AMIR LIVES ALONE IN a modest dormitory room with old hardwood floors. He has a bed, a small desk piled with scraps of paper, a tiny bookshelf. Reading is his salvation. He reads every book he can get his hands on. Mahfouz. Gibran. al-Shaykh. Hemingway. Joyce. When he’s not studying or preparing for a class, he reads. On the beach. On the bus. In a small sidewalk café. Now he grasps The Old Man and the Sea in his hands and walks to his morning class. Preoccupied with the story, Amir bumps into a classmate on the way into the lecture hall. When he glances up, he sees a young woman with beautiful long black hair and big brown eyes. He’s noticed her before in this American literature class. She introduces herself. He closes the book and shakes her hand; his palm is sticky but she doesn’t seem to mind as she holds tightly. Her name is Dina. She tells him how much she enjoys reading Hemingway’s stories. They sit next to each other. Amir takes sideway glances at her. And she catches him once and smiles back. After class, he takes a deep breath and asks her out for coffee, not expecting she’ll accept his offer but she does.
They date for three months. On weekends, they head to the sea and bask in the sunlight, their young tanned bodies pressing together but never quite connecting. She is a good girl. She lets Amir lightly cup her breasts but never lets him undo her bikini top when no one is around. He sighs, falls on his towel and looks up at the sky. He wants to soar in its vastness and he longs to travel overseas. Leave this place, even this beautiful girl who teases him with her curvacious thighs and bosom. He sits up again and puts his arms around Dina, pulls her close to him. “You can touch, Amir, only touch," she whispers in his ear, then pushes him away like a hateful lover and adds, “with my clothes on. I’m saving myself for marriage.”
“What if I give you a promise ring?” asks Amir, falling back on the towel.
“Promises can be broken but not me. You’ll have to wait. That’s all I can say.” She sits up straight, folds her arms across her glorious breasts and hides them from him. The day is ruined, Amir thinks, and sulks as he rises and shakes the towel. She lets him hold her hand on the way home but he doesn’t hold it as tight as he had earlier. He walks her to her dorm room, pecks her on the cheek and promises they’ll meet up soon. But they don’t. They stop dating altogether. Amir goes to the beach alone, gazes at the sea and the sky and plans to leave this broken beautiful country that tempts him with dreams of peace and possibilities, which are killed with bullets and bombs. The division between East and West Beirut spreads wider every day until the gap prevents any movement. Homebound people are afraid of being kidnapped, or torn apart by artillery. Life becomes unpredictable. He still ventures outside, sits by the sea and dreams. But the smile on his face disappears when he hears a distant explosion. Frightened and worried, he jumps off a boulder and races back to his dorm, past soldiers at checkpoints who don’t bother to ask for his name.
The next day, he visits his parents. It’s Sunday and he always returns home for lunch on that day. Walid no longer lives in the apartment building but Amir shudders every time he passes his door. He tries not to think about what happened to him but sometimes it’s hard to prevent the painful images from worming their way into his memory. There is an old man who lives in Walid’s former apartment. He mutters under his breath when Amir walks past him. Amir ignores him and unlocks his parents’ apartment door. His ears are immediately assaulted by his mother’s loud voice roaring over the oven fan, shouting about something his father had done, something about giving money to his sister. “You think we’re rich or something? I work hard all day and earn money so you can give it away to your sister," she says bitterly.
“It’s my money that I give her, not yours," his father sighs. Amir’s shoulders slacken. He used to feel sorry for his father but doesn’t anymore, not after he’d whipped him with a belt until Amir’s skin had bled. There is no sympathy in his heart when he walks into the kitchen and sees his father looking humble and old while Amir’s mother berates him. They stop bickering for one second to greet him. He leans in and kisses his mother on both cheeks then his father. Then he walks into the living room and chats with his brother Naji who tells him he has a new girlfriend. Amir smiles when he thinks of his brother’s ways with women. Even as a young child, he had girls around him. Amir, on the other hand, wasn’t as attractive to them. Awkward. Nervous. Maybe. But attractive, no. When the meal is ready, Amir heads to the dining room. While they are eating, he tells his family that he wants to move to Canada after he graduates from university.
“Canada?” his mother says, raising her right eyebrow. “It’s too cold. You’ll freeze. Stay here. This is your home. Your family is here.”
“Haifa," Amir’s father says. “He’s old enough to go wherever he likes. It’ll be good for him.”
Sitting back, Amir stares down at his plate of stuffed grape leaves and his mother’s homemade yogurt. He knows he’ll miss her food but he won’t miss the screaming. “Aunt Georgina said she’d sponsor me.”
Amir’s mother cringes when she hears her sister-in-law’s name.
“It’s time I started my own life. I can’t have a real life in Beirut. There will be more opportunities in Canada for me.”
His mother grunts. “You’ll end up a taxi driver like your aunt’s husband. Or worse, you’ll become a dishwasher!”
Amir takes a long breath. “That will never happen.”
“You wait and see. You’ll be washing dishes or driving a cab," insists his mother.
Ignoring her, he picks up a cigar-shaped grape leaf and stuffs it into his now gaping mouth.