Beirut Noir

by Iman Humaydan

  I remember what he whispered to my mother after Abu Harut left: “In Lebanon, there are nearly a hundred thousand Armenians, scattered all throughout its different regions. Many live in Bourj Hammoud, Anjar, and Antelias and have gotten Lebanese citizenship. They have a number of representatives in the parliament distributed between three main parties: Tashnag, Henchag, and Ramgavar. Armenians have played an important role in Lebanese society for a long time, holding a certain weight in political life. Today they keep the same distance from all of the sects that the Lebanese people belong to. They haven’t retreated from these ethical principles and they are liked and respected by everyone. That’s why their area of Beirut has remained safer than others.”

  Amer continued: “Abu Harut, like all Armenians, will always remember what happened to his ancestors: the great massacre that began on April 24, 1915. On that day, the Turkish forces imprisoned six hundred Armenian leaders in Istanbul and proceeded to liquidate them, killing all their boys and men. Every soldier in the Turkish army of Armenian origin was discharged, sent to do hard labor, and then killed. The Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were given a notice to evacuate their houses within twenty-four hours or else be killed. When they left their villages, the liquidation of all the healthy men was complete, and only the women, children, and old people were allowed to flee, walking hundreds of kilometers on foot without food or medicine.”

  Every time he tells it to me, the story makes him cry, as though he doesn’t want to forget how on that road women were raped, others were tortured, until almost all of them perished in one way or another. Or how the Kurdish and Turkoman tribes joined the Ottoman soldiers in torturing the Armenians. So that in roughly a year, no less than a million Armenians were killed—that is to say, half of the Armenians living in the shadow of the Ottoman Empire. Abu Harut would tell me that the Turks, despite the abomination of this tragedy, didn’t recognize the murder of more than three hundred thousand people and refused to admit that this operation had been planned, intentionally and resolutely.

  In any case, arranging a place for us to live was not difficult for Abu Harut. My father had money and some savings, enough for us to not need support from anyone else, and moreover he could get a license to use the Honda as a taxi.

  No shape before me was clear, everything seemed like a mirage, an unreal world covered by a thick blue fog, which I carried with me from my village between the mountains and the plains. At this time, the houses in Beirut would empty and fill with people in strange ways, sometimes without good reason. Areas had not yet become definitively entrenched or their sectarian identities absolutely clear. But the singularity of Bourj Hammoud—where Abu Harut and his family had lived from the time his father had come to Lebanon, and whose landmarks are preserved in my memory and my heart—was reflected in its houses, alleys, and markets, populated by large families, most of whom the war couldn’t budge from the property they owned, despite all of the displacement happening in Lebanon. Shops and pharmacies were spread throughout their neighborhoods, carrying the names of their home regions in Armenia in two languages—Armenian and Arabic—reflecting their attachment to their mother tongue and an identity that had not faded away in its owners’ souls, despite the passage of time. What was notable was that the people of Bourj Hammoud’s refused to be grouped within a special segregated “ghetto,” off-limits to others. I heard Abu Harut speak disapprovingly about this, stressing, “We will never form a closed society, this region of ours reflects a model of coexistence between different sects, and this naming—ghetto—advances political goals. Look, Abu Majd, look next door to the Armenian shops and you’ll find Muhammad’s shop, Joseph’s shop, or Sacco’s . . .”

  That area has its own special scent; I can still almost smell the fragrant mix of hot spices which flavored their delicious food, and hear Harut’s voice in my ear saying cheerfully, “There are many kinds of food which we brought to the Lebanese that they like—sujouk and basterma—just as we took tabbouleh, kibbe, and stuffed vine leaves from them.” He saw a kind of fusion and reciprocity in this. He followed up, imitating his father: “We took hospitality and generosity from you, baba, and you took from us many kinds of arts and crafts, like jewelry and shoemaking . . . and don’t forget fixing watches, baba, ha ha ha!”

