Beirut Blues (26 page)

I seemed to be standing in front of a large chest, opening and shutting the drawers one after the other, like a relative of my father’s who imported watches, poultry, animal fodder, opened a restaurant, went back to importing sponge mops, and ended up doing nothing. Frustration visited me every day in a new guise, sat in a chair in front of me agreeing with me as I described how slow the pace of life in Beirut was these days, how people had no enthusiasm for anything beyond securing their everyday needs. But then it grew bolder,
contradicting me and reminding me of the long days of peace ahead, when Beirut would be throbbing with life again and people would be working and producing. I became active once more, but only in my head, and imagined opening an architect’s office, starting up a play group, or establishing a zoo. Then I made peace with my frustration, convincing it that existing in Beirut all these years had been a full-time job. Getting accustomed to you took a lot of effort, as did witnessing Beirut changing hands time after time and gradually fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces. My work consisted of acclimatizing to the new and trying to forget the old, accepting what was in front of me even if it was ugly, hoping and then learning to live without hope.

Did I speak about these feelings in my previous letters? I don’t remember. It seems that these somewhat odd perceptions of mine spring from the fact that you are a strange war. It’s as if you let one eye rest while you look through the other.

I used to wake up in the morning still feeling the impact of distant dreams about what was going to happen in life. I stretched, happy at the daylight, a song, the color of a blouse, some appointment I had. I was only robbed of this sensation when the fighting started up again. All traces of the old animation were erased until the broken glass was swept up, people clasped their hands together saying sadly, “It’s a shame about the people who died,” and eventually I stretched out in bed again happy at the daylight, a song on the radio, some appointment, even the color of a blouse.

One morning I woke up to a tune being played on a car
horn, and heard the sound of Ali’s voice accompanied by shrieking and laughter; Zemzem was asking Ali for some chewing gum, teasing him. “I can see you’ve got a huge piece in your mouth,” she said.

Was Ali here in the village? Had he got through in spite of everything we’d heard on the radio about the fighting, the Syrians, the holdups on the route? Or had I become distanced from the chaos and forgotten how life could change abruptly from one day to the next, how Ali had dragged us out of our lairs as if we were small animals who didn’t know spring had arrived, and taken us on that tortuous journey to the village to wait for calm to return to Beirut?

Clearing his throat loudly, my grandfather called, “When did you leave Beirut, Ali? You must have grown wings!”

“Yesterday. I was afraid of being held up on the way. Although I had four passes with me, one for each checkpoint, to avoid any trouble. I thought I’d spend the evening in the restaurants by the river in Zahle and then stay the night and be at Miss Asma’s at first light. It was a night to remember! Did you hear I’d married again?”

My grandfather laughed. “Why are you so shy about it? Are you keeping it to yourself so that you can marry as often as you want? We’ve lost count anyway.”

“This time it’s for real. Her children have changed me and made me more patient.”

“I was praying you wouldn’t show your face,” joked my grandfather. “I’m so happy with Asma here, and you’re taking her back to Beirut.”

I came out fully dressed, delighted to see Ali, and greeted him warmly. I turned to my grandfather. “Come with us,” I urged him. “Jawad and Ruhiyya are coming too.”

Ali didn’t let this pass. “What shall I do with you, Miss Asmahan?” he said reprovingly. “Are you trying to put a jinx on my car? On top of that woman’s miserable dirges she chain-smokes and stinks the car out.”

Ignoring him, I asked my grandfather eagerly, “What do you say? Are you coming with us?”

“And leave the lands to the Almighty?” Then, laughing, “I don’t know if He’d fancy it. So, Ali, I hope you managed to get an iron door fitted in the Beirut house.”

I called Naima’s grandson. “Run to Ruhiyya’s and tell her to get ready to go to Beirut. Hurry!”

Ali still hadn’t recovered from the shock of finding out that Ruhiyya was coming back with us. He told the boy to take his time, then turned to me. “What’s going on, Miss Asmahan? Please, spare me that!”

“Come on. You can take it, Ali!” I laughed. “Ruhiyya’s made me swear to take her back to Beirut with me. She’s scared what will happen to Jawad there and she wants to show off her friend’s great big house!”

