I was lying on the marble floor, stomach down, and he was scrubbing my back like Iron Chef zesting a lemon. My glasses were off, and, what with the blankets of steam, I was living the French colonial Impressionist's fantasy. I could, however, make out the details of my arms and hands, so, when The Grater showed me the human zest that had accumulated on my right shoulder, I knew I had gotten my seven dollar's worth.
Hammam Nouredeen sits between Sharia Medhat Pasha and Souq al Hammideyeh. It's an old Damascene house with a large courtyard and a fountain in the center with a dome high above. I exchanged my wallet and cellphone for a bar of soap, a sponge, and a bracelet with a key and proceeded forward.
1. Remove shoes and place in locker. Step up into lounge area through clouds of Gauloise smoke.
2. Receive blue and white striped wrap from The Toweler in the Lounge. Remove shirt. Tie cloth around waist. Drop pants, underwear. (Be sure to keep wrap high above your belly button to simplify dropping process.)
3. Pretend you are at ease. Lean back. Place hand on thigh.
4. Insert feet into Barbie-sized wooden clogs. Stumble forward into Home Base.
5. Enter steam room. Stew. Light shooting through tiny speckles of window in dome above.
6. Find bowl in sink, and douse body with water. Note: sinks do not have drains. Water may not be fresh.
7. Apply soap.
8. Rinse body with water. Avoid splashing others who may be sitting on the ground behind you.
9. Return to Home Base. Umpire to give you bracelet with yellow chip. This is your pass to the Soap Room: do not lose it!
10. Sit patiently in Soap Room while The Soaper soaps others. He is full of two hundred and fifty pounds of love.
11. Lie down on plastic hospital bed. Caution: slippery when wet. Close eyes so as to avoid burning.
12. Relax as The Soaper lathers your body, slathering and karate chopping rhythmically. You are a bongo and a fish. When he hits the bed, flip over. Immediately. He is in a hurry.
13. Return to Home Base. Note: you are covered in lather. You are slippery. Avoid opening eyes and leaning against support surfaces.
14. Umpire to give you bracelet with green chip. This is your pass to the Grating Room.
15. Enter Grating Room and collapse onto floor. Note: The Grater will NOT move from his seat. Follow his commands: slide up and down, shift right to left, give him your arms, repeat as needed.
16. Keep mouth closed as The Grater rinses the zest and soap off your body. Remember, the water may not be fresh!
17. Return to Home Base and shower. When you exit the shower, Umpire will replace the soaked towel around your waist with a dry one. In a flash. Marvel at his sleight of hand.
18. Place feet in clogs and return to the Lounge. The Toweler in the Lounge will once again unwrap and wrap you. He will also drape towel over shoulders and tie blue towel around head, cutting off all circulation.
19. If you are Arab, light a Gitane as you sit down.
20. Put on clothing and exit the factory.
Estimated cooking time: 2 hours
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Inferno
Dinner was at Paradise. My sister and I hopped into Nabil's SUV. We had no idea who Nabil was or how he knew our family. Turns out, he went to high school and pre-medical school with my parents. He told us that this dinner was a reunion of doctors, all of whom studied and graduated together.
We arrived ten minutes late, and we were the first ones there. Our table was for forty. As we peeled the skin off the almonds resting in ice, men in French cuffs and Italian leather shoes strolled up with their blond-ed wives with eyes made up like insects. Upon each arrival, the whole table stands up, and the couple kisses and greets their way around the perimeter. About an hour later, the table had filled, and the greeting ritual took at least a solid seven minutes. And you can't sit down until the whole table agrees that it's time, so you just kind of eye your arguileh and smile at the social melee beyond.
I quickly realized that by "doctors" Nabil meant male doctors. The only exception was my mother. Of the fifteen woman there, she was the only one who held a PhD. Her eyes weren't like insects. She wore soft mascara and a black shirt with a floral pattern on her right shoulder.
I sat across from Maria. Her cellphone rang every five minutes like clockwork, and she'd innocently silence it only after her obnoxious ringtone had interrupted every conversation around her. Whenever I looked at her or tried talking to her, she'd tilt her head down slightly so that, in order to make eye contact, she would have to glance up at me. Her eyelashes fluttered in a slow-motion worthy of Olympic gold.
