I was once involved in building an installation on the theme of refugees. One part of the installation consisted of objects that could be easily carried along if one had to leave home and venture into an unknown future with little or no warning. The objects sent to the artists were mainly memories of survival: keys, deeds, diplomas, radios and purses. Only one item defied what seemed essential for a future of migration into the unknown – a tube of red lipstick. To me this did not seem like a light and superfluous item to take. I understood immediately the source of the sender’s survival reflex. She – for it can only be a woman or a man who feels like a woman – was ready to journey along a dark road carrying a strong message of life and defiant energy. I understood because of the red lipstick marks that still haunt a corner of my memory, hidden like an explosive dream in a now abandoned convent that once stood discreetly on a hill, high up in the Lebanese mountains.
I was a teenager preparing for the baccalaureate exam with my friends Nada and Joumana when we decided on a tranquil location that was ideal for concentration. Silence and a long distance from the city and its attractions became crucial for our studious goal. A secluded convent run by Italian nuns for novices seemed perfect: it removed us from the presence of males for two weeks. ‘Retraite’ was the word we used in those days – retreating, withdrawing from ordinary life, from our routine, but mainly from the lightness of normal being.
The convent was hauntingly silent. We learned from a somewhat less rigorous Italian nun that the order was hosting very young girls from ‘respectable families’ whose fortunes had known better times and who, for lack of a dowry, were unmarriageable. A convent was the most suitable alternative for these would-be spinsters, especially this one, where only girls from ‘bonnes familles’ were admitted. The deadly silence that surrounded us was eerie, thanks to the binding oath made by every newcomer (‘a privileged girl’ as our nun put it) to be mute for six months. The few Italian nuns who ran the place spoke as little and as softly as possible out of respect for the novices’ vow and out of love for ‘the tears of Mary and the suffering of her son, Jesus Christ’.
There were dozens of novices, rushing silently through the dark corridors. We met them briefly on our way to the dining room, and our curious eyes searched eagerly for their faces, but they always managed to escape our gaze. Their eyes avoided us, fixing incessantly on the tiled floor whenever they passed us. Their bodies looked small and fragile under their neat black tunics. Only the Mother Superior appeared tall and upright in this convent. Her instructions, on the first day of our retreat, were uttered through thin lips that were as stiff as the rules that presided over the lives of this community of secluded and hushed women.
We were scheduled to spend two weeks in this haven of perfect isolation, but on the seventh day the scene that recurs like a dark red dream in my sleepless nights turned the convent into disarray, cutting short our worthy and scholarly endeavour. It is because of this scene, on the seventh day in this remote convent, that I understand how a refugee can proudly hold a lipstick tube in the face of a threatening future.
Red is the Absolute: it is pure. Its dazzling power
Stands for the warmth of the sun and the mystery of life.
Red is transgression. Red is energy.
The Mother Superior’s lips loosened into a delighted smile when she informed us that today was the Pope’s feast day and that the novices would be allowed to roam freely around the convent, to enjoy themselves any way they saw fit as long as the vow of silence was respected. Soon a few novices stood near the door of the large room that Nada, Joumana and I were sharing. Their steps, at first timid and hesitant, became more assertive upon our insistent hospitality. They were obviously amazed by our messy and overcrowded room, but their faces turned crimson and more candid when Nada produced a large tin full of biscuits. They suppressed their giggles, hiding their mouths with their hands, as Nada battled with layers of clothes and books, mingled with some make-up kits, to free a box packed with sweets and chocolates. A bullet-like stick fell out, rolling noisily on the bare floor. Joumana picked it up and moved towards the mirror. She could never resist lipstick: she pulled off its golden cover, revealing a glittering magenta that she spread magnificently over her stretched lips.
Since ancient Egyptian times, women have been staining their lips with everything from berry juice to henna, from a paste made of crushed red rocks to the combo of wax. The ancient Egyptians went to their graves with rouged lips.
I do not have a clear memory of how it all started. All I can see now is a room turned upside down by a bewildering frenzy. The novices were smearing their faces with all the lipstick the three of us had brought: they took hold of our make-up kits like famished birds of prey competing for their victims. They snatched them from each other, looking for more under the sheets, behind the books, under the tables. Red, cherry red, mulberry, burgundy paste everywhere, all over the novices’ lips. Red like cranberry juice, like deep wounds. Graffiti red, dark orange patches over white skin and pale necks. Soon the novices started exchanging shades of red, rushing back and forth to the mirror, looking victoriously at their own reflection, tearing off their veils and collars, revealing shaved and patchy skulls, wiping off the spots they had kissed over and over again on the mirror to make new space for lip-marks, for the fresh red stains on the mirror’s surface.
