Between Beirut and the Moon Read online

  ‘You shouldn’t have that,’ said Don Amin, lighting his Cedars and tucking the lighter away in his shirt pocket. ‘Anyway, the Takkoush boy was teased mercilessly for being the son of a dick doctor. I fended them off, the kids, as you would expect. But they kept coming back.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Nothing. The little pimps grew up,’ he said, taking a puff of his Cedars like it was a Virginia Slims Menthol 120, ‘and their little pimp worlds grew up with them.’

  He fell silent.

  ‘You hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  I laughed because I had come to regard his words and his slight slur – which my father mimicked well – as the marks of a comic genius.

  ‘What about now?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘The sound of time. Passing. Is your father going to compensate you?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For wasting your time like this.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  I laughed again.

  ‘It’s a crime.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Wasting a young man’s time like this. An old man like me has plenty of time. But youth has no time at all. It’s a crime. Can you hear it now?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘The voice of time. Telling us that there’s more. More time, more waiting, more words, more voices, more love, more traffic, more loud arguments, more slamming doors and laughter, and beautiful women and handsome men, more childish giggles and wrinkles, white hairs and milk teeth, more of the stuff of life. Can you hear anything still?’

  I stopped laughing. I listened. And when he stopped speaking, there was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘No truer word has ever been spoken,’ he said, laughing.

  I took pride in having made my father’s comic genius laugh. I puffed out my cheeks and I rubbed my nose.

  My father arrived soon after, his sleeves rolled up, his forehead dripping with sweat and his tie hanging loosely around his light blue shirt collar. Don Amin told him off for being late and for listening to Dr. Takkoush’s advice about the black leather shoes.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you the story about his father, the dick doctor, and his obsession with mothers?’

  He also called my father a pimp and the son of a pimp. He did this while smiling and embracing him. My father kissed the Don’s bald head and gave it a light tap. Then Don Amin retold the story of Dr. Takkoush senior and his failed attempt at armchair psychology. The two men talked politics.

  ‘He’s a swimmer.’

  ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t drown.’

  They laughed.

  ‘Are you considering rejoining the party? We could do with having you back. Frankly, I’m sick of the direction which Malik wants to take us in,’ said the Don.

  My father shook his head. Mr Malik was my Arabic teacher.

  The Don lit another cigarette and gave me a wink, before returning the lighter to his pocket.

  ‘Your son reminds me of you at his age. Margaret Thatcher told me that he wants to be an astronaut.’

  Margaret Thatcher was Don Amin’s nickname for Ms Iman. My father placed his hand on my shoulder. He ruffled my hair. He was unaccustomed to doing this and he immediately placed his hand back on my shoulder.

  ‘You know how boys are,’ he said. ‘They want to fly to the moon before they can drive to the end of the street.’

  ‘The Arab Armstrong,’ said Don Amin, now fixing his stare on me. ‘God knows we need some inspiration from somewhere.’

  My father cracked his joke about NASA shoving a Hubble telescope up my ass before they let me ride a rocket to the moon. Don Amin did not seem to hear him and I basked in the silence which greeted my father’s attempt at humour.

  ‘Will you write my name on a moon rock?’ he asked, after a minute or so.

  I nodded. Aside from the fact that I had not the first clue what Don Amin’s full name actually was, I did not understand why anyone would want their name written on a moon rock. But in that moment, I would have written Don Amin’s name on my birth certificate if he had asked for it.

  ‘They should call it Camel,’ he continued, running his hand through his beard.

  ‘Call what Camel?’ asked my father.

  ‘The space rocket. Camel One.’

  I laughed because I liked the idea of riding a Camel to the moon. And my father laughed because Arabs and Camels do not belong on the moon.

