Other Lives

by Iman Humaydan

  “Luckily, your rituals can be completed without speaking aloud!” he replied, still laughing.

  “You’re evil and shameless!” I answered, throwing myself on top of him.

  The war kidnapped Georges. His family is still waiting for him to come back. He’s neither alive nor dead. He’s between two places, suspended between war and peace, the past and the present. I remember the day we met in our apartment near the Arab University and I told him that the test I’d taken confirmed I was pregnant and that the doctor had advised me to have an abortion because I was still unmarried and was, as he put it, “a good girl, from a good family, not a slut.”

  I wanted to shout in the doctor’s face but instead I closed my eyes and waited for him to finish what he was saying. Then I removed his hand from my naked belly, got down off the examination table, put on my underwear, and hurried out. After I aborted the baby, I didn’t see Georges much for a while. I was angry at him, at myself, at everything. But our separation didn’t last long.

  After the fall of Tell al-Zaatar, Georges didn’t go back very often to the East Beirut neighborhood where he used to live. They knew his face there. He started to be afraid, though his fear didn’t prevent his kidnappers from disappearing him. No one knows how he disappeared and when. People say many things… that he was kidnapped in West Beirut, more specifically near our apartment by the Arab University, that he was kidnapped off a boat headed from Beirut to Larnaca, or perhaps just minutes before he was to board the boat.

  I have to leave Nour before five in the afternoon. Intisar is waiting for me at the Rawda café. I gently extract my body from his arms. At that moment, I feel like someone returning a stolen love to its rightful owners.

  I leave to go meet Intisar and decide to walk between Ras al-Nabaa and Raouche, trying to find my way with considerable difficulty between the forest of cars parked on the sidewalk.

  When I arrive at the Rawda café, Intisar is waiting for me there with Malek. I haven’t seen them in fifteen years. How much Intisar’s changed—her face seems rounder but paler and faded. Her body is thicker and slower moving, but the sparkle in her eyes and her nervous laughter remain a registered trademark of their owner. She hugs me with a shout, “Meemoo, my love!” She always called me that when we were at university. “My God, how much I’ve missed you!” she carries on, her voice as loud as an explosion. I feel the people around us becoming a big circle that encloses us. Intisar wanted to surprise me and has invited all of our old friends. Laughter and questions and kisses and tears. A hug then an abbreviated life story, still suspended powerfully in memory. Immediately after I left Beirut, I had exchanged letters with some of the people here today, but when I moved from Australia to Kenya our communications were cut off. So many of my friends, both men and women, whom I haven’t seen for so long are all here together. I can’t believe that Intisar gathered this many people to welcome me back. I feel as though I’m lost among them and don’t know what to say. “The thing they remember the most are the love letters that we sent to that sociology professor at the university, my God, those days… we were happy despite the war,” Rima says while we’re hugging each other and laughing. “We were naughty!” I tell her. Jokingly she asks me, “Are you still?”

  We’d drawn pictures in red pen of hearts and kisses, addressed the envelope to the sociology professor, with his office number in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and put it into the university’s internal mail.

  In the Rawda café I meet most of my friends, those friends, friends who have changed. Moments of silence pass between us and nothing can change this, except stories from the past, stories of a time we shared. I have to concentrate hard when they talk about politics, especially local politics. I concentrate so that I can follow the thread as they’re talking to me. But I still don’t understand everything.

  Intisar says, “In this country you’ll find different groups. There are people who talk about the war like it happened in another country. Like they’ve forgotten everything. The past has become a story you read about in a book. There are some who’ve forgotten how people stood on their balconies applauding for young militia men while they dragged an unarmed man along the ground because he happened to be from a different sect. Some man they kidnapped at a flying roadblock or a checkpoint. Of course they say that the war’s over, but perhaps nothing is over. There’s a place for everyone: for the person who wants to forget and the person who wants to remember. What’s important is to know where you want to position yourself.” Intisar says all this while looking at my face, wide-eyed. It’s as though she’s pointing her finger at me, accusing me of committing a crime, though I don’t know what. Maybe it’s the crime of having a memory, especially the memory of those who left the country during the war. It’s as if someone who emigrated has no right to remember—to remember violence, to remember the war. The war’s not over, I say to myself, while Intisar continues, as though delivering a speech prepared in advance. Stories about the war go nowhere but backward; they return to the same place they started from and then sometimes flare up, taking on a more violent form.

  History repeats itself. Is this because of the nature of the place? Is it because of the terraces that are peculiar to the land here? Our history comes like our land… cut off, broken, incomplete, re-making itself in repetitive rows. Is this because our cities die and can’t find anyone to bury them? Why here, in this particular spot in the world, is violence reborn hundreds of times?

  Here, in the midst of friends, conversations, shouting, then silence, I imagine that I’m playing out my losses. This is all I have in Beirut.

  Rima, who’s getting ready to open a restaurant downtown, starts talking to Intisar, saying that the war’s over. I pay little attention. Words derive their credibility from the person who utters them; they have no power outside this. They become merely voices, like wind echoing in the forest. A relative of Rima’s who’s come back from the Gulf rented a recently renovated old building in order to open a chain of restaurants and has put Rima in charge of managing one of them. Wonderful! Intisar pronounces.

