No Lipstick in Lebanon

by Paul Timblick

  ‘I don’t know,’ I shrug. ‘You have to say it to someone, Mister.’

  ‘Don’t touch my clothes . . . sharmuta,’ he mutters.

  Later, when I find time, I sew up that overlong silken trouser leg but he rarely crosses my path now. Spending all his free time at Nuria’s house with the grandchildren, Abdul is out of the apartment by 7am and returns around 11pm every night, just in time to forage for food and change into his altered pyjamas. He’s barely living here.

  Poor Abdul. I try to speak to him in the mornings, but not even a ‘thank you’ for the pyjamas. I miss our morning conversation.

  *

  My head is getting thick with conversations I haven’t had. In Addis, personal problems dissipate over coffee ceremony and chatter. We are a sociable people: we open up the shutters, invite in the light, change the air and shake out the dust from the lungs. If we don’t discuss problems, we become Henok, addled with silent brooding and internal bleeding, our brains literally beating themselves up until the blood pours forth. But here, unseen and unheard, I’m left with the company of only myself. I have to speak. A muttered soliloquy is beginning to spill out of my existence.

  ‘Have you forgotten me now, Mum? Or do you still cry for me every day, like you did for Dad? At least he was put in the ground . . . you knew he wouldn’t return. But me? You don’t know . . . maybe you think I’m dead but you can’t be sure . . . and well, Mum, I am dead . . . that’s how I feel . . . like a dead person. Do you mourn for me with the shaved head and the same black clothes? Have my brothers finished playing football yet and noticed I’ve gone? Would death be better than this existence? You always said time would pass if I kept my head down and worked, but it doesn’t. One day is one year . . . we don’t move forward . . . I’m trap-ped . . .’ I continue in Amharic.

  Shafeek is staring at me. I have failed to notice him reading documents on a sun-lounger.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’

  I don’t respond.

  ‘You’re going mad . . . hey, Meron! Meron! Stop wasting time . . . you can’t do that here . . . it’s disturbing me.’

  ‘Listen to him with everything . . . I’ve got nothing . . . he’s alive, I’m dead . . .’ I persist in Amharic.

  ‘Meron!’ shouts Shafeek. ‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up!’

  I hear him.

  ‘Sorry, Mister . . . forgot myself,’ I stutter, traipsing back to the kitchen.

  Forgot myself? What’s happening to me? I’m Meron Lemma from Ethiopia, how would I forget me? Every day I see me, cleaning Nazia’s froth-sprayed bathroom mirror, I am forced into a daily exchange of self, and it is an unpleasant encounter. My eyes used to be major assets, but are now two sunken squelched olives, good only for pizza topping and pavement garnish.

  The rest of me is no better: my untended hair runs amok, wild and invisible under the headscarf, like highly invasive roots secretly rampant beneath the ground. My body, meanwhile, has the shape of a sapling, and the feet splay and blister like minor budding branches. I am an uprooted, upturned eucalyptus tree, at best.

  And my lips! I remember the Addis street kids in slack, washed-out Manchester United shirts from the 1990s, passed down a hundred times, the torn shirts at the end of their lives: from the bright dynamic Reds to a drab lip-skin pink. My lips need colour.

  As if defying the logic of the mind, my hand reaches for a lump of beetroot from the fridge and rubs it along my lips repeatedly until they boast a reddish-purple stain. It’s not a film starlet’s scarlet rouge but it is an open act of rebellion. Tilting a glass horizontally, I hold a lit match inside, allowing smoke to blacken the inside of the beaker. Once extinguished, I use the match to scrape through the carbon residue and smear this onto the contours of my eyes, like black eyeliner. Where’s the bathroom mirror? I have to see this.

  ‘Wow!’ I say, pouting absurdly. ‘Meron Lemma, you beauty! There you are.’

  ‘Meron!’ shouts Shafeek.

  I look again at myself. What am I doing? Shafeek is precisely the worst person to have a free front-row seat for this sudden show of uncurtained beauty.

  As rapidly as possible, I scrub and scratch at my ridiculous make-up with soap and water before dashing towards the TV lounge.

