Muhammad Abi Samra - Beirut Noir

“Who told you that he wanted to get married?”

“Your egotistical beloved made it seem as though you weren’t suited to marriage and you believed him, you believed the lie. You constantly compared him to Philippe and that’s how you distorted your relationship with Mousa for no reason. After this, you did the worst thing. You fell in love with a married man!”

“But I don’t know his wife!”

“What’s the difference?”

The doorbell rang. She awoke in a panic, not only because of the ringing but because Farid had arrived before she’d prepared anything for dinner.

Farid was there in front of her, with his big, sparkling eyes. He engulfed her in his arms and his scent filled her nose: this strange mixture of expensive cologne and washing powder wasn’t familiar to her... She found the scent pleasant, perhaps because it wasn’t like other scents she knew. The cologne seemed like a disinfectant. Then he put his hand on her backside, forcefully, lifting up her buttocks.

“How I love a woman’s full bum!”

She started to laugh vibrantly and was secretly happy because he’d praised her butt.

“Do you know, Lamia, I love you for your happiness? When you were small, you were so joyful. I would watch you bite into an apple as though it were the last apple on earth. Do you still eat them like that?”

“Like what?”

“You used to plunge your teeth into an apple and bite into its core, sucking out its juices voraciously. Hearing that sound from far away would make me salivate. So many times, I’d bite into an apple trying to imitate you and not succeed. This made a big impression on me. Could you eat one right now just for me?”

She started to laugh. “I didn’t know you were paying attention to what I was doing.”

“I remember another time: You’d finished cleaning the porch and you were sitting on the stairs in the shade to cool off. Then you brought a plate of apricots and put them down in front of you on a little stool. The colors of the apricot stones were reflected in your skin. Then your female cousins came, Salma was one of them. They sat down and ate apricots and gossiped. I used to gaze at all of them and wonder which of you was the prettiest. I used to feel that you all had one face that was repeated over and over.”

She felt like he was talking about another woman. Had she really been that happy? She took pleasure in this image of a young woman surrounded by a bevy of other young women who resemble her. As if she were a memory of a paradise lost. Yes, Farid will take me far away and he’ll help me. He’ll be busy with his scientific research and I’ll be busy with my children. I’ll discover a new continent; I’ll be in his big house in Sydney, far away from all this muck.

She saw white sails in tranquil, sparkling harbors, as though they were an extension of a road that continues when asphalt turns into water.

“It’s my luck that you didn’t marry. I’ve wanted a woman like you in my life for so long. Happy and strong. Perhaps you were satisfied when I came to you the first time. You didn’t even visit me or pick me up at the airport. I’m the one who took the initiative and came to visit you all. You were unfazed by my visit and remained distant, standing on guard. You are still as proud as you were as an adolescent and perhaps even more so.”

“It seems I still have high expectations,” she said. “Your pride frightened me.”

“How did you manage to put aside fear and find the courage to encroach upon my world once again? I thought you’d arrived at this age without marrying because of your pride. You know that as a woman advances in age, there is no longer a justification for these high expectations.”

She sighed deeply. She looked at the open suitcases in front of her with her carefully ironed and folded clothes inside them.

“You’ll have to excuse me; I haven’t found time to prepare dinner yet...”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go to a restaurant around here.”

“Should we go to a Lebanese place?”

“Doesn’t matter... In Sydney, we’re used to all kinds of cuisines... We should settle the wedding formalities and leave right away. If you could see Sydney, if you could see the harbor, the beauty of the sails. I don’t know how people can bear to live here.”

“You should give it a little time... But wasn’t Beirut worse on your first visit? You came during the height of the war — it was destroyed, dead, soulless.”

“I don’t feel any change. Maybe because I blocked this out. Now, before we marry and leave the country, we should discuss the most important thing: I have two daughters. As you know, their mother left them because she wasn’t able to look after them and I wouldn’t allow them to live with her. Will you agree to have them live with us, or should I have them stay with their mother?”

“Where’s the problem? Of course I want them to live with us.”

“I know you are an understanding and good person.”

“This is how I’ll build my family... I’m still young enough that I might be able to have a couple of children...”

Faced with Lamia’s enthusiasm, Farid started biting his lips. “This is the only point that we really have to discuss. I don’t want more children. I’ve suffered a lot. I can’t stand to have another child in my life.”

Why did he not care about her opinion? Who was she to him? Did he want to withhold the one dream that she still had left? Seeing the face of a child, holding it close to her chest, inhaling its fragrance and kissing its toes, one by one.

Lamia went into the bedroom to change her clothes, with Farid following.

“Lamia, what’s wrong? Can I come in? Your face is pale... What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, my head hurts a bit... Tomorrow we can go to a restaurant... or the day after tomorrow... I have a headache and I want to be alone.”

She took off her clothes, sadly calm. She no longer wanted anything. Now all her dreams have come to nothing: the miniature white sails slipped away with the road and remained suspended in the harbor; the hand of the little boy and his tiny red sweater have disappeared far away, behind her eyes shrouded in tears. He no longer brings her little bunches of flowers or puts paper sailboats in the pool in front of their house.

After he was gone, she opened the window to banish the last traces of Farid’s cologne that still lingered in the room. It would take her some time to get herself together again. She thought she heard the ringing of a telephone, which evoked in her neither the desire to get up, nor the slightest bit of curiosity. No doubt it’s Farid, wanting to check on his bride’s “mood.” She couldn’t picture him as one day being her life partner. “High expectations” are a beautiful thing; she won’t substitute them for a sliver of hope.

She breathed out a great sigh of relief. She would grow old peacefully, without hopes, with quiet despair. The sails set off, never to return, and the honking of car horns returned in the street. She didn’t know how late it was when, half-asleep, she picked up the phone near her bed.

“Hello, Lamia?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Lamia, it’s Nazih.”

“Nazih? Did something happen? Is Hyam all right? Are you both okay?”

“Why is your voice shaky? Have you been crying?”

“No, I was sleeping.”

“Are you ill? It’s still early...”

“No, I’m not sick... Have you sorted out your troubles?”

“Lamia, I just wanted to tell you before it’s too late: you are my ultimate love.”

Originally written in Arabic.

Muhammad Abi Samra(b. 1953) is a Lebanese novelist and journalist. He is currently the director of the weekly investigative journalism section of Nahar newspaper, a field he has been working in since 1977. He has published many novels and other collections of writing.