De Niro's Game Read Free Page B

from the butcher store, and they hovered around the lanterns then burned. Saad’s brother Chahker — a pompous idiot, if you ask me — was there. So were his cousin Miriam and his mother and father and a few of his relatives and friends. George was there, too, drinking and smoking quietly.
    I looked at George and he smiled at me.
    Jokes were made about Sweden and Swedish women, blondes and the cold weather. A man with thick villager’shands and a rough neck and a mountain accent started to sing. Saad’s family joined in. They sang songs that were foreign to me, villagers’ songs that I had never heard before, hymns of goodbye and return and marriage, warnings not to marry foreign women: Our women are the best in the world, they do not dishonour you, and our land is the greenest. Go make money and come back . . . She will wait for you.
    But those who leave never come back, I sang in my heart.
    George drank heavily. He laughed and flirted with Saad’s cousin. It made Chahker nervous and jealous. Chahker had asked for the hand of Saad’s cousin, but she had refused. She was young, with red cheeks and long legs. She was caught between her villager’s norms and trying hard to show off her newly acquired urban manners. Saad and his family were refugees from a small town; they had fled when a gang of armed forces attacked and massacred a great number of villagers and farmers.
    By late that evening, George was very drunk. I pulled him down to the street and he threw up on the curb.
    He reached for his motorbike, but I stopped him, and he swung punches at me. I held his hands, talked to him, trying to calm him down, asking him not to shout. Then I dragged him to his aunt’s place. I left him lying at the bottom of the stairs, ran up and knocked at Nabila’s door. She opened the door, frantic. Who? she said. Is Gargourty okay? Who? Oh, Virgin Mary, help us. Who?
    No one, I said. Everyone is alive. George is just drunk and sick.
    Where is he?
    Downstairs.
    Nabila ran down the stairs, her hand barely touching the ramp, half-naked and filled with fear; she caressed George’s cheeks and kissed the tips of his fingers.
    Together, we picked him up and carried him upstairs. Nabila cleaned him, took off his shirt, his shoes, and his pants, and gave him her own bed and covered him with an old blanket. Then she sat on the sofa and wept.
    I worry about him, you know? When a phone rings late at night I often think that someone is dead. He has a gun. Why does he carry a gun?
    It is his work. He needs it, I said.
    He should go to school. I will pay for his studies. Let him go back to school.
    She offered me coffee, and I accepted. She tiptoed to the kitchen and poured water in a
rakwah
, grabbed a small spoon, the coffee, the sugar. She boiled the coffee thrice, brought it on a tin tray, and let it rest like a gracious wine before pouring it for me in a small cup.
    I drank. Nabila watched.
    Is it sweet enough for you? she asked.
    Yes.
    I read George’s cup the other day. It was dark, so dark. Let me read yours.
    I do not believe, I whispered.
    She held my cup and looked inside. She saw waves, a distant land, a woman, and three signs.
    The usual superstitious beliefs, I said.
    No! I see it. Come over here, see? This is the road, this is the sea, and this is the woman. You see?
    No, but . . .
    She smelled like the night. I slipped my hand onto her knee.
    Nabila held my hand, pressed it, and moved it toward my chest. No, Bassam, go home. She kissed my hand as if I were her own child. Take care of George, tell him to go back to school. You should go back to school too. You are a smart kid, you like to read. As a child you recited poems with your uncle.
    Goodnight, I said.
    You take care of Gargourty, Nabila said, and followed me to the door.
    I went home to my bed. When I woke up, Saad had gone to Sweden.
    BOMBS FELL, warriors fought, people ate, and the garbage piled up on the corners of our streets.