We sat between la jeunesse and the parents. Thankfully, my sister was to my right, so after the first storm of mezze I angled my chair in such a way as to erase Maria from my field of vision.
Throughout the dinner, the parents--seated miles down the table--would call to their kids, "Kareem, stand up! Stand up!" Kareem would rise. He was a shining trophy and smiled knowing full well his parents were busy flattering him while the other parents, impressed, would nod vigorously. This happened around seven or eight times to Kareem, Sameer, and Sherine.
It was pretty miserable. I caught the first ride out of Paradise, never to return again.
We arrived ten minutes late, and we were the first ones there. Our table was for forty. As we peeled the skin off the almonds resting in ice, men in French cuffs and Italian leather shoes strolled up with their blond-ed wives with eyes made up like insects. Upon each arrival, the whole table stands up, and the couple kisses and greets their way around the perimeter. About an hour later, the table had filled, and the greeting ritual took at least a solid seven minutes. And you can't sit down until the whole table agrees that it's time, so you just kind of eye your arguileh and smile at the social melee beyond.
I quickly realized that by "doctors" Nabil meant male doctors. The only exception was my mother. Of the fifteen woman there, she was the only one who held a PhD. Her eyes weren't like insects. She wore soft mascara and a black shirt with a floral pattern on her right shoulder.
I sat across from Maria. Her cellphone rang every five minutes like clockwork, and she'd innocently silence it only after her obnoxious ringtone had interrupted every conversation around her. Whenever I looked at her or tried talking to her, she'd tilt her head down slightly so that, in order to make eye contact, she would have to glance up at me. Her eyelashes fluttered in a slow-motion worthy of Olympic gold.
We sat between la jeunesse and the parents. Thankfully, my sister was to my right, so after the first storm of mezze I angled my chair in such a way as to erase Maria from my field of vision.
Throughout the dinner, the parents--seated miles down the table--would call to their kids, "Kareem, stand up! Stand up!" Kareem would rise. He was a shining trophy and smiled knowing full well his parents were busy flattering him while the other parents, impressed, would nod vigorously. This happened around seven or eight times to Kareem, Sameer, and Sherine.
It was pretty miserable. I caught the first ride out of Paradise, never to return again.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The HotDogMobile with Scrambled Eggs
The Agenda Culturel is a bi-weekly French journal that serves as the Village Voice of Beirut except that it's sleek, square, and concise. The last publication was on June 10th or so, and it featured a piece on the theatre artist Jawad al Asadi and Babel, his new theatre in Hamra. The second to last page of the journal was dedicated to ANNULATIONS, or cancellations. A full page of cancellations. In the same design template as the performance/music/art/etc listings.
And this was before the Aido bombing on June 13th.
Since my arrival in Beirut, I'd been pumped to go to the Fete de la Musique on the solstice. A couple clubs and one giant convention center had been reserved for back-to-back free concerts by local and international musicians all night long. A couple days after the Aido bombing, the festival was canceled.
Nonetheless...
A couple folks banded together and threw an evening of free performances at BASEMENT, a space in Gemayzeh that is at once crypt and club. I went with Lana, and it was packed. While The Scrambled Eggs reved up the crowd, we had a couple doodoos (vodka, lemon juice, tabasco + one olive) to celebrate.
Afterwards, we went outside to the HotdogMobile. A one-person truck so yellow, tiny, and convenient it put the Roomba Burrito Cart on York to shame. The menu read as follows:
HOTDOG 2500 LL
CHEESE +1000 LL
BACON +1000 LL
BEANS & MEAT +500 LL
BOMB (in a few minutes)
Scrambled Eggs rang in the basement while the HotDogMobile--with tongue in cheek--served the night away.
Only in Beirut.
And this was before the Aido bombing on June 13th.
Since my arrival in Beirut, I'd been pumped to go to the Fete de la Musique on the solstice. A couple clubs and one giant convention center had been reserved for back-to-back free concerts by local and international musicians all night long. A couple days after the Aido bombing, the festival was canceled.
Nonetheless...
A couple folks banded together and threw an evening of free performances at BASEMENT, a space in Gemayzeh that is at once crypt and club. I went with Lana, and it was packed. While The Scrambled Eggs reved up the crowd, we had a couple doodoos (vodka, lemon juice, tabasco + one olive) to celebrate.