“Of course she wants to boast in front of her cousin,” interrupted Naima. “He said their family’s house is in ruins. Where’s he going to stay? In a hotel?”

“What’s it got to do with me?” interrupted Ali. “She’s like the Angel of Death. Her teeth are even going black. Everyone wondered why her husband died so young. Because
he was living with the Angel of Death! She’s wearing sackcloth and ashes and lamenting the dead in a different place each day!”

The smell of eggs frying floated down from the porch, where Naima was making breakfast. I tried to breathe slower and calm down, but I could hear Ali teasing Zemzem and Naima, and then calling me. I went over to him. “What’s going on? Where’s Juhayna?” he whispered.

Naima overheard him and said scornfully, “Have a look indoors. She’s nothing like Juhayna. The girls are all too full of themselves these days, but this one never complains. It seems the cat’s got her tongue.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? It’s not a serious question. I’m joking. Everybody’s heard the news. She thought she was the lady of the house and began poking her nose into everything. She wanted to act as go-between with the occupiers, and said your grandfather had married her secretly. When I heard it, I thought it was women telling stories as usual. I couldn’t believe your grandfather had actually gone off his head.”

I went back into my room and tried to concentrate on getting ready, but I was haunted by a sudden fear that Ruhiyya and Jawad might change their minds about coming with me. I was amazed by the elasticity of my emotions. I had stopped dreaming about him since he and Ruhiyya had come to ask me for a lift to Beirut.

I hurried into my grandmother’s room, which had the same atmosphere as always. Nothing in it had changed, and there was no evidence of the upheaval beyond its walls. The dish where she spat out pomegranate seeds was carefully
covered with a piece of clean white muslin. There were her novels, radio, vanity case, prayer beads, a brooch of her mother’s, a lock of my hair when I was a child, a swatch of some material she was still trying to match, and a little empty perfume bottle. She had kept this for years and continued to inquire about the perfume in shops in Beirut and to ask people going abroad to find her a replacement for it.

I rushed over to her now, regretting that I hadn’t gone straight to her the moment I started making preparations for Beirut. She had thousands of liras ready for me. She thrust her hand into her caftan again and took a piece of mastic chewing gum from a beautiful little box which had originally contained face powder.

I bent and held her close. Who would have thought of this piece of mastic apart from my grandmother? I half understood why I had reached this age and was still in the same place. How could I leave her? I had never seen anybody to compare to her. She started giving me instructions. “Remember who we are. Make sure the larder and the fridge are never empty.”

We had grown accustomed to our house becoming like a refuge during the war. Men and women were no longer segregated. Everybody slept in my grandfather’s room.

“Jawad said he’s lived with a woman in sin for years,” added my grandmother with an indifferent air.

I didn’t answer. It hurt me to think that she was worried about my future and had picked up certain vibrations from me when I preferred to believe I had kept my feelings well hidden. She’d guessed that my longing for a man had become
tinged with a nervous desire to get a hold on the lifeboat because the waters of spinsterhood were no longer simply lapping around my ankles, but had risen halfway up my neck, so that only my head remained above the surface. I gazed at her pale face and her hands, which were smooth and unveined and looked like a young girl’s waiting for a wedding ring. She moved the dish of pomegranate seeds aside, and I wanted to ask her to love my mother again and understand that she was the only child she had.

Zemzem and Ali were chatting. He was telling her about his wife’s voice. “Someone from a recording company heard her singing in her father’s restaurant and begged her to come to the studios, but she refused.” Then he noticed Naima’s grandson. “There you are! Give me some good news. Tell me Ruhiyya’s broken her leg and isn’t coming.”

But the boy shouted back breathlessly, “Ruhiyya and her cousin are both coming. They’re on their way. He said mind you don’t go without them and sent his hand luggage with me to give Miss Asmahan.”

I came out quickly and took Jawad’s leather bag from the boy. Hurrying back into my room with it, I held it against my body and then up to my lips, thinking with trepidation how feelings change from one moment to the next and here I was longing for him again.