  Everything happens here as though life is normal, though there are still roadblocks and checkpoints in many places. People in Beirut do whatever they please, but in order to stomach this, they eat nostalgia with a fork and knife and then broadcast the leftovers through the media. Old Beirut is transforming into rubble with skyscrapers on top of it, with restaurants, amusement parks and religious buildings. Wafaa bends toward me as though she wants to share some kind of secret, saying that she—like me—doesn’t understand what’s going on. “I keep trying to understand what’s going on, and it’s torture,” she says.

  “Checkpoints are still all over the place, nothing’s right. It still isn’t calm but—they say the war’s over! I don’t understand, that’s why I’m doing yoga,” Wafaa says, bitterly sarcastic. When I say I’d like to try a yoga class with her, we arrange to go together in the coming week.

  “Don’t try to understand, concentrate on your yoga lessons, dear, that’s better!” Unfortunately, Intisar has overheard her and chimes in passive-aggressively. She goes on, “You too?! As if it’s not bad enough with Myriam! But Myriam’s been out of the country… You, what’s your excuse for not understanding? You can’t link two things together… roadblocks and sandbags are still there… what does this mean? Do you want to say that things haven’t calmed down yet, but the war’s over? OK. Just accept that this is what happens here: the war stops, tourists come back, and the sandbags are still there at the checkpoints!”

  Intisar raises her voice, then calms back down, “Maybe it’s better to see every event independently from the one before it. One event has nothing to do with the next. Then we can deal better with what’s happening. It’s easier, less painful.”

  “Yellah, my wife’s scene is over,” Malek says theatrically, announcing the end of Intisar’s speech. “Yes, the scene’s over, but I haven’t finished yet!” Intisar answers, directing her statement at me. Des
pite their differences, when Intisar speaks she reminds me of Seetajeet, my psychotherapist in Mombasa. Maybe because they’re similar in their confidence that what they’re saying is the absolute truth: a truth which, for me, is never stable or at all self-evident.

  The war’s stopped and there are still piles of sandbags. I must accept this; I must stop trying to understand. I’ll learn how, I tell myself. There’s no doubt that it would be very hard to follow the progression of events from the outside, from far away, seeing each event as independent and having no past, no relationship to what came before. But it’s not impossible. It’s inconsistent with the concept of history, but it’s good to try, even if only once in my whole life! “We don’t have choices here. We only have one thing, that’s it, forgetting!” Wafaa says as I put out my last cigarette in the already full ashtray.

  But what about those people who fought the war… who killed and kidnapped and mutilated bodies… Where are they? And where are their victims?

  The waiter comes with a pot of tea and plates filled with manaqeesh, labneh and vegetables. Instisar calls out to him to come back and asks for “country-style” olive oil, as she calls it. “Country-style olive oil, please, from the Koura… Yes!” Then she turns to me saying, “The difference between you and us dear is that we lived devastation daily. It’s over … we’ve gotten used to it. Soon you’ll get used to everything, believe me.” She says this while cutting pieces from the big tomato and distributing them to everyone seated around the table. Then she turns toward Wafaa and asks her about her husband’s health, because she’d hinted at a setback he suffered after emergency heart surgery.

  “Are you back in Lebanon for good?” Wafaa asks me. Her question takes me by surprise and I don’t know how to answer. I shake my head left and right, to indicate I don’t know yet. Afterward I remain silent. She follows up, “Look for somewhere else, you won’t be able to live here. Life here is disgusting, as you can see. The country’s divided between killers and killers. We’re only hostages, it’s just disgusting!”

  As Wafaa says these final words, she tilts her head toward Intisar, indicating a secret link between Intisar’s words and what’s disgusting. Or perhaps simply between what’s disgusting and Intisar herself. There was always tension between Intisar and Wafaa, from our university days until now. Perhaps this can be traced back to the secret, short-lived relationship between Intisar and Wafaa’s married brother. When Wafaa found out, it was a major catastrophe. Once Wafaa had invited Intisar home. By chance, she’d introduced her to her brother and what happened, happened. Intisar started skipping meetings and appointments with her girl friends. For Wafaa this was tantamount to treason.

  Malek is still exactly how he always was. He talks about big dreams, as distant as a rainbow, as Intisar says. He confuses me. I never know when he’s joking and when he’s serious. He’s always sitting on the fence: he defends the resistance and at the same time says Lebanon must remain a unique country within the larger Arab region.

  In the past, he used to sometimes say that the Palestinians destroyed the country. But he also says that they’re the last resistance movement in the world and we must support their revolution. He likes to talk about his hope that we can fix the country, get rid of sectarianism, and other big dreams that won’t work for a country like Lebanon. We start talking about the importance of the role of the Shi‘a as an avant-garde sect to create an alternative culture in the country.

  “Stick to your dreams and you’ll change the world for sure!” Intisar says without looking at him, as though he were incurable, a hopeless case.

  “What… now it’s forbidden to dream, too?!” Malek shouts. “I thought that dreams could change the world, but they always end in dictatorships. We still have to dream, though!”