Afterwards, we went outside to the HotdogMobile. A one-person truck so yellow, tiny, and convenient it put the Roomba Burrito Cart on York to shame. The menu read as follows:
HOTDOG 2500 LL
CHEESE +1000 LL
BACON +1000 LL
BEANS & MEAT +500 LL
BOMB (in a few minutes)
Scrambled Eggs rang in the basement while the HotDogMobile--with tongue in cheek--served the night away.
Only in Beirut.
Our heart beats with you, O Bashr al Asad!
A brief message from the Damascene cityscape to Bashr Al Asad:
WE ARE WITH YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE LOVE YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
Welcome to Syria.
WE ARE WITH YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE LOVE YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
CONGRATULATIONS!
WE ARE WITH YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
WE LOVE YOU!
Welcome to Syria.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Lan Ninsaa
Emily sings when she waters the gardenias on the balcony. Yesterday morning, Mama Hiam came into the living room with a black eye and rows of curlers in her head. Her coffee, water, and half-apple were waiting for her on a silver tray. Hiam wakes up before six everyday, and I never usually see her until nine. So, I didn't say anything about the black eye because I thought that maybe it was something normal, that maybe she always wakes up with a bruised eyelid and just puts make-up on it. I went out onto the balcony.
There were six gardenia flowers. Beaming, Hiam lurched up from her couch and hobbled outside and plucked them from their stems. She added them to the plate of moist flowers that she keeps next to the picture of her and Ammo Wafiq. The image sits in a silver frame. They are in a hotel lobby both in business formal wear--in glasses, looking to the right. Wafiq's hands are entwined in a beaded necklace, and he's laughing.
They must be leaving a party, early. Bidding a friend farewell.
Hiam's eyesight is so poor I wonder if she can even see this image. When we finally told her about the black eye, she couldn't see it in the mirror. I'm sure though that she's memorized the picture of her and her husband. So whether or not she can register its details in her field of vision may not matter anymore. Its presence is what counts.
Otherwise, there are very few pictures of Ammo Wafiq in the house.
The morning after the Walid Aido bombing, the entire city had been relandscaped with giant posters with the faces of him and his son, who also died in the attack. Beirut made him a ghost before he had even hit the soil. The slogans of these posters vary slightly:
Lan Ninsaa - "We will not forget"
Rijal al-3adalleh shahada' al-3adalleh - "The men of justice are the martyrs of justice"
Walid lil 3adalleh - al-3adalleh li Walid Aido - "Walid for Justice - Justice for Walid Aido."
[The English translation loses the astonishing morphological relationship between the judge's name--Walid Aido--and the word for "justice."]
Phantom-images of Aido blanket the city now, but of course they by no means dare to challenge the supremacy of images of Rafiq al-Hariri. The Hariri ghost hovers over streets, on building facades, in the lobby of my apartment building, and behind the counter at the pharmacy. The Aido and Hariri phantoms compliment the architectural terrain, battered from the civil war. With gaping holes like Swiss cheese, structures throughout Beirut bear the scars of the fifteen year civil war.
The ghosts of political leaders evoke memories of contemporary political violence while the corpsed architecture raises the history of the civil war. The result is a collage a la Rauschenberg which blurs the distinction between the two historical moments. The collage renders the past (ie the civil war) the canvas and the foreground of the present (political assassinations).
The irony is that, as far as I have perceived, the discourse in the public sphere has essentially erased the memory of the civil war. Furthermore, many of the reconstruction projects, for instance Solidere in downtown, manifest this conscious effort to cleanse communal history of the civil war. Standing in sharp contrast to the rest of the cityscape, the streets of Solidere are lined with Ottoman arches (pre-civil war aesthetic), and every facade is as smooth as a baby's ass cheek. It's like Disney World. My friend, VT, is studying the recent history of reconstruction and found that more buildings were destroyed in the Solidere project than in the fifteen years of civil war!
I can't help but thinking about the relationship between Beirut's notorious plastic surgery obsession and this reconstruction effort. Someone should look into this.
Back to the ghosts: there is, however, one man--LIVING--who occupies the same space as the phantoms: Saad al-Hariri, Rafiq's son and the leader of the Mustaqbal (Future) Movement. He is living in the post-mortem terrain and in the present tense. He is a demi-god, straddling the spheres of the living and the dead.
