Beirut Blues Read online

  That if a rocket came into our kitchen

  She would hollow it out

  Drop it in the dish she uses for stuffed courgettes

  Cook it with shrapnel rice

  And a handful of our pine-nut fingers

  And we would invite the fighters

  To the most delicious feast

  They’d ever tasted.

  I looked around me again and felt a sudden hatred and revulsion for our house. How could it have conspired to let the bomb penetrate its concrete walls and land in this unlikely place between the store cupboards and the sacks of cracked wheat? I had believed in common with many others, including those who manned the guns, that I was protected by some magic armor and the violence couldn’t touch me.

  Zemzem returned with the news that the Syrian tanks were about to enter the area; Fadila had locked her nephew Ricardo in the house and gone on the demonstration too. She had shouted at the Syrians and beat her breast, drawing attention to herself, so—as Zemzem remarked grimly—they would be sure to remember her face when they were searching for Hizbullah fighters. Zemzem was like a monkey in a banana store, uncertain where to begin. She kept telling us again and again that the whole neighborhood was preparing to leave. In the days that followed, we discovered how right she had been, for the savagery of the combat had reached our doorsteps and the noise of the bombardment pounded in our ears nonstop.

  I was thinking I had to escape this battle noise outside, and inside was no better: my grandmother dreamed of picking cherries in green orchards, or standing on Mount Arafat, or floating on a marble sea, and Zemzem begged aloud, “For God’s sake, someone take me away from here! Even if it’s the Angel of Death shaking my yellow leaf off the tree, that’ll do, if it’s the only way I can get some peace.”

  So I suppose I was ready for the knocking on the door. All the same, we were amazed that there could be someone there, and it made more of an impact than the mad cacophony in the street. My heart lifted and I hoped it was a brave knight who had heard of the princess who never sleeps and had brought his sword to cut through the bullet-thorns. I heard Ali’s voice, “Hurry up and open the door.”

  I smiled and opened the door eagerly to him.

  “Did you really think Ali had forgotten you?” he cried.

  “We would never think such a thing!” I replied, overjoyed.

  This affectionate reception seemed to embarrass him, for he said quickly, but not without pride, “Come along. I’ve come to take you to the village. Hurry. Get yourselves ready.”

  My grandmother called out to him, as usual wanting to hang on to her role even in circumstances like these. Like a minister of war questioning her frontline commanders, she demanded, “What’s the news? Who’s winning? What’s going to happen?”

  “You’ve only got a few minutes,” answered Ali impatiently. “It’s dragging on. They’ll be wading in blood up to their knees.”

  “It would be all right if it was only to the knees,” answered my grandmother.

  “Nobody’s asked me how I’m going to get you there,” I heard him shouting from the living room. “I’ve brought a tank for you. You heard! A tank!”

  It made no difference to me whether it was a tank or the blessed horse, Buraq of the gilded wings, which transported the Prophet to heaven. What mattered was that I went somewhere where I could be out of range of Zemzem’s voice and my grandmother’s labored breathing. I called back hypocritically, “A tank, Ali!”

  He interrupted me proudly. “Yes, that’s right, Miss Asmahan. A damn great tank.”

  I gathered all my Billie Holiday records into a plastic bag and put them with my underclothes, a couple of skirts, some blouses, and a packet of sanitary napkins. I knew that was the one thing the village shop often didn’t have. Once when I was complaining about there not being any when I needed them, Zemzem remarked that people in the village were sensible, unlike people in the city, who wasted their money on bodily filth.

  I heard a shout from my grandmother and then an anguished cry from Zemzem. Zemzem was in a state, “trilling up her own arse, no better than a tinker,” according to my grandmother. Her desire to leave the house and take refuge anywhere as long as it was away from the violence was matched only by her inability to leave when it came to it. She went around in circles, not knowing what to take with her, what to leave behind, frightened for the house, and reluctant to abandon all the things she had cherished.

  Although I was glad to be going, I hesitated and didn’t follow Ali straight out to board the tank. It seemed as if I was running away and was afraid of criticism, even though I had anticipated it. Was it your reaction which concerned me, or the neighbors’? But they were in the shelters. I dawdled along, trying to reassure myself: was I scared of the cats who had begun to know what the war meant, or of the twisted streetlamps?

