The School of War

Esthetics of the Shell
‘Ahlan wa sahlan!’
Aunt Malaké greets me, and I give her a kiss and enter the living room, walking into a heavy aroma of tobacco and honey.
‘You still smoke your narghile?’
‘It’s my favorite pastime,’ she replies, shrugging her shoulders.
Nothing has changed in this house: the slightly outdated furniture, the painting of the opera singer Umm Kulthum, the black-and-white portrait of Uncle Jamil, and the cat hair on the blue carpet. On a coffee table, near the buffet, a bouquet of white roses in a cylindrical container.
‘What is that?’
‘A shell case. It’s decorative, don’t you think?’
‘Decorative’ … This word takes me back fifteen years. The first shell, like a baptism.
The first shell was lying at the base of a 240mm gun mounted in a schoolyard in Achrafieh. Around the gun stood three permanently assigned militiamen who, on a day of truce, invited me to share their snack. Until then, I had thought shells were invisible – I saw them explode far off in the distance in a geyser of smoke, encircle the bombed villages with an ephemeral halo, set houses and pine forests ablaze; I heard their din as they crashed down on my neighbourhood, or their whistle as they sliced through the air over the house … To see a shell, to caress it, was a revelation for me. With its oblong, esthetically faultless form, its generous curves, its nose cone that recalls the contours of a breast, its elegant blue-grey colour, and the brilliance of its steel casing, polished like a piece of marble, a shell is beautiful, marked by perfect beauty. To the touch, it is cold and hard; who would believe it could explode into a thousand pieces? Oddly, it emits a sense of security. So who dreamed up this instrument that combines obesity and beauty so well? Was it to highlight the precariousness of all things beautiful or out of perfectionism that its creator took such care to polish this projectile that in the end disintegrates as it disseminates terror? I deduced that this unknown artist, along with the sniper, was among those who lend their art to the service of Death and who seek perfection in murder itself.
The second time I saw a shell I felt a sense of fear that I had not experienced the first time. During the night a shell had crashed to the ground only a few yards from where I lived. Miraculously, it had landed in the road without exploding. At daybreak, the local baker noticed it and called the entire neighbourhood out into the street.
Azifé ya chabéb! Azifé ma nfajarét!’
I was awoken by his cries: ‘A shell, everyone, an unexploded shell!’ and I very naturally went down into the street to witness the event. At a safe distance from the object, a circle of curious onlookers had formed. I joined in. The projectile had bored into the asphalt, like a javelin in the sand, leaving only its base exposed for us to see.
‘If it had exploded, it wouldn’t have left a single house standing,’ the baker exclaimed.
‘Not so loud,’ his neighbour murmured, elbowing him. ‘You might revive it.’
‘It looks like a suppository,’ one of the kids observed.
‘The priest ran towards us, a censer in hand.
‘It’s divine providence.’
‘It’s divine providence,’ the crowd echoed.
He pulled a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help out of the pocket of his cassock. He carefully approached the projectile, set his picture on the ground, and hurriedly retraced his steps. Next, a housewife moved forward, brandishing a bouquet of daisies. She decorated the area with flowers and backed up to her place in the circle.
‘Let us pray,’ the priest proposed.
The members of the congregation crossed themselves, then said a prayer:
Remember, O Virgin Mother of God, when you stand in the sight of the Lord, to speak good things on our behalf, that He may turn away His anger from us.
The ceremony would have continued had it not been for the arrival of the warrant officer, who was greeted with applause. The warrant officer was the army’s official mine clearance expert. In great demand, he responded to the requests of all belligerents – regardless of their loyalties or convictions – with the selflessness of a country doctor. I had previously only seen him in television reports recounting his exploits, and I must confess I had prayed to the Almighty that I would never have occasion to see him in person.
Having arrived within a step or two of the projectile, the warrant officer raised his hand in a call for silence. And the crowd fell silent. He circled the shell four or five times, then went down on one knee, opened a small case, and took out his gear.
‘Move thirty yards back,’ he ordered.
The crowd moved away, backing up as if they were a single body.
Hidden behind a utility pole, I couldn’t follow the progression of his operation. While his hands fiddled with the shell, I couldn’t help but think of the temerity of this being who flirted with Death on a daily basis. How did he bring himself to handle this device that could very well blow up in his face? What did he have in the place of a heart that kept him from fearing that one unsteady movement of his fingers could make everything blow?
The warrant officer finally stood back up. He wiped his hands in the midst of a cathedral-like silence. He gathered his things, bowed his head to the picture of the Virgin set next to the shell, then, with a satisfied sigh, said:
‘It’s over.’
He was showered with cheers. The women came out on their balconies and tossed rice, while the curious moved closer to touch him. The neighbourhood’s inhabitants forgot everything – war, deaths, shortages – to acclaim the hero. As he passed near me, an older woman drew him to her breast and placed a loud kiss on his forehead.
‘We all admire your courage,’ she cried enthusiastically.
The warrant officer did not blush. He wiped his brow and replied, unshaken:
‘What you call courage, Ma’am, I call knowledge.’