Do you speak Aragreelish?

By Roy Delfon

A tycoon from Saudi Arabia, a man in the body of a boy with ambitions only he can understand – an eagle flying towards an endless horizon and watching the world from above – is in search of a blurry vision of a dream he cannot define.
An architect born in Lebanon from a French father and Brazilian mother, a boy in the body of a man, wise like an old owl but with no dreams, lost between the different cultures, with no country nor specific dream.
The two men meet and stay together for years. They consider themselves the pieces of a two-piece puzzle that can never be joined. Traditions keep them apart.
In a mysterious relationship, the Saudi Sheikh cleverly uses the ethics of the architect in an attempt to keep the other beside him forever. The journey they have together evolves around the world, leads to adventures full of love, passion and fear, and reveals the strange personalities of the heroes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398409705

Roy Delfon

The author was born in Lebanon, where he completed his first studies in mathematics and physics, before studying architecture in France. Greece, Greek architecture, and Greek music fascinated him enough to keep him in the country of Zeus for years, near the warm blue shores of the south, and the cold green north. A period of anxiety brought him to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, Turkey, India, and many other countries. The mosaic of geographical knowledge, the many languages he spoke, and a natural tendency for writing, made him an author with a unique and fascinating way of writing.

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Dedication

I dedicate this book to every woman who was ready to offer her most authentic smile, coming directly from the endless spring of her love, but did not find the right receiver. These are the most free, but most tortured women on the earth.

Copyright Information ©

Roy Delfon 2022

The right of Roy Delfon to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398409682 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398409705 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®

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E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I had to add the courage of a lot of people to mine, in order to complete this book. To all these people, I send my acknowledgments, without mentioning the names, because I had not had the possibility to write their names in a circle that turns, in order to eliminate the risk of making someone feel second or third.

The Child of Necessity

On a night in the middle of December, while I was sitting on my simple, comfortable chair working on my laptop, listening to the rain on my window, to the rage of the wind outside and to the crackling wood in the fire place, I thought I would never exchange this chair with a throne. A king might be happy his way but can never do the things or the travels I have done in my life. Even if he is far from his kingdom, he would never be able to stay alone, or with the company of one and only one woman on a ship in the sea, in his car in a desert or on the roads of a noisy city, without thinking about the people who might recognise him, especially journalists. All this, I can do. More than that, I have done it. Now, nobody can stop the dream about my next trip which may drive me from this room to Mexico and from there to the unknown. Normally, nobody is interested in a stranger who does not disturb the monotony of life around him. You can be easily hated because the majority of people are jealous, or simply cannot see you happy when they are not. It is difficult to find someone who is ready to kill or be killed for you for the sake of love, not for the money you pay him at the end of the month. Generally, no one loves you this way. Many people hate you and for the majority, you do not exist.

Today, thinking about my possible new trip, I have decided to describe in a book an experience which doesn’t occur to every person, at least not in the world we live in.

To be born in the Middle East is in itself an experience.

In another world perhaps, life goes on following a certain routine. The political system is familiar, the educational system is familiar, the transportation system etc…. However, when you live on the other side of the fence, you begin a battle of survival the moment you are born and maybe even before you come to this world.

It could be that the laws near the Holy Lands are a reproduction of the best that has been written for the protection of civil liberties. However, the truth is that the lawmakers didn’t have the fortitude, the will, the time or whatever is necessary for someone to become a lawmaker. As a result, they just ‘reproduced’ what others call liberty and equality leaving the main titles to religion to decide. In the name of the good Lord, priests pretended to do sacrifices and took the difficult role of judges who keep you on the course that would lead your soul to heaven after death even if they, as priests, take it on earth.

A very clever way to dominate, leaving to someone else the sin of implementation, and this would always follow the less incomprehensible path until citizens see the light of truth.

If they let them see the light of truth, of course!

People on earth don’t marry because they want to, but because they are expected to.

For every poor person there is a poorer one, for an ugly man there is an ugly woman, for a disabled man a disabled woman and so on. You must not discuss it. It is almost a sin to think about the future of your kids: God sends to each person the luck he’s due the day he is born.

