“When Nael and his fiancée suddenly disappeared, everyone said they left to elope, they ran off to get married far away because Nael is the neighborhood strongman and the handsome fellow didn’t have the means to pay for the wedding. That’s how he presented Nawal’s parents with a fait accompli. Some people snickered, saying that it all happened with Nawal’s father’s agreement, because he was known for his extreme stinginess — this way he’d be able to escape from the financial burdens of a wedding and the related hospitality... Then the village — though I can no longer say the whole village — was stunned, because it became clear to me and everyone else that the people being killed were all the same kind of people, when the corpses of the couple who’d eloped were found on the way out of Tell al-Qasa‘yin, where no son of Adam — and not even the jackals — dared to pass because of the savageness of the place, its thick, wild plant growth and the poisonous snakes. Then, when Fares was found dead in his orchard under the walnut tree, a labneh sandwich in one hand and a flask of village ‘araq in the other, they said he killed himself, the growing season is sparse this year. Fares couldn’t bear the brunt of his debt and all this loss so he killed himself... His pruning clamp was leaning cold and sad against the tree trunk, wishing it could utter a testimony of truth for its old friend... It was also said that Hani drowned in the lake, he wasn’t good at swimming, he’s been afraid of water since his childhood. He used to get a beating and then he’d go take a bath, according to what his mother said... His comrades weren’t able to rescue him, the boat was getting farther away and then gave out when they tried to return to help him... Who can utter a tale different from all the others, which rationalizes the tragic departure of these souls?
“What secret word, my Farah, is being spread through the alleys, houses, gardens, pools of water, and winds, preventing everyone from having funerals, reporting, and making complaints? Need I spell things out for you, telling you more stories of their mysterious disappearance? Their disappearance drenched with the mercilessness of a forcible death, their torture and execution, only because they belong to a particular sect, to a sect and its presumed thought, a kind of classification as it becomes a strange new identity, no longer having the right to exist here among a different majority group. How do they appoint themselves the gods of the new era, controlling the destiny of innocent people and ending their lives in this way, tearing them up by their roots and throwing them away like the weeds that grow around the edges of ancient balconies? By what right... by what right...? Should I tell you more? Should I recite to you the mythical conversation I had with the ghosts of these corpses? How they visit me in dreams when I’m sleeping and then I can’t sleep anymore... We have to leave, I can’t tolerate the thought of any kind of harm coming to you and the children, I can’t stand the thought of our family ending like this... We must leave as soon as possible. Tomorrow is better than later... Tomorrow we’ll leave for Beirut...”
“Oh Amer, the war is at its fiercest over there. That’s what we see and hear on the news every evening. It shows guns, bombs, destruction, and murder everywhere,” I heard Farah saying in a low voice.
But Amer cut her off before she could continue: “If we die over there they’ll know us, give us a funeral, and bury us — not throw our corpses to the monsters without even saying a prayer.”
“What harms the sheep after it’s flayed? Isn’t that what you said once...? If we die we’re dead. Isn’t that true, Dad?” But of course Amer didn’t hear me.
W-e w-i-l-l l-e-a-v-e for B-e-i-r-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-t... We will leave for Beirut... W-e w-i-l-l l-e-a-v-e... B-e-i-r-u-t... The sentence rang in my ears and my head like the loud, irritating howl of a car horn... Exactly like the horn of Bahjat’s car, he’s the most famous show-off in our village. We will leave for Beirut. How, when I am a son of the plains and natural springs? I am a child of the hills and the little valley, I truly delight in being a shepherd, taking care of goats, cows, and sheep. To whom will I leave the sky here, as I’m the guardian of the dust-covered mountain, whose color is that of our newly born foal? In my heart, I carry the secrets of the clouds and the melting snow on the peaks. I entrusted to the river a song that would make every grain of wheat — and every pomegranate and fig tree — grow, a song for the orphaned walnut tree on the roof of our house and for the grapevines.
Where are you taking us, Dad? To Beirut, what is this Beirut... where is it located? Is it frightening? Why did Harut burst into tears when his father told him, “We are going back to Beirut”? Is there enough space over there for me to travel with my kite that I handle like a helmsman, all of whose dreams are contained on his ship? Will there be a mukhtar there whom I will force to buy a new tarboush every week because I stole his and hid it in the cellar where I had a dozen or more, into which I crammed my childhood treasures: the biggest egg, the biggest turtle, the biggest heart-shaped stone, the biggest fossilized shell, Miss Noura’s glasses, my friend Rendala’s hairband, my colored marbles, the first lira you gave me, and a beautiful picture of you between my grandfather and grandmother... Will they call us over there to help shovel the snow from the roof of the school? We’ll rush over, running like soldiers to the most important battle. Our heads will swivel around, ultrasurprised and buoyant, when we arrive and see our classrooms converted into a warm shelter for bobwhites, owls, and some stray cats and dogs, even jackals. The cold made them all forget their antipathy toward each other and they shared our school’s roofs with mutual empathy.
Oh Dad, what else can I say? I have a lot of questions, the most important is how can I pack up, right now in one night, all of my things and memories, what place can contain them... can Beirut contain them?
We were stuffed into Amer’s Honda with all the bags we could find and the things Farah considered necessary... I didn’t know where my siblings got the song they kept repeating throughout the journey, “Toot toot, to Beirut... Daddy take us on a trip...” It compelled my father to shout, ordering them to calm down the first time, and to yell, “Silence!” the second... But then he smiled at Zeina, looking at me in the mirror when she asked him, “Daddy, can we pick olives and grapes there like Rustom and Amir said, or only red apples like Majd told me?”
Did Beirut appear, in the way I saw it from the windows of the car, high? That is to say, in ecstasy? (This is a word that I hadn’t heard before and that I’m not good at using. Remembering it now, it seems really appropriate, after learning its meaning and having experienced it when I smoked hashish for the first time with Harut and our friends.) Lying back innocently, permitting her beautiful naked body to be torn apart by guests, visitors, and her own people, Beirut — accustomed to many invasions, of foreigners, greedy people, earthquakes, and tremors — always came back even more beautiful and glorious than before, that’s what we learned in our history books. What does it feel today when its people are dividing up its meat and leaving only the bones? Do cities go mad due to their excess beauty, and unable to stand their own perfection, consume themselves? Will they come back again more beautiful than before? Will their splendor be further restored? Who will inform them that one day they may be disfigured?