Koolaids (14 page)

I always wondered why they all see loved ones. Where are the hated ones? In hell, I assume. Everyone you loved in your life will be there to meet you, all those you did not like very much are somewhere else. You, like Jesus, have that power. I would hope Rembrandt van Rijn is there to meet me. That would be more exciting. Gauguin would be in hell, since I loathe his paintings. Mondrian, yes, but not Malevich. Shakespeare, yes, but Chaucer should burn somewhere else. The Marxes, Karl, Groucho, Harpo, and Chico would be there, but not Zeppo. No dull people in my tunnel, thank you. This is fun, isn't it?

But what about the tunnel? What about the tunnel, you ask.

What about it? It isn't Nabokov's fountain after all. If you think about it, the one experience as stressful as death itself is birth. What does one see as one is being born? Possibly a tunnel, but I doubt welcoming loved ones. A slap on the butt is more like it.

I know, you say. You have proof. Many people remember past lives clearly. How is that possible, you ask.

Drugs is one possibility. Schizophrenia is another.

How come all people who remember their past lives were Cleopatra at some point? No one remembers being her maidservant, or the big shmuck with the big feather fan in the background, moving the fan up and down, up and down. Andy Rooney would wonder about that.

What if I told you matter creates consciousness? Would you believe me, or would you run away and hide behind your safe beliefs? You can call me a heresiarch, if it makes you feel better. I like that word.

Are you so afraid of this life? Are you still practicing, hoping to get it right in the next one? Are you being a good girl, hoping Father will reward you with everything you weren't able to get? Are you?

One day, you will write that book. One day, you will be fulfilled. Some day, you will take that risk. Some day soon, you will be doing what you really, really love. One day, you will begin to live your life.

What have you done with the garden entrusted you?

…

June 14th, 1993

Dear Diary,

I had a fascinating conversation with a Swiss woman today. She was visiting her sister who lives in Ashrafieh. It was good to see some of the Europeans coming back to Beirut. We talked about funerals and traditions in different cultures. She played the church organ every Sunday in Leysin. She said she had been playing there for over twenty-five years, and in all that time she had never seen a single person cry at a funeral, not one. This shocked the hell out of me. We both thought it was unnatural. So I tried to explain to her how at some of our funerals, we still have professional mourners. It doesn't happen as often these days, but some women are asked to come to funerals to mourn the dead person, eulogize, wail, all done loudly to make sure everyone cries. The mourners keep wailing until the loved ones have cried enough. It is shocking that in twenty-five years nobody has cried at a funeral in Switzerland. We are getting colder. We don't cry as much, but we aren't that cold yet. I find it hard to imagine.

…

Nabokov told me in an unguarded moment, “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”

I was born in Beirut, the fifth son of my parents. I was the youngest child for the longest time. Nawal was born when I was twelve. Even after five sons, my father blamed my mother for having a girl. He was part of a generation that was supposed to have been extinct. He believed in continuing the legacy of his forefathers. He should have joined them.

My sister was a difficult birth. My mother did not recover easily. The doctors recommended an extended period of rest, which was patently impossible in our household. She continued to take care of the entire household for the next two years while she recuperated. I helped with my sister. For the first two years, I was my sister's nanny, diaper changer, baby-sitter, teacher, and all around play toy.

I left my family when I was fifteen, not knowing it was final. The war had started. I was sent to Los Angeles to be with my uncle and finish high school. I moved to San Francisco, attending the San Francisco Art Institute, in 1977. I could not afford to visit home during my college years. My father refused to help me financially to go to art school. I worked full time at various jobs to support myself, until my first show at Heller. After that show, I stopped having to worry about money or family. I gained financial independence and lost my roots.

