She says that as far as she knows there are no schools here that teach her mother tongue: “Teach English, teach French, no Arabic. What good is that? Correct?”
“Right.”
“He can talk like me. People understand enough. Correct?”
“Yeah, but will you teach him Sri Lankan?”
“Of course.”
When her kid’s old enough to go to school, she’s thinking of going with her husband and child back to Sri Lanka because “it’s not right for son to go to school without mom and dad next to him, correct?” I didn’t respond (which is rare). I considered her question for a minute instead (also rare!) and she said that five years from now, when her baby—who hasn’t been conceived yet—is old enough to go to school, she would’ve saved up enough money to go back to Sri Lanka.
She goes quiet for a minute, then says: “Yeah, I save dollars and buy bus!”
“A bus?!”
“Yeah, what? A bus! I work on road and keep money! For work, I mean. You no heard of bus before? You don’t know what bus means? Poor girl!”
I laugh. She gets upset. I laugh harder. She gets more upset. She tries to figure out why I’m laughing and I tell her that I thought she was planning on buying a bus here in Lebanon. She laughs in return and says that a Lebanese can’t afford to buy a bus in Lebanon, so how can she? I agree with her and tell her of the Lebanese guy who died from a gunshot last year when two bus drivers from two rival companies opened fire on each other. So, Koko’s going to buy a bus in Sri Lanka, or maybe open her own restaurant? I remind her of the plan she had of opening her own restaurant. She resentfully tells me that the restaurant is her husband’s idea but the bus is hers. I don’t answer and instead watch the growing concern on her face.
“Koko, why do I feel that you’re worried about Prasanna coming here?”
“No! Me scared? Why? He scary? No! I am clear to him, I make everything clear to him, and he is free and I am free. I mean I am comfortable like this. He no need to come here. Why he come here? Because he is man and I am woman. I am comfortable like this. I live alone, like you, and you know what’s nice? I got used to here. I like here. But he is man, so if I don’t go to him and he no come to me . . .” She makes a strange noise that sounds something like “bkhffshhh,” then she raises her hands in earnest and aims each at the different end of the room indicating a separation or break up. Then she goes back to using words. “There are many girls there, why he wait for me? I am comfortable like this, I swear. But that’s fine, he come, he really wants to come, yeah, but I agree with him: he is free and I am free. He no tell me where I go and what I do. I am comfortable like this.”
“Is he going to move into the apartment you’re living in now?”
“My landlord wants no man with me. I will talk to him, if he say no, fine then, no. No problem, I will look for another apartment. Any problem?”
“No problem.”
“Yeah, no problem. Correct?”
Koko is very authoritative. She only lived with her husband for a month, and it was full of interruptions. They never spent much time together during that month because they were busy planning for the wedding and had parties to go to and clothes to pick out, pictures to pose for and dinners to attend. So they would meet, then separate. So, will their relationship survive the wave of divorce sweeping all societies? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. What’s important is to give the relationship a shot.
Koko is too strict, and here she is interrupting my train of thought.
She gives me a hard time for not cleaning my apartment and says that she does most of the cleaning herself. I tell her that I don’t get paid to clean, while she does. I escape as she’s thinking of another reason to yell at me; I pack up my laptop and leave.
Uff . . .
This woman has an exceptional relationship with yelling. If asked to sum her up, I would sketch a mouth letting out a scream into space.
I notice that the sketch would resemble the map of Sri Lanka, an island in the shape of a tear in the middle of the ocean.
Sri Lanka’s map is pretty.
. . .
Koko’s moving to Achrafieh in a month from now. She’s going to move into an apartment all for herself for two hundred dollars a month. Her previous landlord refused to let her husband move into the room with her. She didn’t put up a fight, so I ask her why, and she explains to me that she was living with “all Bangladeshi girls, I no know if open mind or close mind.” (The girls wore head scarves, so she doesn’t know if they’ll have a problem with a man moving in with them.) “So I should make my man stay in the room all the time? Enough, I move.”
She asks me apprehensively how far Achrafieh is from Hamra. She doesn’t wait for an answer and assures herself that there’s no traffic in Beirut. She says that she noticed the buses going between Hamra and Achrafieh and studied her transportation options.
Her face lights up, for a minute or two only, then she remembers why she chose this apartment in the first place. “Achrafieh, next to Sassine Street, close to his work. Prasanna can take bus to Dora, poor man, he not know how to get around, but I am used to it. Achrafieh is not long, right?”
“No, geographically speaking, it’s not far.”
She’s paying one hundred and thirty dollars for the room she’s currently renting in a communal apartment where she shares a living room and a kitchen with her roommates. “The kitchen is for everyone, I don’t like! I cook on balcony instead.” (She raises her voice.) “Yeah, yeah! I hung a curtain and now balcony is kitchen. But I do dishes with the other girls. I clean plate and pan in kitchen, but I cook on balcony. Bangladeshis are dirty!”
She describes how dirty Bangladeshis are and dwells on her description of how low they are, so I stop listening.
