Then, all of a sudden, she looks at me as if she were seeing me for the first time, and scoffs: “Look at you! Go take a shower!”
Given the state of my appearance, I let her boss me around this time and don’t fire off a comeback. All right, I’ll shower, miss know-it-all, maybe the water will wash off me the dust of the night before.
I stand naked in the bathtub and let the affectionate drops of water fall on me.
I feel safe under the water. Alone here, the drops create all my sounds and bounds and thoughts. I close my eyes, silently surrendering to the internal universe that inhabits every person, including me. Here, my internal world can safely come out. And I can settle its unresolved problems. They slip down my skin. Their traces wash off me as if they never existed.
I conjure up last night, so I can rinse it off.
Now the loud voice in the bar gets louder . . .
We were four young women; beautiful, charming, intelligent, of course. Each of us had a look of her own, her own style.
We ventured beyond Hamra Street this time. We were determined to break our evening routine and change our mood.
Stay fresh, we’re on a trip! That was our night’s slogan that we’d taken from the Egyptian movie Saidi at the American University. And we were truly fresh on our trip to Achrafieh, which was only a five-minute drive from Hamra by night. But distance is not measured in length only, just as time is not measured only by the hands of a clock. We reached the door of a quiet pub, Time Out, suitable for the three of us and our thirty-something selves that were quickly catching up with us (I’m thirty-two all of a sudden). Zeezee, who was our youngest (twenty-eight) and had to do what we asked of her, went inside to see if there was a table for us.
We were weary of life and our bodies were no longer what they once had been, so she had to respect our opinions, experiences, and advice, which we were never too shy to give whether she asked for them or not. And part of respecting our seniority was to never ask us to party more than our energy allowed. The concept of partying itself had become more than our energy could allow anyway. God we were growing old! Quelle horreur!
Zeezee came back to tell us that there were tables available, but that the pub would close in an hour. That was what the waiter had told her in an attempt, and not a particularly subtle one, to get rid of her. What? Had somebody told him we planned to move in, lay down carpets, and grow old in his pub? Maybe he was right to say that, though. It was getting late after all. But why limit ourselves to one hour, when we were feeling this fraiche.
We hadn’t discussed whether we should stay before we set out in the car. Zeezee had made it clear in her way, sounding like our friend Shwikar, that staying was out of the question, and that was that. As if, maybe, it was shameful to consider an hour enough time to party outside Hamra. And our conviction that it was, verified our physical and emotional old age. Thirty-two was suddenly a very earnest number. Or maybe it was me who felt that way, and that my three other friends were, deep down, true party animals bewitched by the night and ready to catch the morning stars with the palms of their hands.
Shwikar said: “Should we head to Pacifico?”
Ooh la la!
When we were younger, in our late teens, we used to go to Pacifico a lot, addictively a lot. But, even then, the reason it was so special to us was that it was a bar that attracted an older crowd, even if only slightly, even if suggestively. And sure enough, it had a dining area that older people ate in, or, to be precise, richer people. Its prices were not suitable for those with a limited income (and we were still university students back then). I had a friend who used to pay the bartender with kisses. She liked the bartender and he liked her, so we used to go to the bar during his night shifts. We ordered drinks and he offered us shots, then we asked for the check, and she made out with him over the bar—that’s how she settled it. She tipped him with a few kisses on our behalf, and he succumbed, or she didn’t and we paid the check. So, to avoid embarrassment, we usually ordered beer and counted on his shot gifts to get drunk.
Memories . . . happy days . . . distant moments . . . close to the heart. . . . The best part of waking up . . . is Folgers in your cup.
We looked for an empty table. We found one. We sat around it proudly, elegantly, stylishly.
I repeated to the girls: “Stay fresh, we’re on a trip.”
Zeezee, our youngest, felt targeted: “Don’t I look fresh to you? Do I look stale?”
“No, Zeezee. You’re so sensitive! I was talking to everyone at the table, not just you.” I filled the place with my voice, but no one in the place heard me. Clapping. Final bow. Tears of joy. Heart pounding. My audience!
The waiter brought us two menus, one for food and the other for drinks. We ordered two platters to share, and I ordered a trendy new cocktail I’d never tried before but that sounded strong enough: vodka with red wine and a medley of other flavors. Zumurrud got jealous and ordered the same drink. I felt reassured that I wasn’t alone in this experience anymore. Zeezee ordered vodka with 7Up, and Shwikar ordered a vodka sour.
