No Lipstick in Lebanon

by Paul Timblick

  This touching exchange always leaves me a little sadder as I imagine the delight of making coffee for my father, with the same result. What a wonderful way to begin the day.

  If Nazia misses her alarm, I go into her bedroom and wake her.

  ‘Nazia, it’s seven-thirty . . . wake up, Nazia . . .’

  ‘Thank you so much, really helpful,’ she utters, barely out of her dreams and already dripping sarcasm.

  I wait in case she needs anything.

  ‘What are you looking at? Go!’ she orders.

  ‘Don’t worry, Nazia, I’m always here if you need me,’ I reply, unsure if I am being sarcastic or genuine. I am not well practised in sarcasm.

  I slink off to the bathroom to tame Abdul’s toilet treachery, before Madame’s morning calling. Abdul gets changed into his outdoor clothes: a tatty chequered shirt and wide black trousers pulled up to his ribcage. His old leather slip-on shoes are covered on the right side by excess trouser leg, while revealed in their entirety on the left. As a devout Muslim, he wants to expose his ankles but he’s only fifty per cent successful. Madame frowns whenever she sees him like this, which is twice every day, except on Sundays when it’s a prolonged once. Abdul only says goodbye to Nazia, Nuria and Mustafa in the mornings, plus a general ‘Ma’a salama’ to wish everyone a good day, which may not include me but I smile back anyway.

  8am, I wash fruit and prepare breakfast drinks for Nazia (hot milky coffee) and Madame (fruit juice). In her bathroom, Nazia always sneezes violently three times in quick succession, leaving a fierce spray of toothpaste froth on her mirror for me to clean. I assume she is allergic to her own reflected image.

  ‘Bonjour, Nazia!’ I chant every morning. French words are ubiquitous here and Nazia is a particular fan.

  But her studied avoidance of response is consistent and confrontational. A battle of wills has commenced: my silence would signal my defeat. I shall continue with the daily morning greetings until she replies, at which point I win.

  Nuria and Hassan emerge from their quarters. I sneak an embrace with their adorable son, unless Madame is quick enough to intervene. Usually she isn’t.

  ‘Good morning, Nuria,’ I attempt every morning.

  ‘Mmmph,’ she responds without eye contact.

  ‘Hi, Meron, how are you doing? Good?’ asks Hassan as constant as morning birdsong.

  ‘Hello, Mister, I’m really really tired.’

  ‘Right, right, good, good . . . don’t forget to clean your teeth this morning,’ says the cosmetic dentist, enthusiastically slurping a bottle of Pepsi Cola for breakfast.

  Before leaving for work, Madame places a set of scales under my feet. The weight hardly changes.

  ‘Fifty-eight kilo,’ says Madame. ‘You not work at efficient weight. I not like fat people, or people like you . . . going in wrong direction.’

  ‘Yes, Madame,’ I mumble.

  ‘You see fat on me?’ she asks.

  ‘No, Madame,’ I reply.

  ‘We will keep eyes on you . . . this for your health,’ she shrugs.

  9am, Madame goes to work, elegant, fashionable, laden with designer-labelled accessories of affluence. Male colleagues probably fear her or fancy her, or both. How did Abdul acquire a wife like this?

  ‘Look after my house like your life depend on this,’ she says before locking the front door behind her.

  ‘It probably does,’ I say as the lock clicks, the prison gate secured as another day without outside contact looms.

  On better days, I imagine I am Madame and the apartment is indeed mine. These are the days when I stand before her mirror and don her stretchy black dresses and matching heels, or a pair of baggy harem trousers coupled with glittered one-shoulder tops that would lure the purest of Beirut boys. The bedroom mirror flatters me and I can see that Madame’s confidence is sourced from the exact point where I stand. I don’t trust this mirror.

  Shafeek is the last to rise and leave in the mornings. I make a cheese sandwich for him, lay out his work clothes and stand around waiting for a frantic volley of orders usually involving underpants that are invariably wrong. He calls me into his bedroom, where he stands ­motionless and inadequate like a sweet young boy overwhelmed by the idea of dressing himself. He manages to pull on socks, vest and pants but lacks awareness of the fleshy bud poking out and catching the morning sun through the front opening of his loosely buttoned briefs. I am desperate to avert my eyes from this accidental exposure.‘My pants aren’t ironed . . . look at them! Meron, what can you see? Look very carefully.’

