No Lipstick in Lebanon

by Paul Timblick

  I sit here for three hours, talking to God like this, mostly incessant pleading, shameless reasoning: corralling Him into saving both our skins.

  I hear the clickety-click of the front door. No! I throw myself under Shafeek’s bed.

  Nuria? Or, who?

  Abdul limps past the door, rummages around in the kitchen for ten minutes, chews on things noisily, belches unapologetically and hobbles back with an enormous bottle of fresh olive oil. He glimpses me under the bed and stops dead. God! He does see everything! I wave frenetically at him to move on. Abdul’s eyes are glassy and useless but he gets the message and shifts onwards and out of the place without a word. Ah, thank you! Preparing his Lebanese coffee every morning and listening to his ceaseless burbling have finally paid off.

  Poor Shafeek, almost dead, lying here without realising his father has crept past. Poor Abdul thinking his son is pleasantly slumbering when he’s actually warming up his own deathbed. Why didn’t I ask Abdul to help? He would have known what to do. Another mistake! I have effectively killed his son. I deserve to die.

  Minutes tick by. How will I explain this to Madame?

  No! Why should it be anything to do with me? He simply got sick and died. These things happen. It’s her fault and of course those poisonous tablets. But how will I explain it to God?

  There’s a clickety-click at the front door again. Abdul! Yes, he’ll call the doctor and everything will be fine!

  I run into the hallway.

  ‘Mister, Mister! Shafeek is . . .’

  Madame and Nazia stare back at me, suitcases in hand.

  I am a White Sheet (174 days left)

  ‘Good afternoon, Madame. Good afternoon, Nazia,’ I say as dutifully as possible without a note of emotion in my voice. I gulp hard to prevent my tonsils shrieking across the room.

  ‘Meron . . . oh,’ says Nazia, my squalid existence suddenly dawning upon her once more. It is not a greeting, but a statement of lament.

  ‘There’s tuna salad, kibbeh . . . er, a little lamb . . . ­Shafeek ate it . . . I could heat up some pizza . . .’

  ‘Bonjour, Meron,’ starts Madame. ‘What you doing? You look terrible. How is Shafeek? Where is Nuria? Why no reply when I call again and again? We very worried about silence, come back immédiatement. Meron . . . where is everyone?’

  ‘Mister Shafeek is . . . having a sleep. Nuria? Sorry, Madame, I don’t know about her. I feel a little sick.’

  ‘Nazia, you see? I told you there’s nothing wrong . . . all this way back for nothing. Okay, Meron, carry our luggage into bedrooms and unpack everything and wash dirty laundry and help me prepare dinner and . . .’

  I smile. The old routine sounds so reassuring. Nazia’s scowl only adds to the sense of normality.

  ‘No smiling, Meron, it annoy Nazia.’

  ‘Sorry, Madame.’

  Madame doesn’t hear me. She’s striding into Shafeek’s bedroom.

  Madame races out of the room, absolute panic wrought in her eyes. The eyes catch me.

  ‘Meron! What’s happened? What you do to him? Meron!’

  I can’t speak. I can’t think. It’s the same moment as when she first beat me. The raised eyebrow is launched, arms are flying out, words are fired at me, there’s a sense that my entire body has been rammed into a giant microwave and someone has just pressed the ‘Start’ button. It can only be seconds before my skin is stinging, blistered and burning.

  ‘Nazia! Call Doctor Ali, now!’

  ‘Yes, Mum! I knew she’d do something.’

  ‘Meron! Meron! What you do? What he eat? Allah! Why he nearly dead? What’s happening . . . tell me before I kill you!’

  ‘Madame . . . shut up just for a second!’

  Stunned by my outburst, Madame manages to hold herself in check for a few seconds.

  ‘I will tell you what happened . . . not through loyalty to you, but because my mother taught me the value of human life. I can’t stand here while Shafeek dies, as much as I despise him. If everyone in the world valued every other person’s life, all war would be history, including Lebanon’s wars against Syria, Israel . . . itself . . . God ­created us, God should take us . . . nobody has the right to take another person’s life. I show mercy towards Shafeek, towards you . . . ’

  ‘Meron, tell me now, or you are dead!’

