Ah! No photo! I have no photo of my mother, my brothers, nobody. But there’s no turning back now. I’m through too many barriers. Final call for Beirut. I try to hold the image of my mother in my mind: I’m terrified of losing her face. At least a photo is kissable, something to clench, something to pore over again and again. But in the hurly-burly of the airport, I’m struggling with a precise recall of my mother, my mind urgently flicking through an album of blank pages but finding nothing. How can it be so difficult to summon a vision of the woman who has cared for me from the womb onwards?
With the mass of strangers around me, I can remember only her picture as a young woman, posing with my father, my brothers and me in the last family photograph. It rests in our diminutive living room and always has done. Her face is an unforgettable portrait of calm wrath, but it’s better than nothing. It’s okay, Mum, I have you.
Second Incision
The plane roars down the runway and lurches upwards. My petite feet leave firm ground, my body departs the only place it’s ever known: with each metre’s climb, the plane is cleaving me from my mother like a second severing of the umbilical cord. For the first nine months of my life, mother and foetus were uninterrupted in our bond, my dependence total, until someone sliced through the cord on the day of my birth. I could do nothing about that. Death – hers or mine – was due to be the next bond-breaker. But today, it’s me who makes a second incision: an extra unnecessary one, with help from Ethiopian Airlines flight 067. Congratulations, Meron, for putting impossible distance between yourself and the most important person in your life. The emergency exit doors are conveniently positioned and exceedingly well signposted. Maybe I should use one.
I inhale very deeply.
Instead of leaping from an emergency exit, I read about Lebanon. Henok printed off a page from the internet in preparation for my journey. It says: ‘Lebanon is a small country lodged between Syria and Israel with a population of around four million. Beirut is the capital city of Lebanon. Life is pleasant in Beirut. Its nightlife is famous all over the world, providing entertainment both for the country’s fun-loving, carefree inhabitants and for the visitors who, from the minute they step on Lebanese soil, feel the country’s welcome.’ Ah, soothing words! Whether true or not, I feel better already.
‘Arabic is Lebanon’s official language,’ says my print-out. I speak no Arabic but my English is very reasonable. Perhaps in my free time, I will attend evening classes in Arabic. I feel reassured by this prospect. ‘Before the civil war (1975–1990), Beirut was known as the “Paris of the Middle East” due to its opulence and style. Indeed, Lebanon was under French Rule from 1926 to 1943, hence the continued use of French in some aspects of Lebanese life.’ I want to learn French as well. Yes! Now I see it. I shall return to Addis fluent in Arabic and French, switching between four languages as effortlessly as taxi drivers changing lanes in Bole Road, without use of signs, mirrors or eyes. I’ll be a multi-millionaire multi-linguist! I don’t need to be a Hollywood movie star after all.
I’m passed a packet of nuts. Free nuts! I love noise food. Crunching and crackling: who’s interested in sight, smell and taste when you can fill depressing silence with noise food?
I munch exuberantly as I deliberate over the climate notes for Lebanon: ‘The weather is especially hot in the summer, with cool winters. A sea breeze can be expected to blow in from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, cooling sunbathers on the capital’s famous beaches.’ Beirut has beaches! I will begin my new exercise regime by jogging along the sandy shoreline each morning before the sun is hot. My body will quickly sweat off the puppy fat, and the slender frame of an Ethiopian distance runner will step forward. I shall return to Addis and become a professional runner, probably an international track star within weeks. Haile Gebrselassie will leave unanswered messages on my voicemail. Derartu Tulu will copy my hairstyle and look ludicrous. Like Haile, I will have a major thoroughfare named after me in Addis, preferably one where nobody ever dies in road accidents.
‘Lebanon is renowned as a centre of fashion.’ I laugh out loud. It just gets better and better. I love fashionable things, even if I never wear them. How will that not touch me? I shall amaze Mum and my friends with head-turning dresses . . .
‘What you reading, sister?’ interrupts a voice from my left. She’s Habesha but speaking in the familiar idiom of American English. To speak like this in Addis is seen either as excellent modern style, or as an outright betrayal of Ethiopia and all of its beautiful traditional mother tongues spoken for thousands of years. To me, it’s a reasonable way to communicate but hardly a free pass into the State of Cool.