  “What’s important is that we talk about something practical,” Intisar says.

  “You want something practical?” Malek asks, “What are we doing to stop killing each other? Please respond. This is an example of a practical question.”

  “We must learn to manage our civil wars,” I answer sarcastically. “We need to create a state-run general directorate called the Department of Civil War Management, a department for the public good.”

  “Indeed, that would be a department for the public good,” Rima comments.

  How much more hopeful can you get? Bloody fighting is a way of life here. It’s a kind of consumption, like alcohol, smoking, pop music and advertising on TV. There’s civil war and then there’s Gemmayzeh… and Downtown, Monot Street, Hamra, Jounieh, Maameltein and Ras Beirut… There’s everything. Things that never meet and that have nothing to do with each other. But although they never meet, they feed off of each other, I think.

  I leave the Rawda café and walk toward the hill leading up from the Hammam al-Askari. I leave my friends—the long conversations and shouting and unending disagreements going nowhere—behind me. The sun starts to set slowly into the sea, bidding me farewell as I walk up toward the AUB neighborhood. Motorbikes crisscross the streets, behind me, in front of me, and right near me, roaring like wild animals.

  Suddenly one comes up right behind me, flying fast into and then over a stopped car and falling hard to the ground. Its driver lands on top of it. His body falls to the ground and his bike is turned upside down, its motor still running. The driver of a second motorbike starts shouting right in my face, stopping his bike to say that I’m the reason for this accident. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been walking in the middle of the street. He says that the driver tried to avoid crashing into me and so instead crashed into the car stopped in front of him. People gather as the wounded driver stands up and shakes off the dust and dirt from his clothes, paying no attention to the blood streaming from his head. He looks at me as though I’m a criminal who’s gotten off easily, and curses and swears. Much of his cursing is directed at my mother.

  I go back to my flat on Makhoul Street at sunset. I know that another day’s passed in God’s world and that this country will see more days live and die. The god who lives on top of the world can no longer hear, so when our screams reach him they’re nothing more than feeble musical notes.

  I’m here all alone after the difficult meeting with friends from my past. How can I adapt to this Beirut—the new-old Beirut which hasn’t changed, but which I no longer know? Beirut hasn’t changed, but it has lost its soul.

  I fall asleep and then wake feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all. For many years I’ve only been able to sleep for one cycle. They say that a person can’t wake up energized and face the day peacefully if she hasn’t slept for two full cycles, that is to say eight hours. I sleep one cycle. When I wake up, I think that I should go back to sleep but I can’t. My mind is racing with a list of things that I have to do.

  My continual exhaustion accompanies me as I start my day. The difference is that now I’m used to these feelings, as if exhaustion is part of me, not something unexpected that I have to get rid of. It’s natural to pass my days with red-rimmed eyes. Sleeping more than four hours a night is unnatural for me. The pain in my legs and feet is part of my exhaustion.

  I have come to believe that pain is a condition of existence for certain bodies. To live in our bodies means to experience pain. I’ve also started to believe that feelings are like this too—always mixed with pain, with bodily suffering. But I can’t stay relaxed with the first threads of dawn. I hear the ticking of the clock that hangs on the wall of the furnished apartment I’m renting and which I think of getting rid of every day.

  I get out of bed and go to the balcony that faces AUB. In the past, I used to listen to the ringing of the clock on College Hall, before the building was intentionally destroyed by an attack a few years ago. I no longer see the tower between the walls of the buildings in front of me. Almost nothing remains of the memory of the three years I spent at this university. Despite this, my heart remains open.

  The light that creeps in from behind the sky doesn’t lift the thin veil of dar
kness from the face of the earth. Indeed this light makes me more fearful—the muscles of my face and body tense. I try to go back to sleep but I can’t. Faces of everyone I’ve seen since I’ve been back run through my mind. Full lips, youthful faces, tight skin, sleeplessness, drinks, eyes extinguished and desperately sad.

  I can’t sleep, but nonetheless I go outside to contemplate the sunrise at dawn. I haven’t witnessed the birth of Beirut’s sun for a long time.

  I return to Beirut feeling like I’ve endured my forced exile like I endure hiccups—hiccups that are constantly with me and have become part of my life.

  I leave my apartment and head up to Hamra Street. I’m there before the shop owners who haven’t yet started their days. Hamra Street has changed. Even the women walking down it have changed. Their legs are still hidden inside black stockings, though it’s the height of spring. Can they really not feel the weather? Or does death inhabit the women of Beirut, wrapping itself up in black clothes?

  In the first part of the yoga class I have to get used to concentrating on my extremities. I begin by concentrating on the tip of my nose, so I close my eyes and start to relax. I can’t relax while concentrating at the same time. I discover that it’s easiest to concentrate on the furthest point of my extremities.

  I concentrate on the big toe of my right foot. Without meaning to, I move to my left. I think, I relax, I stop thinking. I breathe air into my lungs and keep it inside as long as possible. I feel the oxygen penetrating my veins with profound difficulty, as though cement walls impede its path. Little twinges grip me whenever the air penetrates more deeply. As though these twinges are the result of the edges of my soul crashing against my body on the inside. I can’t do any more.