  Ali tried to hurry us along. His saliva sprayed the air. His tone had grown more commanding and decisive in these last few years, since he left our service. He had been our driver and acted as general handyman to the family in Beirut until the war came.

  I wanted to take my time leaving, but I heard Ali shouting at Zemzem because as well as the suitcase he had allowed her, she had brought the quail in its cage. I hurried out. My grandmother was shouting at Zemzem too.

  “Let’s go. A rocket’s going to hit this tank any moment now,” said Ali.

  He watched Zemzem running to a neighbor’s house to leave the quail, swearing that he wouldn’t take her with us and she didn’t deserve any sympathy. My grandmother was in a state of wonder because Zemzem had become a human being in her eyes: she had left the Moulinex and brought the bird.

  Zemzem’s voice rang out again, letting us know she was on her way. As she came up Ali reproached her for not leaving the bird at his house. “Why should I? I don’t know you,” she retorted. “For all I know you’d quite happily slaughter it and pluck it and eat it raw.”

  My grandmother asked her if she had left it with Zakiyya, but Zemzem didn’t answer her, merely muttering regretfully, “God forgive you all.”

  Then my grandmother asked her if she had turned the key in the lock. She had already asked her the same question as we were coming down the short flight of steps into the garden, and Zemzem had answered that she had fastened both locks. Although everybody was making such a noise, I couldn’t help noticing the smell of the frangipani still growing in our garden, its branches hanging over the wall into the street. But this time it was mixed with the smell of the gunpowder which had turned the purple bougainvillea black. The buildings around us were pockmarked by bullets, immense leopards with their spotted skins. A room in a nearby house had no outside wall. It was still painted blue with a dining table and chairs in the middle of it. It looked beautiful, as if it were suspended between heaven and earth. “Ali, what happened to those people?” said my grandmother. “They were so nice.”

  “I don’t know,” shouted Ali. “Get in, for God’s sake, can’t you?”

  The neighborhood was quiet, as if it was resting after yesterday’s rowdy party, when fireworks had flashed and sparkled in the sky for hours on end. A building hung its head wearily, its water pipes like coiled black snakes. A lamppost leaned over as if it were trying to kiss the ground. Smoke continued to rise in the air and hung there like a black cloud in spring. A red tile lay like a child’s toy waiting to be built into some forgotten palace. The huge metal door of the shop was like a Chinese fan with its folds pressed out. The balconies tottered on broken legs.

  The tank stood waiting for us with its radio blaring. We climbed in. The last thing my eyes fell on before I entered its hidden world was the posters of martyrs and religious leaders, peeling off as if they had been scared of the fighting and tried to get down from the walls.

  My grandmother addressed the youth who was closing the hatch on us without a word of greeting. “Thank you. We’re grateful for the trouble you’ve gone to.”

  Zemzem didn’t seem to like the solemnity of my grandmoth
er’s thanks, and hastily took up where my grandmother left off: “God preserve you for your families. God keep you from harm, wherever you go.”

  Only then did the youth glance quickly in our direction, saying carelessly before he vanished, “You’re welcome.”

  I must have stopped being attractive. He hadn’t responded to my smile. Actually he’d ignored me. I put it down to the tense situation. I wanted to look in the mirror. My appeal, even my normal liveliness, must have deserted me. This continued to bother me until the vehicle started away. When I grew used to the constant rumble, I began to study my surroundings. The tank resembled an ambulance, its seats like short narrow iron beds. I noticed the roof, like a steel hedgehog. Ali got to his feet, looking towards the driver, who was only visible from the waist down. Ali banged on the side of the vehicle as if it were a horse that had just won a race, then tapped the driver’s feet. I could picture the driver surveying the street, ready to fire. He ducked his head in, smiling broadly at us and addressing himself to Ali: “What do you want?”

  Ali raised himself up until his head vanished through the aperture. A few moments later it reappeared and he shouted, “Come here, Miss Asmahan. Come and see.”

  The tank came to a halt as he bent lower, stretching his head towards me, repeating eagerly, “Miss Asmahan, please come. Come and see the Red Cross pulling people out.”

