Beirut Blues Read Free Page B

he liked with her, but not kill her. To break the silence and try to calm her fears, she said imploringly, “If only I lived here. I’d be respected and properly treated. This is how life should be. Not like it is with us.”
    To her horror, the driver suddenly struck the steering wheel with all his force, threw his cigarette out of the window, heaved a great sigh, and almost swerved off the road. “Give me a break!” he shouted. “Life’s shit there and it’s shit here.”
    All the same, Fadila didn’t relax completely until she recognized the hotel where the beauty queens used to stay, which was near the hospital. She thanked him for being so kind and helpful before she got out of the car, and again offered him a piece of baklava, a chocolate, a cigarette. “At least you’ve still got Samadi’s patisseries over there,” he said.
    “Give me your address,” she replied, bursting with affection. “Next time, I’ll bring your wife the biggest box of baklava they’ve got, though nothing would be enough to repay your kindness, and your people are protecting my mother and guarding her as if she was one of your own.”
    As Fadila went to enter the hospital, she saw the mountains and valleys descending to the sea and exclaimed out loud to Allah. She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked around her, suddenly scared that someone might have heard her imprecation. All she could see were the nurses hurrying to and fro and she laughed, remembering the day she had brought her mother to the hospital. She’d been heartbroken, and had been nice to her mother all the way there, stroking her hair, asking her to forgive her for putting her in a hospital so far from home. “I would have done anything for you, Mom, but the combination of you and the bombs was more than I could take.”
    Then she began teaching her to pray to the Blessed Virgin rather than the Prophet Muhammad or Imam Ali and to invoke the name of Jesus instead of the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful, so that everyone would like her, especially the nurses. Her mother repeated “Blessed Virgin” and “in the name of Jesus” after her in a normal, docile voice, which was so unlike the way she usually spokethat Fadila began to wonder if she was mad after all. “Perhaps it’s just the war,” she thought.
    But as soon as they crossed the threshold into the hospital, her mother refused to go another step, saying that the hens’ wings were beating against her and that she was afraid of treading on the children’s eyes if she went any further. When Fadila forced her to keep going and she found herself right inside the hospital, she gasped in wonder. “O God, bless the Prophet and his family and the pure women of his household,” she cried, pointing to the nuns in their white habits.
    I’ve never told you about all that before. It flashed before me and was gone even before I heard the handsome youth saying to me, “Come on. Let me take you to the sisters. They all know me. We changed the wiring in the convent a while back. Come on, get up. I’ll take you. What are you waiting for?”
    He wants to be alone with me under the trees. I want to rest my head on his chest. I’m not interested in telling him the story of Fadila’s mother. I want to take hold of his hands and run them over my hair. I answer eagerly, “Let’s go.”
    You interrupt, saying that the convent must be closed.
    I stood up quickly, almost swaying from the effects of my third glass of arrack, which had settled in my knees and feet. I sensed, despite my third glass, that you were against the idea, but I went all the same, indifferent to your shocked stares. I knew without looking that Jummana was wishing someone else would drag her off to the olive trees by the convent. The cold had spread to the car windshield. Although I was in his arms, I had an image of Fadila’s motherwhich I couldn’t get out of my mind. She was resting both hands on the window bars while the nuns