This closed circle is closed. I can’t find a way out. I don’t know whom I hate or whom I should judge. These people hate those people, and they hate me, and I hate you, and you hate them, and all this hatred is based on race, and that’s called racism. Racist comments are easy to make.
Racism is the pastime of humankind.
I leave her to clean my apartment. I leave disheartened.
I look up and down the street then start walking. When I reach nearby Ras Beirut, I find it quiet on this cloudy Saturday morning.
Cars will crowd the street on their way to Hamra tonight, and it will grow loud with people’s voices.
I keep walking. I’ll walk on in sadness until the joy comes.
I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of despair. Maybe it’s my age. Maybe, at thirty, people’s ambitions filter and they begin to recognize their limitations.
I feel like I have to leave this country. No, that’s not what I have to do, but I do need a change. No, no, a change is only superficial. It’s not a new place or a new thing that I need. It’s something inside that’s suffocating me.
I think death and life are warring inside every person. That war is an inescapable reality. They keep busy with other things until the time comes, and then they strike. Life and death must fight inside every person. Where else would all the dark thoughts come from? And how could they be so powerful? And how else could happiness advance unless sadness had withdrawn, and vice versa?
And why do people (this means me, too, since I’m a person) get so angry sometimes, like on their way to a wedding or a party?
Life and death must be fighting inside me.
Whether they’re friends or foes, I don’t know, but they’re certainly related in some way.
I have to learn how to deal with them. I have to get used to having them inside me.
I keep walking. The day is still quiet. It’s like everyone is asleep.
It’s like my dream is coming true. It’s really coming true.
I keep walking and, in spite of my sadness, a smile floats up to my lips. But it sinks back down seconds later for no reason.
I feel like I’m stretching across the street, the city, the country, the planet. Nothing’s sto
pping me.
I feel my quiet existence.
I feel joy.
I’m thankful for this feeling; life must have really sensed my desire and taken the place of death inside me, like an ambulance rushing in after a 911 call.
I float. I smile. It’s like I’m made of clouds.
I look for other people, but I find floaters, like me, smiling. No angry people, no violence, no “who’s talkin’ to you, punk?”
Silence. Such a great feeling.
I take out my iPod and plant the headphones in my ears.
What song should I play? Leonard Cohen.
His voice makes me happy even though his songs aren’t. I feel security in his voice, because it’s calm and gentle when it speaks of sadness and despair.
I live in the dream of the gentle and in the nightmare of reality.
I play the song “Everybody Knows.”
Everybody knows that the war is over / Everybody knows the good guys lost / Everybody knows the fight was fixed / The poor stay poor, the rich get rich . . .
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pause the music, take out my phone and read the text message. I put it back into my pocket. I hesitate then continue walking. The length of the road begins to bother me, as if the phone took away my serenity.
I notice the sounds of life beginning to build in Ras Beirut and inside my head.
I make a decision: I stop a jitney and ask the driver to take me to a café in Hamra.
It’s my day off and I’ve already let go of all my sadness. It’s time to see some friendly faces.
Uff, I could’ve at least finished the song!
I’ll listen to it in the car, like I used to when I was a teenager.
I reach for the headphones and notice my hands shaking. What’s wrong now? Why am I so agitated? It’s like my nerves are longing to explode but are scared of the consequences and repercussions, so they take revenge on my psyche instead.
I figure out the reason: the cab driver seems to suffer from a condition that forces him to honk his horn every ten seconds—one quick beep to pierce the emptiness of the street. His honking remains constant as long as there are people on the street whom he keeps trying to pick up. It doesn’t matter if the people are walking on the opposite side of the road or in the other direction, or jogging or getting out of their cars or another jitney, or getting off a motorcycle, or window shopping, or sitting outside a café, or greeting each other, or just walking by casually. It doesn’t matter. He continues to honk relentlessly at them, oblivious to the outside world.
I control my nerves to keep from exploding in his face. Why? Because he’s an elderly, unshaven man, staring ahead and clearly not watching the road but analyzing some movie scenes from his memory instead. The look in his eyes is empty and distant. His honking is his only connection to the here and now and to his occupation. The scenes are clear in his eyes: long, calm, in black and white, abstract, intellectual—time is of no consequence. Calm. He’s watching Télé Liban serenely inside his head.
I won’t disturb him. But putting up with him is difficult. His honking is starting to get in the way of my thinking anything about him at all.
I will wait until we reach the top of that hill, then I’ll get out. It’s spring, the song hasn’t reached its end yet on my iPod, and my feet still serve me well. I will walk from the end of Hamra Street to its beginning, alone in the calming sun while the sea breeze hasn’t reached me yet.
We reach the top of the hill and the driver’s not surprised at my request to stop the car. He parks on the right side of the road and reaches in my direction, out of habit, to take the dollar fifty from my hand. I thank him; he nods as if he knows I’m leaving because of him. I get out of the car and close the door “gently,” like the handwritten note on the cardboard sign that’s taped to each side window suggests. I glance at his face; he’s not smiling, so I take a breath and start walking.
