The Suspended Odes, the Hanging Poems, seven poems from seven poets before Islam. The myth tells us that these poems were once written in gold on Coptic linen and hung on the drapes of the Kaaba in the sixth century. Erroneous, of course, since poems were memorized, rarely written, but a beautiful story nonetheless. I love the idea of a place of worship with hanging poetry, gilded no less.
In Joumana’s apartment upstairs, my reading room, this room, was her daughter’s bedroom. I know that because I heard her music through the years, her dancing with her boyfriend, her walking, her stomping, and, every so often, her yelling and door slamming. She’s now studying for a graduate degree in art or art history in France — quietly, one would hope. In Marie-Thérèse’s downstairs apartment, this was her son’s room, the no-longer-there boy. He was much quieter. I have no idea what Fadia uses hers for. I have never been in their rooms. Why do they feel it’s their right to be in mine?
A draft originating from the still-open front door, an unseemly breeze, brazenly ruffles the hairs at the back of my neck and peeps into a stack of papers on the desk.
“I knew you worked in a bookstore,” Joumana says, “but I had no idea you had so many. . so many. . this is a stockroom of books.” She moves cautiously and reverently, tiptoes almost, occasionally craning her neck to read titles.
I want to tell her to stop, to let me be; no, I want her to stop, she must stop. I open my mouth but the sound gets stuck. Her fingers, her profane fingers, drum — the index, middle, and ring finger of her right hand drum a commotion, they drum on my chairback, on a shelf, on the spines of my books, the torturous tap-tap-tock clattering over everything.
A greater commotion makes a grand entrance.
“They’re gone,” Fadia announces. “I waited till I saw the car leave. They’d better not come back if they know what’s best for them.” Her forehead is damp and pearly, the hair above it flat against her skull. The flush of her cheeks is exaggerated, and naughtiness twinkles in her eyes. She too is surprised at the sight of so many books.
“So this is what you do indoors,” Fadia exclaims. A lit cigarette sizzles close to her fingertips. The sunlight filtering through the windowpanes wreathes her right hand in blue smoke. “I always wondered how you spent so much time all by yourself during the war. Oh, wait. While the Lebanese were experiencing bloodlust, yours was booklust.” She emits a bubbling brook of laughter. When she realizes I’m not laughing, she adds, “You have to admit that was clever.”
“Yes.” I nod patiently.
“And funny, right?”
“Thank you for your help,” I say. “That was very kind of you. I’m not sure how I’d have handled the situation had you not arrived when you did.”
“Think nothing of it,” Fadia replies. “Someday you should come up and see my library.”
“Your library?” Marie-Thérèse asks.
Joumana shakes her head as if to say, “I can’t believe you didn’t see that one coming.”
“My library has two books,” Fadia says, “and I have yet to finish coloring the second one.” She brightens, and her laughter grows louder when she realizes I’ve cracked a smile. “Fadia can be funny sometimes.”
I rake my hair of blue and wait for them to leave.
Such a messy morning. I need to get out of the house, clear the ant farm out of my brain. I intend to breathe some city fumes. My nightgown, crinkly and wrinkled from dried perspiration, I discard on the impeccably made bed. Fresh talcum powder under my arms, clean underwear. I put on my gray dress, which has gone in and out of style a number of times while I wasn’t paying attention, and a blue cardigan. My time of bracelets, perfumes, and frivolous adornments has long since passed. I clasp my locks into a makeshift bun and cover my head with a scarf, making sure I show enough neck skin. I don’t want anyone to think I’m covering up for asinine religious reasons.
I lock the door and try to hurry down the steps, afraid the witches might return. Past Marie-Thérèse’s apartment, I forget about the stone that has worked itself loose on the third step from the top. I land on it. The hollow thud it emits beneath my low heels reminds me to slow. I can relax for a bit.
The stairwell is no longer exposed and friendly. Fifteen years ago, in 1995, half-walls were constructed to protect the building from flying bullets that were no longer around. They look unattractive and unnatural. Part of the post — civil war renovation, they were supposed to serve their defensive purpose while maintaining the building’s older Beiruti character and keeping the common stairwell relatively open-aired. Like most things Lebanese, they arrived after the time when they were most needed had passed.
As soon as I leave the last step and try to cross the street, battered taxis begin to blow their high-pitched beeps, clumsily inquiring about my willingness to use them. The bleating cars comfort me. My pace is quicker than it should be.
No car will slow down for me to cross — none ever has, none ever will. I zip in between vehicles, dancing the Beiruti Hustle to the other side. What will happen when I’m too slow to do this? Will I someday lose the ability to get all the way across the street before the light changes?
Will I live long enough to see a fully functional traffic light in Beirut?
I pass what used to be Mr. Azari’s grocery, now a strange store selling unnecessary electrical widgets: old-fashioned irons, neon tubes, light fixtures that are supposed to look like candles, the stems dripping permanent plastic wax, vibrating filaments within tapered flame-shaped bulbs. The store stands next to a Starbucks filled with youngsters, future married couples, preening and chatting and flirting, all of them lounging in seemingly uncomfortable and unsustainable positions, all drinking lactescent swill. A street cleaner in a green jumpsuit picks up cigarette butts off the pavement. Across the street is another one. These street cleaners of Beirut, the Sisyphuses of our age. The one before me is an East African, a young man with an old demeanor.
The city belongs to the young and their apathy. That is no country for old men. Or old women for that matter. Byzantium seems so distant.
Beirut is the Elizabeth Taylor of cities: insane, beautiful, tacky, falling apart, aging, and forever drama laden. She’ll also marry any infatuated suitor who promises to make her life more comfortable, no matter how inappropriate he is.
In the early pages of his gorgeous novel Sepharad, Antonio Muñoz Molina writes: “Only those of us who have left know what the city used to be like and are aware of how much it has changed; it’s the people who stayed who can’t remember, who seeing it day after day have been losing that memory, allowing it to be distorted, although they think they’re the ones who remained faithful, and that we, in a sense, are deserters.”
Certainly a beautiful sentence, and a lovely sentiment, but I respectfully yet strenuously disagree. There may be much I can’t remember, and my memory may have become distorted along the way, but Beirut and how she was, how she has changed through the years — her, I never forgot. I never forget, and I have never left her.
Why did my mother scream? Why did she do that?
I can’t allow myself to dwell on it. Unfettered perambulation isn’t permitted on the ant farm today.
I feel a little dizzy. I press my hand against the Starbucks window to steady myself. White dots and grayish striations flitter and quiver across my eyes, so I rest my forehead against the glass, as I used to do when I was a child, rest my skull against the wall whenever my boisterous half brothers grew too irksome, whenever my mother reminded me over and over to stop at the bakery on my way back from school. “Don’t forget the bread,” she used to harp. “Remember bread, bread,” and my head would need a rest.