  ‘Erm . . . crinkles?’

  ‘Are you one of those Africans that needs a hammer to the head before you understand something?’

  ‘Sorry, Mister, I ironed them once already, but they have a natural inclination to crinkle, especially when worn by a person.’

  ‘Not clever. Iron the pants again, Hammerhead!’

  He disappears back into the bathroom, a second later charging out in towelling dressing gown, flinging crinkled briefs at my face.

  ‘Empty or full?’ he asks, as he knocks his fist against my skull with a dull thud.

  ‘I don’t know, Mister. Madame says full . . . full of dreams and idiocies.’

  A little later as he moves towards the front door, I shout ‘Goodbye, Mister!’

  No response. I instinctively hurry behind him.

  ‘Mister, Mister . . . Goodbye, Mister!’

  ‘I heard you!’

  Slam!

  Once left alone, I have over four hours of hard labour ahead of me. Most days, bathroom cleaning, bedroom tidying, salon dusting and floor scrubbing predominate until Madame returns home for lunch at around 3pm. I aim for speed: I want to impress Madame. My mother has implanted a proud work ethic inside me, which I am fast coming to resent.

  But three or four times a week, Shafeek returns home in the morning, a mere twenty minutes after he’s rushed out, supposedly ‘late’.

  ‘I forgot my papers . . . Meron, what are you doing in here? In the kitchen! You’re eating, aren’t you? You’re eating our food!’

  A finger is pointing at me accusingly. I recall movies set in courtrooms, Shafeek’s natural habitat.

  ‘I needed a glass of water, Mister, sorry . . .’

  He gazes intently at me. I have a glass in my hand. It looks plausible. Shafeek notices the cutlery drawer open. He walks across, yanks it right out. Nothing inside but cutlery.

  ‘I know you’ve been eating something,’ he says steadily.

  Shafeek is under instruction from Madame to pull the ‘forgotten papers’ trick several times a week. He sits in his Mercedes downstairs hoping I’ve started chewing on prime beef steaks as he bursts through the door. When genuinely late, Shafeek co-ordinates with Nazia. The Lammergeyer doesn’t need excuses for her swoops. I am her carrion, but I make not a single false move. I eat nothing I should not: a victory for self-discipline but defeat for common sense.

  Monday mornings, all bed linen has to be changed. Wednesdays, I wash all non-whites. The washing machine is easy, but hanging the garments to dry on the balcony is bedevilled by complex rules. Clothes lines are each ­dedicated to one type of clothing, with a strict no-mixing rule: shirts on one line, skirts on another, and so on, until the trouser line, which must obscure the men’s underwear. Even further back is women’s underwear: Madame’s lacy knickers are not for public presentation. Sundays, I tackle the whites, telling myself the same joke: ‘Who is to be hung today? The whites or the non-whites? Sunday! It’s the whites! Hang the whites!’ It may not be funny but it kills a few seconds.

  At 1pm, I’m waning. Two glasses of water are gulped down, often mixed with sugar. I douse my face. If I stop too long, momentum is lost. I have to keep the body working. Come on, Habesha professional, push on!

  3pm sharp, Madame is home.

  ‘Hello, Meron. How�
�s everything?’

  ‘Fine, Madame.’

  But I am not fine. Please give me food. Let me rest. Instead, she goes straight to the Arabian sofa and pulls out a handful of pistachio husks from underneath the cushion, hidden earlier to test me.

  ‘Obviously not finished!’ she exclaims with a triumphant note.

  ‘Big sorry, Madame, I thought I . . .’

  ‘That not good enough. Now, clean all furniture again.’

  And she walks away, her backside swinging behind her like kids scoffing from the back seat of a Bole bus that just soaked me with a kerbside puddle.

  My hands are steady, but as I wash vegetables for lunch, the mind is panicking on behalf of the stomach. Bruised raw potato never looked better. I am not allowed to sit down for these chores. While Madame fries onions and peppers, olive oil spits from the cooker: I clean the cooker and its slippery environs at least four times a day but fresh fried food rarely makes it to my plate until three days afterwards, when it is practically ceasing to be food. When the lentils and rice come, I gobble them using a slice of stale bread and my right hand.