  She grabs my hair through the headscarf and drags me towards the TV lounge. Argh!

  ‘Please, Madame!’

  The balcony doors are inside the TV lounge. I can’t get her hands off my head.

  ‘Argh! The tablets, Madame! The tablets that you gave me . . . to get a kidney for your mother! It was a mistake!’

  Just for a second, she stops to consider what I’ve said, then continues the painful haul towards the balcony. I try to throw my body to the floor but she’s strong enough to yank me back onto my feet with my hair. Her grip on my scalp is rigid and unbearable: I am howling with the intensity of a hysterical hungry baby. Madame is too tough to resist. She’s going to kill me.Outside, as the sun briefly immerses my vision, she swerves suddenly left towards the storeroom and shoves me in roughly, before slamming the door shut and locking it from the outside. I hear her feet jog back into the apartment and I sink to my knees in the semi-darkness, bawling.

  ‘I tried to do the right thing! I tried to be a good person . . . don’t let her kill me! Mum, where are you?’ I wail, undefeated memories of abandonment marching back into view.

  Please, not again: not the trauma of the stinking blocked doorway. Focus, Meron! I breathe hard for a few seconds, the way I did in my morning workouts. It clears my mind, relaxes me. After a while, I calm down a little and reach through the small window opening in the storeroom door and try to stretch towards the outside key, my fingernails falling short by the length of a hand. I feel them scratch at the door’s paint and remember the marks I’d noticed before. Poor Mulu! She was in here too!

  ‘Mulu?’ I say out loud in Amharic. ‘Is this what happened? Were you as lonely and depressed as me? Did Shafeek take you, and Madame push you? Were you Orthodox Christian? Did they return you to the dust of Ethiopia . . . to be made fertile by your mother’s river of tears? Oh Mulu . . .’

  I must concentrate on the coming storm. I am not Mulu. The moment Madame opens the door, I have maybe a single second to make some kind of attacking move, enough to flatten her and let me dart inside the TV lounge towards the safety of a bathroom with a lock.

  If I can lift this sack of onions and hurl it straight at her chest, this would knock her down. And I’d be outside, sprinting for refuge. The sack is incredibly heavy, almost too much to lift. I quickly pluck out the juicy red onions, one by one, until it is about half-full. I drag the sack up onto my shoulder, ready to chuck like a shot putter in the Olympics. I have never done this event but I am absolutely certain I can emulate the monsters who flick a tiny metal ball a few metres to earn themselves money and medals. I wait near the door with the sack in launch position.

  Minutes plod by. I am waiting too long in the ready position. The throwing arm wants to hang limply at my side. The onions are bobbing about restlessly. I am at the point of just letting the sack crash to the floor.

  The door swings open. Now, Meron! I struggle frantically with the sack: if I can just toss it hard at the silhouetted figure in the doorway. But instead, the onions clatter onto my feet. I try to move my feet but this unbalances me and I slump backwards onto sacks of potatoes. Madame charges in and grabs me by the hair before I can clamber to my feet. Yelping like a street dog pelted with stones, I’m being dragged hair-first into the hard-hitting sunlight. We edge towards the chrome balcony. I’m trying to dig my feet into the smooth paving stones that offer no useful ruts or bumps. I can’t do anything but slide and struggle and scream manically, my hands thrashing around my head to stop her firm clasp. I don’t want to die!

  I shout out
anything that comes into my head to stall her progress.

  ‘Look at you! Your own family hates you! Especially your husband . . . about the Sudanese! Maybe he’ll kill you for that! You’re a tragedy in progress!’

  ‘You are little bitch! Try to kill my son!’ she squeals at me and seems to grow in strength at my provocation.

  I can’t stop the inevitable. We’re at the balcony and she’s snatching at my ankles to lift me over, feet-up, headfirst. I kick out desperately but she doesn’t care. She’s got them and my feet are off the ground, my stomach riding hard over the chrome digging into my ribcage, my head tilting upside-down, I manage to grip the balcony rail with my right hand . . . I’m not going! Please, God! I’m not Mulu!