There were six gardenia flowers. Beaming, Hiam lurched up from her couch and hobbled outside and plucked them from their stems. She added them to the plate of moist flowers that she keeps next to the picture of her and Ammo Wafiq. The image sits in a silver frame. They are in a hotel lobby both in business formal wear--in glasses, looking to the right. Wafiq's hands are entwined in a beaded necklace, and he's laughing.
They must be leaving a party, early. Bidding a friend farewell.
Hiam's eyesight is so poor I wonder if she can even see this image. When we finally told her about the black eye, she couldn't see it in the mirror. I'm sure though that she's memorized the picture of her and her husband. So whether or not she can register its details in her field of vision may not matter anymore. Its presence is what counts.
Otherwise, there are very few pictures of Ammo Wafiq in the house.
The morning after the Walid Aido bombing, the entire city had been relandscaped with giant posters with the faces of him and his son, who also died in the attack. Beirut made him a ghost before he had even hit the soil. The slogans of these posters vary slightly:
Lan Ninsaa - "We will not forget"
Rijal al-3adalleh shahada' al-3adalleh - "The men of justice are the martyrs of justice"
Walid lil 3adalleh - al-3adalleh li Walid Aido - "Walid for Justice - Justice for Walid Aido."
[The English translation loses the astonishing morphological relationship between the judge's name--Walid Aido--and the word for "justice."]
Phantom-images of Aido blanket the city now, but of course they by no means dare to challenge the supremacy of images of Rafiq al-Hariri. The Hariri ghost hovers over streets, on building facades, in the lobby of my apartment building, and behind the counter at the pharmacy. The Aido and Hariri phantoms compliment the architectural terrain, battered from the civil war. With gaping holes like Swiss cheese, structures throughout Beirut bear the scars of the fifteen year civil war.
The ghosts of political leaders evoke memories of contemporary political violence while the corpsed architecture raises the history of the civil war. The result is a collage a la Rauschenberg which blurs the distinction between the two historical moments. The collage renders the past (ie the civil war) the canvas and the foreground of the present (political assassinations).
The irony is that, as far as I have perceived, the discourse in the public sphere has essentially erased the memory of the civil war. Furthermore, many of the reconstruction projects, for instance Solidere in downtown, manifest this conscious effort to cleanse communal history of the civil war. Standing in sharp contrast to the rest of the cityscape, the streets of Solidere are lined with Ottoman arches (pre-civil war aesthetic), and every facade is as smooth as a baby's ass cheek. It's like Disney World. My friend, VT, is studying the recent history of reconstruction and found that more buildings were destroyed in the Solidere project than in the fifteen years of civil war!
I can't help but thinking about the relationship between Beirut's notorious plastic surgery obsession and this reconstruction effort. Someone should look into this.
Back to the ghosts: there is, however, one man--LIVING--who occupies the same space as the phantoms: Saad al-Hariri, Rafiq's son and the leader of the Mustaqbal (Future) Movement. He is living in the post-mortem terrain and in the present tense. He is a demi-god, straddling the spheres of the living and the dead.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Fish in Yamouneh
He dug the fishnet into the pool and pulled out four. We told him that three fish would do, so Hussein, his nine-year-old son, tried to return one to the pool. It was stubborn, sliding out of his hands and flapping its tail in the dirt, but he pulled a head grab and victoriously tossed it back into the fresh water spring.
Mia, the psychologist who works with children in the post-July war South, told us that a fresh water mountain spring feeds Yamouneh. On the road from Beirut, we passed goat herds and climbed above and over crumbly, rocky mountains--some of them still with birthmarks of snow. Accented with yellow Hizbullah banners, the Bekaa valley lies like a basin, nestled between parallel mountain ranges in the Northeast.
Ammo shook our hands--ahlen wa sehlen--and quickly served us araq. Out back, it's like a lagoon: there are ten or so long tables clustered around a fountain pool surrounded by trees. We sat on the long table with the yellow cushioned chairs, but he told us to move next to the spring source so that we could listen to the water. All the while, the wind was swishing through the leaves.
I've never tasted better fish. We ate it with our hands, stripping the meat from the bones and wrapping it up with two french fries in some Arabic bread. Dip it in tartar and enjoy.
Hussein was reserved and intensely absorbant. The second our carafe of water became lukewarm, he'd empty it into the pool, rinse it out, and refill it with cool mountain water from the spout. He brought out the food on a tray that was about as tall as he was and wiped the table after dinner.