…

My father came to visit me in Washington in the fall of 1983. I was nervous for three months prior to his arrival. I had to de-gay my apartment completely. It was not an arduous task, for I was not completely out of the closet then. Still, I worried endlessly. Cleaning out my books took the most time. I got a cardboard box to hide in my basement. In it, I placed Baldwin, Proust, Mishima, and Wilde. I even threw in Yourcenar's books just in case. Two days before he arrived, I panicked. I sent Nabokov's
Pale Fire
down as well. I did not wish to risk anything. Charles Kinbote could disinter me.

He tried to treat me like a man and I did not feel like one. He was proud of me and I felt I shamed him. He wanted us to be friends and I wanted him in Beirut.

I had never spent that much time alone with him. Hell, I do not think I had spent more than a couple of minutes alone with him my entire life.

Washington was his town. This was where he graduated from college. It was where he taught. It was where they conceived me. It was where he betrayed me.

I lived in a one bedroom. He asked me to disappear for a couple of hours. He wanted to recapture old times with an old flame. In my bed. Three times in the two weeks he spent with me. We were peers. I was a man now. I did not feel like one.

I wanted to understand. It was a different culture. He was a good man. My mother loved him. He loved my mother. Who was I to judge?

I judged.

Five years later, I was able to watch his face when I told him about the virus. His face contorted in pain when he finally believed me. I wanted him to rage. I could handle rage. I did not know how to handle pain.

I wanted him to rage, but I never did.

I told him I was a man now. I told him I was not like him. He sat there and cried. I had expected everything but that. I wanted to be in Washington, in my own bed.

I asked him once if he ever forgave me. He said there was nothing to forgive.

I wonder if he ever forgave me.

…

My country is being torn apart by packs of wild dogs, and my countrymen are apathetic.

…

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.

Jimmy Baldwin wrote me that in one of his endless letters. I love the man, but he wrote really long letters. I wrote back, “Baldy boy [that was what I always called him], I loved the fact you wrote mosques instead of churches. I feel you are finally seeing the light.”

…

Scott never wrote. He even hated writing letters. He was a reader. He enjoyed reading. It was his one true passion. He felt that if he ever wrote, he would lose the pleasure. He didn't want to risk it. I understood. I rarely enjoyed looking at painting.

…

East Beirut is Christian. West Beirut is mostly Muslim, but still fairly pluralistic. They have killed and kidnapped a number of Christians in West Beirut, but its nature remained more accepting of its heterogeneous population. They forcibly evicted all nonChristians out of East Beirut. They sanitized it. East Beirut is cleaner, tidier, more orderly, and antiseptic. They have no slums or refugee camps. They razed them.

If sterility is your cup of tea, then you would like East Beirut. It's like a smaller Marin County.

…

March 13th, 1995

Dear Diary,

Lamia Ghaleb came by to visit today and relayed a disturbing rumor. She had heard about a man in Beirut who had sex with his Filipino maid and got AIDS. He then gave it to his wife. His son also had sex with the maid and he got AIDS. Only the daughter in that family is uninfected. What a disaster. I hope it is not true.

…

Amin Bagdady was a hairdresser, a homosexual. He was by far the best in Beirut. His sexuality was rarely an issue with his clientele. It actually was rarely an issue with anybody. There were the jokes and whispers, but few made a big deal out of it. His family pretended to ignore it.

Being the best hairdresser, he was somewhat of a celebrity. His social life was pretty active because of that. The women who came to see him were the who's who of Beirut.

It was not until the Israeli siege of Beirut that he was truly loved. The Israelis had cut off the water and electricity. Most of his clients, but not all, had left the city. While the Israelis bombed the population, while everybody was terrified, wondering if they would be able to survive the onslaught, he kept his shop open. He had a small generator which provided power and he used cases of bottled water he had hoarded in preparation for just such an emergency. As the population of West Beirut ran thirsty, as they were walking around, unable to do laundry or shower, Amin's clients remained well coifed and well dyed. You could tell one of his clients from a distance simply by her hair. He became a hero.