  But the Armenians are so distinguished by their “broken” Arabic that this became a general way for Lebanese people to refer to Armenians, since most of the elderly people from Armenia would masculinize the feminine and feminize the masculine, and squeeze the word baba into their speech, a sign of affection perhaps.

  After visiting many apartments, my father chose one in a building that was modern, relative to the other houses and buildings nearby. It wasn’t located in Bourj Hammoud or deep inside it—on the al-Nabaa side, for example. It wasn’t even in Doura, an area bordering it and stretching out from the coast to the Northern Metn. It was along the big highway from which we could see Karantina and, in the blink of an eye, the “West Side” of the capital at the time. So were we really on the “East Side”? I don’t know because on the right side there was a little old mosque which worshippers frequented all the time, as well as that modest church with its round domes on the north side. The building was located right between them and even the news reports—from radio or television stations, which we started to follow when bombardments on our area intensified—weren’t able to determine once and for all which area this building that Amer chose as the location for our new home belonged to.

  * * *

  I couldn’t count the number of explosions that had gone off and bombs that had fallen, either on people or on buildings, when we found ourselves on the threshold of our alleged youth. That’s how we used to measure our lives in Beirut, not in years at all. Some of us, when we wanted to remember happy or sad things, started to connect them to an endless, bloody series: the War of the Souqs, Tel al-Zaatar, the Battle of the Hotels, the murder of Bachir Gemayel, the entry of the Deterrent Force, the Hundred-Day War on Ashrafieh by the Syrian army, the Mountain War, the War of the Camps, the Israeli invasion . . . Sabra and Shatila . . . There was no need to count the years here, as I said, our lives were made of gunfire, random bullets shot by depraved snipers.

  However, our days were not free from periods when there were truces, long ones sometimes, and then we would forget that this multifaceted Lebanese War, which never held to a fixed stance on anything, hadn’t yet finished and had itself forgotten that it hadn’t yet come to an end. This perhaps goes back to the fact that from our childhood it was a reality that peace had merely become a word—always tenuous and elusive—and if it were able to prevail here one day, it would seem artificial. Despite this, I didn’t neglect my studies. Indeed, I was actually working hard and Harut nicknamed me “The Genius.” But on summer vacation I would fulfill my violent desire to discover everything. Entertainment began in the cinemas and Harut and I would move around between the Sevan, Carminique, Arax, Florida, and Canar (theaters with the names of Armenian towns and villages) to choose what suited our mood: westerns, documentaries, horror flicks, romantic comedies, and adventures. We wouldn’t hesitate to leave a film at the beginning if we heard people whispering that another cinema was showing an exciting sex movie.

  My talent in the subjects of science and mathematics became evident. My head worked like a little computer, absorbing information, memorizing numbers, and solving problems effortlessly. I used to help Harut with his lessons and he would repay me by letting me into the depths of his Armenian world, boasting about me in front of his comrades in “the Party”—that I was the only one able to disassemble a Kalashnikov and put it back together again in seconds, that I was also the only one who memorized the names of the explosives found in shells and bombs, like the back of my hand, and that I could make hundreds from it if I wanted to . . . I was his friend and his treasure and he was my only friend who I was proud of, so I didn’t refuse when he asked me to join the party. This ensured I would stay with him and accompany him on t
he local neighborhood security patrols and surveillance in the area.

  Before the war broke out there were Armenian leaders and strongmen too, who ruled streets and neighborhoods with a tight grip, just like the prominent Lebanese ones who became famous. However, the war dampened their fires, put an end to their roles and their near-mythical legends. New leaders and strongmen took their place, imposing a military reality under the influence of armed parties and militias.

  The neighborhood, home to so many Armenians, remained for the most part distant from the thunder of bombs and exchange of incursions, which the combatants undertook to seize strategic buildings and areas beyond those already under their control. But no matter how it was contained, the sparks of the war would undoubtedly escape from time to time, afflicting many people’s hearts with greed in the absence of both law and the authority of the state. But the Party, as Harut said, was ready and able to impose its will, with a kind of autonomous governance and stringent reverence, so that things wouldn’t “get out of control,” as was happening in other regions of Lebanon. Behind an old government building, Harut took me to see this one night; he showed me with my own eyes how the death penalty was implemented for hooligans, anyone tempted by heroics or who strayed from the will of the party and obedience to it.