His mother Miriam came out in pink plaid with a Gauloise in hand. She was elegance and warmth incarnate. She sat down next to us, and we poured her a cup of water. Her husband, Ammo, joined us too. His fingers were cycling through a necklace of beads.
We're lucky nothing happens to us out here, they said. No civil war, no July war, no bombings, no traffic, just clean air and healthy fish from our farm. Though, we finally have cellphone reception now.
We drove back through Zahle and Chtoura, and I saw the bridge that the Israelis blasted last summer. Like a chainsaw cutting through a limb.
Mia, the psychologist who works with children in the post-July war South, told us that a fresh water mountain spring feeds Yamouneh. On the road from Beirut, we passed goat herds and climbed above and over crumbly, rocky mountains--some of them still with birthmarks of snow. Accented with yellow Hizbullah banners, the Bekaa valley lies like a basin, nestled between parallel mountain ranges in the Northeast.
Ammo shook our hands--ahlen wa sehlen--and quickly served us araq. Out back, it's like a lagoon: there are ten or so long tables clustered around a fountain pool surrounded by trees. We sat on the long table with the yellow cushioned chairs, but he told us to move next to the spring source so that we could listen to the water. All the while, the wind was swishing through the leaves.
I've never tasted better fish. We ate it with our hands, stripping the meat from the bones and wrapping it up with two french fries in some Arabic bread. Dip it in tartar and enjoy.
Hussein was reserved and intensely absorbant. The second our carafe of water became lukewarm, he'd empty it into the pool, rinse it out, and refill it with cool mountain water from the spout. He brought out the food on a tray that was about as tall as he was and wiped the table after dinner.
His mother Miriam came out in pink plaid with a Gauloise in hand. She was elegance and warmth incarnate. She sat down next to us, and we poured her a cup of water. Her husband, Ammo, joined us too. His fingers were cycling through a necklace of beads.
We're lucky nothing happens to us out here, they said. No civil war, no July war, no bombings, no traffic, just clean air and healthy fish from our farm. Though, we finally have cellphone reception now.
We drove back through Zahle and Chtoura, and I saw the bridge that the Israelis blasted last summer. Like a chainsaw cutting through a limb.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Beating Simba
We were tasting the cheese Mama Hiam had bought when Emily scurried across the room. Simba was on a forbidden table in the salon, and when he jumped off he knocked over a small crystal sculpture of an oyster with a pearl inside.
Spitting out an olive seed just in time, Hiam roared "BEAT HIM!" through olive puree and cheese. Emily chased Simba around the living room, climbing over the couch and opening and shutting the balcony door. The little shit was sly, but Emily knew his tricks. She was obviously a veteran. From my seat at the lunch table, I had a clear view of the spectacle whereas Hiam's back was to the chase.
Before I knew it, Emily had inched up to the table. She was cradling Simba. Hiam swung around and, cursing the cat in Arabic, smacked him on the head a good half dozen times.
"If it hurts enough, he'll remember," she concluded as she downed the pills in her palm.
Spitting out an olive seed just in time, Hiam roared "BEAT HIM!" through olive puree and cheese. Emily chased Simba around the living room, climbing over the couch and opening and shutting the balcony door. The little shit was sly, but Emily knew his tricks. She was obviously a veteran. From my seat at the lunch table, I had a clear view of the spectacle whereas Hiam's back was to the chase.
Before I knew it, Emily had inched up to the table. She was cradling Simba. Hiam swung around and, cursing the cat in Arabic, smacked him on the head a good half dozen times.
"If it hurts enough, he'll remember," she concluded as she downed the pills in her palm.
Project: Stencil
Sophie used to take pictures of graffiti. Her screensaver cycled through digital shots of Berlin building surfaces and San Francisco walls. I never asked though, Why don't you graffiti? And I certainly never expected to find myself knifing a semi-circle in cardstock to make stencils for a night of wall art.
The storage room in the garage has been transformed into a creative work space, and we climbed into this crimson-walled aquarium, flipping through vintage AUB yearbooks from 1952 and Aishti catalogues with models in Gucci and Cavalli on the top of the old lighthouse and in Luna Park, home of the now frozen ferris wheel. We had sketchbooks on our laps; those of us on the beanbags were working away with calligraphy pens, coming up with graffiti tags from our names in Arabic.