A man and a woman got married without even exchanging a word before their wedding. However, they thought they were civilised because they saw each other before the wedding. Others didn’t even have that luxury. After the blessing of an orthodox priest, they became compliant with the ecclesiastical laws and did what they were supposed to do: they gave birth to two children.

The reason they stopped having children was the shattered nerves of the woman. She was a young girl in reality who, as a result, endured multiple nervous breakdowns and a constant loss of weight.

After quite a few years, the woman weighed 38 kilos. A doctor suggested to the couple that the woman would become pregnant again. It would help her gain some weight. It happened that the ‘child of necessity’ was born, ‘the child of necessity’ as he would be called by his siblings ever since. It would be unfair not to mention here the fact that the doctor gained professional success, because the woman weighed 43 kilos after delivery.

The man was of medium height with clear blue eyes and straight blond hair. He was of French origin: the descendent of a French immigrant who came to the region during World War I and forgot to leave back to France. As a Catholic immigrant living in a Greek orthodox community, he found it easier to change church than to change area. His wife was of mixed heritage: a pretty Lebanese-Brazilian woman with green eyes and brown hair. Her family had lived in Brazil for more than fifty years before they remembered they had a house and a piece of land in Lebanon. The Brazilians decided to get a wife for their fifteen-year-old son, a twenty-two-year-old girl, also born in Brazil, from a Lebanese family who owned a house and a piece of land in Lebanon. The groom’s father came to Lebanon to secure the joint venture of the marriage and organise the fortune of the new couple who spoke Portuguese. The man’s father stayed in Lebanon one more year waiting for his name to be given to the first child. When a girl was born, he was disappointed and thought that waiting for another year would be too much. He left back to Brazil and never showed up again.

The couple, twice disappointed but invincible, decided to keep having children until a baby boy was born: the male descendent who would keep the continuation of the honourable family’s name. Clever was the old man who left after the birth of the first child! The boy came after four girls. A telegram was then sent to Brazil. The telegram stated that Michaelo was a fact. However, the couple never knew if their families received the telegram because they never had contact with Brazil again.

For years, the eldest daughter took care of her eight young siblings: five girls and three boys.

The big number of sisters and brothers awakened her desire to change her life. The new handsome teacher, who came to the village on a horse, sent her a smile while passing. It was the first and the last flirt in her life. The next day, the most wicked woman in the village found a way to convince her to run away with the teacher. The woman told her that he was a stranger and her father would never accept him as a groom. She didn’t tell her that the teacher had no money for a wedding and the horse was lent.

When she went with the French professor, she understood that the only thing that changed in her life was her address. Lucky as usual, she then had to take care of her three children.

The ‘child of necessity’ decided to intensify the ethnic mixture, looking like his parents, both at the same time. His hair was ash-blond and his eyes were strange and beautiful of a colour that was neither green nor blue, but that shone incredibly in the sun, revealing the different shades of the sea. This mixture intensely reflected the ambiguous aspect of his heritage and that was enough in its own to bring him quite a few problems.

The women, who would gather for coffee and a narghile, always flattered her eyes and eyelashes that were so beautiful, not forgetting, of course, to cast the necessary spells against the evil eye.

When there is a big age difference between you and your siblings, you live in great isolation and rejection that drive you to extremes. Either they propel you toward the stubbornness of showing off or force you to passively accept your situation and remain on the margin.

In this story, the first thing occurred. It was obvious from the beginning that the child possessed certain abilities and skills which his father observed early on. Being a high school professor, his father sent him to a private French school where some Jesuit priests were teaching, using spanking as one of the pleasures of their teaching methods. One might say that they were teaching in order to spank and not the opposite as they claimed.

In these schools, you had either to distinguish yourself, or give up early on before you suffer permanent damage.

Parents, generally, were supporters of violence in schools, believing that it was the correct educational method in order for a child to go forth in life. Basically it was the fear that maintained and held you there, while the brave had already left.

At the age of four, he entered the first grade of elementary school, with the interference of his father, who was a known colleague, and who beyond that spoke French fluently.

