I remember exactly when Ibtisam decided to get married.
She had tears in her eyes that day we met at the café near the crossroads of the Central Bank and the an-Nahar Building on Hamra Street, a landmark where businessmen and intellectuals gather at pavement tables that surrounded the fountain. This is where Ibtisam and I met in the autumn of 1986. On that October morning we chose a table on the outdoor terrace that was still damp from the morning’s cleaning.
Ibtisam’s mind was not clear and her face reminded me of murky water. She had tears in her eyes and her words were heavy with desperation as she spoke about her loneliness and hopeless desire to be ‘in’ instead of ‘out’. She told me that the night before our meeting she had watched a romantic Arabic film, the kind she used to make fun of when she was a rebel who believed that such stories were unrealistic and useless, when she looked at the world through a black-and-white lens.
She told me how she choked when the hero put his arms around the woman he loved and gazed at her eyes. She was moved by the tender romance that she once thought passé. She asked me many questions: ‘Did these revolutionary men think we were ready-made whores imported in rebel cans? When someone is defeated, are they also defeated in their politics, love and dreams? Why were we, women, so trusting in our attempts to find new dimensions and spaces in which to put our dreams, bodies, and feelings that become so cruelly exploited? Were we twice as disappointed as the men we thought liberated because they sought freedom for us and for themselves, when all along they suffered from split personalities and harboured archaic caricature images of women in their minds? Were we women realistic in our dreams or did we also have split personalities, concealing in our rebellious bodies a concubine? I don’t understand: was it all a lie then? I really don’t understand or know,’ she kept saying. ‘I never lied, and I am sure that many of those who died or were defeated also did not lie. But then, why were we defeated? Is it because we were really liars or because we were brutally honest?’
I don’t know. All I know,’ she said, ‘is that today I am lonely; lonely like never before. I also know that I need the same kind of love I saw in last night’s movie, even if it was just make-believe.’
Ibtisam told me how deeply saddened she had felt a few days earlier when she tried on her new lacy nightgown before going to bed. She had looked at herself in the mirror from all sides, contemplating her bare breasts. But when she slid under the covers she felt a strange tightness in her breasts although they were free from the constraints of a bra. She cupped them in her hands and stared at them for a long time before turning off the light and falling asleep.
Barely two months after our meeting, Ibtisam decided to get married. It was around five o’clock on a cold afternoon, the sound of raindrops ‘as big as stones’ – as my stepmother, joining three fingers together, described them – were thudding on the ground. When the phone rang I was in my room, tracing the contours of a new dress from Burda magazine in order to save some money, pass the time and treat myself to a new outfit for my next meeting with Abbas.
I was surprised to hear Ibtisam’s warm voice on the other end of the line asking me hesitantly if we could meet for drinks that evening. I was elated at the prospect of seeing her after such a long absence, especially when she said she had missed me. It’s been a long time since anyone said they missed me, including Abbas, who only said it to me once at the end of every month.
It was pitch dark outside when I opened the door and stepped out of my house and into the stairwell on my way to meet Ibtisam at Modka Café on Hamra Street. I wondered, as thunder roared in the distance, what Ibtisam needed so urgently to tell me.
We sat at a table next to the large window overlooking the street below. It was just after five, if I remember correctly, and the rain was heavy. I sat there trying to warm my hands on my hot teacup while Ibtisam swirled her glass of vodka with a glimmer of expectation in her eyes.
She told me that she and Jalal had decided to get married. He had proposed to her countless times and she listed all the reasons why she should marry him. While she said this, Ibtisam watched the passing cars with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her white pullover. She said he was a good man and that their marriage was based on a rational decision to build a life together and be equal in all matters.
‘Isn’t family more important than love, now that love is gone and we were defeated in all we attempted to achieve? Should I stay forever ‘out’, out of each and every circle, even out of my own life? And what will happen to me if I don’t get married? Will I ever be able to love again and get involved in a new relationship?’
‘No, absolutely not,’ she said answering her own questions. ‘I shall now love the man I intend to marry. I am so tired: I need a man who accepts me, truly loves me, and who will care for me. Jalal has been waiting for a long time and I need to be loved by a man who will take me to the point of no return: I need to go there so that I can shed my fears, and maybe this can only be reached in marriage.’