Beep. Beep. Beep . . . until he’s out of earshot and out of sight, but not out of my mind. He resides inside my mind now, just as his memories reside inside his.
I wear the headphones and press the play button to listen to the Leonard Cohen song from earlier.
The song hesitates at first, as if admitting life’s defeat, and the urge to turn it off takes over me: I can’t take any more defeats.
I browse through the list of tracks and singers. I find it. I smile, connect to it and press play. I listen to the song like it’s the first time.
And every time I come across this song, I hear something new in the singer’s voice, a new joy in her words, a new lightness in the music. A smile settles on my face, masking my laugh, and I head toward the café like a butterfly painted by the gentle hands of an artist.
It’s spring and the weather’s so fine / Come on, leave your cares behind / No excuses, no debate / It’s spring—there’s nothing more to say . . .
It’s like a marathon of joy, colors, and bliss has taken over my heart, and I begin to regret every sad moment I’ve ever lived.
Then I remember that both the singer and songwriter suffered from depression. They probably committed suicide too.
But what the heck, “it’s spring” when it’s spring, and “fall” when it’s fall. Wow, what is this joie de vivre that suddenly took over me? I won’t resist it; it’ll fade on its own soon enough without any interference from me. So let it be.
Anyway, being happy all the time is boring.
I keep on walking toward the café, replaying in my head the song lyric I’m going to sing to my friends over and over: Cool blood is surely gonna win / Hot blood ain’t got a chance.
I’m feeling especially comical today and that’s probably going to annoy my friends.
I see them sitting outside a café, on chairs that are practically in the street. The sun is shining on their faces, soaking in their pores, and surrounding them as if humming their names: Zeezee, Zumurrud, Shwikar, Hassan, Sophia, Mona, Georgios, Ali, Rima.
Is it a cheerful gathering? It’s our usual luncheon on our only day off before we all return to our daily routine.
They look reassured to see me happy.
I order a cold glass of fresh orange juice and wait for it while listening to their conversation about Hassan’s new computer. He expresses his conviction that his computer can outperform any human being and that it can also do his laundry and dishes and answer the door and cook his food too.
We laugh.
And in the middle of our laughter, she arrives.
Who? Nadia, of course. Is there a better time to sell roses than in this friendly spring weather?
We see her, and with no second thought or plan, and before we even say hello to her, we rush to her with our wallets in hand.
She greets us, “Bonjour, my dear ones.”
We look up smilingly to return her greeting, and that’s when I see it: Nadia’s carrying a cane.
She now needs to support her bent back with an annoying thick wooden cane, its surface mottled in light and dark browns. Her bent back is now in need of a cane to keep her from falling.
“I wish you good health, tante.”
“Don’t worry, habibti. It’s alright, it’s old age that’s all.”
. . .
“Your name?”
“Samantha Fox.”
He slaps my face with full force. I fall off my chair.
“Your name?”
“Faten Hamama.”
He punches me in the nose. I fall backwards, still in the chair.
“Your name?”
“Umm Kulthum.”
Another slap across my face. I fall again. His shoe pierces into my stomach. Once, twice, three times.
“Your name?”
“Carolina Herrera.”
I feel vibrations go through every part of my body like a bomb going off inside me.
“Your name?”
“David Charles Samhoun.”
He leaves the dark room where I can’t see or hear anything aside from the
coarse voice asking my name and the noise from his beatings.
I didn’t see the door he went out of, I didn’t see him, and I didn’t hear him lock the door behind him or close it, not calmly or forcefully.
I try to think of what to do, and what not to do. It’s like he took away my will.
What should I do? Why am I here?
I’m going to stay in this position for now, not because I’m in any pain, but because the blood running from my nose down my face is blocking my nostrils.
I’ll wait.
Where are the others? Did he detain Zeezee and Zumurrud and Shwikar in separate rooms? Are they as bad as me?
Maybe they all told him their real names, so he stopped beating them. But, maybe there’s more pain behind another question they can’t answer.
I don’t know. I don’t know.
And me, why not tell him my real name?
My cell phone rings inside my purse. I reach for my purse, take out my phone and read my name.
I’m calling myself? I remember the joke about the druggie who heard someone at the door, so he asked “who is it?” and the person answered, “it’s me.” So the druggie freaked out, “me?!”
Ha. Me.
“What’s your name?”
“Me.”
“What’s mine?”
“You.”
“We’re two different people, then?”
“Yeah, and one’s beating up the other.”
“Why?
“Because I won’t tell you my name.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I’ve forgotten it.”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where did you forget it?”
“In my consciousness.”
“Who said you’re unconscious now?”
“The sequence of previous events has led to it.”
“There is no sequence of events. Events happen, just like that.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. There is a sequence that events must follow.”
“And where does this sequence lead, Ms. Me?”
“It leads here. To you beating me, and me wishing to escape.”
“You want to escape me?”
“Of course! You’re beating me up.”
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