Free Yalo by Elias Khoury

.”
    â€œNo, there was no boat.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œI was wearing my black coat because I never take it off.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œI had the flashlight with me because it’s always in my pocket.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œSir, that is just a habit from the war.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œAnd now I don’t feel whole, not only because you took my coat and consider it a piece of evidence, I’m lost because I don’t have my flashlight, so I feel blind, even in broad daylight. I only see right when my flashlight is on.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œWhen the guys came and grabbed me, the flashlight was about to go out.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œI swear to God, sir, it’s a habit, just a habit.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œNo, no, that was not my intention.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œThat’s just the way I am, that’s the way I’ve been all my life. I didn’t want anything. I swear to God I did not want anything from Shirin, right now even if she wanted me, I wouldn’t want her.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œI was thinking . . . I wanted . . .”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œI don’t know – I don’t know.”

Y alo tried.
    He listened to the questions and answered them, or tried to answer them, but the interrogator kept going back to the flashlight, to the fact that he forced the girl to drink seawater, and kept insisting that he was sitting here not with another human being, but with a savage beast.
    â€œI have seen plenty, I’ve interrogated a lot of criminals, but I have never seen a beast like you. I want you to tell me everything, why you committed these deeds. And I’m warning you, it’s not enough to tell me that you put that fellow in the trunk of the car and fucked the girl, it’s not enough to tell me that you ripped off the watch and the money and told them good-bye. And I don’t want the story of that guy who asked you to sleep with his girlfriend, or the one about Bernadette who pretended to be hitchhiking and you found out she was a whore. When you got to the forest and the guy tried to do her, she began to scream that she wanted money, and you got out and made him pay her, and you divided the money up with her, and you laughed like crazy people, and that poor guy, what was his name? I can’t remember. Tell me, what was his name?”
    The interrogator started searching through his papers without success.
    â€œTell me his name. What are you waiting for?”
    â€œI don’t know his name, sir, you told me his name was Najib Hayek and that he was a lawyer. I didn’t know his name. In my line of work we don’task names, they don’t mean anything. But her – I wish I’d never heard her name. I don’t know what happened to me.”
    â€œWhat happened to you? Now you’re pretending to be innocent and that this has nothing to do with you. I don’t care about these stories. I want to get to the bottom of this flashlight story, why you had it, and who you were signaling to from the beach at Ramlet al-Baida. And you can explain to me how anyone could drink seawater and make others drink it.”
    How could Yalo respond? What could he say?
    He said that there was no boat. He said that the flashlight was part of him, exactly like the long black overcoat, but what could he say about the seawater? Should he tell the interrogator about Cohno Ephraim and the night of the baptism? Should he tell him about Gaby and her hair, which flowed golden in the moonlight as her father combed out the long wet strands and young Daniel sat at their feet, shivering with cold.
    The cohno would take his small family to the beach to await the Sacred Spirit that would arrive when it could. On the beach at Ramlet al-Baida, after night fell and the small stars appeared through the clouds over the sea, the cohno bent over the water and drank, took a few steps in the cold water