  Would my friendship with Harut and his love for me, my ability to understand the Armenian language, and my belonging to the Party (and this is a tricky if not impossible matter for a non-Armenian person, and perhaps what made my mother constantly repeat that my grandmother’s late mother was Armenian) intercede on my behalf? Would all these factors intervene one day and enable Abu Harut to accept me as his son-in-law and allow me to marry his only daughter Tamara? Tamara, who was blossoming like magic with the beauty of a wild red rose and whose splendor and uniqueness Farah had been always proud of in the village. Tamara knew that I loved her and that I was sure I lived in her heart and her two sweet eyes . . . But Armenian fathers, in spite of everything, don’t consent to marry their daughters to “sons of Arabs,” except reluctantly. And yet I presumed there was still time, and that I would be able to add to the list of my good qualities later . . . so I thought.

  * * *

  The naked women at the Dixino nightclub no longer excited me as much as the poker machine at Paradisio, one of the many amusement centers that sprouted up like mushrooms during the war spreading all over. Perhaps I’m not being precise enough about describing my feelings: I spent an entire week in the embrace of “Raquel,” not leaving the room, obsessed with all the sexual pleasure that I discovered. However, it is possible to say that a different, fleeting exaltation possessed me when I entered this place, accompanied by Harut, out of curiosity. It was the same exaltation as the one that overwhelms a child who’s entering an amusement park for the first time. Was the reason the lights, the music, or those intoxicating sights which deceived the eyes of the people occupied by their games, fixing their attention on the numbers and symbols cascading before them on those graceful machines, making us pass by right near them, invisible like ghosts? Was I enticed by the relief on their faces at the moment they won, knowing that I was not a money-collecting enthusiast? Or was it the direct challenge that my mind formulated at that moment to discover the secret of those machines’ programs? What is the right time to start ejecting money after the pockets of so many people have been exhausted? Would I be able to decode the mystery and be the cleverest and luckiest player? Or is this the time in which I smelled it burning—like in our teen years—and which passes with a delightful slowness, here in this place that seemed outside of time, without thinking about the death lurking in the very molecules of air that we breathe in Beirut? I don’t know what reason to give for my attraction, nor do I know what gripped me, but I do know that I was suddenly a child again and desperately wanted to play with that machine.

  Only a short time passed before I got used to the place and started going there without Harut. This made me feel more relaxed. Something led me to Paradisio like I was bewitched. I didn’t think about my future there, or my past in my village, or the shaky and unstable present in which I was living . . . as if I were on a swing.

  I am the little plant uprooted from in front of the doorstep of our house. No longer planted in soil, my aerial roots extend upward, suspended in midair, not touching any land at all. Who am I? For a time I was not Majd the village kid, and of course I was not a city kid either. I wasn’t Christian or Muslim; I wasn’t Lebanese or Armenian. I tried hard to be something but I couldn’t. Who am I? When did I become a monster who didn’t dare scare anyone but himself, because he was so distant from his fluid self, like a colorless liquid, a self whose truth he didn’t show until he forgot it? I am merely what others want to see . . . When did I start taking on this role? How and why?

  My anger at myself, Beirut, and Lebanon perhaps didn’t stop at the Paradisio, but I eventually did calm down and forget the bitter taste filling my mouth for a little bit. The place game me distance from my questioning and my reality that made me homeless and without an identity in Lebanon, the distant Lebanon that still didn’t know me and neither did I know it. Here alone did I dare to separate out the features of my face as I used to see them in the mirror every evening. Here alone I cast off my face, my age, my body, my sexual desires; I reconciled with my old age and accepted it, as befits my feeling that I don’t belong. Exactly like the poker machine, which doesn’t distinguish between one player and another. Thus I was there alone . . . free of Harut, my family, and my love for Tamara. Unrestrained by these chains, I didn’t have to speak, think, or concentrate on anything. I used to lose money there with massive pleasure, as though I were spending a part of my life that I didn’t want. I was donating it to the devil. To counterbalance this, I returned once again to give from my pocket what I had won yesterday and buy new clothing for the naked angel of my dreams.