  He held out his hand to me. He was so insistent that I stood up in the end, although I had grown to like my cozy retreat. From the opening I could see the sky and earth with their contents strewn far and wide. I saw myself too in the midst of this destruction, and a building still standing, then there was a resounding explosion and my head was shoved down inside the tank and the two youths were struggling to close the hatch without success. Ali pushed them out of the way and struck all the buttons ferociously. One youth did his best to restrain him. Suddenly it was dark inside the vehicle, and they turned on Ali with mounting annoyance. I began to think that we had been too quick to agree to travel this way. Anxiety gnawed at us all. I knew plenty of stories about people who in their attempts to escape the bombing had been lost at sea instead of being killed on land. It only became clear to me now that it was these boys’ passion to be in command of a tank which had induced them to oblige Ali, rather than a concern for our safety. Then I felt desolate as the three of them tried to master their new toy, and longed suddenly for the house. I saw it somehow reduced, its contents without life or color. They used to be animated, even talkative, and had gradually become an inseparable part of me, witnesses to the slightest changes in my thoughts and feelings. Now they were represented by a bunch of keys in Ali’s pocket and instructions to water the garden. I suddenly felt weary and wanted to lie down on my own bed. Every time I was away from it, I pictured it waiting for me, assuring me that the danger would soon pass, asking why I had abandoned it, and I saw plainly that danger was everywhere, even in this tank. As if my grandmother wanted to rid herself of tension, she said, echoing my own thoughts, “If only we’d told Zakiyya to water the marjoram and basil and watch that the boys didn’t hit the bitter-orange tree.”

  “Here we are about to die and all you can think of is the marjoram and basil,” said Zemzem crossly. Then her features relaxed and she muttered to the plastic bag beside her, “I knew you’d be a credit to me.”

  She’d hidden the quail in the bag and brought it with her. We laughed, and my grandmother commented that she’d heard a noise like someone’s stomach rumbling. Ali laughed too and told the youths in the turret, but then my grandmother seemed to tire of the subject and began to talk about Ali looking after the house. “I’ll order an iron door,” he replied. “Anyway your house is empty. There aren’t any treasures in it. But nobody likes the idea of a stranger getting into their house, even if there isn’t anything valuable there.”

  He winked at me and I realized that he was making sure the boys commanding the tank didn’t get any ideas. Everyone continued chatting amicably and exchanging jokes; Ali wished there was a camera so that he could have his picture taken in the turret, while my grandmother began reciting the throne verse from the Qur’an and prayers for our safety.

  You’re in my mind now because I’m traveling in a tank, and I feel you in my body because I’m sweating slightly and it reminds me of the times we managed to be together, in spite of the fighting all around.

  The noise the tank makes is a kind of loud whine. What causes it? Contact with the road, or the engine itself? The tank makes me think of a bracelet of my mother’s with thick gold links like its tracks. Now I understand why it’s the tank which is the most important land weapon in wartime. The sound it makes is enough to inspire terror wherever it goes, a giant roaring before it picks up the city like a bowl of fruit. Now I understand why when they’re in a tank, soldiers feel they can crush cars and trees in their path like brambles, because they’re disconnected from everything, their own souls and bodies included, and what’s left is this instrument of steel rolling majestically forward. I feel as if I’ve entered another world. No destruction. No streets, no people, no long years of war; they’ve gone, as if I have been in a submarine the whole time. There is no window where we are, and the feeble light comes from a bulb, or filters through from the small windows in the driver’s area.

  I know you wanted to leave Beirut five years ago in a tank like this, unseen and unseeing, alone with your disappointment, which was like barbed wire unraveling everywhere. Whenever you tried to outsmart it, dispute with it, ignore it, it snagged you and entangled you in its coils, made you aware of its weight bearing down on you with every breath you took, and so you went beyond it. You tried to exploit its danger, to have your revenge by staying alive. Your body represented freedom now: if it remained free, so did your mind. You’d never allow yourself to be a prey for those entering Beirut, the Israelis or anybody else. Israel would enter Beirut. What was happening was the reality. She would not only take airports and ports and establish her bases; she would enter houses, offices, nightclubs, subterranean passageways, the crevices between thoughts written and unwritten, and the whites of people’s eyes. Was it conceivable that Israeli soldiers would be in the streets and alleys where people lived, see washing spread out to dry, bunches of onions and garlic bulbs hanging on balcony walls, and witness the changes, from the pots of roses and basil dead from lack of water to the mountains of rubbish which had become such a familiar feature? Would they sit in chairs where we used to sit, around the same café tables, walk where we used to walk? Would they notice the gates of the universities and admire their spacious gardens and quadrangles, where we used to criticize them in the ’67 war?

