Page 15 of Never

‘A smart guy.’

Abdul said bitterly: ‘That’s why we can’t catch him.’

‘He can’t hide from us for ever.’

‘I sure as hell hope not.’

Tamara turned around to face him. She stared, as if trying to understand something.

He said: ‘What?’

‘You really feel this.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Not the way you do.’ She held his gaze. ‘Something happened to you. What was it?’

‘They warned me about you,’ he said, but he was smiling gently. ‘They said you could be a bit blunt.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve been told I ask overly personal questions. You’re not angry?’

‘You’ll have to work harder than that to offend me.’ He closed the hood. ‘I’m going to pay the man.’

He strolled over to the hut. Tamara was right. For him this was not a job, it was a mission. It was not enough for him merely to damage ISGS, as he had with the intelligence on al-Bustan. He wanted to wipe them out. Completely.

He paid for the gas. ‘You need some cigarettes?’ the proprietor joked. ‘Very cheap!’

‘I don’t smoke,’ said Abdul.

Tamara’s driver came into the hut as he was leaving. Abdul returned to his car. For a couple of minutes he had her to himself. She had asked a good question, he thought. She deserved an answer.

He said: ‘My sister died.’

***

He was six years old, almost a man, he thought, and she was still a baby, at four. Beirut was the only world he knew then: heat and dust and traffic, and bomb-damaged buildings spilling rubble into the street. It was not until later that he learned Beirut was not normal, that that was not how life was for most people.

They lived in an apartment over a café. In the bedroom at the back of the building, Abdul was telling Nura about reading and writing. They were sitting on the floor. She wanted to know everything he knew, and he liked instructing her, for it made him feel wise and grown-up.

Their parents were in the living room, which was in the front of the building, overlooking the street. Their grandparents had come for coffee, two uncles and an aunt had shown up, and Abdul’s father, who was the pastry chef for the café, had made halawet el jibn, sweet cheese rolls, for the guests. Abdul had already eaten two and his mother had said: ‘No more, you’ll be sick.’

So he told Nura to go and get some.

She hurried out, always eager to please him.

The bang was the loudest noise Abdul had ever heard. Immediately afterwards the world went completely silent, and there seemed to be something wrong with his ears. He started crying.

He ran into the living room, but it was a place he had never seen. It took him a long time to understand that the entire outside wall had vanished, and the room was open to the air. It was full of dust and the smell of blood. Some of the grown-ups looked as if they were screaming, but they made no noise; in fact, there was no sound at all. Others lay on the floor, not moving.

Nura, too, lay motionless.

Abdul could not understand what was wrong with her. He knelt down, grabbed her limp arm, and shook her, trying to wake her, though it seemed impossible that she was sleeping with her eyes wide open. ‘Nura,’ he said. ‘Nura, wake up.’ He could hear his own voice, albeit faintly; his ears must be getting better.

Suddenly his mother was there, scooping Nura up in her arms. A second later Abdul felt himself lifted by the familiar hands of his father. The parents carried the two children into the bedroom and put them down gently on their beds.

Father said: ‘Abdul, how do you feel? Are you hurt?’

Abdul shook his head.