  But my feet are higher and higher in the air and this is it. I try to tighten my hold on the railing, but it’s only one hand . . . that one hand won’t save me. And this shiny chrome railing was polished yesterday by the same hand. Today, there’s not a speck of dust to delay my palm’s slip.‘I love you! Madame, I love you!’ I scream in a final effort at reaching into her hidden humanity. Anything to stop her. I feel my stomach coming back up my throat, my eyes bulge . . . I see the street so sickening below me, people, cars . . . Oh God, no!

  ‘Nooo . . .’

  ‘No, Mum!’ screams somebody else.

  Madame yells and her clench on me is released.

  Someone is rapidly pulling my legs back onto the balcony and holding my head to stop it crashing onto the hard stone floor. But I still fall heavily and sprawl for a second, confused, unable to understand anything. I look around and see Madame sitting on the floor a few metres away, rubbing her leg. On seeing her, I scramble as far from the balcony railings as possible and keep going until I am firmly adhered to the balcony door. I clutch the handle, panting huge gulps of air into my lungs, my legs ready to run further and deeper into the relative safety of the apartment, but I pause for a second to check what has happened.

  It’s Nazia.

  Madame gets up and charges for me again, but Nazia swings her arm around Madame’s waist to throw her off in the wrong direction, both slumping onto the floor together, neither really hurt.

  ‘Mum! Leave her!’ screams Nazia.

  ‘She nearly killed Shafeek . . . she has to go. Get off me!’

  ‘Don’t touch her! Not this one!’

  I can’t believe it. Nazia is a decent human after all. Maybe there was an emotional connection with Mulu? Perhaps she wanted to keep her distance while secretly trying to protect me?

  ‘But Nazia . . . she’s just a servant . . . like the last one, it doesn’t matter . . . she has to go!’ sobs Madame, tears now streaming down her face.

  ‘It matters, Mum! Kill her and who will clean our toilets? We won’t get another maid if a second one goes over. I hate this one more than you, but she does all the things you and I weren’t born to do . . . and we’ll get a new one soon enough. Just a few more months, Mum, be logical!’

  ‘Thank you, Nazia,’ I mutter bitterly.

  ‘Shut up, you!’ Nazia fires at me.

  ‘Murderers,’ I spit.

  ‘You see? She knows everything . . .’ starts Madame.

  ‘Mum, I don’t want to stay here with you if there’s no maid. Just leave it.’

  ‘What? You only want to be with your mother if there’s maid service included?’ gasps Madame, visibly shaken by Nazia’s statement of intent.

  ‘And we can have maid service if you don’t discard this one,’ replies Nazia, hardly answering the question.

  ‘Nazia, my daughter . . . you are not going anywhere until Shafeek is married . . . then, when you find a suitable man to marry, yes, you can go, but not before.’

  ‘Yes, I know the system, but, Mum, I will not be waiting around long.’

  ‘You are not marrying Mohammed!’ shouts Madame. ‘Allah! You’ve really changed since Hariri and the Revolution.’

  ‘Eh? Mohammed and I have been together longer than that.’

  ‘What? No!’

  I can’t believe these two. They have almost forgotten I am standing here accusing them of murder. I begin to walk inside.

  ‘Hey, you! We not finished with you!’ Madame shouts at my back.

  I could just ignore it and continue on inside. But here I am, intervening again without meaning to.

  ‘A life was taken here,’ I begin. ‘A Habesha maid . . . so what if she wasn’t as important as Hariri? It’s still the same thing . . . murder. You are murderers.’

  ‘How dare you compare Hariri with a maid from Ethiopia!’ spits Madame.

  ‘Meron, if you want to live, go inside and clean toilets,’ says Nazia. ‘That’s your life.’

  There it is again, inside my head, Mum’s voice. Ecclesiastes 3:19–20: ‘For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same: as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts: for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.’ I feel my cheeks redden with rage. Who do these people think they are? They are biding time between nothing and dust, just like the rest of us, yet they behave as if blessed with some special status, way above us mortals. I can’t believe their arrogance. I have to speak.

  ‘If that’s your only reason for keeping me alive, Nazia, then you can flush it down your precious toilets. Come on, push me, kill me . . . I wasn’t born to be your slave. I’d rather die than continue here under you. Come on, do it.’

