Beirut Noir Page 3
The factors that prompted him to give his father a slap in the face in front of the whole family get-together last week remained obscure to him. He had gone there out of vengeance, an age-old desire to humiliate—at least, that’s what he thought before the incident. But he felt something strange in seeing his father tumble to the ground under the powerful impact of the slap, it was something dark—soothing and dreadful at the same time—that when deciphered would eventually reveal his own fate to him. He only half succeeded in trying to revive this strange sensation. Looking to his right, he noticed a rotting dog, its belly gaping and whence came forth dark battalions / of larvae that flowed out like a thick liquid.
The thought, He is going to have me killed, passed through him like a sweet revelation. He will never forgive, never forget. Even if he wants to, his position at the top of the family hierarchy will prevent him. He has to make an example of me—to preserve his honor, blood must flow.
And thus he understood what had secretly motivated his slap.
He walked peacefully in this filthy alley when he felt something hard pressing on his spine and then climbing up his back, touching the nape of his neck, stopping right at the base of his skull. His fate had been sealed, he knew now; it was only the immediacy of this secretly-hoped-for outcome for which he was somewhat unprepared. Yet all his limbs trembled, he sweated like a pig, his terror was atrocious and indescribable. He had expected anything but this: instead of resigning himself to remaining impassive in the face of death as he had always delighted in imagining he would, he felt the warmth of urine flowing between his thighs. “Like dogs,” he mumbled in a lucid moment, “we die just like dogs!”
In the depth of his desperation, a panting sound reached him, the sound of someone out of breath. He believed it was himself, that it was his own fear. But no, it was the other one. He turned sharply, but it took several seconds to recognize his brother. He seemed just as terrified as he, pale as a cadaver, barely managing to breathe, though strangely he wasn’t shaking at all. In realizing that he was going to be felled by such a despicable and cowardly being, a savage rage possessed him. He wanted to pounce on his brother, bite his neck, rip out his veins, drink his blood and swim in it. It was a bit too late though. A bullet had already penetrated his skull.
Originally written in French.
Maya Rose
by ZENA EL KHALIL
Ain el Mreisseh
I woke up unsure. I knew I felt something. Considerable. But wasn’t very sure. As I squeezed my way out between my mama’s legs, I knew it was already time to be somewhere else. Here in room 807 of the American University Hospital in Ain el Mreisseh, I began to let go of my life quite happily. The pounding heartbeat that connected me to my mama was slowly beginning to weaken, and everything was warm, oh so warm. I smiled and wrapped myself around our cord. I could hear the pushing and panting of my mama in the distance, and a drumming began in my head. Getting louder and louder. I wanted it like this, to go out with a bang. Here, within the pastel-green walls of the hospital where most Beirutis begin and end their lives. Cancer. War wounds. The flu. Silence. Silence is an illness that deeply affects my parents’ generation. They are the ones who grew up with the bombs. They prefer alcohol to sobriety. And silence to reality. Who can blame them?
Nothing left to say. In silence, I would die. The quiet, the end. The birth of the universe was absolutely quiet, everything that came after was chaos, loud, the beginning of our death.
On the day I was born, the Great Wall fell. They say that I was born blue and without a heartbeat. My mother, Souraya, screamed in fear as the nurses tried everything to get me to breathe. They hit my back. Spanked my bottom. Flipped me up and down. Swayed me back and forth. I would say nothing. I would not cry, I would not breathe. I could see all of this as my soul rose away to begin its voyage into another life. A short overweight nurse with jet-black hair, in a sudden act of desperation, flew back against the radio that my mother had finely tuned to 96.2 FM, Radio Liban. My father, Rida, a local deejay, had planned to spin records for my birth. He would connect to my mother through song. He had chosen a mix of Al Green, Led Zeppelin, and Ziad Rahbani. Al, he believed, would help ease my way down my mother’s birth canal, filling my heart with love and faith. Zeppelin would help me burst through her feminine folds and prepare me for life, giving me the motivation and courage to find beauty in a galaxy of pain. Ziad would be there as I took my first breath to help me accept all that was wrong and understand all that needed to be changed. Ziad would also provide me with the sense of humor and irony to laugh in the face of death, something we love to do here in Beirut. Death. Death, it seemed, is what I was destined for. I came out blue and neither Al nor Jimmy Page could help me. And Ziad . . . Ziad will be our last man standing in Beirut. He will survive all the wars, the civil wars, ideological wars, family wars . . . Ziad, even on the day the world ends, will still be here, cigarette hanging off his chapped lips, whiskey in hand, with something significant to say. As I twisted myself tighter around our cord, the final connection between me and my mama began to fade and Ziad’s words were the last thing I ever heard. I died blue, with a smile on my face. And then I began to float up . . .