  ‘Meron!’

  Shafeek is sprawling in baggy shorts.

  ‘What nuts have we got?’

  ‘Pistachios, Mister.’

  ‘Get them and take a handful for yourself.’

  ‘Thanks, Mister!’ I grin.

  Noise food!

  Shafeek has noticed my smile.

  ‘Mmm . . . you’ve definitely got something,’ he smirks knowingly.

  I back my way out of the lounge as quickly as possible, trying to erase the smile as I go.

  Later, I’m back on the balcony. We’re higher than most high-rise blocks. I can look down onto other roofs and see distant people, and their washing lines, their pot plants, kids’ toys, empty bottles, rusty furniture and all the other paraphernalia of a passing life.

  ‘Can any of these people be as despondent as me?’ I ask myself. ‘I’m eighteen and all I can do is attract the attention of a murdering rapist lawyer . . . and with Abdul never here, the murdering rapist lawyer is the nicest person in the apartment. Can I get any lower?’

  I wave at somebody on a neighbouring tower. I think he’s an older guy, like Abdul, puffing away on a cigarette. He sees me and looks away. He’s not engendering happiness. In fact, who is? I don’t know anybody in this apartment outwardly joyful.

  ‘I’ve got my excuses for being miserable . . . but the rest of them? We should all join hands and leap off this concrete diving board together, a simultaneous escape. Not many ways to escape this prison . . . but jumping is as obvious and convenient as the emergency exit on the flight from Addis. Would anyone notice that, a splattered ant in a Beirut street?’

  An unforgiving layer of asphalt lies eighty metres below me. My landing will be an asphalt thud, not a Ghion splash.

  ‘I dare you to push me, Robel. Where are you? Shove me, while I’m not concentrating . . . please. But is this how Mulu died? Driven to insanity and then to suicide?’

  Mum’s mad-but-confident tactic suddenly seems ruinous. I sense a piece of Mama inside me: I want to beat my chest and scream. I want to run at that drop. Hurt me, Lord, for putting myself here, for effectively killing myself without actual death. Standing here or splattered down there: what’s the difference?

  ‘Why is there so much thunder in the distance? I’ll never find out how my death is reported. Or even if it is reported. I don’t even have that to look forward to. Why has praying not delivered me from this abyss? God?’

  I peer over the balcony. My head swims, my stomach drops.

  ‘Where’s my last-minute reprieve? Something, please, God.’

  There’s another smack of thunder. I look around for lightning. Maybe I’ll go the same way as Tadelle’s wife: a pure Old Testament death at the end of God’s fuming finger. That would at least tell me He’s circulating around these parts, whereas if I kill myself, I cannot be buried in sacred ground, risking an infinity in Hell. So what? I’m already there.

  But there’s no lightning. Big distant bangs, sudden flashes on the ground, drifting smoke, wailing sirens . . . what does it all mean? And do I care? Hariri, Beirut, bombs . . . no, Shafeek, I don’t care about this place or you or . . . maybe it’s the Ethiopian Army . . . invading Lebanon to rescue me.

  No army, no deity, no body is rescuing me. I amble inside instead and switch on the TV. No one is home except me.

  My God! Israeli bombs are raining down on Beirut, the television tells me. Allah! Just for a second, I’m excited by this: the simple burst of news into my dire life. It’s outside on the balcony, I can see it . . . I can see the news in front of my eyes. I am part of this world after all!

  But it sinks in
. A random bomb might just wipe me out. Yes, I’ll consider jumping from a high-rise building, but needless victim of a war I could never possibly understand is not a death to be contemplated. It must be the worst possible way to go.

  No! Life is sweet again! I want more of it. This is God’s work!

  I sit tight for Madame. She’ll know what to do.

  ‘Mum, we have to leave now!’ implores Nazia.

  ‘Yeah, she’s right about that . . . it’s too close, Mum!’ barks Shafeek with real fear in his eyes. He’s home early today, sharing a meal with the other two.

  ‘I’m right about most things . . .’ says Nazia dryly, blinking at me.