Initially, of course, there was a small legal obstacle. Children were registered at school in kindergarten at the age of seven as recommended by the Ministry of Education, which cared about the correct and timely education of the ‘up and coming’ leaders, as they referred to their students.

Most of the children had no official documents. Their age was given by parents and monks who could swear that a kid a little above their knees was eight years old just because the reverend Mr Principal said so. There was always room for minor exceptions as long as fathers paid their children’s tuition and did it on time.

For every problem, God has a solution and on time. In the Middle East, a three-word phrase made into one, ‘Inshallah’ (God willing), solves everything. The child’s father, born in Lebanon, was identified with the spirit of life of the Middle East, Lebanese more and Tripoli lover in particular.

When the French grandfather arrived in Lebanon, he and his wife had two children. Later, he went on a touristic trip that ended up in migrating to Cuba La Buena, then to Brazil with no return. However, he always sent money to his wife to take care during his absence of the fields he had bought her before his departure in order to keep her busy, not feeling bored during his absence.

For the Greeks, spanks come out of heaven, but for this child, heaven came out of the spanks. Every mistake in class is usually paid on the hands, and if you don’t write in nice tight and consecutive letters, the spank can reach the fingers. Once you try them, you make the decision to avoid being spanked or to become a crocodile and then, you can taste them every day until you are kicked out by your teachers, not taken out of school by your parents. Your parents send you to school to become educated, and that is the price of a good education.

In case you are sent home, you taste an unforgettable spank in a familiar environment at least, and then you are sent to a public school. If you don’t make it there, you usually quit school and work in a bakery or in a car workshop as an ‘aspiring minion’.

The child decided that his hands were less resistant than his mind, made it all in an exemplary way and survived in the paradise of education with healthy hands.

At the age of seven, he was an educated student envied by many, especially those who had never been to school or those who faced the rage of teachers too early.

He probably had the same problem of his mother for his weight was minimal. Consequently, his worried and precognitive parents took the decision of spending the following summers in the mountains where the climate would open his appetite.

That year, they rented a furnished house in the mountain for three months. The mother had already started sewing professionally and managed to succeed by showing a hidden talent. For that, the parents had to stay six days in the city of Tripoli, take the only bus from Tripoli to the mountain on Saturday afternoon, and leave back to Tripoli on Monday early in the morning on the same bus. During their absence, a local girl was hired to look after the kids, especially the young one.

The twenty-two-year-old nanny was energetic like a fire with no prospective groom. She watched over the young one all day and left him alone only at bedtime. It was not a difficult job because he was so calm and followed her as a poppy all day. She always stared at him in the eyes and kept repeating, "How handsome you are!"

All the houses had on the roof a hut (Erzal) made out of twigs, in the shape of a cube and covered with parched oak branches that did not fall off the leaves but stood there, giving an adorable swish with every subtle fanning.

Inside the hut, people kept underfoot mattresses and beds. The family would climb up only to sleep and go down at dawn. It was wisely thought you would be well protected from the dew under your quilt, and mosquitoes would not easily find their way to your blood. In the morning, everything would be good and mosquitoes would fast again.

One day, the nanny took the young boy to her house. They climbed up to the roof and gazed at the mountains around when a hawk appeared in the sky.

The girl yelled, Let’s go hide. This bird eats people’s eyes. When they went into the hut, she took him under the bedcover to hide him, and embraced him tightly to calm his fear. Then, she started doing something, something he would understand years later. The girl took his hand and led it over her, telling him where to caress and where to kiss.

Her sighs were not familiar. All he understood or more, he felt, was that something not right was happening.

Then she stopped and told him that no one should know. Oddly enough, he never mentioned it to his parents or to anyone else.

Somehow he enjoyed it and they continued to play hide and seek for two consecutive summers. During that time, he learned that huts also protected people’s eyes from hungry hawks.

This was his first experience with the other sex, and the nanny stopped playing games when she got married.

