Beirut, Beirut

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  He changed the subject, suddenly. “How is Egypt?” he asked me. “I visited it once in ’68, and met Gamal Abdel Nasser. I should have gone again in 1970 if it weren’t for the Russians.”

  “How?” I asked, confused. “I mean, why?”

  He smiled. “In my first commando operation, we snuck into the occupied territories from Jordan,” he said. “Do you know who opened fire on us? The Jordanians. At the time, I told my comrades: ‘Our misfortunes always come from our friends, not our enemies.’”

  “. . . but the Russians . . .” I stammered.

  He cut me off. “I know what you’re going to say. Believe me, all we get from them is a lot of hot air.”

  Antoinette jumped into the conversation, adding, “Sadat says the same thing. As though they should be taking up arms instead of us.”

  “We’re just pawns in the game between the Russians and the Americans.”

  “If Begin heard you, he’d jump for joy,” she snapped at him.

  His smile widened.

  “When they arrested me,” he went on, “they asked me about my position on the Russians, so I told them the truth. That didn’t stop them from condemning me to death. But enough about me: Antoinette tells me you like the film?”

  “I really do,” I replied.

  “Do you think it would be a success if it were shown in Egypt?”

  “Generally, documentary films aren’t popular in Egypt. Plus, Sadat’s media has succeeded in killing off people’s interest in Arab causes.”

  He turned to address Antoinette.

  “Didn’t I tell you that books are better than movies?”

  He turned back to me, adding, “Do you know that I wrote a major novel? Everyone who read it was astonished by it and told me I missed my calling.”

  He looked back and forth between the two of us, then stood up.

  “I’ll be going now,” he said, “and let you get to work.”

  After he left, Antoinette told me, “Abu Nadir is an exceptional person, even if he has his opinions. Did you find the material I gave you helpful?”

  “Very. But I want to see the film again.”

  “Of course. I reserved the screening room for you today.”

  She stood up while gathering some papers on her desk. She was wearing the jeans I had seen her in the first time, but she had traded her jacket for a light floral-design blouse with half-length sleeves.

  She walked out of the room ahead of me, and we went upstairs to the top floor. We entered a screening room the size of a living room. It had several rows of cushioned seats, in the middle of which was a small table with two ashtrays. The seats were two steps away from the screen, which covered one wall completely.

  I took a seat in the front row and lit a cigarette. Antoinette walked over to the projection booth and spoke to the projectionist. Then she turned off the light and sat down in the seat next to me.

  The show started immediately. I found myself better able to follow the film’s shots than I had been the last time.

  The air was warm, so I took off my jacket, and tossed it on the seat next to me. I rested my right arm on the armrest of my seat. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. I could feel her bare arm near me. At the first movement from her, our arms touched.

  Our arms stayed that way for a few moments, and then she gently pulled her arm away.

  I focused my attention on the film, and it wasn’t long before I became absorbed in its images. I wasn’t aware of the passage of time until I read the words “The End”.

  Antoinette got up and turned on the light. She put her hands in her pants’ pockets as she turned around and walked toward me. She stood in front of me, bending one of her knees as she rested it on the edge of the seat she had just occupied. I noticed that her pale face was now a little flushed.

  I offered her a cigarette and she took it. She pulled out a gold lighter from her pocket and held it up to me. I lit my cigarette, saying: “There are a lot of title cards: they should be incorporated into the voiceover. I’ll have to work with the scenes playing in front of me.”

  “You can work on the Moviola,” she suggested.

  “No. The problem is that I wouldn’t be able to work anywhere or at any time. Don’t you have a screenplay?”

  “It’s just general outlines. Everything else is here,” she said, pointing to her head.

  “Not even a list of shots?”

  “I have one that won’t be of any use to you. It consists of numbers and symbols.”

  “The only option left then is for me to make a list for myself. I’ll write down what is in each shot using the Moviola.”

  “But the film has six sections plus the introduction.”

  “It will be a nuisance, for sure, and it will take some time. But it will put me completely inside the film. But I only have one condition.”