  ‘You’re wrong about that.’

  Madame tears off some bread and chews it steadily. Madame loves her acts. She turns her head dramati-cally to look hard at Shafeek and Nazia. Abdul is not here, as usual.

  ‘Not yet. Bombs are still on the outskirts, in the south, Hezbollah is the target. Running from the city in panic is not the correct thing to do, especially now . . . everyone else is doing it . . . we’ve seen all this before. Stay calm, check the situation, we go to Jabal when I say we go. Okay?’

  Shafeek and Nazia lower their heads to slurp soup solemnly, nobody questioning Madame’s orders. Occasional bomb blasts can be heard but they are distant. Once more, a flutter of adrenalin within me, I’m thoroughly absorbed by their growing trepidation. I’m seeing new behaviour: my masters quaking. I perch on the very edge of my stool in the corner, all thoughts of kissing asphalt lost in the ether of embattlement. Maybe we are all going down together! Rich, poor, lawyer, lammergeyer, servant, all equally dead. Ha! Ha! Ha!

  All except for Madame. She’s the cool lady. Maybe the coolest I’ve known. Yet, if I were to march into the kitchen and openly munch an apple, she would forget the long-range missile flying in towards her balcony. Is this the secret to success? Rage and rail at the trivial, but float through cut-throat decisions like you’re making toast.

  ‘Something is different about the servant,’ says Nazia.

  ‘Meron!’ Madam barks. ‘What you wearing on your face? Lipstick? Eye-liner? Wash your face now before I scrape off with brush! Très très grotesque.’

  The anger rushes into her face, proving my point with perfection.

  I call Beti discreetly.

  ‘Beti, habibti, what’s happening? Are we going to die in a war?’

  ‘Hey, sister! Time to go home! Ethiopia is taking you home!’

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘Our government. They’re providing a free plane trip home for all Habesha in Beirut, including those without passports . . . it’s amazing!’

  ‘Free?’

  ‘Free.’

  ‘Allah! So we get our freedom, for free. Mother, ­Ethiopia! At last! Are you going, Beti?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . probably stay in the family’s base-ment in the countryside . . . it’s safe there.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Just get yourself to the Consulate, sister.’

  ‘Yeah, I know where that is.’

  ‘And get your wages from Madame.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Later, I explain the situation to Madame.

  ‘ . . .and so there’s no airfare and all I need are my wages and I’ll walk to the Consulate . . . think I remember where . . .’

  ‘I never see selfish person like you before. Meron, you incredible. When your host family has problem, Israel attacking with bombs, you want to leave us. What about family? We need your support now, but you forget us.’

  ‘So can I go, Madame?’

  ‘You are really low life. No, you not going! Be pro-­fessional, do duty . . . you stay here with us. You part of family . . . we share so much together . . . you like my daughter. How you leave your mother in middle of war? Are you crazy?’

  Madame goes about her business as usual for two days until the bombs edge closer. Mid-afternoon, with Nuria and her family also arriving, everyone is packing furiously to leave.

  ‘What’s happening, Madame?’ I ask.

  ‘Time to go. I got special visa papers for roadblocks and out to Jabal, our country house. We got basement there. All rich have basements in Lebanon,’ she tells me, as she gathers up her best jewellery and heads for the front door. ‘We come back after bombs stop.’

  ‘Yes, Madame . . .’ I turn to get my own meagre ­possessions.

  Within five minutes, everyone has marched out of the apartment and I duly follow Madame to the front door with my plastic bag of spare clothes and toothbrush. Madame veers round suddenly.

  ‘Me-ron, what you doing?’

  ‘Following you, Madame.’

  ‘What? You?’ she chuckles. ‘We not have space for ­servant in Jabal . . . you can eat food from fridge.’

  ‘Pardon, Madame?’

  ‘Eat anything you like, but not waste electricity . . . if we have it. Bye.’

  As the key locks the door from the outside and her high heels click down the marble hallway outside, I can only stand and stare at the closed front door. I can’t believe this.

  ‘But I am family . . .’ I whimper to nobody. ‘How can you do that?’