Tripoli at that time was mainly an Islamic city with a Christian minority, but life was not intolerable. Fanaticism was minimal. Women who covered their heads were few and those who covered their faces were rarely seen. Some men still wore red fezzes, loyal to the Turkish prevalence of hundreds of years. After all, the Turks had dominated the coast and abandoned the rough mountains where there were no roads, leaving their marks everywhere. People who were carried mainly from the Balkans and the Caucasus with the Crusades settled in the mountains to create a Christian community in the region. In Tripoli, many people came with the Turks and stayed there.

Many of the family names inherited their ending with ‘Ge’ from the Turkish and Persian occupations. Most importantly, the heavy pronunciation of the inhabitants of the city was evidence of the Turkish influence over centuries.

In Lebanon, the issue of pronunciation is strange. If you walk a kilometre from a village to another, you find that the dialect is different to a great extent. This, if it means something, indicates that people who came to the mountains didn’t mix easily. Instead, they lived in groups apart, according to nationality maybe, keeping whatever they could save from their place of origin.

Life went on calmly and the child was praised at school. Individually, he was kept to himself. The children of that time grew up in the streets. They went out to play and went back home only to sleep, scratched and tired. His parents did not ask much about what he and his siblings were doing during their absence. All was perfect as long as the children were not asking for money.

Children had to take their shoes and shirts off before any game would start because, when their clothes and shoes were damaged, they were punished. Shoes usually came from the father or the elder brother. They were saved to the juniors. Playing was easier and more joyful with no shoes, and having dirty feet meant less punishment than having damaged shoes. The majority of the boys had their own first socks at the age of eighteen or later. Children gained power or were considered weak according to the street laws. If a child was born with a certain disability, he was doomed to be bullied by the other children of the group, who had no pity in their hearts because no one had pitied them.

As he was the smallest boy in class, he could not compete with the big ones in games. He thus spent most of his time at home reading all kinds of books. In the end, his father asked him to find another hobby for his free time because the family couldn’t afford to pay much money on books.

In the streets, he used to hang out with his only friend, a fat boy with no interest in sports. The fat boy would use his weight to protect themselves from the other ambitious boys who might have had the intention of calling them Laurel and Hardy.

Handsomely blond with strange eyes, the child was often bullied by grownups. He was often invited to have a drink or something to eat, or simply to stay in the company of someone. Since the purpose of these invitations was clear, his only reaction was to run away under the protection of his friend, do the homework of his protector as compensation, or stay on his own at home again.

He was once saved when a man selling used books in his store agreed to rent him books for a small amount of money provided he would return them back in the same condition he got them.

His relationship with books did not satisfy his energy, so he diverted his interest to gymnastics and music.

The only available music teacher in the neighbourhood was called Ameen. He was blind and of Syrian origin.

Ameen taught music only verbally. Students played and repeated the notes after him without a pentagram. Although the child had no special talent and realised there was no future with Ameen. It was his great pleasure spending hours at the music school, which kept him near the music teacher.

Regardless of the big difference of age between the two, the teacher-pupil relationship developed into a unique, unmatched but real friendship. The child would wait for Ameen to leave his students. They would sit at night each one with his instruments and sing together, while the teacher would be remembering the old days. In the beginning, Ameen played music with well-known singers in Tripoli, the city he had seen only once when he arrived from Syria. What was I to see? he once said with a smile on his face.

When talking about his eyes, he clarified that he was not born blind. Once at the age of four and while he was playing under a fig tree, some fluff came into his eyes. He rubbed them with some milk from the fig tree, and that did not take long to damage them. His parents took him to an Imam, who read some prayers, whispered some gibberish, took a deep breath, spat straight in the damaged eyes and said, Rub them now, my son.

That was the last time Ameen saw the daylight before he lost his sight completely. His parents couldn’t go any further for treatments: Damascus was far away; the expenses were high and there was no money. It was his destiny, his fate as written by God the Wisest of all.

Ameen remembered well the red colour and vaguely some other colours. He asked his student many times to describe the new instruments he bought. Were they dyed? What drawings of shells there were on the wood?

It’s great to feel that someone trusts your judgment, especially if he’s older than you are. The teacher needed someone he could trust. The child sounded honest. In addition to the concerts they were doing, Ameen showed him banknotes and asked him if the bills were okay. Ameen could separate them accurately according to size but was not able to tell if it simply was used paper. He had a fantastic memory. He could remember the order of the bills in his pocket and from whom he took each of the big ones.