Halo knew how to write my name. I've never witnessed any one--aside from my family--who knew how to write my name in Arabic. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever wanted or needed to write my name in Arabic in front of me. Her pen just glided, as if she were addressing a letter to Mr. John Williams, Dan Mitchell, or Dr. Rebecca Smith. I didn't have to carve out the "D as in dog."
Anna brought in a demo: silver spray paint on black, and it rocked. In hyper-pixellated, retro-digital font (System might be the font name?): tick tick tick BOOM... The face of a car with a flame and explosion rays on top. Superimposed on the image, a circle with a line cutting straight through at a 45 degree angle. "No parking" into "No car-bombing."
Just before we headed out, I noted to Sally, "Surrna masna'a joints."
It was shortly past midnight. The streets were essentially deserted (echoing East Jerusalem), and soldiers were patrolling everywhere. The number of barricades on the roads had quadrupled. It was a slalom course. The veins and arteries of the cities were clogged, almost suffocated. We made around four to five stops and were promptly greeted by military surveillance--in black SUV, in Jeep Cherokee, and on motorcycle--at three of our stops. Whoever was spraying would slide back into the car and toss the cans under the front seats. And go.
Anna got some bubbles, and I got some sugar free Cherry Vitamin C drops from the compulsively-organized TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN CANDY SHOP at Talet Druze. I thought they were hard candy, but when I crunched them the insides had the texture of a red pepper. Soldiers searched our cars outside of the shop. We pulled out our IDs, he nodded, and that was that.
From Hamra to Gemayzeh to somewhere else to I don't know where and back to Hamra, we went to Rima's apartment for a bit. A soldier on a bike came up to us as we got out of the car--asked us what we were doing, where we were coming from. We hung out downstairs for a bit. I guess the soldier heard our voices, and his engine growled and growled, urging us to get the fuck upstairs.
The horizon is clear from the Corniche at night. The chasing lights of the airport runways trace the barrier between sea and land, and the towers on the coast-line seem endless. We were shocked and bewildered by how smoothly the ride on the Corniche was. Barricades and military surveillance had become the norm, so the Corniche felt like a giant water slide.
The storage room in the garage has been transformed into a creative work space, and we climbed into this crimson-walled aquarium, flipping through vintage AUB yearbooks from 1952 and Aishti catalogues with models in Gucci and Cavalli on the top of the old lighthouse and in Luna Park, home of the now frozen ferris wheel. We had sketchbooks on our laps; those of us on the beanbags were working away with calligraphy pens, coming up with graffiti tags from our names in Arabic.
Halo knew how to write my name. I've never witnessed any one--aside from my family--who knew how to write my name in Arabic. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever wanted or needed to write my name in Arabic in front of me. Her pen just glided, as if she were addressing a letter to Mr. John Williams, Dan Mitchell, or Dr. Rebecca Smith. I didn't have to carve out the "D as in dog."
Anna brought in a demo: silver spray paint on black, and it rocked. In hyper-pixellated, retro-digital font (System might be the font name?): tick tick tick BOOM... The face of a car with a flame and explosion rays on top. Superimposed on the image, a circle with a line cutting straight through at a 45 degree angle. "No parking" into "No car-bombing."
Just before we headed out, I noted to Sally, "Surrna masna'a joints."
It was shortly past midnight. The streets were essentially deserted (echoing East Jerusalem), and soldiers were patrolling everywhere. The number of barricades on the roads had quadrupled. It was a slalom course. The veins and arteries of the cities were clogged, almost suffocated. We made around four to five stops and were promptly greeted by military surveillance--in black SUV, in Jeep Cherokee, and on motorcycle--at three of our stops. Whoever was spraying would slide back into the car and toss the cans under the front seats. And go.
Anna got some bubbles, and I got some sugar free Cherry Vitamin C drops from the compulsively-organized TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN CANDY SHOP at Talet Druze. I thought they were hard candy, but when I crunched them the insides had the texture of a red pepper. Soldiers searched our cars outside of the shop. We pulled out our IDs, he nodded, and that was that.