“Ismaa’, Ismaa’ ya Rida . . .”
* * *
My father, Rida, so self-absorbed in his ideas, failed to acknowledge that I might be born a woman. And that it could only be a woman’s voice that would convince me to embrace this new lifetime. The nurse with jet-black hair—unable to control her tears, fears, anxiety, and bloated stomach of this morning’s fermented yogurt breakfast—stumbled back and brushed against the small radio just as my father’s voice was desperately announcing the next song. I could barely make out her name tag as I floated higher and higher. Hello, my name is Rima’s round and shapely ass hit the radio dial, disrupting the channel. My parents had spent weeks brainstorming about the music that would welcome me into this new world. Being the romantics that they are, they asked the doctor not to inform them of my gender. My aunt, an older woman who never married, was sure I was a boy. She claimed that boys made their mamas crave salt, while girls were sweet. Souraya only ate lemons during her pregnancy. She sprinkled them with salt and cumin. She put them in her water. Ate them with mangos. She preserved them in olive oil. Put them in her tea and in her lentil soup. Sour. Sour is what she craved. My mama had asked my father to play Ella, Nina, Patti, and Alanis. She believed they were all women of virtue who would bring me into a world with strength and courage. She was convinced that Patti Smith was the reincarnation of Asmahan, and Alanis was Oum Khalthoum. Therefore they bridged East and West, providing me with the best of both worlds.
I see them crying now and I just want to hold them and tell them everything is going to be all right. That they will have another chance, maybe. My mother, alone. My father, hunched over his vinyl. Who’s going to tell him? He looks so small now. I want to hold him.
I leave the hospital and I fly over Ain el Mreisseh. I can see the Mediterranean Sea from here. It’s absolutely blue and beautiful. I decide to take the big concrete steps that connect John Kennedy Street down to the sea. Recently, the steps have transformed into a graffiti haven. In the last few years, the youth of Beirut have taken to the walls for self-expression; everything from political slogans to gay rights paint the streets of this part of town. Haifa for President! Freedom! Lesbians United! On the left side of the stairs is the very end of the American University of Beirut campus, flanked by aging yellow bricks. On the right lays an abandoned plot of land ravaged by stray cats and out-of-control electricity wires, shrubs, and ivy. From here I can also see the hotel district, specifically the Holiday Inn. During the civil war, the militias fought to take control of these hotels because they were the tallest buildings in Beirut at the time. The hotels were strategic and from their rooftops anything and everyone could be shot down or thrown over. The Holiday Inn, towering above the city, is the only hotel still standing, and it’s completely riddled with bullet holes. Lar
ge chunks of the facade were blown off by rocket-propelled grenades, tanks, and mortars. Completely hollowed out and with perfectly gridded balconies, this menacing piece of architecture is a tribute to the past, horribly scarred by artillery war wounds. A little to the right is the Murr Tower, which is even taller than the Holiday Inn. The Murr Tower was never finished and its dark and ominous skeletal structure rises above all of central Beirut like a ghostly sentinel. Neither building has been knocked down because, it is said, they are just too large and too difficult to remove. It would cost millions and no one is prepared for that sort of commitment. It makes me happy to see them among all the new glass-and-steel buildings. Physical proof of the atrocities we once committed. To me, they are beautiful memorials. We must never forget what we did to each other. They say that the world began in Beirut. They also say that the world will end in Beirut.