It was not strange to stay late with his only trusted student. The child had seen the wife of his teacher. She was a version of an extra-large woman. The man was blind and couldn’t see the ugliness, but he certainly understood the size. It was normal then not to rush home at night.

Three years later, blind Ameen announced to his students that the school would close soon. His eldest son found a way to migrate to the United States. However, the house and the school were private properties and were not for sale. There was always the fear of failing abroad and the need to come back home. The two buildings stood as monuments since. The storefronts were empty and music was no longer heard in the neighbourhood.

Days went on and the upward course of education continued: mid school with the French priests, then public high school. Everything happened without problems for the child, except for those big questions on his mind and one simple medical problem in the body: an X-ray of the arm and a well-paid visit to a doctor. The day of birth was the real date, but the parents had to use a different year of birth according to which the boy was four years older. The physical problem was solved.

There was no doubt the boy was the first in his class rank, when the rest of his classmates were fighting for the second.

That didn’t mean that he was loved by teachers or classmates. He was always envied by his classmates and disliked by the teachers for the questions he asked, questions that were difficult to answer.

The truth is that teachers have one of the most difficult professions in the world. They grow up while the age of their students stays the same. Only names change. Teachers always teach the same material until the process becomes an unbearable routine. The only thing that can break this routine is the retreat from work. However, retirement is the last and worst routine man can suffer from in life.

The teaching material was not available free of charge by the government. The headmaster of each school decided what books the children would buy. The books were written by merchants of education. Once in elementary school, the child read in the book of geography that the Chinese were yellow because the water they drank had a yellow substance in it. He raised his hand. The teacher, who had forgotten to close the zipper of his trousers, or perhaps held it open for convenience after his prostate kept him busy, gave him permission to talk.

The child said, If someone lives in China and drinks Chinese water, will the substance change his skin colour into yellow?

No, one must be born there and must be living there, answered the teacher who felt the trick.

Does that mean that foreign babies born in China become yellow after a few years?

Do you intend to have children in China? Are you worried about your breed?

Of course everyone laughed. Not everybody in class understood the joke, but everybody had to laugh every time the craftsman of geography said something ironic. And, it was an opportunity to mock the genius who kept asking questions taking the class away from the course of serious handmade education. Being exceptional had a price and the price was usually painful.

In the first school he went to, lessons of religion were given by the available priests or people related to the bishop. One day, the priest taught his students that their bodies did not belong to them; they were divine gifts from God. The students had to watch over them until they would deliver them back.

By coincidence, one of the questions that tortured the boy’s mind and was asked by instinct more than by logic was, How should this be done?

The priests always answered, talking about gymnastics and good nutrition.

One conversation between the student and the priest continued as follows. How much exercise should we do?

As long as you need to maintain the proper functioning of the body.

The more we exercise, the healthier we become?

Of course!

Then, should I consider it a sin wasting about the third of our lives reading and going to school?

They are two different things. Kids have to go to school. (The priest getting angry.)

But that means we are devoting a shorter time to the body! Which is more important and necessary in the religious consideration: the body or the spirit? Is reading a religious obligation? When should it be stopped?

The dialogue then became about the meaning of good gymnastics and the good nutrition of the body and the soul, because the majority of the kids were poor and ate almost the same food every day. Suddenly, the critical question that was lurking in the child’s mind was raised.

…?

The priest realised then that he was being dragged into a dialogue for which he was not prepared. He replied with the only expression he knew well, ’Have faith and doubt not.’

That was the final answer given by the priest to re-establish discipline in the room and return the dialogue into a monologue.

Priests in that era were social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists of the ordinary people. Priests ran to temples in general to solve mysteries and the strange things happening to their followers. More than half of the people in the Middle East carry somethings around their necks or more discreetly pinned to their shirts. Those things are used to send away evil spirits and evil eyes. Most of the cars are decorated with old baby shoes or have garlic inside…Priests provide antidotes of evil for free, but if you leave something in the sacred space, the mediation is blessed with the highest degree. Nobody says NO to a donation and a priest gives an extra wish for you after a generous payment. Religions abstain very little from idolatry but hold their animal reins firmly other way, they could lose control. You ask any ‘donkey rider’ and he confirms it to you, Tighten the reins otherwise you lose the donkey.

