Yalo by Elias Khoury Page B

lit a cigarette.
    Madame Randa got up and covered her naked thighs in a nightdress, left the television bright with the movie, and went into her room, dragging her feet. At that moment Yalo saw how Madame’s gaze came from above and broke on the floor. He did not finish his drink. He put out his cigarette and went home.
    In the days that followed, they spoke to each other. She scolded him and he scolded her, but she never uttered the words “I love you.” She never once told him that she loved him, even when her water would spill in his arms. She’d rise like a ghost then sit cross-legged on the bed, her eyes dancing and shifting above her long neck before settling down and gazing afar.
    In the course of that long week she still never uttered those words. Her pleading, broken eyes spoke but did not speak. Yalo felt a mixture of fear and pride. He saw her at the entrance to the villa and felt the bliss of that night. He followed her as usual to help her carry her purchases, but she did not look at him.
    One night she summoned him to the villa. He went up, grumbling, sure that this would be another bickering session. He went in and saw her sitting alone in the salon, drinking whiskey. She motioned for him to approach and sit down. He sat on the floor beside her sofa and reached out to pour himself a drink, but she said no. She did not reach out to fondle his head. She drank and drank while he sat in his place. Then she turned to him and pointed to the door. Yalo left, stumbling, and realizing as he slammed the door that it was all over. He sensed that his days in the villa were numbered, and began to prepare for a new turn in his life, but he still could not let goof Shirin. He called her every morning, went to her house and stood in front of it, followed her to the company where she worked, and stood in front of the building entrance. Now he went home to the villa only at night. His hunting activities ended; he no longer had any desire to stand under the oak tree waiting for lovers who would fall prey to his flashlight. Ghada returned the books he had stolen for her from the Ras Beirut Bookstore on Bliss Street. Yalo would live sad and alone and would never stop buying the music tapes of Abd al-Halim Hafiz. He would spend his nights listening to the song “Her Beloved.” He thought about writing a letter to Shirin, but realized that he could only write in Arabic, and doubted that the girl knew how to read Arabic. From then on, his encounters with her would depend on pure chance.
    That is what he told the interrogator.
    He said it was by pure chance that he met Shirin.
    â€œAnd the telephone calls every day, you dog?” asked the interrogator.
    Why did he ask him about the phone calls as if he didn’t know the answer? People made phone calls because they felt lonely. Yalo wanted to tell the interrogator that he felt lonely because he had no friends. There was no one Yalo could talk to about his love story with Shirin because he lived with no one. From the day Tony abandoned him in Paris, he had lived alone, he and his shadow, he and his rifle, he and himself.
    Yalo discovered his loneliness with Shirin when she left him there in the Albert Restaurant after lunch, and after having agreed to pocket the hundred-dollar bill, refusing the larger amount she had offered him. There, he felt lonely, and missed his friend Tony Atiq.
    Why had Tony done that?
    Why had he left him in an unfamiliar city where he didn’t speak the language, why had he left him alone with no language and no money?
    â€œThere, sir, there, if you’d allow me to say so, it was cold. Real cold,sir, that makes everything in you shiver, every muscle in your body, every shudder of your eyes, everything. There, sir, the cold made you blue with fear and loneliness.”
    Yalo told Shirin about the cold. He tried to tell her, but she laughed at him: “You’re the world’s greatest liar!” she said, and refused