The woman is too large for her seat. Her stomach is sleeping on my elbow. The extra weight softens everything about her: she looks friendly solely on the basis that she is fat. She is so obviously a good person. I like that, my country likes that: Habesha people aspire to attain this weighty, friendly, floppy look. I should fatten up while in Lebanon: a rich country compared with Ethiopia and, according to my notes, ‘endowed with a fertile soil for agriculture’. I shall return to Addis a contented curvy lady, quite obviously unworried by such issues as starvation and cramped aeroplane seats. I’ll always have a kind word for my crushed fellow passengers.
But wait, there’s a contradiction. I can’t be a fat long distance runner: it would upset all the generous donor countries. Skinny runners look better for Ethiopia’s aid programme.
‘Hello?’ insists the voice to my left.
Maybe I’ll take up shot putt.
‘Sister?’
‘Sorry,’ I reply, ‘just daydreaming about Lebanon. I’m reading about Lebanon. Do you know Lebanon?’
I really enjoy saying ‘Lebanon’. I’ll be a resident of Lebanon within hours.
‘Yeah, I know Lebanon. You?’
‘I live there.’
Lies tumble from my lips at times, often without malice or mischief, though I prefer not to call them ‘lies’.
‘Really? Your English is so good . . . you speak Arabic too?’ she asks.
‘Yes, I’m a multi-lingual . . .’ I pause.
‘What?’
‘Er . . . shot putter.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ she says with a flat tone suggesting total disbelief. ‘You’re gonna be a servant, right? First time, I imagine, by the looks of you. Why you gotta lie all the time?’
‘Not really lying . . . more like projecting hope through my words, which is not in the Ten Commandments.’
‘Ah! That must be why I smoke . . . not prohibited in the Bible. You just legitimised most of my sins, sister, thank you very much.’
‘You don’t look like a major sinner. What else do you do?’ I check.
‘I shop, sister . . . I shop . . . always looking for the markdowns out there . . . can’t rest till I got them all. Mostly in the States, when I visit my brothers.’
‘Why are you going to Beirut? Are you a servant?’
‘Third time. What does that tell you?’
And look at her! Positively full-figured off the servant life.
‘But not everyone has a good experience, do they?’ I ask tentatively.
‘It’s a question of luck . . . you get it or you don’t. You won’t know until it’s too late. Not trying to scare you, but that’s the way it works. What’s your name?’
‘Meron.’
‘I’m Beti. Everyone knows me. I’m a success story.’
‘I can see that . . .’
She laughs so loudly and intensely the plane seems to jerk forward suddenly.
‘Don’t worry, sister. If you use your head, you’ll survive . . . with luck, you’ll thrive,’ continues Beti, unfazed by the turbulence. ‘Two-year contract?’
‘Yes, but only after three months’ probationary . . . no pay till August. They get three months’ free labour out of me.’
‘That’s tough, si
ster.’
A flight attendant passes me a tray. Her make-up is incredible. I want to be her, but without the plane trips.
‘Free bread and butter! Fantastic!’ I proclaim as I’m handed a dry roll with a plastic pod of butter. Beti grins at me: I am as fresh as they come.
The flight is fast. Beti chatters with many different girls like a celebrity. I sleep and dream about a pack of dogs chasing me through the streets of Cairo. I have never been to Cairo. But I have been there now and I don’t like what I see. As I snap awake, the wheels smack onto the Beirut runway. We’re beside the sea! I have never seen the sea. It’s not quite the brilliant blue I expected, but filthy indigo is enough for me.
The time in Beirut International Airport is 5.45pm, 18th May 2004. That’s 11.45 Habesha time, 10th September 1996. Eight years just flashed by in a single flight. I am now living in the third millennium, like most of the world. Welcome to the future, Meron!
Beirut Airport is brightly lit with white and grey stripes filling the voids between the aeroplane and an arrivals lounge. There are dozens of us; young Habesha girls, fiddling with our hair, manically chewing gum, waiting to greet our new families; to meet our destinies. How many of us will see Addis again?