We positioned ourselves on barstools around a high table. The tables were aligned facing the bar. Behind me, to the right of our table, sat a very young man with his button-up shirt tucked into his pants and his nose turned up. Facing him sat a girl who had shaved her legs especially for their date. She was wearing a look of surprise on her face and clothes that, despite her attempt to appear casual and fun, made her look constipated. They were both dirty blond and their expressions betrayed utter disgust at their surroundings. Excuse me? You ask how I noticed their expressions? I wasn’t staring at them or anything, but the waiter, who wore the same face expression, had asked us to move our table further from the one on our left, because the girls sitting there got lucky. So he pushed our table away, and we got so close to the table on our right that I was practically sitting in the blond’s lap. I snapped at the waiter, but he pretended not to hear me. That didn’t hurt my feelings though, because I felt so good that night that no creature like him could change that. The waiter seemed to be friends with the ones on our left: two girls eager to be approached, with the hint of a smile hanging on their lips, and a suspended conversation waiting to be initiated. Once they got lucky and found dates, their expressions would change into disgust at their surroundings as well.
When the food finally arrived, we attacked it mercilessly. Then the drinks arrived and Zumurrud’s face and mine lit up once we saw how pretty our drinks looked and how tasty. It seemed like it was going to be a good night. We felt so young.
“What you looking at, punk?”
A voice violated our space: the blond guy asked the dark-haired guy leaning at the bar behind his girlfriend, “Who you eyein’?” with a deafening voice.
And like any dark-haired guy who doesn’t tolerate remarks from a blond guy, he answered, “Who you calling punk, punk?”
The dark-haired guy then, despite his smaller size compared to the Pharaoh-like blond, was not only accepting his invitation to a fight, but also answering his question with a question.
And as the moment for action arrived, I felt something hit me in the back: their testosterone shooting like fireworks in all directions.
Grrrrrrrr.
“What are you looking at?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Who are you yelling at?”
“Shut up!”
“You shut up!”
“$#%^&*”
“*&^%#$”
The music was still playing loud. The waiters didn’t rush to control the situation at all and throw the troublemakers out of the pub. So the two guys found themselves in the spotlight and refused to step down before one of them wins the fight.
Our table, the “super fresh” girls, was the battleground. Zeezee’s first instinct was to run on tiptoe with her iPhone in her hand. She then turned around and came back to salvage what was left of her purse. Zumurrud, with her usual poise, found herself within arm’s reach of the dark-hai
red guy. He grabbed her by the shoulder and leapfrogged over her to get closer to the blond guy, so she asked him sarcastically: “What am I, your shield?” then withdrew with complete class to hide from him. Shwikar was trembling from anger and fear. She ran to the dining area repeating: “How dare you let yourselves go like that? Why is the music still playing so loud? Why didn’t the waiters throw them out? How could something like this happen in a club? How can you allow such violence? How . . .”
Me on the other hand, I had mixed feelings. Part of me was excited to see guys fight, and the other part was looking to hide away, afraid of people’s violence against one another. And in my head were two conflicting voices: one was happy that we wouldn’t have to pay our check, and the other was sad that our fresh mood had basically turned into a doormat.
I was also having an out-of-body experience in which I was proudly watching myself disgusted by the cruelty of the two beasts and their stupidity. How classy of me.
Punk!
Crash! Pow! Biff!
The blonde girl raised her hand to her forehead and fell to the ground in a very elegant faint that drew most of the peaceful guys to her. Bravo!
By that time, the two stylish bad boys were breaking bottles and using the sharp ends as weapons.
The bartenders led them outside while the music continued to play.
“Should we pay the check?”
Zumurrud laughed: “Pay for what?” and pointed to our plates and glasses on the floor. She convinced me. Or it was more the situation that convinced my conscience to be quiet. I decided to skip the check, and not because I like free stuff, but because of the tension in the room and because I was angry at the assault I experienced.
Yeah, I was very angry.
We asked the valet to bring our car and we drove to Hamra Street without another word on the subject.
We got drinks at the Regusto then went home to our nests like all the good ducks in the Middle East.
We all had vodka 7Up because cocktails at that pub are never good.
And on my way home, I saw her.
Should I tell her story?
I’m going to tell her story.
A lady in her seventies who carries a metal bucket and wears a headscarf. She styles her hair in the summer, and gathers it under a cute colorful wool hat in winter.
She’s the lady who speaks slowly and faintly. Age has bent her back. She sells roses to buy food to take back to her Cuban husband whose illness has confined him to his bed.
His illness is clear in her eyes.
Her name is Nadia. And beautiful flowers are called Nadiy.
Every time I see her from a distance I run to her to buy roses with whatever money I have.
She makes me feel guilty.
And helpless.
I’m much better off than she is and much younger. Everything is working for me and against her.
She spent a big chunk of her life with him in Cuba. His illness forced her to come back to her country, but no help or treatment was available here either, because he’s Cuban.
A Lebanese woman can’t give her nationality to her husband. A Lebanese woman can’t give her nationality to her children.
This Lebanese woman, Nadia, loves her husband. And there’s an unfathomable look in her eyes, as if each look came from a place deep within the soul, one that rarely emerges from the body so as to not run into something fearful. She worries that a restaurant owner, a security guard, or a waiter might ask her to leave this or that place, or that one, claiming that selling roses bothers their customers.
