‘Is it back?’ my mother asked.
She meant the war.
‘No,’ said my father, running his fingers through my sister’s curly hair, and staring into the empty void that is tomorrow.
He meant to sound certain.
‘If it is, we’re leaving.’
‘Where would we go?’
‘Australia. I don’t care.’
At the Rafic Harriri Beirut International Airport, there were people dressed in suits running around convincing you that the Phoenicia not the Hilton, that the Movenpick not the Four Seasons, were best in case you still had not reserved a place to stay. And no one mentioned the Holiday Inn or the St. George Hotel. And if you said you were leaving Beirut to live abroad, they rested a hand on your shoulder and said, ‘your poor mother, now why would you do that to her?’ because you were not just a customer to them, you were a future customer who would come back home and need a place to stay long after your mother departs. And all the while on loop in the background, you could hear the tune to Fairuz’s songs at her melancholic worst. You did not need the lyrics, or Fairuz’s voice, you knew them both by heart. Your mother made sure of it.
I waved to my mother as I entered passport control dragging my black, second-hand luggage behind me and she waved back and cried. She breathed in through her mouth and blew a kiss and I dropped my hand baggage, with a green ribbon tightly knotted around the handle, and tilted back to catch the kiss. A luggage handler brushed past me pushing five or six trolleys in front of him. He was bald and wore faded blue overalls. I waved to my sister and she waved back, moving only her wrist not her arm. Her ponytails were gone now, and instead she had devoted a large part of her mornings to making sure that her once wild hair was irreversibly straight, undisturbed by the curls which would bounce along as she defied gravity on a springy mattress, on the sixth floor of a small apartment in Ras Beirut, just off Hamra Street. My father nodded and raised a clenched fist in the air. It reminded me of Mostafa at the beach. It meant stay strong, do not let the world change you or if it must then let it be for the better. I thought that is what it meant. It could have meant start a revolution. My father was capable of articulating these things with clenched fists and clenched jaws and black leather belts which lashed against air and freshly made bedsheets. I put my thumb up and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out my mother and father. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Kit Caless, at Influx Press, for his patience and time spent pouring over the book, and Jordan Taylor- Jones for his enthusiasm towards it. I am indebted to my friend and erstwhile Professor at the American University of Beirut, Dr Robert Myers, who believed in my work many years ago; and my former supervisors at Lancaster University, Dr Zoe Lambert and Dr Lindsey Moore, for the afternoons and mornings spent in their offices talking about the novel, Beirut and everything in between.
I am also grateful to Dr Monica Germana, and the University of Westminster which gave me the chance to try my hand at writing in London via fee waiver. Furthermore, I would like to express my sincere gratitude towards Toby Litt, for his friendship, his guidance, and for bringing the manuscript to Influx Press’ hands and making the publication of this novel possible.
Lastly, I’d like to thank my mother, father and sister, Rinad, without whom these pages, and many others, would be neither ‘whole’ nor ‘complete’.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Beirut, Naji Bakhti graduated from the American University of Beirut (Lebanon, 2011). He recently obtained a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Between Beirut and the Moon is his first book.
COPYRIGHT
Published by Influx Press
The Green House, 49 Green Lanes, London, N16 9BU
www.influxpress.com / @InfluxPress
All rights reserved.
© A. Naji Bakhti, 2020
Copyright of the text rests with the author.
The right of A. Naji Bakhti to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Influx Press.
First published 2020. Printed and bound in the UK by TJ International.
Print ISBN: 978-1-910312-55-1
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-910312-56-8
Edited by Kit Caless
Editorial assistant: Sanya Semakula
Typesetting: Vince Haig
Proofreader: Dan Coxon
Cover art and design: Jamie Keenan
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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