  I walk back into the glare of the sun. Madame and Nazia don’t move, not sure what I’m doing. Maybe I I’m not sure either, but instinct has taken over, a ruinous fighting instinct.

  ‘If you can’t do it then I’ll go over anyway . . . no other Habesha maid will get stuck here . . . and I love the idea of you two scrubbing bathrooms for the rest of your lives. You’ll join the human race at last.’

  Meanwhile, I’m going to leave the human race. I stride towards the balcony, furious enough to do this. I’m Habesha. Stubbornness until foolishness encroaches. Madness as confidence. And I don’t expect your intervention, God: I’m dealing with this. Everything is under control. I can jump into the deep end without help. I am Meron Lemma, strong, confident, daughter of my mother . . . about to see my father again and sit on his rock-solid knee, ready to retire from the long march of the Lebanese luncheon service and be scraped into a box and sent back to the dust of Ethiopia and buried without a blessing.

  God can see what’s happening: I don’t need the blessing. There’ll be one less Madame to exploit us. At last, I know why I’m here. A reason for everything, and the money is the very least of it. Come on, Meron, show them!

  ‘No, Meron!’ they both scream.

  It makes me hesitate.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I shrug.

  ‘Habibti, stop her!’ shouts Madame at Nazia.

  ‘You stop her! It’s your fault. Say something to make her stay, Mum. Allah!’

  Nazia looks genuinely startled at the thought of clean-ing an apartment she cannot yet leave, almost a prisoner like me. That harsh front she adopts is stripped away. ­Vulnerable at last, Nazia has the look of hunted prey while Madame seems flummoxed. She either wants me dead or she doesn’t. A minute ago, I was almost victim number two but now the consequences of losing this particular life are pinching at Madame’s murderous imperative. She swallows hard on that overused throat.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to say . . . so I’m going,’ I say, starting on my last few metres of life, once more towards the gleaming chrome balcony.

  No tight little window ledge for me. I can really spread my wings from this diving board, and if I can imagine I’m a white sheet, maybe it will hurt less. No dithering. I’m a white sheet. Gravity is in command, I’m a white sheet, time to go . . . Focus, Meron, this is for Mulu and the others . . . I am running at it . . . I’ll be
free!

  ‘But your mother!’ yells Madame.

  That word catches me. Mother.

  ‘For her, you do anything . . . won’t you? We all do anything for mothers . . . me included . . . but I make bad mistake for my mother . . . so sorry, Meron!’

  ‘Me too,’ I say, both hands gripping the railing. ‘I’ll do anything for her. If only I’d thought about that three years ago . . . I wouldn’t be standing here about to finish myself in front of you two . . . sharmutas.’

  I have just called my Madame a bitch. She and Nazia pretend not to hear it, as they do when Abdul makes the same accurate assessment.

  ‘Your mum, she want to see you so bad, Meron . . . when you have children, you understand this. You are her baby. Me? I really want to see Nazia every day, and Shafeek and my grandchildren . . . I do anything for them . . . it all starts and ends with family.’

  Poor Nuria. The dungarees haven’t made the cut.

  ‘And Nuria, of course,’ continues Madame belatedly.

  ‘But family doesn’t explain your cruelty . . . and your murder . . . that’s explained by . . . I don’t know, I can’t find the words to describe something so terrible.’

  ‘Yes! Much better to look for words than kill yourself, Meron . . . much healthier,’ says Madame, with an unlikely smile.

  I shake my head and want to smile back. Sometimes, she is so farcical. But this must be another of her acts. I’m not sure if I believe her or not. But, I am desperate to see my mother’s face again, and to imagine it streaked with tears because I’m in a box from Beirut appals me. It blocks my path to oblivion. After everything she’s been through. This ghastly prospect is enough for self-­preservation. Mum, I have to see you again. I am not dead.

  Sorry, Dad, no reunion today.

  I turn around and return to work, glancing back to see Nazia lightly embracing her mother. False as it seems, I am warmed by it, though nothing about those two should warm me in any way at all. It warms me because my mother deserves this kind of embrace from the daughter who left her in mourning at the airport three years ago. I owe her so much.