  That night I snuck out of the house and walked for half an hour to Ramlet AlBayda. It was the only public sandy shore left in Beirut, courtesy of the warlords who ran the country after the end of the civil war. The other bits had been either privatised or wiped out altogether in favour of a Movenpick, a Four Seasons or a Phoenicia. On one side of the Phoenicia stood the St. George Hotel, or what was left of it. The war had been particularly cruel to the St. George, perhaps because it was located at the heart of West Beirut, a predominantly Muslim part of the city. On the other side of the Phoenicia stood an abandoned, shell-pocked former Holiday Inn building known for its distinct view overlooking Beirut and, Grandfather Adam swore, parts of Nicosia. It was used during the war as an outpost for snipers in what my mother and father referred to as ‘The Battle of the Hotels’. The Muslims fought the Christians, and the Christians fought the Muslims, and the Christians fought the Christians, and the Muslims fought the Muslims over the complete control of a hotel or two in the name of their respective gods who, in turns, forsook them and forgave them their sins. The Palestinians, the Syrians and the Israelis too contributed to the dirtying of the bedsheets. I held my breath, Beirut fell silent, and I heard the towering Holiday Inn building wheeze. And I heard Basil cough and swear.

  ‘Two snipers. One king size bed,’ said Basil, elbows dug securely in the sand and cigarette swinging up and down between his lips.

  ‘A tale about love and war brought to you by the makers of A Room with a View.’

  Basil chortled and dropped his Gauloises. He buried it in the sand then took another one out of the packet.

  ‘My father smokes so many of these, he doesn’t notice when entire packets go missing. He’s a social smoker in the same way that you’re an astronaut,’ he said, offering me one and lighting his own.

  ‘Later.’

  ‘Yuri Gagarin doesn’t smoke.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The first man to go into outer space. Yuri Gagarin. Russian Soviet.’

  ‘I want to go to the moon,’ I said, taking the now warmish Almaza from the plastic bag and popping open the bottle cap using Basil’s lighter, ‘tastes like piss.’

  Almaza was the national beer before Lebanon was an independent country. There used to be this running ad on Tele Liban which featured the transparent green Almaza bottle on a table with a constantly changing background. It was my first lesson in history. ‘I was here when you got your independence in ’43, and we celebrated,’ said a deep, reassuring, if slightly patronising, voice. ‘I was here during the earthquake of ’56, when Georgina Rizk was voted Miss World in ’71, when you plunged the country into civil war and we hid, and when it was over and we celebrated. Whatever happens, we celebrate.’ Heineken bought it not long after that.

  ‘Get your own beer and lighter then,’ said Basil, snatching both away from me and taking a sip of Almaza. ‘What’s on the moon anyway?’

  ‘Not Beirut.’

  ‘Not anything. It’s a desert. Go to Saudi Arabia.’

  This was not the first time a desert had been suggested to me as an alternative to the moon. My father had made a similar suggestion a number of years back, except instead of Saudi Arabia, he chose the Sahara. Basil ran his index finger through the flames of his lighter as we both lay on our backs looking up at the towering skyscrapers behind us. He did this more out of habit than for entertainment purposes.

  ‘Or Dubai,’ I said.

  ‘What about Dubai?’<
br />
  ‘It was a desert too, before all the skyscrapers.’

  ‘You think the moon will be like Dubai?’

  ‘No. I’m just saying Dubai was a desert.’

  ‘Listen, habibi, when NASA gives you that application form, lead with this. ‘“Dear NASA,”’ said Basil, now putting on a voice with a higher pitch than his own, ‘“the moon reminds me a bit of Dubai.”’

  I flicked a used needle away from my elbow and spread my arms out. Ramlet ElBayda, or White Sands, was littered with them.

  ‘I didn’t say that. It’s not a desert.’

  ‘What then?’

  When I closed my eyes, I did not see Armstrong’s moon landing or Sagan’s Cosmos, Moore’s Atlas of the Universe or Aldrin’s Reaching for the Moon. I saw Saint-Exupery’s Sahara Desert with the little prince. I saw Monsieur Mermier on asteroid B-612. I saw him watering the rose, cleaning out the volcanoes, pulling up the baobabs. I saw him holding the prince’s sheep in a box and watching forty-four sunsets in one day.