We’re herded like sheep into a quiet part of the arrivals area by a gruff Arab man with an achingly big stomach. He’s the agency guy. He orders us to sit down on the hard white and grey floor. I’m next to Beti.
A few rows of Lebanese people gaze at us. They sit on chairs. When the agency guy speaks to us, his belly trembles as if nodding in agreement. None of us understand his Arabic, but he clutches our passports close to the belly. He shouts names, girls jump up, the Lebanese onlookers stride forward and escort the girls away, their fate decided. I’m trembling more than the belly. I don’t want a hand-chopping, ledge-pushing type of sponsor family. I want a hand-holding, third-millennium family with a weakness for injera.
‘Alem Getu!’
‘Merry Demeka!’
‘Hewot Beyene!’
‘Meron Lemma!’
Ah!
I’m on my feet and turn to wave goodbye to Beti. Her face betrays concern for me.
‘Call . . . soon as you have any problems, sister . . . and don’t forget, we meet up on Sundays. Head for Badaro . . . you’ll see the netelas . . .’
I can’t stop to listen. People, my people, are waiting. Who’s getting me? My new life begins now.
First Day in Lebanon (820 days left)
I try to snatch my passport from the agency guy. As my fingers brush it, I feel the warmth of his belly on the passport, but it’s quickly pulled away from me. He shakes his head at me as the passport goes to a dazzlingly attractive woman with dyed blonde hair, not a strand out of place.
She’s my new mother! I feel instantly happy. Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m definitely smiling.
Around fifty years old, with a friendly well-proportioned face, she has the searing green eyes of a half-breed Siamese, the type of cat that occasionally skulks along our passageway in Addis. Her mouth is generous enough to engulf a large soup ladle, with shiny pretty teeth hanging from a bulwark of prominent pink gums. Faultless bone-chopstick fingers dance and draw my attention with fingernails filed into perfectly rounded daisy petals the shade of Ethiopian cotton bolls. I envy her slim body sporting today’s fashion: tight black trousers, bright orange flowered top, sexy black boots with heels. I wanted a chic sponsor; it appears I’ve won the lottery. You see, Mum, I’m going to be fine.
She pretends to kiss my cheeks three times. Glossed lips hover above my face unable to land on Habesha flesh. This must be the Lebanese way, though there’s nothing in my notes about that.
‘Hello, Meron, I am pleased to meet you. My name is Rahima. But call me Madame. Welcome to Beirut,’ she says slowly and carefully. ‘Madame is French word. I speak French and English.’
Thank you, God!
‘Hello, Madame,’ I mumble. Shyness consumes me. A wide tree would be useful for hiding behind in these first few minutes. How about a baobab?
‘You are beautiful, like your photo, Meron.’
‘Thank you, Madame,’ I giggle, suddenly a four-year-old.
‘I choose you because the photo . . . you try to look good . . . others try to look ugly, maybe because they know Lebanese woman . . . we very jealous women,’ she laughs. ‘Not me . . . why I need to be jealous?’
Good point. I’m already jealous of her.
‘Yes, Madame, I like to look good, but difficult in Addis.’
‘I not like other mesdames, Meron . . . I want to see beauty . . . like young face in mornings . . . and my own face of course!’ she chuckles.
She leads me outside, but doesn’t offer to carry my suitcase. Madame points me into the cramped back seat of a waiting vehicle. A tall, tracksuited gentleman in his thirties handles my baggage as though it’s as light as a letter. He drives us away in an expensive blue Mercedes sports car, or some other make that makes a man of its driver. In Bole Road, a man is defined by his car: this guy in his Mercedes would instantly fill that yawning gap between mortal earthly man and our dear Lord God.
The way Madame and the driver joke and tease each other, I think he’s her husband. The couple in front of me is a snapshot of joy. I feel relaxed. Madame doesn’t seem like the ledge-pushing type.
‘This is Mister Shafeek,’ says Madame. ‘He’s international lawyer.’
‘Have you been in a car like this before?’ asks Shafeek in excellent English, glancing at me in his mirror.
‘Not very often, Mister,’ I answer. They chortle knowingly. Of course I haven’t.
‘Beautiful eyes,’ he says to me, the glance stretching into a gaze. Madame cranes her neck from the front and checks my eyes.