From Hamra to Gemayzeh to somewhere else to I don't know where and back to Hamra, we went to Rima's apartment for a bit. A soldier on a bike came up to us as we got out of the car--asked us what we were doing, where we were coming from. We hung out downstairs for a bit. I guess the soldier heard our voices, and his engine growled and growled, urging us to get the fuck upstairs.
The horizon is clear from the Corniche at night. The chasing lights of the airport runways trace the barrier between sea and land, and the towers on the coast-line seem endless. We were shocked and bewildered by how smoothly the ride on the Corniche was. Barricades and military surveillance had become the norm, so the Corniche felt like a giant water slide.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Corniche el Manara
I heard the ambulances and the police sirens. Last year during the July War, I learned that explosions and sirens come like thunder and lightning. The first shakes and quakes your entire being, and the second hits your head like a surge in a migraine. Saleh, the Palestinian chauffeur, rang up and told me that there was a big bomb at the Sporting Club. I turned on the television and saw the alley next to the PERMANENT CHINESE EXHIBITION--battered, broken water pipes leaking (the sirens are still going), and a mangled car in the center in flames. Within minutes, everyone started calling. The death rate climbed from three to ten. Mama Hiam was on her way home, so I was fielding calls, giving people phone numbers from Hiam's number index.
The numbers are written in two scripts. The blue rollerball pen writes in all caps with a breath in between each letter. The pencil is faint, moves between Arabic and English. The pencil belongs to Hiam's dead husband.
Hiam stormed in like a red elephant. She had Emily lock the elevator in a heartbeat: no one was going anywhere.
I tried to explain to Emily where the bomb was:
"Remember when the Israelis hit Manara, the light house, last year--near there," I said knowing full well that she had no idea where Manara was or what light house meant.
"Yes, Israel last year," she replied.
Gesturing, I continued, "It's close: I used to go running by there, fifteen minutes running."
"Close? We didn't hear it."
They targeted a judge, Walid Eido. Hiam says through three languages, "He's one of the very near to Hariri. And he was deputy. He knows more about him than anyone else. Everyone knows that he goes to the Sporting Club to bathe. Wafiq used to go with him back in the day."
The fruit will enter and exit; we'll sit watching the firefighters douse the flames for the next couple hours.
I'll need to get an apartment of my own in August. I'm under house arrest tonight. But I find it absolutely imperative to be present in the city tonight, to have dinner at the Armenian restaurant as planned. Hoda Barakat's The Stone of Laughter is starting to bore me. Maybe I'll find some gold in it tonight.
The numbers are written in two scripts. The blue rollerball pen writes in all caps with a breath in between each letter. The pencil is faint, moves between Arabic and English. The pencil belongs to Hiam's dead husband.
Hiam stormed in like a red elephant. She had Emily lock the elevator in a heartbeat: no one was going anywhere.
I tried to explain to Emily where the bomb was:
"Remember when the Israelis hit Manara, the light house, last year--near there," I said knowing full well that she had no idea where Manara was or what light house meant.
"Yes, Israel last year," she replied.
Gesturing, I continued, "It's close: I used to go running by there, fifteen minutes running."
"Close? We didn't hear it."
They targeted a judge, Walid Eido. Hiam says through three languages, "He's one of the very near to Hariri. And he was deputy. He knows more about him than anyone else. Everyone knows that he goes to the Sporting Club to bathe. Wafiq used to go with him back in the day."
The fruit will enter and exit; we'll sit watching the firefighters douse the flames for the next couple hours.
I'll need to get an apartment of my own in August. I'm under house arrest tonight. But I find it absolutely imperative to be present in the city tonight, to have dinner at the Armenian restaurant as planned. Hoda Barakat's The Stone of Laughter is starting to bore me. Maybe I'll find some gold in it tonight.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Emily
Emily was perching out the window, her left hand resting on the tail of her backbone. She had just washed the cherries and placed the neon blue gloves next to the artichokes. Gloves because Mama Hiam eats them raw and wears rubber gloves to keep her hands and nails in tact. Emily was standing next to the water cooler and tensed up when I went to fill my glass. She closed her fist gently. I wonder when was the last time she felt the sun on her body.
This afternoon, I was roasting in carotene enhanced tanning lotion at the Sporting Club, listening to Tatu on my Razr. I kept my phone tucked underneath my yellow visor so as to shield it from the sun. There was a werewolf playing tawla with his potbelly companion and some lanky British guys looking into books. The waves were crashing up against the concrete platform, and I was just close enough to the edge that I caught the best of the ocean spray. The sun was well beyond the zenith, its rays shooting in between my toes.
