighbourhood out into the street.

  Azifé ya chabéb! Azifé ma nfajarét!’

  I was awoken by his cries: ‘A shell, everyone, an unexploded shell!’ and I very naturally went down into the street to witness the event. At a safe distance from the object, a circle of curious onlookers had formed. I joined in. The projectile had bored into the asphalt, like a javelin in the sand, leaving only its base exposed for us to see.

  ‘If it had exploded, it wouldn’t have left a single house standing,’ the baker exclaimed.

  ‘Not so loud,’ his neighbour murmured, elbowing him. ‘You might revive it.’

  ‘It looks like a suppository,’ one of the kids observed.

  ‘The priest ran towards us, a censer in hand.

  ‘It’s divine providence.’

  ‘It’s divine providence,’ the crowd echoed.

  He pulled a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help out of the pocket of his cassock. He carefully approached the projectile, set his picture on the ground, and hurriedly retraced his steps. Next, a housewife moved forward, brandishing a bouquet of daisies. She decorated the area with flowers and backed up to her place in the circle.

  ‘Let us pray,’ the priest proposed.

  The members of the congregation crossed themselves, then said a prayer:

  Remember, O Virgin Mother of God, when you stand in the sight of the Lord, to speak good things on our behalf, that He may turn away His anger from us.

  The ceremony would have continued had it not been for the arrival of the warrant officer, who was greeted with applause. The warrant officer was the army’s official mine clearance expert. In great demand, he responded to the requests of all belligerents – regardless of their loyalties or convictions – with the selflessness of a country doctor. I had previously only seen him in television reports recounting his exploits, and I must confess I had prayed to the Almighty that I would never have occasion to see him in person.

  Having arrived within a step or two of the projectile, the warrant officer raised his hand in a call for silence. And the crowd fell silent. He circled the shell four or five times, then went down
on one knee, opened a small case, and took out his gear.

  ‘Move thirty yards back,’ he ordered.

  The crowd moved away, backing up as if they were a single body.

  Hidden behind a utility pole, I couldn’t follow the progression of his operation. While his hands fiddled with the shell, I couldn’t help but think of the temerity of this being who flirted with Death on a daily basis. How did he bring himself to handle this device that could very well blow up in his face? What did he have in the place of a heart that kept him from fearing that one unsteady movement of his fingers could make everything blow?

  The warrant officer finally stood back up. He wiped his hands in the midst of a cathedral-like silence. He gathered his things, bowed his head to the picture of the Virgin set next to the shell, then, with a satisfied sigh, said:

  ‘It’s over.’

  He was showered with cheers. The women came out on their balconies and tossed rice, while the curious moved closer to touch him. The neighbourhood’s inhabitants forgot everything – war, deaths, shortages – to acclaim the hero. As he passed near me, an older woman drew him to her breast and placed a loud kiss on his forehead.

  ‘We all admire your courage,’ she cried enthusiastically.

  The warrant officer did not blush. He wiped his brow and replied, unshaken:

  ‘What you call courage, Ma’am, I call knowledge.’

  Fireworks

  In the living room of my family home, I contemplate my sleeping mother. She has aged a little. But the gentleness has not left her face, which is lit up by a satisfied smile. I can sense that she is happy I have returned. I observe her hands – they are the hands of a tired woman, worn by time and by the war.

  When I replay the scenes of my childhood, the image of my mother, standing or moving through a swarm of kids, is ever-present. I am the second of five children, which perhaps explains why at no point during my childhood did I ever experience boredom. Moreover, boredom was a notion that was totally unknown to me. One of my friends, who was an only child, would endlessly complain about what he called al dajar: boredom. I was so tormented by this word, whose meaning I was not familiar with, that I asked my mother about it. She had a terrible time describing the feeling of emptiness and melancholy, undoubtedly because she herself had forgotten all about boredom in the midst of our tribe.

  My memories of my pre-war childhood are sparse, and above all cushioned in a feeling of lightheartedness, a true godsend that is lost as we grow up. Then came the war. Without warning, it interrupted the daily existence of an entire people, requiring them to adapt to a new situation, to radically change their way of life, to set aside their joys and pleasures. We children were far from realizing the true extent of the danger or that the enemy militia were bearing down on our city – it wasn’t that we were too foolish to follow the progression of the operations, but we were naive enough to believe the adults’ stories.

  ‘It’s nothing, children. Just fireworks.’

  This single sentence – my mother’s innovation – had been enough to transform the din of shells exploding above our house into a carnival. The first time a shell fell near where we lived, in the middle of the night, I was terrified. It was like a violent storm: a flash, a light zig-zagging across the sky, a rumble, and the shaking of the windows. I pulled the covers up over my head.

  ‘It’s nothing, sweetheart. It’s only fireworks.’

  My mother’s soothing voice, her warm hand on my forehead, and this lie that, though it was derisory, worked wonders. Our fear gave way to joy, the very kind we would feel on September 1 – Saint Simon the Stylite’s Day – when the vendors would set up their booths and sell candy, and musicians would lead the dabké and other popular dances. The earth could stop turning – the idea that a carnival, fireworks and all, was in full swing only a few blocks from where we lived made us the happiest kids in the world.

  A Lebanese proverb says that ‘a lie is on a short rope’. I learned the truth thanks to a cousin who was less credulous than I was. I felt a deep sense of disappointment – so all of those celebrations hadn’t taken place – as if I had been had and, above all, I felt a retroactive fright, stirred up by the awareness of my casual attitude towards shells.