  “What is it?”

  “That nothing I write will be modified except with my agreement. I understand the demands that cinema imposes, and I will try to conform to them as much as I can. But I won’t accept any attempt to distort what I write for the benefit of one faction or another.”

  “That is your right. When can you begin?”

  I looked at my watch, then said: “Now. We’ll try it with the introduction.”

  I put on my jacket and we went down to her office. The projectionist followed us, carrying the metal canisters containing the film, and we helped move them to the editing room. With skilled fingers, Antoinette took care of fixing the sound and film reels in place. Then she handed me some blank sheets of paper, and after putting on her glasses, she turned out the light. I pulled up a seat beside her, then took my pen out of my pocket.

  The first dark, distorted shots followed one after the other. The title of the film appeared and I put pen to paper without taking my eyes off the small screen. I started recording what I saw.

  General nature scenes. Snow covers the peak of Mount Lebanon. Cedar trees stick out from the melting snow. The foot of the mountain is covered with abundant green. Mulberry, fig and orange trees. A stream of water beneath a walnut tree. The sun’s rays sparkle on the surface of the water. Small green tobacco shrubs. Brown tobacco leaves on pieces of cloth along the edge of the road. Beside them, farmers in white clothes and baggy pants. Goatherds. A transistor radio on a donkey. Fairuz sings: O bee-eater bird!

  The road stretches out, ascending to a large palace perched upon a hill. On a wide balcony sits the bey in rustic clothes, with a short tarbush at an angle on his head. Nearby are a number of his enforcers awaiting his orders.

  The road cuts through a village. Dusty chalk and low houses. In front of one of them an old man sits cross-legged on a stone bench, smoking a nargile. A shop with a number of wooden tables, around which several young men are playing a game like table football.

  The village at night. Youths in shirts and pants make their way along its streets carrying torches and shouting: “We want union, union now! Nasser, Nasser, show us how!”

  Fairuz sings: I loved you in the summer, I loved you in the winter . . .

  Fairuz sings another song notable for its fast, Western beat.

  The song was in Lebanese dialect, and I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I indicated to Antoinette to replay it, and she stopped the reel. She put her hand out to a wheel connected to the Moviola spool, and slowly moved it. The film played in reverse.

  The song seemed familiar to me, but I still couldn’t make out the words. After a moment, I realized why it had caught my attention. The melody was from a popular Western song. The mix of Lebanese dialect and Western dance music seemed strange.

  ‘‘The song is called ‘Days Gone By’,’’ explained Antoinette.

  I nodded. The film rolled, and I began recording again.

  Hamra Street in Beirut. Chic glass-window displays. Signs sticking out over the sidewalk. Slick fast cars. Glittering lights. Jewelry stores and pinball arcades. Mink coats. Luxury movie theaters. Mini- , midi- and maxi-skirts. Dim r
ed lights on the side streets. La Dolce Vita café. Cafés scattered along the waterfront up to Pigeons’ Rock. Unbelievable crowds. The ghutra headcloths of Gulf Arabs and white gallabeyas. Half-naked blonde girls parading on a stage.

  A poster with these words fills the empty screen:

  Lebanon Tourist Casino

  Presents Every Evening

  The Finest Mezzes and Best Oriental Dishes

  Fully Prepared to Cater to All Special Requests

  And another poster:

  Lebanon, Oasis of Freedom

  Fairuz’s angelic voice: Visit me once every year; you must never forget all about me.

  Beirut Airport. A plane coming from Africa, with a mix of Africans and Lebanese disembarking. A stout Lebanese man in a white suit with a bald head. His belly bulges out over his pants inside a white silk shirt. His sideburns reach the middle of his cheeks. He is carrying a Samsonite briefcase. Nervously, he follows the progress of a big cardboard box being carried out of the airport.

  A metal dais rises nearly a meter off the ground. It spins around, carrying large electrical appliances: a Westinghouse refrigerator, a Moulinex blender, a Hoover vacuum.

  An empty modern car spins around on the dais.