  ‘Use your spoon!’

  ‘Yes, Madame.’

  I have my own battered spoon, more building implement than eating utensil. Nobody else touches it.

  Nazia and Madame always eat lunch together, usually on the balcony. The conversations are prolonged and ­personal, as if every action or thought performed without the other has to be re-enacted in the presence of the other, or it lacks meaning. They are the closest I have ever seen two people who are not lovers. I am jealous of them, for myself and Mum.

  Nuria’s name is mentioned often, surrounded by words that mean ‘lazy’, ‘dirty’ and ‘useless husband’. I wish I could participate on Hassan’s behalf.

  If Nazia can’t finish her lunch, she blows her nose into a paper tissue and places the damp bundle upon her leftovers, or she coughs openly over the food. This ensures I am not tempted to fill myself up on her remnants, a spiteful ritual that never fails to astound me.‘Allah! Staring again! Go back to your place, Meron . . . in kitchen . . . and tidy up . . . maybe white sock day today,’ says Madame.

  Madame lies down after lunch for exactly one hour. Nazia studies for her degree. I do more cleaning chores and play with Mustafa. Nuria wants the toddler ­positioned in front of a television screen for two hours, but I take the opportunity to frolic with him around the apartment. Let’s give this little boy a childhood. I pretend to be a cross between wild dog and charging bull. Mustafa scampers and screams with delight.

  ‘I love you, Meron! I love you!’ he yells in front of Nuria, as she returns from work.

  ‘No, no . . .’ I begin, a little concerned at stealing the love of the family’s cutest member.

  ‘I love you, Meron!’

  ‘Mustafa! What did you say? I’m your mother!’ Nuria shouts. ‘You tell me, not her. She’s the servant. Remember what I said!’

  ‘It’s okay, Mum . . . not kissing her . . . she black and dirty . . . and she smell bad,’ says Mustafa innocently.

  ‘Good boy.’

  Of course I’m dirty, of course I smell bad: I labour all day without a free moment for freshening up, without even a smear of deodorant at my disposal.

  By 6pm, Madame is sliding along the shiny floor, kicking her white-sock-covered feet into random areas around the entire apartment: some of these are uncharted corners yet to be explored with the sponge-mop. She is soon wearing two-tone socks and screaming a high-tone ‘Me-ron!’

  ‘But I did this room, Madame,’ I protest.

  She stretches out her arm and yanks off a blob of chewing gum from the top of the door. How did the socks know about that? How would I know about that? The tops of doors have not been a major feature of my sixteen-year existence up to this moment. I was hardly aware that doors had ‘tops’ where small things might congregate. In Ethiopia, doors aren’t thick enough to have ‘tops’.

  ‘Clean all this room again. And check all of door tops. Maybe tomorrow you get it right.’

  She walks away, backside swinging. There are those grinning kids in the back seat of the bus again. I would love to slap them.

  7.30pm, Madame often calls her mother. Similar to Nazia and Madame, the conversation is intimate and detailed. I gain a vague sense of delight from hearing Madame say ‘Yes, Mum’ repeatedly as though it belittles her in front of me.

  9pm, Hassan sprints out onto the balcony for a private conversation with a female client. The double-glazed balcony doors are locked shut behind him. As he natters secretly into the phone, Nuria stands the other side of the doors glaring at him. Madame positions herself a few metres behind Nuria. A couple of metres back from Madame finds me, watching with great interest. Beyond me, the Lammergeyer surveys all. Shafeek remains in the study reading his law books, rising above this charade. We take up these positions most evenings.

  ‘Nuria! Who’s that calling him?’ Madame fumes at Nuria, in Arabic.

  ‘Hassan! Who’s that calling you?’ Nuria rants at Hassan through the glass.

  Hassan keeps his back turned.

  ‘Doesn’t he remember he’s married?’ rages Madame.

  ‘Don’t you remember you’re married?’ repeats Nuria at Hassan.

  ‘When will he become a worthy husband?’

  ‘When will you become a worthy husband?’

  Hassan never answers the questions. I doubt there would be much interest in his answers.

  I recollect Proverbs 27:15: ‘A continual dripping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.’ I am tempted to shout this at Hassan, with additional advice: whoever chooses to sit beneath constant dripping is a fool. Hassan, get an umbrella or move!

