She prepared the dough while hoping that the madness would calm down so that one of the grocers would feel secure enough to open his shop. She was also worried about her two girlfriends who lived with her. Salma finally returned home, looking flustered. She’d continued studying on the West Side despite the threat of death hanging over her at every checkpoint when she traveled between the two Beiruts.
“Why are you so pale? What happened?”
She paused to collect herself, then said, “Three armed men stopped me and asked me my name. They told me, Walk with us, while pointing their machine guns at my stomach. Then they made me get into a small car. It was the first time I felt afraid, mostly because they were looking right at my chest and I wasn’t wearing a bra.”
“Oh my God, you and your bra!” Nazih said, trying to lighten the mood.
“As soon as I got in the car, I buttoned up my blouse and covered the book I was carrying with my arm. The men were morose. I asked them why they were kidnapping me, as I have nothing to do with politics. What do you want from a poor girl like me? They answered all together, Poor girl...? I said, Yes, really... poor girl! Every day forced to go through checkpoints just to pursue my studies. They asked me, Why don’t you go to university on the East Side? I answered them, Because I want to know the real Beirut, the diverse Beirut. On the East Side there’s only one party and one sect. They didn’t say a word. I felt cramped and unhappy in this small car, especially with the machine gun thrust into my waist. I had a collection of Muhammad Abdullah’s poetry with me which I began reciting aloud. They laughed but at least moved the machine gun away from me. Then the car stopped in front of the party’s headquarters. At that moment, I finally lost my mind and told them, You and everyone else! The whole world’s at war, even my parents and family, so I became a member of your party — and then you arrest me! Really? I was expecting a fighter from the other party to plunge a machine gun into my belly...
“I unbuttoned my blouse then because I was no longer afraid. They told me, This news just reached us: a Maronite girl from the East Side is going to the Corniche at Raouché and learning from the fighters there how to make TNT and put it into jerricans. Then I told them that they should thank me for my work, so that I could fight against Israel. By the way, you all don’t fight against it as you should be. One of them said to me falteringly, We believed you were a spy! I answered, Could a spy to work in the light of day on the Corniche in sight of everyone? Afterward, he started to respond to the arguments I’d made, in which I’d intended to exaggerate, by proposing that I work as a spy for them, bringing them news of the other party. So I told them, Let me go, I won’t be anyone’s spy, not even Lenin’s himself. Then I got out, slamming the car door behind me.”
“And Hyam, why hasn’t she come back yet? Have you heard from her?”
“I saw her in the café at the university and she told me she would stay at Nazih’s place.”
“What a day! I went out to the shops and everything was closed.”
“Your problem is simple to solve. It seems like the shelling is dying down. Let’s step out to buy what you need and celebrate your special guest.”
This is Salma’s favorite line. She works hard to make the shelling die down. That time the Russian Grad missiles all but destroyed the entire neighborhood, the balconies of the building facing ours fell off and she said, “Don’t worry, it’s far away.”
Lamia missed Salma so much since she’d moved to Sydney. In any case, one of the good things about the trip she has planned with Farid is that she’ll get to see Salma, her friend for life. Lamia didn’t know why, but when thinking about Salma, she would remember her feet more than any other feature: her childlike feet clambering through fields and up trees, her two legs plowing through streets, wandering sidewalks, penetrating alleys, going up stairs, climbing up dirt berms as though they were small hills. Her feet were balanced, like a boat between the shores of a city totally given over to its madness; they rose up tearing apart roads and checkpoints, and they pumped blood through its severed arteries. Her old feet were there on the asphalt, deaf to everything that might startle the ear and heart, pursuing the traces of the one she loved so as to touch his shadow. It was as if this young woman was soaring in an earthly flight that could never weaken. But once her feet suddenly betrayed her in the middle of the street, forsaking her, making her unable to take even a single step ahead. That time, she and Hyam were forced to pick Salma up and put her in the car as though she were actually paralyzed. She started screaming, saying that she didn’t want to go home and that she couldn’t bear to see her husband all devoted to his pigeons, or escaping into the garage, claiming to be absorbed in his drawing while all he was doing was smoking and drinking beer.
“He even pushed me to argue with our next-door neighbor, saying that she was a lying, gossiping woman, after she told me that she saw him going into my house with that whore of a woman during the summer holiday. If only I hadn’t listened to what he said and fought with the neighbor, I would’ve been able to find out more details.”
“More than what you know? What’s the point? Then you’d be destroyed!”
“And let this destroy me? I will destroy his comfort and that whore’s as well...”
She declared with total impudence that before marriage she’d wanted to establish a relationship with a man with experience.
“And your husband, what about him...?”
“As usual, he told me that jealousy would blind my heart. Before marriage, we’d agreed on an open relationship with no conditions. But what kind of free love can you have with kids? Lamia, please rub my knees for me, I can no longer feel them... And my head hurts, give me a scarf to wrap around it... Why doesn’t he love me anymore?”
“Haven’t you had enough of this question? Salma, be as strong as you always have been. You’ve survived worse.”
“This man is displacing me in my own house, he’s made me unable to stand up. They imagine me, Salma, to be debilitated and disjointed, only able to ask one question.” She lowered her aching head like a woman bereaved, then added, “But why doesn’t he still love me? Does that trivial woman understand love better than I do? She’s certainly no Claudia Cardinale... I’ve brought women who are much more beautiful than her to my husband so he could film their bodies.”
“Then think of her as one of the young women who you brought to him and forget the whole thing.”
“She left her fiancé for him... Who does she think he is? I’ve only just agreed to marry him.”
“It’s good that he’s no longer entitled to anything. Why did you want to know about his affairs in the first place?”
“Tonight I’m going to meet that filmmaker who liked my movie — and I think he also likes me.”
“But you’re half-paralyzed, you can hardly stand up.”
“I’ll stay at your place, Lamia — and tell the filmmaker to bring me back there. You have to take me to pick up my daughter from the nursery... You know, Lamia, I’m losing my strength. I’m sad when I think about how much I’ve chased love. All of this effort, in vain. He doesn’t even ask how I’m doing! My failure is massive. I’ve forgotten how to laugh. I’ve lost the joy of living, the pleasure of feeling the ground underneath my feet. I imagine him with his whole body curved around her, staring at her mad with love, with me sitting in front of them. This is terrorism, this is a direct assault on my being.”