Muhammad Abi Samra - Beirut Noir

She wouldn’t ever again hear her father cough as he walks up the stairs. She was so used to hearing it, she couldn’t have known that this cough would become the portent of nothingness. She wouldn’t be anxious anymore because her father didn’t answer the phone all night long. She’d nap awhile then wake up a little panicked, dialing the number again and waiting for him to answer. In the morning, he would answer her call with his shaky voice, accompanied by a strangulated cough, saying that he’d gone to sleep early and didn’t hear the telephone ring. She later considered these the first signs of his imminent death, and also fully recalled the nerve-wracking waiting for Philippe — her ex-sweetheart — to respond at the other end of the line.

The cold was severe; she closed the window. What should she prepare for dinner? The best thing to do would be to call Farid and ask him. After a bit. Nothing here called for hurrying. She found her habit of perpetual hurrying absurd. She went into the bedroom: books filled the shelves; some of them had yellowed pages, some emitted an old vanilla scent. What would be the fate of her books? Soon nothing would connect her to this world, which she built or destroyed, brick by brick. She opened the cupboard: her own clothes and some of her mother’s. In the corner, a navy-blue suit of her father’s that she thought he’d been buried in, believing that he’d only owned one. And navy blue was indeed what he’d been shrouded in. She drew it close and inhaled; it still carried his scent. How did her mother forget to get rid of it, especially since she always said, “The clothes of the dead should never be mixed with the clothes of the living”? She saw him in her sleep. She knew in her dream that he’d passed on, so she wanted to ask him about his new residence. She was sitting near him in the backseat of his car; for the first time he wasn’t the driver. She was planning to ask him about... he didn’t even once turn to look at her. He was morose and angry, knowing that she’d ask him about his death. He merely waved his hands at her nervously, saying, “You’re still rushing around.” He didn’t utter the word that he usually used: frantic.

Right now, though, she wasn’t “rushing around,” but lifeless.

During her drive down to the seaside Corniche with Hyam, she started telling her friend to hurry, with Hyam imploring her to stay with her a little longer.

“I wanted to call you yesterday, but I decided not to. I didn’t want to bother you. Lamia... you’ve seemed preoccupied for a while.”

“I’m trying to change my lifestyle. It’s the second time that Farid’s come to Lebanon. I don’t want to engage in any more stupidity.”

“Rest assured, there can’t be any greater stupidity than what you were doing back when we first met! If you’d killed someone...”

She was surprised by the way Hyam was speaking to her. Why all this hostility?

“Hyam... are you all right?”

“No — and I wanted to tell you about my new resolution to put an end to all stupid things.”

“Did you fight with Nazih again?”

“No one deserves me. Do you remember that day when we were preparing food and he refused to help us? How could he just sit there all surly and superior, refusing to be with us?”

“Perhaps he wasn’t feeling well or was tired...”

“None of us feel well; we’re all tired... There’s something else there... I’m thinking about divorce.”

“Funny, when I’m thinking about marriage.”

“It hurts me to leave him, I’m afraid of him faltering... What keeps me there is his weakness. When he gets stronger, I’ll give up on him. Later, when he’s doing better, I’ll leave him right away, with no regrets.”

“Really nice. You help him to get stronger and he gets stronger for you, then you leave him?”

“I can’t leave him when he’s in this condition. My whole life is just a postponement of divorce.”

“What if he stays the way he is?”

“I don’t know. This is what confuses me. Perhaps the only solution is that we live apart, and through this I’ll find some kind of space that can make me love him more.”

“My God, I’m lost... You’ve lost me in all these twists and turns!”

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“That I’ve confused you along with myself... I can’t bear to either separate from him or stay with him.”

“Would you consider separating, at least for a little while?”

“The thought haunts me. I don’t know if he would agree.”

“What do you say we finish this conversation tomorrow?”

Lamia reminded her friend that she’d invited Farid to dinner and needed to get home soon. Hyam turned to her, exploring her face with a piercing look.

“Is this serious with Faird? Are you sure? This quickly? Don’t you want to wait a little?”

“I want change; I can’t keep vacillating... You always criticize me for how my life has stagnated. In the best of times, you look down on my patience on the one hand, and on the other, my impulsivity. Why have you changed your mind all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know, perhaps because I’m preparing for an imminent divorce.”

Lamia opened her locked desk drawer. She kept it locked to ensure that her mother wouldn’t pry. It was funny because the one day she forgot to lock it, she noticed in her mother’s mocking smile that she’d gone through it. Her mother waited more than a year to ask her about the pictures of the man she’d found in the drawer.

She answered, “Salma took these photos when shooting one of her films in school.”

“So why are you in most of them?”

“Because Salma wanted me to be the star.”

“Yes, she’s right, you were so beautiful.”

“Every monkey is a gazelle in its mother’s eyes!”

“So what is it that I’m always hearing about the reasons you haven’t gotten married?”

“And now we’ve gone back to the same old song.”

“But you’re my only daughter... I want to celebrate your wedding with you. All of your girlfriends have married and had children. What’s your story? Fine... That letter signed by your old high school friend, saying, May God keep this bitter drink far from us... What does that mean? What drink? You know... it’s the war’s fault; it meant that I couldn’t protect you. I was forced to stay in the mountains with your siblings. And you lived with your crazy girlfriends. All of the neighbors used to tell me, Umm Joseph, these girls are raising hell in the neighborhood. Your whole life I couldn’t learn anything about you or from you. Sometimes I’d be thinking, Is this my daughter? The one who I gave birth to?... Or not?”

Her mother had stopped asking these questions a long time ago. Clearly, she’d lost hope.

Perhaps the only good thing for her in this war was the freedom of living far from her parents. The constant cutting of the phone lines was a ready-made excuse to justify many things. She, Salma, and Hyam moved from one car to another around Beirut, undeterred by shelling and checkpoints, without any impediments. Salma would deal with falling shells as if they were fake — simply there as a backdrop to allow her to photograph the expanse of the entire city. She didn’t believe it possible that she could be killed or injured. She brooked no fear. If she sensed any fear in you, she would give you a look that would chill the blood in your veins.

Back then, Lamia had grabbed the photos from Philippe, the “hero” of the film — whether cynically or jokingly, it doesn’t matter. As usual, he threw himself on her bed, eyeing her. Then he said to her out of the blue that he never stays with any woman for more than two years. Two years in the best of cases. She didn’t reply.