Being sceptical about what priests teach verbally or in writing was not allowed. They would label a sceptical person with words such as: crazy, communist, unfaithful… all kinds of words he would not want to be called with.

One day after the discussion with the priest, the boy was summoned by the school principal who told him he was not welcome in the religious course: the priest had found him heretic.

It was a painful strike, but he faced it calmly trying to look indifferent. He did not even try to defend himself. The divine judgment was announced, and the school principal was not really interested in understanding what happened during the course.

The principal was Muslim and would not be part of the trouble or adventure when the problems were among the ‘others’ or ‘the infidels’ as he would refer to Christians. He must have thought that if they were Muslim, they would not have had such problems, another reason why many were left in the darkness.

It was agreed that the boy would stay out of the classroom during the religion hours while his friends would enjoy the enlightenment inside. He would then have thirteen over twenty without doing exams, a grade considered by the director-judge to be more than fair, a grade granted out of his personal generosity and the generosity of the administration in general.

People used to call any rich man in town, Mason. Heresy was something new and the boy felt so alone because nobody had the courage to tell him ‘well done’. Normally, he spent his time away from the others who could not decide on how to treat him. He was someone who did not believe in God. He was seen as a thief maybe, a criminal or any bad existence. He looked sensitive and innocent. Snakes also looked the same!

It took a year or more for the priest to be replaced, and his position was filled by a young theologian. When informed of the situation, the new teacher did what was expected of him: he invited the boy to return to the flock of lambs where he was now the shepherd.

In the meantime, the clarifications of the boy’s classmates had not brought a clear result of the substance of the dispute with the priest; they did not understand the dialogue well enough. Consequently, the new teacher had to clarify the issue with the boy himself.

The pleasure of the acquaintance of the new teacher and the interest he showed was obvious by the heretic child. He thanked the teacher for the effort he made to come and find him and answered the teacher with certainty when asked if he could tell him the question-problem with the priest.

I had no intention of creating problems, said the child. A question had been running in my mind for two years and I really wanted an answer.

And what was the question?

…?

Weird! The professor’s first reaction was: bringing his hand mechanically to his head and arranging his hair.

What is the fault of the children if God wants them to go through life experiences? the child said.

There is no salvation from suffering except with the Christ, and it is not in this world.

There is then no way for him to notice me and stop my suffering from the questions twirling in my head? The priest thinks I put him in trouble. The truth is: he put me in the torment and torture of questioning. The initial question is getting bigger and is generating other questions. I’m young, I am supposed to rejoice at my age as everyone agrees, but I’m searching for something that can’t be touched with hands nor seen with the eyes.

Together we will correct everything.

When will that happen?

Next week, I will come with the answer. Your question has really shaken me. I am not ashamed to tell you that I am unprepared to answer and I do not want to give answers without having thought about them.

That’s what the theologian said, making nervous gestures with his hands as if he just wanted to end the conversation that seemed to be exhausting him in general.

It is one thing: I will not waste time, I will search for the answer. Until then, you too have to pray to the mighty God so you may become one of the lucky ones who lay their heads on the pillow and enjoy an immediate peaceful sleep.

That’s what he said in a hurry and turned abruptly to leave and close the curtain.

The following week, the professor seemed pleasant during their meeting and different at the same time. When the lesson was over, they walked together in the courtyard to start a new conversation, and the professor said:

Brother, I do not envy you and I do not want to lie to you. I admire you and hate you at the same time.

I’m glad you’re honest. I hate people who have two faces. I would have liked us to be friends had the circumstances been different.