  Being evacuated in a civilian ship, standing in front of a soldier who barks out “Name? Age? Country of origin?” snatched away the last remaining vestiges of spirit. You compared yourself to a mad bull removed because the matadors were unable to kill it. But you really saw yourself as a young ewe or nanny goat bleating at the sight of the butcher, stamp in hand, coming forward to brand a number on you. You had never envisaged this withdrawal, especially in the early intoxicating days of the resistance when you started going to the camps and searching among the trees and names and camouflage uniforms for Salim, your neighbor’s son. He had disappeared and it was said he had joined the resistance. You didn’t know why you volunteered to travel to Syria and Jordan to ask about him, but the enthusiasm with which you left your engineering office and your drawing board took you by surprise. For the first time you forgot the buzzing in your ears which had become chronic after you’d worked digging the roads in Kuwait.

  Why this enthusiasm? Was it because Salim’s family was so anxious, and automatically assumed their son had been snatched away from them, seduced by the soft words and harshness, the promises and dreams known as the Palestinian resistance? Or was it because you didn’t want to believe that you would never see your uncle’s house in Arab Jerusalem and you had to do something to stand up to a person who built a wall around the West Bank,
locked its door, and put the key in his pocket? You thought you wanted to work for the resistance, but in a different form, although boys like Salim were the focus of your interest. You would never carry a rifle or a revolver or join up with others; you’d work alone outside the official circles. If you preserved the individuality of your thinking, you’d be able to open doors which they hadn’t even thought of trying. But what lay on the other side might be dangerous, and there was your profession, your family. You hesitated, mulling over the complications, but seeing the tub of flowers on the threshold, reflected that you ought not to let the situation influence you adversely, that in fact you should turn it to your advantage. You could go on being an engineer and working for the resistance. Then without being asked, you told the official in the camp in Jordan that most of your family had stayed in Palestine, and your mother and father had only followed you out in ’48 because they had missed you so much.

  Seeing you for the first time in three years, I hadn’t expected our conversation to take this turn. When I stopped my car in a backstreet and asked for directions to the building where your office was, I was surprised to find sandbags concealing the entrance. Inside, the guard painstakingly took names, asked to see identity cards, examined the contents of tote bags and handbags. When I gave him your name, he said, “First floor on the right.”

  And I hadn’t expected to see you behind that tiny table in a bare room with a feeble unshaded light and a sofa such as you might find in the stationmaster’s office at a remote railway station, with a faded woolen rug thrown over it, and a tiled floor looking as if it had never been swept or washed since it was laid. Against the wall you’d stood a wooden vegetable crate, full of rusty nails, with a thermos, an electric kettle, a jar of coffee, and a bag of sugar on it. Then books and more books and papers and files were heaped up on a wooden shelf, spilling over onto the floor in a corner of the room.

  Where had I come from, what did I think? My car seemed out of place here, the ribbon in my hair even more so. I glanced around, concealing my embarrassment, and caught sight of an apricot stone in the ashtray. I couldn’t help looking at it again, as it seemed important, the only reminder of life in this dryness. You must have changed, and shed everything but the shirt and trousers you were wearing so that you could become as pure as the tea glass in my hand. However, from where I was sitting I could see the red blooms of the poinsettia through the window and it took me back to the bustle and uproar of Beirut, the day we met in the ’67 war in your big apartment, with its colors, green plants, fish tanks, your striped shirt, the record player and records. I suppose you must have left it behind you to fulfill a notion conjured up to dispel the feeling of despair which came over us all in ’67. Those days came back to me in a rush with such force that I felt a warm blast of air hit me as I sat facing you on the uncomfortable cane chair, looking at your feet in tennis shoes under the table and finding it hard to believe they had any connection with the feet which had played with mine a couple of years before. Meanwhile, you sat there asking how I was; and awkwardly, feeling as if I had my head stuck in the park railings, I tried to explain to you what was going on in my head, and making a mess of it. I tried to say I was out of place in that office, wholly out of place in my white floor-length coat and white leather boots, but you stood up as if you were dismissing what I was saying, and asked, “More tea or coffee?”