The Smell of Soap

Artwork by Ira Joel

By Elias Khoury, trans. Ghada Mourad

In this excerpt from Elias Khoury’s previously untranslated novella, ‘The Smell of Soap’, the narrator goes to the cinema with a girl he just met. As they watch a documentary on the musician Jamil Al Haddad, the narrator fantasizes about the hours that will follow the film and also remembers his years as a member of an armed militia in Beirut.

We rushed into the movie theater. The lights had begun to dim and darkness to surround us. The moment of darkness that precedes the lights emanating from the screen is the most beautiful of the film. Darkness, she by my side, her laughter still ringing in my ears, and Genghis Khan’s picture filling my eyes. But I don’t spoil the movie for her, and she doesn’t look at me. She looks at the screen where we see the director’s and the actors’ names and a background image of a man lying on the ground with his lute at his side, and loud music. But she doesn’t like war, and I think if we asked Genghis Khan whether he liked war he would say no. Or he would light his pipe, sit cross-legged, and start to discuss the future while smoke blew out of his mouth and nose. And I am ready, ready to talk to her in better words than his and without smoke, but she doesn’t want to listen and I don’t want to speak. I want her. I want this long black hair. I want.

“What did you say?” she asked

“Nothing, nothing. Yes, have you been to a cemetery?”

She asked me to lower my voice. She said that she hadn’t been to one, and she didn’t ask me why I asked her.

 

A side snapshot of Umm Kulthum.

A panoramic snapshot of the stage where she stands. Voice and applause.

The old man approaches the stage. The same man, but he is younger now. His back is not hunched. He doesn’t hold a cane, and he moves forward. Umm Kulthum goes on singing and squeezes a white handkerchief. He reaches the stage. Umm Kulthum looks at him. She stops singing. Silence and a distant roaring mingle with the man’s footsteps on the floor. The old man climbs to the stage. He approaches Umm Kulthum. Umm Kulthum holds his hand. He advances and kisses her on the cheek. Umm Kulthum speaks. Umm Kulthum says, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the greatest composer, Mr. Jameel al-Haddad.” Hands clap, music gets louder. Jameel al-Haddad approaches the orchestra holding the conducting baton in his hand. Umm Kulthum sings “I Forget You” while he dances with the baton in front of her. His face crisps while she sings. Loud applause as though coming from the bottom of the valley or as if it were an echo. The old man walks and the sight of Umm Kulthum falls gradually off his shoulders and vanishes. He reaches the front of a building. From the way he enters the building he seems to be living there. He climbs dark stairs.

 

The motion is slow, I said to her. She placed her finger on my mouth to shush me. I took her hand in mine, squeezed it, and looked into her eyes glistening amid the darkness of the hall. She was looking at the screen. I raised her hand to my mouth and kissed it. I pulled her hand as I thought I heard her moaning. The moaning increased. My head drew near her face. I looked at the screen.

 

The man is lying in bed, moaning. It’s an iron bed, and it makes a broken squeaking sound. The man reaches for the radio and turns it on, then he lowers his eyes. Umm Kulthum’s voice rises.

“It looks like we’re going to watch a movie about Umm Kulthum.”

She didn’t reply.

The voice retreats and starts to decline. The same man turns back into a young man. Here he is standing in front of a table while the voices of the commenting employees ascend. We understand that he is an employee, and that he is inviting them to a concert where he will play his lute. We understand that they are laughing at him as he stands in front of the table and raises his hand high as if to say something, as if he is giving a pep talk. Applause begins. Applause, and he in front of the audience holding the lute. It seems that they are in a house. Jameel al-Haddad sits on a chair and croons softly. Hands rise holding glasses of arak. A little table on which there are plates of cucumbers and peanuts. Men, only men. There is one woman who comes and goes. She takes ashtrays and brings plates full of something that looks like food. The man’s voice starts to rise. It seems as if he is singing. We cannot distinguish the song with precision. Then we understand gradually that he is singing Umm Kulthm. “I forget you, Ya Salam.”The audience screams, Allah Allah!. He takes his glass and drinks a sip of arak. A snapshot of his face where we see a carelessly shaven beard. The man turns in his bed. He didn’t take off his clothes. He lies fully clothed. He seems hallucinating or talking in his sleep.

