slowly. “The address is such and such a place in … kaza mahal near Lyon. I get off the train, I cross the platform, ya‘ni there is a little bridge over the tracks. I wait for the next train, it takes fifteen minutes, something like that. Then I stop at the station where the blond man got off. I take a taxi—there are many, many taxis in France—and I tell the driver, please take me to this place. Driver says—oh, you want to go to this place? I say yes, I want to go to this one. Tayyeb, it’s a short trip, we arrive, what is it? It’s a castle. A real castle, wallah al-azeem. Bisamuha chateau, bil faransawi. Long path like this, trees, and as I come up the path, I see horses running through the fields.”
In a dark courtyard, the whites of the eyes will betray the direction of a person’s gaze. As Midhat said the line about the horses, he caught Qais’s doubting gaze sliding over to Adel. Adel made no attempt to stifle a convulsion of his chest. A modest shudder, it could have been a burst of air from his dinner; nonetheless, it hurried Midhat to the point.
“So I knock on the door, I ask for this Monsieur—Laurent. They tell me, but he is not a Monsieur! He is a Duke! It’s not a lie, I swear to God—I see the blond man, coming through the far doors,” he pointed at a window across the patio, drawn by a lamp glimmering there, “he comes out and embraces me, all the servants shake my hands … it became a great friendship. He was so grateful. He said he was sure all the money would have been taken. I stayed there three nights. Then I went back to Paris.”
“Mish ma‘ool,” said Adel’s youngest brother. “That’s amazing.”
Adel locked eyes with Midhat and started to laugh. Still stinging with the accident of Laurent’s name, Midhat wondered, thus weakened, if Adel would challenge the veracity of his tale and embarrass him. Then something shifted; the muscles in his own stomach unfastened and he laughed, and Adel, set free, rocked backward and slapped his knee.
Perhaps it did not matter if he had invented the story. It was a good story, and that was plenty. This was the better way to tell his self; it was no use aiming directly. As the hilarity subsided, he experienced a rare moment of self-perception. He felt his presence from the outside, not only in space, but also in time. In a flash he saw this part he played for the men of Nablus as a kind of inverse of his persona in Paris—the part he used to play for women. He was always marked by his difference. Many times during courtships he had even purposefully weakened his French—which was then near fluent—and found he could play with ease the sweet buffoon and at the same time retain the glamour of hiddenness. There was always some kernel hidden in the folds, some mystery to long for. He could feel it again now, that double view.
He thought of Jeannette’s piercing look, directed from across a table. He wondered what she would have thought of this fabrication, and noticed, as from a distance, the possibility of shame. It was replaced immediately by anger. He held the anger down, and the moment passed.
As the dark became total, talk gravitated as usual to Nebi Musa. Adel’s father contended that the ratifying of the Mandate was a reaction to it, and that they had ruined their chances by that bloody scene. Adel, half in support of his father, repeated some of his usual polemic about using dialogue against disenfranchisement. It was a discussion had too many times before and did not take off beyond the usual circular arguments. They lost steam and Midhat suddenly thought of Basil’s gun. Just like his thought of Jeannette, this image arose out of nowhere. How strange: he had forgotten the gun completely. Haj Nimr’s acceptance came so soon after Nebi Musa it must have eclipsed everything else in his brain.
“Were there any shootings at Nebi Musa?” he said.
“Of course, there were shots,” said Adel.
“What?” said his father.
Mistaking this for deafness, Adel shouted: “I said of course—”
“You didn’t tell me that!” said his father.
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Who brought the guns?”
“Why should I know. Jabotinsky had guns. It was probably the Jews.”
“Oh,” Midhat broke in. “I remember …”
Another vision flickered. That army, or that militia,