I’m a customer, and I ache every time I see her. I get ashamed of the plates I own and their price, the glasses and their price, my laugh and how carefree it is, my straight back compared to hers, my expensive outfit compared to her clothes that lost their beauty the day she bought them long ago.
I’m ashamed of all of life’s privileges of which she is more worthy than I. She, who is old; I, who can still work.
And I feel guilty because I know that, even if I could, I wouldn’t trade places with her.
Each time I see her or feel sympathy and love toward her I hate myself because I smell the scent of my escape in the roses I buy. I escape the torture of my conscience with money. She asks for it and I give it to her, as if I’m buying her silence or buying my peace of mind. Except that my mind is never at peace, but always stuck in a cycle of pain. I’m a customer who is in pain every time she sees the fragile lady with red, white, and yellow roses.
There is a lot of exhaustion in the streets of my city. Numerous pictures of heroes hang in the streets of my city. The poor live on the streets, glued to the asphalt where some of them advertise their many disabilities so those more fortunate will give them money. The more fortunate ones are divided into categories: Those who do little, those who do a lot, those who do nothing but own a lot, and those who think it clever to shower illiterate beggars on the street with insults. That last type drives me crazy. Like a car that looks like it jumped straight out of the latest issue of a fashion magazine, a showboat of a car, with a driver looking down his nose at life. He shuts his car window if a beggar clings to it. He shoves an elderly man who asks for what is rightfully his, and is disgusted by the exhaustion of people, so he refuses to interact with them.
I used to be one of those who gave money but refused to interact, before my friend, Shwikar, talked to me about my refusal. At times, I fell back on imagination to avoid the pain lurking in every corner that housed a wronged person. When an old man held his hand out, I used to tell myself that he abused his wife when he was younger, or that that old woman mistreated those weaker than her, maybe. I tried to strip the innocence from those with their hands out.
Later, I started imagining that they were accustomed to their situation, one that I dreaded myself because I had never experienced it. “If I were in their shoes, I would have gotten used to a life of sleeping on the sidewalk, maybe.” The guilt cycle came back to trap me: I searched inside myself for reasons to justify their injustice and found comfort in them. I didn’t say a word to them, nor did I listen to them tell their stories. I didn’t give them that right.
Shwikar asked me: “Why do you give the beggar what he asks for, but never stop to talk to him?” Because I don’t want to listen to what is not in my power to change. Shwikar told me that people aren’t just stories told to hurt me. That people crave communication and acknowledgment. A look or a smile, a word or a question, a greeting or a prayer, anything that would tell the beggar that I see him as a person, not as an extended hand.
That was the day I first saw Nadia. Nadia’s career is that of the poor. She sells roses. I went up to her. I asked her for roses, and resisted my itch to get away, to prevent communication. I stood still, so she raised her eyes at me. I smiled at her and she smiled at me and thanked me in a French that alternated with Arabic on her lips. I asked her name and then asked how she was doing. She told me what I then told everyone. I told them that I knew her.
Before our meeting ended, I told her about myself. How could I not tell her about myself after she had told me about herself? Am I a judge who listens but doesn’t share? I had to tell her. So I told her my name, and what I did for a living. I told her that I was thirty-two, and she said, “may you live longer” in a voice that told me I still had a long way to go in life, after I had thought that I had already walked a long way on that road. I laughed at my young age and at my obsession with it. She told me that when she was my age, she was the queen of the world. She said that life is not just money; it’s the joy of living, and the ability to recognize that joy.
I smiled at her unrealistic but pleasing philosophy, and she smiled in turn at her unrealistic but comforting philosophy. An unspoken agreement between us confirmed that an emotional bond connected us both, and that her past is better than her present, and that my future is still ahead of me.
Feeling like a child, I said goodbye, and we went our own ways. Pain choked my heart then too. It choked it har
der that time, but I knew why. Nadia had a story, and I knew it, and I was going to tell it:
She loves him. She adores her husband. She wants him to be comfortable and never blames him for anything. She blames the government and bad luck and the world and exhaustion, and bar owners at times and restaurant staffs other times, and she blames the Cuban blockade and Lebanon’s chaos. She blames the situation, the past, the present, the future, and war. She always finds someone or something to blame but him. And he, he loves to steer clear of blame. For he’s her Cuban husband with whom she spent years of happiness in Havana.
Komodo had mentioned, as we talked about her brother, that her husband in Sri Lanka didn’t live near her mother. She had married her current husband, Prasanna, a month ago. Before him, she had been married to Mohammed, a Sri Lankan Muslim living in Lebanon. She herself is a Buddhist. She hadn’t told Prasanna that she had been Mohammed’s wife here. She told me that Sri Lankan women who marry in Lebanon gain a “no-good reputation.” It also didn’t help that she had married a Muslim. She told Prasanna that she had lost her virginity in a fling. I asked her: “So a fling is more socially acceptable in Sri Lanka than getting married in Lebanon?” “Of course,” she replied. “It’s like nature made that union legitimate.”
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