Friends we will never be. You shook all the faith I had and believed it is giving me all the answers. I want you to be in my class and I don’t want to, not because I’m afraid of questions but because I’m afraid of answers. I will keep wondering who should be on the bench and who should be at the desk, you or me? I’m not going to ask you to ‘believe and forget about asking questions’ just like God does without giving us the capability to understand everything. We should stop somewhere sometime. Lions kill to eat. Then, they stop killing because the wise God knows that the same instinct forcing them to kill, forces them to stop and leave something for the next day. Sometimes, you too must stop wondering why the sea is salty and why trees are green. Simply accept God’s wisdom.

Can you tell me… the boy was asking when the teacher interrupted him as he did not want to listen to more questions.

No. I can tell you nothing more. For every answer I give you, you will have a question and we will never end the discussion. I may be able to protect my faith from your doubts, but I cannot be sure about the others around you. While you’re trying to understand, you are depriving other people from living in peace. Now, I am here with you to protect them from you and protect you from yourself. The only thing you will get is the feeling of guilt. I want you to swear. When I say oath, I mean it because I know that if you promise me to do something, you will respect your promise. But, I want you to think well before you make your promise.

I have nothing to prove to anyone, the child of necessity said. The issue is with me and my future decisions, which is why I do not like to give irresponsible and quick answers. In our case, there’s not much for me to think about. I give you my word. I will obey you because I have no intention to harm anyone. I believe you have no intention of taking revenge neither for me nor for anyone else, so what do you want from me and why should I be afraid?

"You shook my beliefs, and you put me on a crossroad when I am on the enlightenment path. I can’t believe I don’t know my way around and I’m thinking of going back. I will continue straight on this path however, only to walk not with the same confidence again. What I am asking from you is simple: don’t waste any more lives on something that doesn’t make sense nor leads to conclusions. You get no benefit from destroying the simple faith of a mere believer as you have destroyed mine. I can be objective in my answers because I do not seek promotion nor favour discrimination, but I’m satisfied with my role as the instructor who moves like a satellite for the rest of his life. If I give you an answer, I’ll break my orbit and travel to the unknown or crash maybe. I’m afraid of the first as much as I fear the second. I like the routine of having faith and teaching. This routine keeps me calm and I will not break it. This new attitude automatically raises the question of which one of us is now the heretic. The first answer that comes to one’s mind is ‘me’ because I do not want to make sacrifices to save a child. However, one thing I am certain of: today will be this, tomorrow will be much more. Surrendering and taking breaks are not allowed in religion, but I give up and quit now. How do you expect me to feel? Never ask that question to anyone else again. That is what I want you to promise me. Don’t do it no matter how. People may tell you they have answers because their logic is not affected. Don’t believe them. They too have questions and are curious to know. How big is the universe? We say that God exists beyond the universe. Do you really believe that all of this fits into a man’s little mind? Do you really think someone can give you the answer? If you find this man, then take me to him. Every night until then, I will bow my head with reverence and kneel near my bed to say my prayer. Let it be clear. It is a life we must live and see its colours, hear its voices, taste its water and enjoy its fruits. By raising your doubts, you are spoiling the feeling that simple people have when enjoying warm bread. The whole show is not worth it."

But I did not ask…

He was interrupted again by the other who said, Don’t ask me anything else. I have just clarified that I don’t have answers but you insist on poisoning the remnants of my faith. I will be teaching today and tomorrow and every day, that we have to bow our heads to the incomprehensible force that wishes to remain inexplicable. Promise that you will forget about your question.

I swear, the defeated child said with willingness to keep his promise, And I ask your forgiveness if I did any harm to you because I never intended to do so. I love people, those near and those away from me. Never mind if they sometimes humiliate me. I’m not mad at anyone but myself because I let them mock me. I don’t blame them, I pity them. It does not matter how sorry I am for them. Finally they seem cleverer than I am, they are happy while I am not.

Shortly later, the teacher walked away as if he was avoiding someone suffering from a contagious skin disease. The young boy then, or the child of necessity as he was feeling at that moment, reassessed his situation. He concluded that his coming days would be labelled with loneliness and questions with no answers.

You are handsome, healthy and young, and you have high standards but you are not happy. Some others are ugly and old. They have a simple life during the day, drink wine in the late afternoon and have a deep peaceful sleep with a smile on their faces at night without worrying about tomorrow. Who has more luck? Who is cleverer? You? The others?