I pause for a minute and then glide down the concrete steps and run into Naila, struggling up. I assume she’s on her way to see Souraya. Naila, now in her early forties, went through a divorce about ten years ago. Her husband couldn’t stand being married to her and sent her packing after less than a year. She’s still in love with him and has never been able to move on. To help pass the time, she regimentally paints her fingernails at Salon Sonia just down the street. Today she painted a rainbow—a different color for each nail; it’s really “in” these days. Sometimes Sonia asks to experiment with glitter on top of color. On those days, Naila feels special, thinking she could be helping to advance fashion trends in Lebanon. Maybe one day her nails could appear in an ad or on the cover of a glamorous Beiruti society magazine. If only they weren’t already so aged. She recently saw a billboard advertising a bank loan specifically for plastic surgery. Maybe she should finally get that nose job. Maybe, with the perfect nose, people would acknowledge her perfect nails. Maybe her ex would even consider taking her back. There is not a day that goes by without her thinking of him.
I linger for a moment and then dive into her. There is so much life here for someone who has suffered so much. True, she is lazy; loves to sleep in and hates cooking, but she is capable of so much love. I wrap myself around her heart and squeeze . . . sending signals rushing through her body. I want to tell her everything will be all right, but I know it won’t. She is not going to find love again and her ankles will continue to swell. In a few years, she won’t even be able to climb these stairs anymore. I squeeze tighter and she quickly sits down on a step, thinking she’s having a heart attack. When I release, it sends her whole body shaking and she has the most incredible orgasm of her life. Right there on the steps, she hugs herself tight and screams in joy and fear. She will never experience anything like this again. And she will never be able to share this story with anyone. But she will always know how special she is and she will never give up on love. Until her ankles fail her, she will continue to walk up and down these stairs hoping for a replay of this afternoon.
I let go and fly up into the purple jacaranda tree above her, continuing my journey toward Graham Street. Beirut is most beautiful when the jacarandas are in bloom. For a moment I reflect on how these trees also exist in Havana and Islamabad, and it’s beautiful to think about how we are all connected. Humans need passports to travel, but trees only need seeds. I leave Naila straddled on the stairs, smiling and sweating profusely. Naila is Rida’s sister. It’s just the two of them left now. Souraya will soon follow me in a horrible accident. On the day that our Speaker of the House of Parliament will be assassinated, Souraya will be walking by Uncle Deek Café along the Corniche at exactly 3:15 p.m. when explosives, the equivalent of two thousand kilograms of TNT, will detonate. They will not be able to find her body, as it will completely disintegrate. They will never know that she was pregnant again. What they will find, however, is her left shoe. The one with the pink insole. In Beirut, people blow people up like it’s something casual.
I realize that I’m not ready to leave. I like it here . . . No, I love it. I want to stay, but I know I’m not supposed to be here now. The Great Wall has fallen and I’m supposed to be there soon. But I want to stay—in Beirut. They say that in Beirut, you live like there’s no tomorrow. Every day is so intense. So extreme. Here, people work, argue, drive, dance, drink, and even make love as if it were their last day on earth. When you’re constantly courting death, you learn how to appreciate life. You learn how to improvise dinners over candlelight because the electricity has just been cut again. You grow gardenias and jasmine to cover up bullet holes on your buildings. You become naturally creative because absolutely nothing is certain and no day is ever like the previous one.
I am halfway down Graham Street and I stop to watch the fishermen as they come into port. As they unload their small wooden boats with the night’s catch of sardines and Sultan Ibrahim red snapper, I marvel on how this tiny port survived both the civil war as well as the monstrous rebuilding process. Prostitutes, fishermen, brand-new skyscrapers, and mimosa trees have all found a way to coexist here in Ain el Mreisseh. But there are also the Druze, a secretive monotheistic religious community who believe in reincarnation. Within the Druze faith, proselytism is not allowed and the Druze only marry other Druze. No one can join, no one can leave. This tight-knit community has held strong for centuries, withstanding occupations, wars, and even tsunamis. Rida and Naila were born Druze. Their family, the Assefs, are one of the oldest families in Ain el Mreisseh, along with the Oud, Ghawi, Sleit, Raouda, Hisshi, and Deek families. They say that the Druze moved to this part of Lebanon a century ago when the pious Sitt Mreisseh lived here. They surrounded her to protect her teachings and wisdom. When she died, they built her a shrine, which still survives today. Ain el Mreisseh literally means “the water spring of Mreisseh.”