‘But you and Jalal are so different!’ I insisted.
‘I am surprised you think that. Jalal is well educated, loves life and has experience in politics.’
‘He does?’ I asked.
‘Well, he tried working with various political parties at one time, although now he has left politics and is completely focused on his job. Besides, Jalal is open-minded and liberal; isn’t it enough that he thinks my life before him does not matter? From now on we will make decisions together.’
‘How about Karim, does he still mean anything to you?’
‘I’d rather not speak about that, it still hurts. Besides it’s over: Karim is out of my life now and I don’t want to look back.’
The hope in her eyes and the reflection of the white pullover on her face dissipated the fear lurking in my heart. I was able to breathe easier as I felt Ibtisam was in control and no longer infatuated by dreams of dust. Deep down, however, I was worried that she thought of Jalal as a knight in shining armour who could rescue her from fake love and illusive happiness. I feared that, once again, she might only find unhappiness at the end of this road.
Ibtisam’s love of life was different from mine. She wanted to inhale it, taste it, and live it to the fullest, singing her heart out, like a brown bird, so that life can sing back to her. For Ibtisam, in spite of her outward strength and occasional stubbornness, was a romantic, a warm and child-like individual who sings and flutters like a bird in the hands of men like Karim, who know how to love her unreservedly.
I remember how her love affair with Karim started at university during the early war years. It was as if another ‘Ibtisam’ was born right there and then in front of my eyes. Her eyes, voice and body became pure femininity. I remember her vividly in her tight blue jeans, her white open-collared shirt and the black cardigan she used to tie around her shoulders.
She would wait for Karim and me at the cafeteria in the Education Department. Leaning against the old juke box hidden in a dark corner, she tried to decide which of Fayrouz’s old songs best suited her feelings that day. ‘Oh Handsome One, How I Fear Losing you’, was her favourite. She played it over and over again, while her eyes spoke those same words to Karim. Sometimes she would pick ‘See How Vast the Sea Is: This Is How Much I Love You’, and her eyes would also sing along with Fayrouz.
I saw how the bright light of love danced in her eyes and how her cheeks flushed with warmth whenever she spent time with Karim. She played with the buttons on his shirt and looked at him with intense playful eyes that said, ‘I love you, I love you.’ Karim would smile broadly, lean towards me and mutter, ‘Look how crazy your friend is!’
Karim did not belong to any political party, although he came from a Christian family that had ties either to the Communist Party or to the Syrian Nationalist Party. He was, however, always wavering between these two parties, although his secular outlook made him closer to the leftist parties that had coalesced together to form the National Movement.
Before the end of 1970 Karim went to work in Saudi Arabia, after falling victim to a sectarian kidnapping in the Ras al Nab‘a area of West Beirut. He was stopped by a couple of men manning a security barrier who asked to see his ID card. When he showed it to them, they forced him out of his car and took him to an unknown destination: a card he carried indicating that he was a member of the Patriotic Movement was useless. During the three days he was detained, Ibtisam almost lost her mind with worry: she neither slept nor ate, but drank endless cups of black coffee and chain-smoked. Her worry was compounded by an incident she had witnessed the day before Karim was abducted. At the Barbir Bridge she watched armed men pull two individuals out of their car before savagely throwing them over the bridge to the street below. They died instantly.
That night she stayed awake sobbing and throwing up as if to eject the horrible scene from her memory. The image of the two men’s bodies haunted her, the perpetrators’ evil eyes seemed etched on the walls of her bedroom. She kept hearing their voices: ‘Yalla, these guys are for throwing away. Today we will eliminate the same number they killed yesterday on the other side.’
She remained paralysed by fear until Karim was released and put on a plane to Saudi Arabia, where one of his relatives had found him a job.
He took to long absences, returning to Beirut once a year on short visits. All year, Ibtisam would wait impatiently for his return. When he appeared, her whole body breathed the odour of love. She wore make-up and dresses instead of jeans and her restless eyes became soft and calm.