  I don’t know how this happened, but one day I suddenly noticed I was totally immersed, to the point of being almost in a coma, in the body of this machine of fleeting death, this machine of the next life. This machine of dreams. Perhaps the four red hearts on the colored screen in front of me were my sure win in the carré ace game, the special prize dedicated to someone who got lucky that night. For moments the place returned to reality and the people had to wake up for a few minutes and everyone around me started to yell with joy or greed, cursing their luck, feeling deep jealousy, before returning to their previous state—that is to say, disconnected from reality. But none of this matters. Only one voice filled my ears and it didn’t care about the amount that Avo, the owner of Paradisio, gave to me with his own hand.

  I hadn’t informed anyone where I was. Did my mother send him after me because it was my birthday and everyone wanted to surprise me because I always ran away from these kinds of occasions? Was it the sound of the explosion that thundered a bit earlier and shook up my heart for a minute but that I ignored? This wasn’t the first time I stayed out very late during intensive bombardments. Was it because of the party’s state of alert, fearing a surprise attack?

  “Inch beses, Harut?”—What’s up?—I asked in Armenian. He didn’t answer but grabbed my hand and led me outside.

  I don’t know how much time passed with me over there driven into the ground like a nail. Did I die all of a sudden and arrive at the gates of hell with the tongue of the flames of hellfire charring my face? As we approached my apartment building, the sounds of little explosions, one after another, increased because of gas canisters in people’s apartments and cars parked both in front of the building and under it. These sounds brought me back to reality but I was not sure that I had really returned. It seemed to me as if I were observing the scene from above, or from behind a transparent curtain. I saw the paramedics, Party and civilian ambulances, armed men belonging to the official security forces and the militias. Women and men in nightgowns and pajamas, party clothes and normal clothes. Babies and children and teenage boys and girls and old people. Toys were flying thro
ugh the air, mixed with papers, arms and legs, and dreams. All of it seemed tenuous, light, and floating, hovering above land without gravity. Is this Resurrection Day? Have the dead risen?

  * * *

  Hurry, there are people alive, hurry, there are corpses, hurry, there’s someone burning and he’s alive, there’s someone choking and he’s alive, someone trying to lift a wall off his shattered skull, without hands . . . Hurry . . . hurry, there’s the voice of a child.

  “Hurry, they’re alive . . . Majd, they are alive, hurry up!” Harut called from the seventh hell or seventh heaven, I don’t know . . . I’d gotten separated from him when I saw the bloodied faces of my family, their closed eyes, black dust obscuring their features and everything else. Were they sleeping, had they lost consciousness, were they alive, or were they simply dead?

  I didn’t dare approach the ambulance and I didn’t even have a desire to accompany them. In reality, I couldn’t. All I could do was run—run or fly—toward the port with Harut’s voice ringing in my ears as though it were coming from another world: “Where are you going? You have to come with me to the hospital, they may be alive . . . Come back . . . come back . . .”

  But I kept running like someone penetrating an endless, closed in, red-hot fog. I couldn’t feel any part of my body. I became an errant, gelatinous mass of that angry air that Beirut breathed. I was a screaming voice, weighed down by pain I couldn’t bear. How could Harut dare to call me to come back?

  Did he not see the lock of incandescent fire from Tamara’s red hair silently fading into the blood flowing from Zeina’s sliced open cheek? Is it conceivable that I alone saw her translucent shoulders, like my passionate desire for her, embracing like two stems of broken lilies, pinned down like a murdered dove among the bodies of my family and the others?