  ‘Asteroid B-612,’ I said without looking at him.

  I followed a beam of light as it guided boats to the old ports of Beirut, we breathed in the stench of dead fish and listened to the waves wash them ashore. This new lighthouse had been built recently after seaside residents complained that the beam of light from the old one would enter their bedrooms and keep them awake at night. It looked like a rocket. The old lighthouse, which was thinner and taller and cloaked in black and white hoops, was now too far away from the sea to effectively guide anyone.

  Basil lay on the white sands, eyes closed and mouth open. As I pressed my knuckles against the sand, in an attempt to sit up, I heard laughter in between the waves.

  ‘Mermaids,’ said Basil with one eye now wide open.

  Three Christian girls, the crosses around their necks glimmering in the moonlight, walked hand in hand towards us. They kicked at the waves and pushed and pulled at each other. The blonde one lost her balance and fell into the water.

  ‘You’ve ruined my top, Christabelle,’ she said.

  ‘It’s water. Get over it,’ said Christabelle.

  ‘She can’t get over it,’ shouted Basil in their direction, ‘it’s Gucci and Gabbana.’

  The third one, who most resembled a mermaid with her wet hair, thin torso and wide hips, laughed with one hand on her mouth.

  ‘It’s Dolce and Gabbana,’ said the blonde one, as the three girls approached us.

  ‘That’s what I said, isn’t it Adam?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Look,’ said Christabelle, ‘they’re little boys.’

  In the light of the skyscrapers, the girls looked like women. The youngest of them, the mermaid, would have been about eighteen but even she had the glow of a woman about her as she stood over us.

  ‘This one is a mute,’ said the blonde, pointing her finger in my direction.

  ‘He’s not a mute,’ said the mermaid, smiling, ‘he’s a late bloomer. Look at him.’

  ‘That’s right, he is,’ said the blonde, ‘you do things at your own pace, don’t you?’

  ‘I guess,’ I said, now looking straight at them.

  ‘Look at those eyelashes, Christa,’ said the blonde, waiving her French manicured nails about, ‘I’d kill to have those eyelashes. And those thick eyebrows.’

  ‘He’ll make a handsome one, once he grows into that face,’ said the mermaid.

  Basil took a sip of the piss-warm Almaza and the mermaid snatched the bottle away.

  ‘It’s bad for you,’ she said, tipping the rest of the beer down her throat.

  ‘And needles aren’t?’ said Christabelle, laughing through her full lips.

  ‘This one’s the real heartbreaker, aren’t you?’ said the blonde, now looking at Basil.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Basil, smiling without revealing his teeth.

  All three women laughed at this. He had a knack for saying funny things at the right moment, or else for saying things in a way which made them sound funny at any given moment. The mermaid grabbed Basil by the wrist and led him to the edge of water. She jumped head first into a strong wave as it crashed against the shore, wrenching him forward. She reappeared splashing her tail against the waves and flicking her wet hair behind her, signalling for the girls to join in. They did, even the blonde. I stood there with my toes dug firmly into the sand. They swam away and I could barely make out their shapes in the moonlight.

  ‘Christa,’ I shouted, cupping my hands so that my voice would carry further, ‘you’re the most beautiful one.’

  Basil dragged himself back to shore, coughing and wheezing. He was still a goat-worshiping mountain boy at heart and the sea did not agree with him.

  ‘She’s not,’ said Basil, still coughing. ‘What are you on about?’ The phrase ‘she’s good but she’s not mermaid good’ became ever-present over the next few weeks. Basil and I randomly compared girls our age, who had no interest in talking to us, to the mermaid women at Ramlet ElBayda. We would remember details that were not there, like the running mascara on the mermaid’s face or the wink she gave Basil. We talked about the blonde’s wispy voice and we estimated that she was at least thirty-five because she’d dyed her hair blond and because they must have been partly white before she dyed them and that’s why she did. On a school trip to Der ElKamar in the mountains of Lebanon, less than an hour away from Beirut, Estelle pinched both of us on our necks. Estelle pointed out that we were being sexist. She had developed this habit early on in life. Her mother had encouraged it at first because she believed it showed character. Then Estelle got very good at it.