The mother took off her sun dress. She wore a bumble-bee bikini that perfectly framed her physique. Her belly sat like an olive faberge egg on her hips, and the curvature of her breasts echoed perfectly the arc of her stomach. Her husband was already in the pool, reaching for his sandy blond toddler in floaties.
I was lying on my stomach, and my knees were killing me. My joints were squished between the weight of my legs and the tortuously rigid plastic lounge chair. I flipped onto my back and saw that the Maid was left in the shade.
The indent of the top of her buttcrack was barely visible. Whenever she leaned over, her sleeveless red top would reach upwards towards her shoulders, exposing more of her lower back. She was watching the family: she giggled when the toddler realized that, just like his father, his mother too could hold him in the water. She nibbled on carrot sticks and handed Mommy a bottle of water after she dried off her belly.
Emily doesn't go to the beach. From the window above the fruit basket, she can see the kitchen windows of the White Hill Building (we are in the Green Hill Building). After lunch time, when everyone is napping, the White and Green maids hang out of windows like bees from neighboring honeycombs and chat. Some have to look four stories down; Emily's friend is Green, one story up. They stick their arms out and stretch their hands.
Due west from the balcony, you can see the sea. Emily uses the balcony to dry the laundry, and she drapes the hallway carpets over the balustrade every Monday. She straddles a couple of the white balcony chairs over it, gently paper-clipping the rugs so that they don't slip down and away.
Mama Hiam is putting the gloves on now. She's already draped a damask napkin over her chest and places a plate on her sternum. She turns the artichoke on its head and moves through it leaf by leaf. When she's done, she'll move onto the seeds which she pulls by the fistful from the plastic bag by her knees. The seed shells collect into a mogul on her sternum. Before she gets up to sleep, she'll pull the corners of the napkin one by one, wrapping the crunchy seeds into a little present for Emily to find tomorrow morning.
This afternoon, I was roasting in carotene enhanced tanning lotion at the Sporting Club, listening to Tatu on my Razr. I kept my phone tucked underneath my yellow visor so as to shield it from the sun. There was a werewolf playing tawla with his potbelly companion and some lanky British guys looking into books. The waves were crashing up against the concrete platform, and I was just close enough to the edge that I caught the best of the ocean spray. The sun was well beyond the zenith, its rays shooting in between my toes.
The mother took off her sun dress. She wore a bumble-bee bikini that perfectly framed her physique. Her belly sat like an olive faberge egg on her hips, and the curvature of her breasts echoed perfectly the arc of her stomach. Her husband was already in the pool, reaching for his sandy blond toddler in floaties.
I was lying on my stomach, and my knees were killing me. My joints were squished between the weight of my legs and the tortuously rigid plastic lounge chair. I flipped onto my back and saw that the Maid was left in the shade.
The indent of the top of her buttcrack was barely visible. Whenever she leaned over, her sleeveless red top would reach upwards towards her shoulders, exposing more of her lower back. She was watching the family: she giggled when the toddler realized that, just like his father, his mother too could hold him in the water. She nibbled on carrot sticks and handed Mommy a bottle of water after she dried off her belly.
Emily doesn't go to the beach. From the window above the fruit basket, she can see the kitchen windows of the White Hill Building (we are in the Green Hill Building). After lunch time, when everyone is napping, the White and Green maids hang out of windows like bees from neighboring honeycombs and chat. Some have to look four stories down; Emily's friend is Green, one story up. They stick their arms out and stretch their hands.
Due west from the balcony, you can see the sea. Emily uses the balcony to dry the laundry, and she drapes the hallway carpets over the balustrade every Monday. She straddles a couple of the white balcony chairs over it, gently paper-clipping the rugs so that they don't slip down and away.
Mama Hiam is putting the gloves on now. She's already draped a damask napkin over her chest and places a plate on her sternum. She turns the artichoke on its head and moves through it leaf by leaf. When she's done, she'll move onto the seeds which she pulls by the fistful from the plastic bag by her knees. The seed shells collect into a mogul on her sternum. Before she gets up to sleep, she'll pull the corners of the napkin one by one, wrapping the crunchy seeds into a little present for Emily to find tomorrow morning.
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