A man with close-set eyes leaned his elbows on his knees and looked about to speak, when Raja Abd al-Rahman, an accountant and aspiring poet, broke in.
“Yes, I speak for myself. I am not Christian, Muslim, Turkish, French, Chinese, or any of these things. I am just one among humankind.”
“Raja,” said the man with close-set eyes in an exasperated voice. “That’s … You’re misunderstanding—”
“I misunderstand nothing.”
“No, we have to fight as a jama‘a, or people like you will suffer.”
“Omar,” said Faruq.
“What?” said the exasperated man. “His own actions will make him suffer. If he wants to be on his own, let him.”
“Khaleek shway,” said Faruq.
“What ‘khaleek shway’? They have just killed our best men. This is not about being one of humanity. We are from the East, every one of us in this room, and we have suffered enough. Lazim, kuluna, rise up.”
“Using the same tools as our oppressors?” said a warm, level voice.
Midhat did not recognise this speaker. He was tall and thin, with hooded eyes, reclining on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other.
“Really, if you were given the chance, you would colonize Europe?” he continued.
“Yes!” said Omar. “Of course! All this, you don’t want all this?” He gestured at the room around him as if the room itself, its green walls and mahogany chair legs and velvet cliffs, was the city of Paris in all her glory. “Come on Hani, be realistic, ya‘ni. Think. Use your … you know.”
“I am thinking. Are you thinking?” said the thin man named Hani. “I don’t think this is enlightened talk, habibi.”
“Hani is right,” said Faruq. “You know we have to be modern in our thinking.”
“Modern?” said Omar. “Ya zalameh, they may look like they are modern when you’re in … in Saint Germain, when you’re on a nice train, when you’re in a cinema, but believe me, believe me, they are as brutal as the Turk in their empires, in their wars, in their cannon. You are not listening to me. Isma‘nee. What does Arab tribalism look like? It looks like each town is his own country, and his country is better than the next town a hundred feet over. A united East is not Arab tribalism. By the definition.” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together and shook them, as if he held a piece of paper with the definition on it.
“Wallah, I don’t know,” said Bassem Jarbawi. “You know? They have killed us. They are killing us. Like the Armenians.”
“Who have they killed?” said Midhat.
“You didn’t read the paper today?” said Yusef Mansour, a Maronite Christian from Aley with an ivory moustache. “Midhat, you have to start reading the paper.”
“Another round of executions, nationalists,” said Hani. “Twenty-one Syrians hanged in Beirut and Damascus.”
“People from Palestine, habibi,” said Faruq.
“They will lose the war and then we’ll win,” said Jarbawi.
“Who, who from Palestine?”
“A Shihabi, a Nashashibi,” said Faruq, reaching behind him for a newspaper. “Ali Nashashibi, you know him? Salim al-Jaza’iri … wallah. They have cut out our eyes.”
He passed the paper to Midhat and pointed at the relevant paragraph.
“An jad,” said Omar, turning to Bassem Jarbawi. “You really think there’ll be independence that easily?”
“Ana … assez confident.” Bassem swivelled his hand.
“Abd al-Hamid al-Zahrawi,” said Faruq. “He chaired the Congress here three years ago. Important people, Midhat. We’re lucky to be where we are now, really.”
“Exactly,” said Raja Abd al-Rahman. “They’ll kill us if we go back, just like the Armenians, just like Zahrawi. Or enslave us, turn us into Turks.”
“So how did they catch them?” asked Midhat, handing the page back to Faruq.
“Papers at the French Consulate in Beirut. Habibi would you pass me that ashtray.”
“We’ve been colluding with France, amo,” said Bassem Jarbawi.
“I’m not returning until the war is over,” said a portly man from a cushion by the fireplace.
“That’s because you’re a chicken,” said Omar.
“They’re shutting down the newspapers!” said Bassem. “You really want to go back there and become a Turk? Omar, look at the,” he grabbed a journal lying beside him on the sofa, “at this, look, death, death, death. No alliances, nothing.”
“I think,” said Hani, still reclining, “that actually, the missions of the Christian countries, ya‘ni, this will be our greatest obstacle. Because at the moment, they want to undermine the Turks, yes. But then later … I mean, they are empires. We know what empires do. They are hungry. The muthaqafeen in this country, at least, they see Zionism as a project to make, you know, make the Arab world this European thing.”
“I don’t know that Zionism is really the issue,” said Omar, frowning.
“How can you say that?” said Hani, with an energy that pulled him upright. Midhat noted the yellow scarf that slid out from under his lapel.
“Our issue is independence,” said Omar.
“What? The two are completely intertwined.”
“I have to say,” Raja Abd al-Rahman raised his hand. “You’re forgetting that the Europeans don’t want the Jews here. You heard the story about this Dreyfus? Yahud, Muslimeen, we’re all the same to them, they don’t trust us. Just put us over there. So it’s not a matter of colonialism. It’s more a matter of disposal.”
Yusef Mansour heaved to his feet. “Glass of cognac anyone?”
“Please!” said Raja.”
“Careful. Anyone else?”
“So what was I saying,” said Raja, “yes, so, the Jews in Europe.”
“Is that glass dirty? Forgive me, I’m going blind.”
“Shush, let him finish.”
“Sorry.”
“Whereas we, on the other hand, we have always had Jews. Always, there have been Jews in Syria. They’ll just be Syrian Jews.”
“Raja, habibi, listen to me,” said Hani. “They already have their own stamps.” (“Stamps?” said Yusef to Bassem. “Ya Allah. We don’t even have our own stamps.”) “Exactly. So this really is the issue.”
“Still, at the moment, France is the bigger threat,” said Omar.
“You are all talking about independence as though Britain and France had won the war,” said Bassem. “The Turk is still fighting, there might be a truce or something. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“But if you look at the news,” said Midhat, weighing in for the first time. “And now that the Americans are in, the Germans are really … I think it’s only a matter of time.”
“Midhat, come sit here. You look uncomfortable.”
“I’m fine. The chair is just a bit broken.”
“Faruq your place is falling apart,” said Yusef.
“That’s because I have fifteen Arabs sitting on my furniture every night.”