  A man’s voice in a theatrical tone and a rapid delivery: “Enjoy the good life with the new sports car. Five speeds. Computer-guided steering, fuel consumption and engine testing. With a digital radio, sun roof and cassette-deck radio.”

  A young man in modern European clothes. His hair wavy and soft, carefully coiffed. He looks like a young European in every way. He sits on the same circular dais, and it turns around quickly, with him on it. The dais stops suddenly, causing the young man to face the camera. He puts his hand up to his jacket collar to show us the tag as he beams with pride.

  The façade of a furniture showroom. A middle-aged woman in a modest coat. Her hair is covered with a colored scarf, its ends knotted under her chin. She has her face up to the glass to look at the objects on display. Her eyes move back and forth between the stainless-steel kitchen, the different kinds of pile carpets, and the Louis XIV sofas.

  Other women like her rummage through piles of different clothes sitting on wooden carts in Sahat al–Burj Square.

  Adjacent shacks made of tin sheets. The ground is filthy with traces of waste water. Children in scruffy clothes carry colored plastic tubs in their hands. The tubs are filled with water from a public faucet that supplies every shack.

  A woman washes clothes in a puddle of water pouring from a broken water pipe.

  Photos of Gamal Abdel Nasser on the walls of the shacks.

  Fairuz’s voice: I waited for you in the summer, I waited for you in the winter . . .

  A magnificent palace surrounded by an expansive garden flooded with lights. Groups of men and women in evening clothes. The dance music that was used in Fairuz’s song, “Days Gone By”.

  An advertisement fills the screen: Lamb intestines are a dog’s favorite food. We’ve prepared them for you in several ways to suit various tastes.

  Hamra Street at night. A girl in white jeans crosses the street. The camera focuses on her thighs, zooming in on them. Her pants are extremely tight. The camera zooms above her thighs. The details of her body are clearly shown: her curvy hips and cleavage.

  The glass display of a clothes shop. Perfectly manufactured mannequins of women and girls in sheer and colored negligées. A number of young men stare at the displays. The young men are wearing embroidered shirts and platform shoes. Their sideburns are long. The general air about them reveals that they are working-class, or generally poor.

  A color television screen showing an advertisement for men’s underwear. The underwear is worn by young men with smooth, hairless bodies.

  Another ad for a new men’s skin cream. A title fills the screen: Take care of your skin the way you take care of your car.

  A number of young men gather in a circle around books and magazines spread out on the sidewalk. A tabloid-size newspaper with a large photo of a half-naked girl. From the paper’s headline the word “rape” appears.

  Crooked alleys that pass through old Ottoman-era souqs. They also lead to the red-light district. Martyrs’ Square. Taxi stands for Mercedes service cars heading to Tripoli, Amman and Aleppo. Sahat al-Burj Square in the evening. Crowds in front of the modest façades of clothing and shoe stores. Falafel restaurants and sweets shops. Piles of mamul and baraziq sesame cookies, and trays of baklava behind the glass windows. The crowd multiplies in front of the narrow entrance to a movie theater. A wide billboard carries the half-naked image of the American movie star Raquel Welch.

  Inside the theater during the show. Thick clouds of cigarette smoke. Raquel Welch is on the screen in threadbare rags that reveal her legs. Shouts and whistles from the audience.

  Part of the crimes and accidents news from a daily newspaper:

  Burj Hamoud Crime

  Badariyya Muhammad Taha had unmarried relations with an unidentified person. She sought refuge in the Good Shepherd monastery where she bore a child. A month and a half ago, her family took her back after pledging to the office of the prosecutor general that they would not repudiate her. Ten days ago, they married her to Kamil Karam Taha, a former employee of the municipality of Beirut. He brought her to the capital, and they resided at his home in the Burj Hamoud district. Five days later, she was found murdered: she had been shot not long before by two bullets to the head and chest, fired at a close distance. The husband vanished.

  Assault on a Child

  Wadia Z. (age 17) lured the child, Rajaa, to his private room and tore off her clothes, then attempted to assault her.