 I don’t understand what he is saying and don’t dare ask her. I do not care about this man. From the very first moment I felt hatred towards him. This sagging body, this face, this nose on the verge of falling, this death. He doesn’t look like anything. Or maybe he does look like a discarded skull. And then why doesn’t he die. Do we need a movie to see him die. Or does the producer need this man’s death to make a movie. For this reason I don’t like movies. I only like that moment when darkness falls on the hall. I turned my face away from the screen and looked at her. She was placing her hand under her cheek and watching the movie. I didn’t take my eyes off her, but she seemed not to feel it. Then she turned around and shook her head. I extended my hand to her long hair. She dropped her hand from her cheek. I held her hand. She left her hand in mine, my fingers in hers, my hand under hers, my thumb in the palm of her hand. I feel the glare coming out of my eyes. I feel I could carry her and fly. I feel her flying. She stands in front of the theater’s entrance in her short skirt, her elongated white face, her hair tied behind her back, and her eyes, colored in the midst of this darkness, and laughs. She falls, she almost falls. I hold her from her waist. She flies. We go into the dark hall to see this old man who doesn’t die. I am ready to kill him so that this movie ends and I take her. Where shall I take her? To my room. She will tell me that my room is not clean. She will see the piled clothes on the floor. No…when she enters I will run to clean up everything. I don’t want her to see, and I don’t see. I only see her. I see her only. My hand in hers, her hand drops a little. Her hand is on her knee. I flip her hand. I want my hand to stay in hers, with my hand underneath. This way I get to touch the knee. Her hand resists. Her hand rises, holding mine. She brings my hand close to her mouth, kisses it, returns the hand, presses, and pulls hers.

A snapshot of the mother’s face on the screen.

A snapshot of the mother holding her daughter and kissing her.

Another snapshot of the mother’s face that begins to shrink. Above it the face of a man of about fifty fills the screen. The young man walks in the streets alone. The streets are narrow and the vendors’ voices. He stops in front of a seller displaying a basket full of beads, pictures, and knives, and shouting, “one pound, one pound.” The young man continues walking. He enters a narrow street, full of neon-lit names of women. It seems we are in Al-Mutanabbi Street. Sounds of quarrels and a man running without anyone heeding him. The young man enters a semi-bare room. A big couch, and he sits alone and waits. He lights a cigarette. His eyes on the ground. A woman wearing transparent clothes comes near him. The young man takes off his clothes. The woman lies down on the bed. The sound of the radio rises with the news bulletin.

“General Sarrail visits the Maronite Patriarch in response to a congratulatory visit the latter made to His Excellency.” The young man sits on the edge of the bed. The woman, half naked, laughs. She tells him that he is still small. He doesn’t raise his head from the ground. The mother is home. The fiftyish white-haired man is dining alone with her. He puts his hand on hers. The woman pulls her hand. The young man enters the house, doesn’t greet them. He sits in a corner, takes his lute, and the sound of the lute eclipses the dialogue.

The old man walks alone in the street. He knocks on a door. Another old man opens. He enters, puts aside the lute, and they play backgammon.

My hand on hers, she turned her head slightly. My hand fell on the neck. I would take her and she would come. She entered the bathroom, closed the door behind her. Water flowed. I took hold of the knob and turned it. Her voice said, No, please don’t come in. I fell back a little, then opened the door. She stood naked in the bathtub. Soap covered her. I went forward, she turned her back. My hand on her back, my hand in the soap, I was in the soap. I stayed next to her under the falling water. She ran away from the bathtub, wrapped herself in a towel, and left. I went out after her. We drank coffee. I drew near, she moved away and away. And I sat on the bed while she was there. She stopped, got closer. I saw her bare feet on the floor. I saw her colored eyes and elongated face. I saw her hair as if running towards me, as if with me. She stood facing the sink and started washing the dishes. Leave them, I told her. The faucet opened, the water splattered her face, and I stood aside and smoked. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, but I was afraid of her answer. She would ask me, And what it means that you love me? And I would not know.

My hand on her long hair, her head reclined towards me, my hand extended to her neck, I felt her heart beats while she stretched on my fingers. I drew closer, kissed her cheek. She turned around as if to tell me that she wanted to watch the movie, but I didn’t understand anything from this movie. I didn’t understand the old man.

The old man plays backgammon. The old man yawns. Two old men yawn. Ten faces yawn. Big noses full of little hairs. Yawning noses. They open up and make sounds. Teeth and faces.

 

But why doesn’t he die. I know that he will not die now, because if he dies the movie ends. When the hero dies the movie ends. When my father died nothing ended. My father wasn’t a hero, and this is not a hero. My father died and this one will not die. Perhaps he will die at the end of the movie, but this is not certain. I think that if the hero doesn’t die at the beginning of the movie, his death becomes useless.