“How will I survive having Ruhiyya in the car all the way to Beirut?” cried Ali. “I always remember when my sister Safiyya set fire to herself, everyone came to the graveside weeping and trying to throw themselves in after her. Just a young girl and she burned herself to death and Ruhiyya came to mourn her and do you know what she sang
to her? ‘Do you want something to eat or drink? They’re coming to bury you soon.’ ”

He told us what had happened since we left Beirut, who’d been killed and wounded, which buildings had been destroyed, and said the war between Amal and Hizbullah was really between Syria and Iran, who I thought were allies. He told us that a youth had fallen in love with Fadila’s stepdaughter in the shelter and married her the same night. “They sent for the sheikh and he was in such a hurry to get away, they hardly heard what he said.”

I was once more engrossed in my appearance. I put on cream, foundation, powder, then took the mirror close up to the window. Once I looked as if I hadn’t put anything on my face, I smiled with satisfaction. Juhayna used to creep in and watch me, because she’d noticed me looking different when I was ready to go out. I had this secret way of making my face look like ivory, even though the makeup didn’t show and I looked quite natural, as if I’d just washed with soap and water.

I heard the voices of Jawad and Ruhiyya, but instead of rushing out to them, I decided that it would be better to keep a distance between me and him, for we had hours ahead on the journey, and in Beirut I had all the time in the world. These thoughts evaporated when I heard Ruhiyya shouting, “The bastards forced their way in during the night and said they wanted to take Jawad away to interrogate him.”

“Who? Who were they?”

Ruhiyya waved a hand dismissively. “Who do you think? I went for them with a knife and one of my clogs. I
said, ‘Let’s have you,’ and one smart-ass came towards me, and Mr. Jawad here began to shout at me to move. He shoved me out of the way and said he wanted to talk to them. Why should we have any truck with them? They were only there because they had their eye on his watch or passport or return ticket. God alone knows! They were pretty quiet when I asked them why they wanted to question Jawad. Then they began giving out this twaddle at the tops of their voices, like wild dogs baying. One asked me what he was going to write about. Our village is a sensitive topic now because of the coke, and another started asking him directly. Useless bastards! I chased them away and told them not to show their faces again or they’d be sorry. It’s good we’d already arranged to go with Asmahan, otherwise they’d think they’d intimidated us. I’m not letting them get away with anything. I’ll show them.”

Jawad took a breath as if he’d been the one who delivered this diatribe, then he sighed deeply and said, “There’s no problem.”

War, you’re back, dressed in clothes to suit the village, coming into our house, assuring us that of course you exist, despite the sense that the villages are self-contained, isolated behind the barriers they have put up to keep you out. Everything was quiet here except for the shifting branches of a tree, the faint scrabbling of rats. We’d come to accept the idea that my grandfather’s lands were occupied, and this occupation seemed more like an act of revenge or envy than anything to do with you. But you’ve struck at the foundations of Ruhiyya’s house, which used to smell of frying oil
and a more secure past and echo to her verses of love and sadness. You came along and changed its history in a few moments, taking its silence by surprise, making it aware that it was now at the mercy of young minds whose only experience was of violence.

Even Jawad was different that morning because of you. As he sat on the porch wall, I felt he had become one of us. Somebody’s son I’d played with as a child. He’d had a taste of the harshness of war and come to enjoy our support and commiseration, even though he seemed still to belong to a different world with his sports shirt and striped socks. I felt reassured by what had happened to him. It cast him into this furnace of doubt, made him a player in these shaggy-dog tales, put him within range of the magnet which drew everything towards it, even the breeze. Seeing Ruhiyya resisting them armed with a knife and a shoe, although she talked with the same accent as them, would change the nature of what he wrote in his notebook.

“Well, it’s good you’re safe,” joked Zemzem. “God forgive you, Ruhiyya. You should watch your tongue. You were criticizing everyone under the sun for not visiting you to welcome Jawad and, you see, even complete strangers heard he was with you.”

Nobody laughed, although Zemzem was only trying to dispel the tension. Neither my grandfather nor my grandmother made any attempt to change my mind about going back to Beirut. They seemed to know how set I was on making the trip, especially after hearing Ali’s stories. As usual Ali took the opportunity to demonstrate that he had
connections in high places and was back in favor, whereas what had happened made me realize that we were all hostages, whatever the apparent signs of peace.