  Hamra Street by day. The Wimpy Café. The Mövenpick. The Horseshoe. The Modka. Café de la Paix. In the middle of the street, a demonstration by young men in chic clothes. The demonstrators hold up placards in English and French, bearing leftist slogans in defense of the lower classes.

  Fiery slogans and posters on the walls.

  On a wall, a sketch done in oil paint of Gamal Abdel Nasser, and beneath it, his famous expression: “What was taken by force can only be restored by force.”

  A number of young men surround one of their own who is sitting at a table opposite the camera. He is wearing an open shirt that reveals thick chest hair and a gold chain. He is talking into a microphone in fiery tones: “The Zionist-imperialist movement in the Arab region has come to form a dangerous and direct threat to the gains made by the Arab revolution, its defiant masses, and its nationalist, socialist, democratic, progressive and pro-unification aspirations . . .”

  Fairuz in the final, stirring section of the song “Jerusalem, Flower Among Cities”:

  The radiant wrath is coming

  The radiant wrath is coming, I believe with all my heart

  From every direction it is coming.

  A row of television, video and other equipment. An elegant young man smiles at the camera and points at the equipment: “More than forty video games, all of them fun and exciting.”

  Another ad for similar technology above a television screen. A voice from behind the screen: “Now! A new world of three-color viewing. Watch and record five-hour video tapes! Search for the image you want, pause it, and be in control of the whole system from the comfort of your chair!”

  A poster carrying these words above a background of snow-covered mountain peaks:

  Lebanon

  Land of Welcome and Tolerance

  Crossroads of Civilizations

  Young men in black military outfits and large caps of the same color march in unison on a street while shouting: “Han duwa, han duwa” (“One, two” in French as spoken on the Lebanese street).

  Posters of different sizes with photographs of Lebanese leaders.

  A title fills the screen:

  The Commanders of Lebanon

  Fairuz’s voice in the song “Oh Me Oh My”. Note to self: The song’s melody is taken from a symphony by Mozart.

  The camera flashes photos of Cam
ille Chamoun, Suleiman Frangieh, Pierre Gemayel, Father Charbel Qassis, Patriarch Khuraysh, Raymond Eddé, Saeb Salam, Mufti Hasan Khalid, Kamel Assaad, Imam Musa al-Sadr, Rashid Karami, Elias Sarkis.

  The camera paused on the image of Kamal Jumblatt.

  Title card:

  Kamal Jumblatt inherited from his father substantial religious and feudal authority among the Druze community. But his wide-ranging cultural education and travels led him to Gandhi and Marx. He became a devout Sufi who practiced yoga and became a vegetarian. That didn’t prevent him from actively participating in the game of Lebanese politics and playing by its rules, such that he has been described as a presidential kingmaker and head of shadow governments. He has often complained that the Druze – according to the confessional balancing agreement – don’t have the right to anything more than a ministerial post. He formed the Socialist Progressive Party. Before he left his position as minister of the interior in the early 1970s, he allowed the Communist Party to operate openly. He won the Lenin Peace Prize. In recent years, he has been a leader of the urban poor against the scions of the major families.

  A round table around which sit the leaders of the Nasserist, Baathist and Communist organizations, at the center of which is Kamal Jumblatt. Among those seated are George Hawi, Muhsin Ibrahim, Ibrahim Qalilat, Bashir Obayd, Inaam Raad and Kamal Shatila.

  The French song “Coupable”. The melody was borrowed for Fairuz’s famous song “I Loved You in the Summer”.

  The city of Nabatieh in the south. A religious festival in commemoration of Ashura, celebrated every year by the Shia on the 10th of the Islamic month of Muharram. A parade of Mercedes cars and mopeds bearing aloft portraits of Khomeini and Musa al-Sadr. The latter’s portrait carries these words: “My role is defined by God, my nation’s history, my religion and my umma.” On top of the lead car sit two young men, one of whom wears a white shirt saying “I am yours to command, Hussein”. The other one wears a black shirt with “Allahu Akbar” painted on it. Both of them wear black headbands that nearly cover their eyes.