  I shout nothing. I know Nazia is there, but cannot stop myself from trailing Madame to the commotion. It’s better than television.

  ‘Do some work, Meron . . . this is none of your business,’ Nazia hisses into my ear.

  ‘Yes, Nazia . . .’ as I walk very slowly from the scene, reluctant to miss a second of the drama as Madame’s tirade gathers momentum.

  ‘Nuria, I always said he was a waste of time. Look at you . . . your life hasn’t changed for the better since you married him . . . still wearing dungarees! You don’t even take good holidays. You’re still here, living in my house . . . and he’s a player . . . look at him . . . a bad one, going nowhere, taking you there with him . . . have to change him . . . push him. Learn from me . . . go to France for a break . . . women your age go to France every year . . . you’re not normal!’

  ‘Allah! Mother! I’m trying to listen to him speaking to her! Will you please shut up?’

  ‘Why does he waste all your money on takeaways? You’re toppling backwards into the abyss . . .’

  Only by grabbing my shoulders and forcibly guiding me into the kitchen can Nazia pull me away from the brilliant furore.

  9.30pm, Abdul is home. He changes immediately into the lopsided silk pyjamas and, oblivious to the plot, ploughs straight into the war zone. Nuria, positioned between cheating husband and chiding mother, receives the triple-kiss treatment from Abdul. And Nazia too. Why no kiss for Madame?

  ‘Shall I prepare something for Mister Abdul?’ I ask Madame, finding an excuse to ease my way back into the action.

  ‘No . . . he fry egg or something . . . why waste good food on him?’ she responds in front of Abdul.

  ‘Hey, Baba! Hassan’s cheating on Nuria again,’ announces Nazia in front of everyone.

  Where there’s a gaping bleeding wound, the Lammergeyer will swoop with precision. But Abdul is disinterested. He steers himself into the kitchen and pushes into his mouth whatever is lying around on the counter. Please, Abdul, it’s not easy to read you. I would like to tap my fist on your mature prune of a head and see what’s inside.

  If Hassan is not the evening entertainment, I run between rand
om shouts around the apartment: ‘Meron! I want more food!’, ‘Meron! I need drink!’, ‘Meron! Change TV channel!’, ‘Meron! Come here!’ I am learning to hate my name. They issue ‘Meron!’s blithely, as though there are no implications, as though there is no limit to my dedication. Yes, I’ve arrived in Beirut with swollen tanks of goodwill and good faith, and yes, I leap to every call with a smile. But these are finite resources, vulnerable to ebbing. These people are being irresponsible with something they do not understand.

  ‘Meron, you need to understand something,’ says ­Shafeek.

  ‘Yes, Mister?’

  ‘In Lebanon, families follow a strict running order of marriage and priority, from first-born to the last. Nuria is the oldest so she married first. Now, she’s out of the family and should have left the apartment already . . . any problems, she can ask Hassan for help, not you. I’m the next in line . . . it’s my time now for maid service . . . until I marry and go . . . then Nazia has her time. Right now, you’re here for Mum and me. Forget about the others.’

  I wish I could.

  11pm, most days, I have ten minutes for a body-wash using my plastic bowl. Madame performs her naivety act.

  ‘You still up? Oh! I can’t believe it. Why? Please not do too much, Meron . . . take rest, go to bed . . . you like workaholic . . .’

  If I wasn’t so tired, I would laugh at her false concern. Instead, hunger and exhaustion pull my body to Earth. I flop down on my narrow mattress and sleep immediately. Exhaustion beats hunger every time.

  Ecclesiastes 5:12: ‘Sweet is the sleep of a labourer, whether he eats little or much: but the surfeit of the rich will not let him sleep.’ Occasionally, Mum, the Bible lapses into wishful thinking: show me a rich person who is too rich to sleep. Mum?

  Another day ticked off. I count them all, the number repeated inside my head throughout the day, each three-digit figure like a slow-digesting, overspiced Ethiopian wat outstaying its welcome in the gut.

  2am, Fridays and Saturdays, sleep is broken. Shafeek romps in late from a club, demanding chicken and chips. He reeks of liquor, aftershave, perfume, cigarettes and feet. Four of these are his, the perfume is not. The perfume is rarely the same. He has fun, I conclude.