In his presence she spoke in whispers; but once he left her voice became loud and high-pitched as she shouted ‘I love you, I love you,’ over the bad telephone lines.
In 1982, as the Israeli army surrounded Beirut preparing to invade, the city sustained constant and heavy bombardment.
That night, with water so scarce, Ibtisam managed to find one bottle to wash with. As she walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, the phone rang. She had no idea that Karim had been in Beirut for two weeks but as soon as she heard his voice, she shouted: ‘Karim, is that you? When did you come and how? How long have you been here? Is it really you? I can’t believe it: where are you?’
‘Here in Beirut.’
‘When did you arrive? The airport is closed.’
‘A few days ago, but your phone line was out.’
‘Liar, when we don’t want to talk to someone we use the phone line as a pretext. If you really wanted to contact me you would have found a way or come over to see me.’
‘Anyway, I want to see you.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
‘Now? Are you crazy?’
‘Yes now, I want you. I want a woman, not any woman, I want you.’
Her silence lasted only a brief moment.
‘Ok, but how? Bombs are falling everywhere. Besides, what can I tell my parents?’
‘Think of something.’
‘Pick me up in half an hour.’
It was already past eleven when Ibtisam slipped into the seat next to Karim. The city was unravelling like a string of beads under the Israeli shelling. Karim drove off hurriedly, oblivious to the falling bombs. As for Ibtisam, Beirut seemed to gleam like a ring of precious stones.
Once their hands locked together she was no longer angry. In fact, she forgot everything. She held his hand and kissed each of his fingers, moving up to his wrist, then his neck and his face until they came to the house of a friend who had escaped to Paris.
Karim lit candles and distributed them around the house: he then pushed the table to one side so they could sit on the floor. He held Ibtisam’s face in his hands and kissed her with pent-up hunger as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hid her face in his chest. They moved in unison when he lay over her, his upper body fusing into hers while his lower body lay between her open legs which gradually and firmly closed in on him. He unbuttoned her shirt and released her breasts, covering her nipples with his mouth. With sweat dripping from his brow he asked, ‘Can you take off your clothes?’
Ibtisam removed her shirt and lay down again. Karim undid the buttons of her jeans and pulled them down.
A few seconds later, he let out a strange laugh. ‘Hey, how come you’re still a virgin?’
He did not know the answer to that question because they had never spoken of it before. Then he laughed again in a manner that disturbed Ibtisam. ‘Is this at all possible for a rebel like you?’
‘Karim, why are you talking this way? Why should rebels not be virgins? Besides, you know that this is my first relationship. Your senseless questions are bothering me. Just like you wanted me, I wanted you. Are you upset that I slept with you?’
‘No, on the contrary. I’m very happy you did, but maybe we should have done this a long time ago.’
‘But why are you interrogating me?’
‘I’m not. Are you crazy? You are my love – I’m not interrogating you, I am just happy to be with you.’
When he took her back home at daybreak, a mantle of darkness still covered the city and the black birds of death circled overhead, their screams intercepting the sound of bullets. Ibtisam rolled the car window down, stuck her head out and shouted at the miserable and vast city night: ‘I love you, I love you.’
Then Karim spoke to her about the ‘vein’, a vein he had felt throbbing in the back of his head and neck as soon as he was released from captivity. This vein was telling him: ‘Get married Karim.’
That day he told her that he loved her, although the vein told him he should marry someone from his own religion and kinfolk. It was the vein talking, not his heart, a vein so powerful that he did not have the energy to resist it. This is what he believed and this is how he explained it to Ibtisam, who could only stare back at him, her eyes round with disbelief.
She hid behind her silence not knowing what to say. The overwhelming injustice tasted bitter in her mouth. Karim continued speaking, but she no longer listened, her ears only registering the sound of her steps as she walked away from him.
Ibtisam drained the last drop of vodka in her glass and said: ‘When we were young we believed that life was tailored to suit our needs. Unfortunately, we soon discover that we are the ones who must change.’
She then repeated her decision to marry Jalal, and this is exactly what she did.
Translated by Ellen Khouri