He’d looked at her pityingly, as though she were a child. “Some things you know, poupée.” The nickname, meaning “doll,” stuck. Souad hated it, but she learned not to throw tantrums. In Elie she’d met someone, finally, who was more volatile than she.
He has many faults. He becomes grandiose when he drinks, is prone to exaggerated gestures and endless, solipsistic speeches. He winks at waitresses. He emanates a certain smell, not entirely unpleasant but slightly baked in, like leather or day-old bread, especially after a night of drinking. He seems not to see her sometimes, blinking when she speaks to him as though he’d forgotten she was there. And Souad, accustomed to attention—the youngest of her family, the liveliest of her friends—is scathed by such indifference.
Still, when he kisses her, pulling her summarily against him, she feels all of her selves scatter and then, exquisitely, repair.
Souad walks the length of the courtyard until she sees the fountain, two teenage girls sitting at the marble lip and smoking cloves. One of them wears large, black-framed glasses and is speaking rapidly in French while the other girl nods. Souad crosses them and sees the red of the Chat Rouge sign.
She pauses outside of the entrance, watching her reflection in the dirty, reddish glass, her chest split by the curve of the g. She is afraid. Though Elie mystifies and infuriates her in many ways, Souad understands him well enough, she realizes slowly, that she will know instantly whether he meant what he said last night. She will know as soon as he looks at her.
For a moment, Souad remains outside, listening to the girls, catching the words jamais and collier and merde. It is like listening to an orchestra. She wishes she could walk up to them and take a seat, ask them if she should go home, ask them what will become of Kuwait, whether she should trust Elie.
A couple stagger out of the bar, laughing and carrying beer cans. The air from the bar whooshes outside—music and chatter—and Souad steps in.
The bar is always crowded, chain smokers seated around small tables. One side of the room has a long wooden bar, the bottles behind it twinkling like jewels. Ivan, the bartender, pours glass after glass, his silver hair cut into a pageboy, a gold hoop dangling from each ear.
The group, Albert, Sami, Marcel—the Libanais who spend their summers in France—sit on stools, their usually boisterous tones muted, glum. Elie is at the edge of the bar, his eyes on the television, another news story about Kuwait—already the flames and bulldozers are familiar to Souad—his expression grave. The television flickers on his face, his eyes hollowed and somehow older, much older.
Watching the forlorn expressions, Souad feels something click within her and she knows that she will remember this moment, that she will come back to this as the crux of her life, the instant when she fully understood the gravity of it. There would be no return. Her clothing—so much of it borrowed from Budur—the large evil eye dangling from her window. The map she’d hung after an argument with her mother years ago, enormous, spanning an entire wall with blues and greens. Her old school, the chalk on her classroom floor, the market her father likes to buy melons from. She suddenly recognizes it all as lost. It is enough to make her weep, and she walks to them, wishing to tell Elie, praying that he will be kind.
“Souad!” Albert says, and voices tangle in greeting. Souad keeps her eyes on Elie, watching him as he turns. She sees the truth assemble itself on his face. And she knows: He meant it. He meant what he said last night, and he means it still.
“Do you see this bullshit?” Sami asks her.
“It’s awful,” she says, trying to keep the joy out of her voice. He meant it, he meant it.
There are murmurs of assent, and Souad walks to Elie’s side. A horrible thought crosses her mind, a doubt—that he would never have asked if Saddam hadn’t invaded—and she is briefly, disgustingly, grateful for the flames on the television. She shakes her head to banish the thought.
“You came.” His voice is low, full.
“They’ve burned everything.”
“I know.”
Souad watches the news, a pretty reporter speaking, though the sound is muted. Behind Elie and Souad, people are having lively conversations in French. They wouldn’t be able to find Kuwait on a map.
She orders a whiskey sour, eats the cherry first. The alcohol is harsh on her tongue, but she drinks gratefully. She and Elie talk carefully, predictably, about other things. The airport closing, his father going to Lebanon.
“And you?” she asks, her heart filling with the question. She is afraid, suddenly, of saying yes or no.
“Fuck Beirut,” he says, a glimmer of his old self showing. “I keep telling them. Makes no sense, trading one war for another. My aunts say the mountains are fine. But Jesus—a village life? Sheep and chamomile tea every morning? Non, merci.” He squints his eyes at the television in a gesture Souad recognizes as studiously casual. “Your mama still going to Amman? Did you talk to her?”
“I missed her call,” Souad says, her mouth dry. This is it; they are coming to the heart of it. “But it’s still Amman. Amman for everyone.”
She holds her breath as Elie swallows his beer, turns finally to her. His eyes fill with recognition, then transform entirely. Gentling, dark and warm. He looks luminous.
“Hey,” he says.
Souad turns. Fucking Séraphine. She is a childhood friend of Elie’s from the summers he spent in Paris. She stands, a shot glass in each hand. A blue scarf is twisted attractively around her torso, slithers of pale skin showing. Tassels fall against her hips. Eyes like a cat’s, bottle green. Her nose tiny and sloping, a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Over the weeks, Séraphine appeared at various parties and bars; Souad befriended her with the wariness of one who wishes to keep a threat close.
Okay, boys, okay, one at a time, Séraphine will say at last call when the Chat Rouge men clamor to buy her another drink. She seems to pick favorites arbitrarily. Sometimes Sami, one of the Libanais visiting from Kuwait; sometimes émile, a thin bearded Parisian. A slew of other artistic, handsome men. On any given night, she focuses almost exclusively on one man, often letting him kiss her before reapplying her lipstick right at the table, with everyone watching her.
“Whiskey,” Séraphine says now. “For this shitty night.”
She sets down one for Souad and one for herself, and Souad lifts hers. They clink glasses. Souad swallows, welcoming the fire in her throat.
“Assieds.” Elie stands, and Séraphine smiles at him, taking his chair. Now she and Souad are next to each other, one of her tassels against Souad’s thigh.
Séraphine clicks her tongue. “Horrible, c’est incroyable, ce qu’ils ont fait.” She glances at Souad, switches to English. “He is a terrible man, Saddam.”