‘Mmm . . . you right,’ she says encouragingly, ‘certainly big.’
‘Thank you,’ I reply sheepishly, lowering my big eyes a little.
‘I’ve been to Ethiopia twice,’ he says. ‘On business. I stayed in the Sheraton. Great hotel, so much better than the Hilton and Ghion. I’ve stayed in thirteen different Sheratons now. Can you believe that? I met a load of heads of state at the Addis one, all there for an African Union conference . . . really interesting . . . I saw Gaddafi . . . Mugabe . . .’
As Shafeek waffles, Madame caresses his schoolboy features with a light sweep. His black hair is greased back into a carefully groomed phalanx of curls at the back. Light stubble textures a face blessed without a single obvious flaw. Good teeth, delicate mouth, lovely boyish eyes, modest nose: he offers up an inviting image for Madame to stroke. In fact, he has some of Madame’s attributes: searing green half-breed Siamese eyes, the bulwark of gums when he smiles . . . ah! He’s the son, not the husband.
‘And there’s a huge square where everyone goes running, backwards and forwards . . . what’s the name of it?’ he goes on.
‘Meskel Square,’ I reply.
‘Mister . . . you call me Mister.’
‘Meskel Square, Mister. Sorry.’
‘I used the Sheraton gym and the pool . . . yeah, not bad . . .’
Shafeek’s body is compact, muscular and hard, unequivocally a product of gym workouts. I doubt he has acquired it by carrying goats on his shoulders like the Habesha farmers slogging into Addis, sweating and stinking of the animals they live with, their bodies sinewy from constant grappling with lively goats that would prefer not to be slayed. Instead, Shafeek’s tanned contoured body has been pushing gleaming metallic weights and marinating in a sophisticated high-end aftershave. Adorable when deep in concentration, those emerald eyes dart mischievously into the rear view mirror, checking me, checking the traffic, I’m not sure which.
‘So cheap there . . . I could probably survive in Ethiopia for a year on a week’s salary . . .’
Superficial yes, Mum, but Shafeek is the most handsome and most important man I h
ave ever met. This is exactly the type of man we need in Ethiopia. How could Auntie Kidist settle for Desalegn when there are men like this in the world?
‘The weather was good too, not oppressively hot . . . I didn’t sweat like I do here . . .’
Madame snorts and says things in Arabic, some words familiar: Arabic and Amharic are both Semitic languages, but not close enough for immediate mutual understanding.
Urgh. I notice an incongruity in Shafeek’s careful grooming. Like Henok, he houses something odorous within his shoes. A distinctive whiff has escaped and settled stubbornly in the car: nature’s perfume unlocked. I’m homesick already.
Perhaps aware of his own emission, Shafeek activates the electric windows to purr open. I gaze out at Beirut, my new city. Impatient traffic crawls along hard asphalt streets. The air is heavy with exhaust fumes. A quick spurt of speed down narrow side roads and we’re jammed up again. Shafeek pelts the car horn in the same instant as squeezing the brake. He manoeuvres us through such tight gaps that I instinctively draw in my breath each time. He’s a superb driver, if a little irate.
I glance at men of all ages sitting on plastic seats along pavements, puffing away on elegant sheesha pipes, discussing ‘vital’ topics, staring back at me sneeringly: Lebanese men at leisure. I remember the Habesha men sitting on pavements chewing chat leaves, discussing ‘vital’ topics, staring back at me sneeringly. The life of a man.
Beirut’s backdrop is immediately unremitting. Endless rows of dirty yellow apartment blocks merge into a single many-eyed monster surging upwards from the ground to prod a fluffy blue sky struggling to be seen. Occasional decrepit, delicate houses with wooden window shutters and semi-circular balconies punctuate the wall of concrete: these frail old French colonial homes are surrounded by the monster and their chances of survival seem slim.
Back at street level, swift young women with white chalk skin and generous black eyeliner release flapping raven hair from pony tails and sweep along even pavements with such confidence that they have to be the happiest people alive on our planet. The staring men with the sheesha pipes watch them but stay silent when they pass by. Men may be men, but this is a civilised country.
No Lipstick in Lebanon Page 5