mine, he decided, mine's not that gray. These aren't clean sheets.
But the sheets were newly washed and starched. He hadn't seen Layla for many years but in the dream they hadn't grown older, both of them beyond ecstasy to be naked together after so long missing each other, her skin, her lips, her hair, her sighs, the softness inside her, her passionate young lips seeking his. In his dream three men had broken into the room, tall and drunk, tripping over the bed and grabbing Layla. He fought them off, fought them into the hall and beat them one by one. But when he'd gone back, Layla was gone.
Blankets round his shoulders he sat drinking his coffee as Bratislava's ramparts took form against the day.
15
ROSA WAS breathing hard, a wildness in her eyes that made Mohammed want to protect and reassure her. Seeing her pretty, roundish face with its red high cheeks and olive eyes, her smooth young brow, her white teeth and red lips, her dark hair coiling down round her neck into the blush of her chest, it was hard to imagine what she'd just done.
Her breathing calmed. “Thought I'd die, that tunnel.” She closed her eyes, leaned back, air filling her lungs. “You never know what a joy it is to breathe till you can't.”
“I almost drowned once, when I was a child. Since then breathing seems almost holy.”
“What happened to the Christian snipers, on the top?”
“It was so hot up there their ammo was blowing.”
She shivered or shrugged, looked away.
“They were using the Life Building as a pivot and you took it from them, and now they've backed off their attack for fear we'll go round them. It was very brave, what you did.”
“Bravery's nothing. Only winning matters.”
He punched the side of his palm against the back of his neck, loosening the muscles, rubbed them. “You still haven't told me what you think that means.”
“Palestine.”
“And Lebanon?”
“You can tell Christians and Jews apart? After they've warred against us for how many thousand years?”
“We can't drive them all from Lebanon. From Palestine. Not yet.”
“Until they go there'll be no peace.”
“It was the French who put them over us. It'll never happen again.”
“For two thousand years – more, if you count the Romans – they've plagued us.”
“When we weren't plaguing each other.”
“And you hoped blowing up their embassy and barracks would scare them away? They have no memories, keep stepping in the same hole. Stepping on us. Even if they do leave they'll be right back, under the next politician, the next pope.”
A 155 was coming over and Mohammed waited for it to hit. “We didn't blow the American barracks. Nor the French ones, as people say.”
Her eyes seemed the pale green now of a snow river, the one coming out of the mountain at Yammouné, chunks of green ice crashing inside it. “Anyway, you wouldn't say...”
“Some day maybe I can.”
She moved closer, her smile's warmth making him shiver. “Tell me now.”
“It takes time.” He let his head drop forward, rubbing the back of his neck. “We've all spent another sleepless night.”
She bit her lip. “I can do that for you.”
“Sleep for me?”
“Don't be silly! Rub your neck. If you like. I always did it for my father. He'd follow the mule all day, pushing the plough, reins round his neck...”
Mohammed let his head rotate back, against his hand. “That was where?”
“Tiberias, the Golan, Mount Hermon – like I said.” She came behind him, making him fear for an instant. “Bend forward, let down your shoulders.”
“You crossed Beirut tonight and destroyed our enemy.” He rolled his shoulders, let them go; her fingers digging round the bone for the hurt muscle and worn tired tendons were like paradise. “Someone should be rubbing your shoulders.”
She leaned round, looking at him from the side, kneading the hard muscle at the top of his shoulder blades. “Someday maybe you can.” She unbuttoned his shirt from behind, breasts at his back, arms and wrists against his ribs, pulled it up out of his belt and slid it down his back, her hard strong fingers moving up and down the flat muscles on both sides of his spine, neck and shoulder, under the shoulder blades and up the stiff sore neck.
“I forget,” he gasped, “how heavy our heads are.”
“What a strong back you have – these muscles all across here, down here. You've done a lot of work.”
“In the hills I was a shepherd. But when I came to Beirut I worked in construction, carrying concrete.”
“Like the Palestinians do now.”
“You shovel the trough full of wet concrete and lift it up on your shoulders and carry it up to the top floor and pour it onto the slab. You start at the first floor and then on to the second, building it all the way up, the fifth, the tenth … And then you're going up twenty stories with a trough of concrete on your back, and this whole building has gone up in the sky on your back and the backs of your friends.” He stretched, pulling his shoulders forward. “Good for your back, your legs. For a while, it's even good for your head. And you can look at the building and know how it's built, and how you can take it apart.”
“What's it feel like, walking back down?”
“You can't take much time because they're paying you by the load and so you run down the steps, trying to fill your lungs and stretch your back and see the city far below down there.”
His muscles were so thick she could almost separate them, like ropes. Almost hard enough to stop a bullet.
“You have strong hands,” he murmured. “You have wonderful hands.”
His body loosened, relaxed, she had a sudden fear of losing him, but he had just drifted off to sleep in mid-sentence, and it made her want to soften her touch, stroke his brow. It was so easy, caring for a man, to make him a slave. He already had a wife, the famous Layla, Mother of the Revolution. But what man is ever satisfied with a famous wife?
NEILL STOOD in the middle of Staromestska Street, two fast lanes of cars whizzing past his back, two lanes in front, just the yellow line between his feet to keep him alive, with no cover and no way back. Cars sucked at the air as they rushed by inches from his skin, big and little, red and black and white, two-ton chunks of hurtling steel; he saw himself hit and knocked into an oncoming lane. There'd been a newspaper story somewhere, a kid's brain blown right out of his skull when he was hit by a semi.
The light turned red and the last traffic hissed through. He finished crossing as more cars roared out of the side streets like hounds wild to run him down. He jumped up on the pavement and stood in a shop doorway as the lines of cars and trucks screamed past. The shop was closed, tourist pictures of Turkey pasted on its window – crystalline blue bays, the blanched and barren hills, columns spiring toward the sun. There were personal ads for household help and selling a motorcycle and getting laid, for the bridge club of Bratislava, for underground films and lectures.
Before him was a torn poster of a great beast's skull, a man-rat staring down on a city aflame, that he had cloven in two with his huge sword. “Friday 13 March,” the poster said. “The Most Terrifying Night In Your Life. Don't Be Late.” The rest of the poster had been ripped off, and he glanced down at the dirty tile floor of the shop entryway but the torn part wasn't there. The lights had changed again and the traffic was roaring up and down Staromestska.
Why was the poster in English? Had it been? He went back to check. Yes.
Snow