You fight the villains with intelligence and education. You need knowledge, not for the financial independence that could also be accomplished in many other ways, but as a weapon acquired in a unique way. This weapon is not necessarily offensive. It is a defensive shield that sometimes leaves your enemies disappointed and protects you at the same time.

The downside of the majority of conquerors is their rush to success. Once they reach a high administrative position, they are usually old at age and want therefore their glory as quickly as possible. Their war is with time at first. Alexander the Great was an exception. He became the commander of his army at a young age. He was spared from the luxury of waiting.

Wherever he was, he would wait for the right time to go to fight. That was the powerful weapon that made him successful.

People like him built states and protected them. People like him made laws, laws that represented them in their absences.

According to the laws, people are punished by going to prison or by being sentenced to death. That’s the power of the laws. How to scare someone who’s afraid of none of the two punishments?

At first, things seem to have no answer. Of course, a person who is never afraid can be eliminated, but by eliminating him one could be losing a good warrior, a warrior he needs. However, the evil minds always have solutions. Priests found a way to frighten the fearless, by telling them about the unknown and permanent darkness. Similarly, an alliance was created between military and religious men, military and intellectual terrorisms.

He did not intend to fight the priest nor the religion. For God’s sake! It was only a question.

He was at war with traditions, so he decided to strengthen and protect himself. He promised to build a fence around him which would be frustrating to the conqueror who was in a hurry to attack and who was hoping not to be attacked by another Alexander.

No matter how weak and fragile he may be, a bird will always fly, not anywhere but high away from hunters. Being at war does not always mean attacking. The priest should have continued the dialogue with the boy instead of asking for help to eliminate him. The boy was not the only loser. The priest was a loser too.

The expansion of Tripoli began and seemed small. One couldn’t go anywhere around. There were areas of poverty and misery. Having a well-dressed blond child roaming in such areas would cause the people of the slums to insult him. At least that’s what he was told and there was no reason to provoke anyone for anything.

The boy always wandered in well-known central areas where he saw the same people do the same things every day.

On one of his usual walks in an area supposedly calm and decent, he saw the police in the middle of a crowd, usually of weirdoes who would come close every fuss just for a change.

He saw the police officer drag two young men. He was swearing, using his rich Lebanese vocabulary of curses and dirty words.

One of the young men, who seemed to come from a well-off family of the town, dared to resist the authorities. As if he was defending a right cause, he said to the police officer, This is my body and I am free to do whatever I want with it. Even if I pull a dagger now and stab my thigh, you don’t have the right to stop me.

It was obvious that the young men were caught in a suspicious state. They were not forgiven by the justice of the stupid police officer, who had been certainly informed about the case by someone whose ethics did not allow him to let go of what happened or who was guided by his instinct only and not by his logic.

In his turn, the police officer responded with the variety of insults he personally had heard in his life. By doing so, he was encouraging the audience to consent with him, and was at the same time getting excited from their positive reaction. When he put the butt of his shotgun on the young man’s shoulder, as a response, the police officer became the law, the judge and the punishment at the same time.

As he watched injustice, the child was taken fifty meters away by mere impulse. Then he shouted with all his might, "Unfaithful bums, it is his body. You don’t have the right to tell him what to do with it. Why do you call the system democracy?"

Many people started chasing him without, of course, asking themselves if he was talking right or wrong about democratic rights. As expected, he was quicker and disappeared. Most of these people wore shoes as if they were wearing slippers, pressing the back of the shoes with their heels. Running was not a hobby. However, once in a while someone would take his shoes off and chase the boy. Twenty years later, he would think about it and ask himself for the reason why he did it.

To comfort himself later on, the boy thought that the policeman also lost just like the priest, because he too had to run after him without waiting for others to do so. He convinced himself that it would not always be the case. There must come days when logic would prevail and one would live having his human rights. It was necessary for this to happen one day otherwise pity to mankind.

This incident made the city as well as the country and the continent smaller and more stifling.

The battle of the President to name the Prime Minister of the country did not go unnoticed in Tripoli.

A leader