  They have abandoned me. Death is definitely coming. I hold my face and cry.

  I have to speak to Mum. I try to call her on the phone, but the line is dead, like I will be. To be buried in the rubble of a luxury apartment will be as cold as any other tomb. All I have is Maryam and my prayer book and my faith in God. Everything else in here is worthless. Golden sugar bowls and silk sheets and Persian rugs, they won’t save me.

  For three days, heavy bombs drop on our neigh-bourhood, usually at night. Sleeping is impossible. Again and again, each cracking boom leaves me winded and shrieking the eyeballs out of my head as the building is smacked from side to side, each shudder making me want to retch up the insistent nausea from the pit of my stomach. If only I could rip out the frayed nerve-ends from my juddering flesh and burrow behind my scarlet eyes until I get hold of that horrible pounding throb and crush it between my thumbs. But screams and sirens from streets below tell of much worse suffering wreaked on others.

  I can’t stop thinking about God’s reasoning: why is this city a war zone? Why are thousands of highly skilled professional men and women, mostly good people, dedicated to supporting their families, being paid decent salaries simply to obliterate feeble cleaners like me? I’m a good person too.

  ‘Please leave me alone, I’m Habesha . . . I’m no threat to you,’ I mumble uselessly from time to time.

  During the daytime, there is some calm. I watch the news and doze fitfully on Madame’s bed. I peer over our balcony every hour or so, checking: is this apartment block the last remaining building in Beirut? All I see is a grim mist hanging heavily upon rooftops. Thick dust wafts into the apartment. I imagine Table Lady downstairs, cowering beneath her table: no cosy basement in a country house for her. We shall be buried together.

  With shops closed for the previous few days, the only food left in the apartment is rice, potatoes, onions and rotting fruit. For me, it’s the usual fare. At night, though, I go hungry. With missiles randomly crashing into surrounding blocks, my stomach is too tightly knotted to accept food of any description. Every time my body begins to relax, another brutal crack shatters the peace and another ribbon of stomach lining loops around itself and pulls the whole convulsing shebang into a taut ball of pain. If the bombs don’t destroy me, my stomach will.

  ‘Israel, the Lord’s own land! What have I done to you? This can’t be God’s plan.’

  I am utterly certain I will see you, Dad, very soon. I clasp and kiss my prayer book as though it is God’s extended hand. I feel that death is closing in now. If it is my time, what can I do? Nothing, nothing! God, I am reduced to nothing! Why am I abandoned to this lonely death?

  I
remember Tadelle.

  Tadelle’s Angel

  After the Kebebush pension fiasco was resolved, we were not suddenly rocketed back into the upper echelons of Addis society. The widow’s pension for railway workers was no gold mine, but we did have a few birr available for new furniture and crockery, and life for my mother mellowed a little.

  Inspired by Kidist’s return and that single divine illumination, Mum commenced a rigorous routine of daily worship – in place of work – while continuing to raise three moderately intelligent children. Discarding at last the tatty black gown of mourning, she took up the traditional white cotton shema. All white, always white from now on. Religion extracted her from the black days and provided the solace she yearned.

  By the time I was sixteen, my mother had gone beyond white and found true radiance. The Bible’s wisdom pulsed through her every voluntary action, as she actively assisted all those around her. She openly cried for the deaths of complete strangers, she invited the neediest in the neighbourhood into our house for coffee and injera, she patiently advised the uneducated and generally behaved like an earthly angel effusing the love of God.

  For Mum and fellow Orthodox Christian worship-pers, Jesus Christ was the new draw in town and word was just beginning to spread today. The news had to be diffused until every living being was abuzz with the deeds of the Lord, as though today was the very first day of Christianity, every turned page of the Bible laden with fresh insight, every verse more worthy of keen discussion than the country’s current news stories and scandals. The coming of Christ continued to reverberate in Ethiopia with happy surprise, regardless of the two passing millennia with all their scientific ideas, industrial progress and the many ephemeral acts of men. Today was the day the Lord had made and today the angel would be tested.