As a Muslim, Souraya was never fully accepted into Rida’s family. The Assefs were practically one step away from disowning him, but upon the news that Souraya was pregnant, his uncles became a little more lenient. What will they think now? Naila will probably have to break the news to them. I turn around and see that she’s still sitting on the steps. Her head rests on her arms, which are wound around her knees. It looks like she might be crying. The Druze claim their faith to be more than tens of thousands of years old. Recent DNA testing has found that Druze villages contain a striking range of high-frequency and high-diversity X haplogroup, a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The X haplogroup was prevalent in the genetic makeup of people living thirty thousand years ago. I want to leave this place now. Tradition is heavy here and it is because of tradition that Naila will never marry again. She will never meet her Druze prince and she will never have the strength to do what her brother did. I wonder if my death will be blamed on Souraya and Rida’s unblessed union. I want to leave now. I really do.
I soar toward the east side of Ain el Mreisseh, to the hotels, bars, and bordellos. Just below the hotels is the infamous Zeitouni Street, now renamed Phoenicia Street, lined with nightclubs. Le Royale, Rock Inn, and Club 70 were all hot spots back in the sixties and seventies, but during the civil war they deteriorated into whorehouses. In Lebanon, prostitution is technically illegal, so pimps have come up with many creative ideas to profit from sex workers. The way it happens is by tricking the system: The prostitutes, mainly from Syria and Eastern Europe, enter the country with entertainment visas. They come in as “artists” or “dancers.” They dance in “super nightclubs” like the Excellence here on this street, or the Excalibur or Cobra in Mameltain, just outside Beirut. Once inside, you buy yourself a bottle of whiskey or champagne that will cost around a hundred dollars. A girl will approach you and if you like her, you buy her a bottle too, another hundred dollars. You can spend the whole night talking with her and if she really likes you, she may allow you to kiss her and fool around a little. By five a.m. you have to exit the club. If the girl agrees to see you again, you can pick her up the next day around one p.m. and can spend the entire day with her in your apartment or a hotel. Since you don’t go home with them the same night, the
practice of “prostitution” is averted. Instead, because technically it’s the next day, you’re actually on a date. A paid date for around another hundred dollars.
I am in the East now, and I already feel lighter when a thought comes to mind: I want to find Club 70, where Rida and Souraya first met in the nineties during a brief period of postwar euphoria. I pause just before the Holiday Inn and a shiver passes through my body. So many people died here. I run my fingers across the facade of the twenty-second floor. There are still bloodstains inside this void of a structure. There is still graffiti on the walls, militia insignias and slogans. I smell burned flesh. I see bullet casings. Broken glass strewn across the floor. Stains. Excrement. Hair. I look down below and people are walking and driving, oblivious to the mess up here. It is strange to think that every day we look up at these buildings but never realize what remains inside. They are sleeping giants, and beasts lay stagnant in their bellies. I want to go down now. I see Phoenicia Street below. There it is, Club 70, just opposite Wash Me Car Wash. I perch on top of a small replica of a Fiat 500 that hangs just above the car wash entrance. Today Club 70 only attracts men, especially tourists, looking to get laid. But in the seventies, it was the “it” place. It wasn’t as big as Cave de Roi or Le Grenier next door, where celebrities like Brigitte Bardot came from all around the world to party. Club 70 attracted a younger crowd who were discovering disco, bell-bottoms, hair spray, and polyester. During the civil war, Ain el Mreisseh became the dividing point between East and West Beirut and it was here that militias and prostitutes set up shop and began to thrive. After the civil war, Club 70 temporarily shut down, then reopened in the midnineties, hoping to bring back their golden era. It lasted a few years before falling back into old habits. It was during this short revival that Rida and Souraya met.