  ‘Why did you hide the truth from me?’ I asked my mother.

  ‘I didn’t want to traumatize all of you …’

  ‘So you lied to us.’

  ‘It was a “white lie”. I twisted reality to delude your fear.’

  ‘To delude fear’ … How could I be angry at my mother, with that disarming smile of hers.

  ‘I don’t regret having lied to you, not for a minute. The enemy was only a hundred yards away and your faces were radiant. Without the optimism I read in your eyes, I couldn’t have made it through.’

  Today, as I watch my mother sleeping, I bless the innocence that led us to believe all that she told us, and without which shells never would have been fireworks.

  Snipers

  The bridge had been dubbed the ‘ring’, though no one really knew why. Perhaps because during the war years it had been the scene of extremely violent fighting. It connected the eastern Christian side of Beirut to the western Muslim side of the capital. From the balcony of my family home I observe it, squinting. The morning wind tousles my hair.

  ‘Faster, Moussa, faster!’

  The taxi driver’s voice resonates in my memory. Only yesterday a myriad of snipers kept watch over the ‘ring’, their only purpose being to prevent any vehicles from crossing it. Is there anything more cowardly than a sniper? And how did they get their name in the first place? I can only find one explanation that makes any sense: they are called ‘francs-tireurs’ (snipers) because they proceed ‘franchement’ (straight ahead), without discussion, without a second thought, without the torment of scruples. They act as if they were at a carnival, trying to win the stuffed-bear prizes. They play hide-and-seek with their prey. They take aim – at a child, a woman, a dog – and as soon as the target is in their line of fire, they mechanically pull the trigger. The shoulder supporting the rifle is jolted, the elbow pulls back. The target collapses, moaning or yelping, depending.

  I feel a chill run down my spine. Where are those snipers today? Where are they hiding? Maybe they have become ordinary men, decent people, good family men like you run into at the supermarket, on the way out of the mosque on Fridays or at ten o’clock mass on Sundays. Are they nostalgic for the time when they could quench their thirst to kill without anyone or anything bothering them? Do they no longer have itchy trigger fingers?

  ‘Faster, Moussa, faster!’

  From out of the past, I hear the voice of the taxi driver giving himself words of encouragement. I see myself again, sitting next to him in the front seat. Before us lies the ‘ring’, the bridge of death, that snakes endlessly along in front of the leprous buildings …

  Every Saturday Moussa would take me to see Ghada, who lived on the other side of the demarcation line. He drove an ageless car, a white Plymouth with chrome fenders, as big as an aircraft carrier. This vehicle was a second home for him, as it were – he had carefully furnished it and took loving care of the accessories that adorned it. From the rear-view mirror hung a small chain with a blue stone that apparently had the power to avert the Evil Eye. The dashboard was covered with a sort of sheepskin carpet, the colour of which had turned from white to yellow over time. Near the glove compartment, there was a gold plaque that read: La tétakhar ya baba, nahnou bintizarak, which means: ‘Hurry home Dad, we’re waiting for you.’

  On the outside, near the exhaust pipe, he had suspended a little baby shoe that, according to Moussa, had belonged to his first child, Rachid. ‘It’s a good luck charm,’ he assured me in a solemn voice. ‘Children’s shoes ward off evil.’

  ‘Faster, Moussa, faster!’

  Moussa straightens up in his seat, grabs the bottle of Johnnie Walker lying next to him, tosses back a shot of whiskey, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand then, clenching his
teeth, steps on the accelerator. The Plymouth sets off, its tyres screeching. Thoughts run through my head: it takes about twelve seconds to cross the bridge at sixty miles an hour. They might be the last twelve seconds of my life. My heart jumps. His head tucked down between his shoulders, Moussa drives toward the other end of the bridge at breakneck speed, not knowing whether death or life will greet us upon arrival. He speeds on. Without a second thought. Like the sniper who takes aim at us.

  Through the half-open window, the wind blows into the car, whipping my face, whistling in my ears, tousling my hair. If I can feel it, that means I’m still alive. I crouch down in my seat and close my eyes. A shot rings out. One of the back side windows shatters. The wind rushes into the car and sends the glass fragments flying. ‘If I can feel it, that means I’m still alive.’ I count: ‘Eight, seven, six seconds until deliverance’ … Second shot. A sharp crack tells me that the bullet has lodged in the body of the car.

  ‘Asrah, asrah!’

  The pedal to the floor, Moussa curses his car and exhorts it to go faster, as a jockey whips his mount nearing the finish line. Spurred on by the impact of the projectile, the Plymouth takes off. The wind engulfs my face. ‘If I can feel it, that means I’m still alive.’ A third shot. But it is too late.

  I open my eyes. A barricade topped by a red flag – we have arrived. Moussa brakes abruptly. He leans his forehead against the steering wheel and lets out a deep sigh. I relax my jaw.

  There is no more wind, but I am alive.

  ‘Al hamdoulillah aala salama!’

  Moussa pronounces the ritual formula: ‘Thank Allah that we made it safe and sound.’

  ‘Khalas?’

  I ask him if it is over. He replies with a nod. Yes, it’s over. I am still among the living.

  I open my wallet and pull out a five hundred pound bill. Moussa raises one eyebrow and looks at me mockingly. He motions towards the broken back window with his chin.