  ‘You’re just annoyed that we didn’t ask you to join us,’ said Basil.

  ‘Yes. Who would want to miss out on seeing mermaids?’

  ‘You’d have scared them away with your feminism,’ said Basil, and walked off.

  I laughed and Estelle pinched my neck again.

  She mumbled a retort in French which would have gone above Basil’s head even if he had somehow acquired a passing command of the language – or nuance in any language.

  Estelle had cheeks which belonged to a fuller face and a stare which belonged to her mother. It said, I’m better than you but it’s not your fault. She too was French and it was, in some terrible way, almost fitting that she and her French mother would move into Monsieur Mermier’s old apartment. She said that she had never met her father but that she knew he was Lebanese and handsome in that Mediterranean manner. She showed me the pictures she had of him and I said that he was handsome. Then she showed me pictures of her mother when she was young and I said that she was beautiful, and meant it.

  Basil sauntered towards Moussa’s Castle and we followed him in. The castle itself was unremarkable. It mostly exhibited old weapons and artillery, some of which were said to have been used by the former princes of Mount Lebanon, like Amir Basheer AlShahab and Amir Fakhereddine AlThani AlMaani. The latter, we were taught at school, had risen to such heights that he challenged the reign of the Ottoman Empire and almost brought the Sultan to his knees. The Ottomans have no record of Fakhereddine. Historians estimate that he was at best a prince over Der ElKamar and a couple of other neighbouring towns and at worst a glorified tax collector.

  Ms Iman walked behind the students and Don Amin led the way alongside an old man with a white beard and long, frail white hair.

  ‘Prince Fakhereddine himself,’ said Estelle, to sniggers from Basil and myself.

  When we got to a wax figure of a boy being whipped by his teacher in front of a class full of other wax boys, the old man turned around.

  ‘This is me,’ he said, pointing his quivering index finger at the wax figure of the boy, ‘I’m Moussa. Welcome to my castle. Any questions?’

  He spoke of how it had taken him sixty years to build it single-handedly and how no one believed he could do it.

  ‘Best sixty years of my life.’

  Moussa explained that he had built the castle for the woman he loved an
d that she had rejected him and went off with a richer man. He told us about his teacher who had whipped him in front of the other boys for drawing a picture of his castle in class instead of focusing on the maths lesson. Then he recounted the story of his trip to his teacher’s house, when he had finished building the castle. All those things he had wanted to say to him, all the images that returned to his mind when he knocked on the door. The teacher had passed away many years before.

  ‘There’s hope for you yet, Najjar,’ said Don Amin, raising his eyebrows and chewing on his Chicklets.

  ‘The opposite of ignorance is not knowledge, boys and girls,’ said Moussa, with a smirk materialising across his face, ‘it is innovation.’

  His words were a rehearsed piece of theatre but they were no less genuine for it.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Estelle, gesturing in the direction of another wax boy with his face pressed against the wall in the corner of the class.

  ‘That’s Moussa’s distant cousin, Moustafa,’ said Don Amin, ‘he wanted to build a skyscraper. It didn’t work out quite so well.’

  The next day Don Amin did not show up to class. For a week, Ms Iman told us that he was in the mountains with his family, because that was where he was from. Then Serene, a Druze girl, gathered us around her during break. She stood beneath the president’s portrait and spoke in a whisper such that those of us at the back heard nothing and those of us in the front heard nothing because those of us at the back kept asking Serene to raise her voice.

  ‘There is something you should know,’ she said, with one eye on the door leading to the playground.