Both he and his shop survived the Israeli bombing. He did not survive their withdrawal, however. He was murdered by Druze militiamen while visiting his relatives in his hometown, in one of the numerous massacres that occurred after the withdrawal.

…

Bashir Salaheddine

P.O. Box 892

Beirut, Lebanon

Mr. Samir Bashar,

920 29th Street NW

Washington, DC 20007

Dear Samir,

I apologize for the delay in answering your letter. In my old age, I do not like writing letters as much as I used to. It took me a while to gather my thoughts and find the courage to write you back.

I cannot tell you how happy I was to receive your note. Your mother brought it to me the day after she returned. Few members of the family are interested in our history. I have been patiently waiting for someone to ask me even a simple question. You were the first. So let me start by answering your questions before I delve into more personal matters.

You are right. Our families, both your father's and mother's, are descendants of the Tanoukh family. Most Druze families are descendants from the Tanoukhis, who were originally Arab tribes that migrated to Lebanon during the Abassid Dynasty to defend the coastal cities from Byzantine armies. You are right, as well, that they did rule part of Mount Lebanon for four hundred years, but they also ruled Beirut as well during that same period. During that time, they fought the Crusaders and the Turkmans. I believe this should fill some of the blanks in your research so far. Please do not hesitate to ask me any more questions. You do have to ask them quickly, though. Unlike our ancestor, Emir Salaheddine Amin bin Chazy Al-Tanoukhi, who lived for a hundred and twelve vital years, I do not believe I will reach my centennial.

The questions you have raised in your note are justifiable. I am being presumptuous in telling you this, since, after all, you are the historian. However, I do feel having been educated in the United States may have distanced you from your actual subject. That could work to your advantage, as well as disadvantage. My education was in France (a long, long time ago!) which kept me in my environment for the most part. The reason you have found so many inaccuracies is easy for us to understand, although a little difficult for you. The manuscripts you are reading were written by narrators, not historians. Few people wrote about history in Lebanon. All of the writers who did were Christians, with a couple of exceptions. They were the only ones who were educated. In the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church helped the Christians open a school of theology in Rome. The monks of Lebanon studied there and returned to Lebanon to open schools in the mountains and teach theology. The Druze had no opportunity for education until the eighteenth century. From all the manuscripts you listed, all two hundred and thirty-two, only one was written by a Druze. There are others, of course, and I am attaching copies of everything I have to this letter. You do get the point, however. The Christian prejudice ran amok. They did some of the finest work in keeping records about Lebanon, but we need to be careful about considering them completely accurate.

I have to tell you how proud I am of the work you are doing. It was such a joy to receive your note and the research you have accomplished so far. I thought nobody in the family cared one way or another about our history. To find that someone was willing to put such an effort to bring forth our history brought joy to my heart. That the effort came from you was a double pleasure.

I do not have to tell you what uproar your last visit caused. Most of the family members have been unable to stop talking about it for the last couple of years. As you know, many refuse to have anything to do with you anymore. I was glad to find out at least your parents were somewhat understanding. I have received a number of calls chastising me for wanting to reply to your letter. For an old man like me, this has been a lot of fun, I can tell you!

I realize this might be a painful subject for you. I hope not. I hope you have adjusted to the way things are. Most of the members of the family, even those who shun you, are decent people. They just have never had to face someone with your courage. I do think it was courageous of you. I assume you know you are not the first. Your uncle was that way too. Of course, he died a bitter man. It was sad watching him suffer so much. I have been wondering how to say this, but I guess you have figured out by now where this is going. I, too, am a homosexual. I have been for the ninety-three years of my life. I just have not done anything about it. Unlike your uncle, I am not a bitter man. I married a wonderful woman and had a good life. I loved my wife very much and I still do my children. I did regret at times not having shared my bed with a man even once, but after a while, even those feelings dimmed. You do realize this is the first time I have ever told anybody, other than my departed wife, of course. At my age, I no longer care what others think.