Red is the colour of fire and blood. It is the fire that burns inside the individual. Below the green of the Earth’s surface and the blackness of the soil lies the redness, pre-eminently holy and secret. It is the colour of the soul, the libido and the heart. It is the colour of esoteric lore, forbidden to the uninitiated.
A novice, short and wilful-looking with her flushed baby face, went into wild, intoxicating motions. She kept bending her torso, throwing her shaved head downwards, springing her body upright and flinging her arms in all directions. She seemed to perform an angry and disconnected ritualised dance, oblivious of the uproar and chaos surrounding her. Noises emerged from the red faces that twirled and rushed around, filling the room with a buzzing mad clatter. Sounds like shrieking laughter came out of red candy throats and brown glittering tongues. Screams like those of warriors seeking a desperate victory emerged from the now revealed and shaved heads of the frantic novices. Some had patches of hair scattered over their skull like badly tended lawns. I suddenly realised that more novices had joined in the frenzied feast, turning our room into a frightening maze of violet and wine-dark surfaces.
Red embodies the ardour and enthusiasm of youth. It is the colour of blood, the heat of the temper. It gives energy to excitement and to inflamed physical conditions. With its warlike symbolism, red will always be the spoils of war or of the dialectic between Heaven and Earth. It is the colour of Dionysus, the liberator and orgiastic.
The tall and dark figure of the Mother Superior loomed before us, putting a sudden end to the uncontrollable madness in the room. She must have stood there, unnoticed, for a while before silence fell upon our room that now looked like an abandoned and desolate battlefield. It was a heavy and long silence that emphasised the languid embrace of two novices oblivious to the sudden change of mood around them. With her eyes half closed, her head leaning on the wall, one of the two was lustfully offering her neck, smeared with red lip marks, to the passionate kisses of the other.
Rage like red burning arrows tensed the lips of the Mother Superior, intensifying the paleness of her complexion. She appeared like a colourless mask strapped inside her black tunic, as rigid as a tightrope-walker immobilised in a snapshot.
‘Stop it!’ she finally managed to scream. Her cry had the effect of a slap hitting the two novices on the face. They disentangled their bodies furtively and rushed out of the room.
Red is the colour of the heart. Red is forbidden, free, impulsive. Red roses like the petals of desire. Did you know that in the 1700s the British Parliament passed a law condemning lipstick? It stated that women found guilty of seducing men into matrimony by cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft. How was this law received in the red light district?
Her words resonated sharply in the silent room. She was like a general summoning a fallen army on a desolate and chaotic battlefield. The novice, who was dancing and spinning like a drunken scarecrow was now lying on the floor, smiling through her half-opened lips – pink-purple lips – in a state of placid and satisfied detachment, while the Mother Superior stood like pure anger, controlled and obstinate.
Red is anger. Red warns, forbids and awakens vigilance. Red is blood, red is fire. Red like full-bodied wine is the devil’s choice.
‘Evil! Dirty! Evil!’ The words emerged from the depth of her throat as if struggling to get through her thin lips. ‘The devil has conquered your souls and your flesh. The wombs of your mothers have rejected you and you have fallen into a dark abyss. Shame, shame on you and on your families! Ugly girls! Your lips are scarlet like the sinner’s lips. Jesus will not be sacrificed twice. You will not be saved. Your bad blood has pierced your skin and stained your tunics. You will burn in hell, in deep red flames. Only fire will cleanse your swollen lips and spoiled innocence.’
The Mother Superior’s tongue was moving fast, spinning like a wounded snake inside her wax-pale face. She was shaking but remained upright, stiff and furious, exhorting the forces of evil that had bewitched her novices.
‘Go back to your rooms and lock yourselves in. You have wounded Jesus Christ and desecrated his home.’
Nocturnal red is the colour of the fire that burns within the individual and the earth. It is the colour of the devil’s laughter, of hell’s flames. Red is revolt.
There was a war and the convent is no longer there. It is said that two of the novices stayed behind in a rented brick house not far from the abandoned convent. According to the villagers they live like hermits, except that their lips are always heavily painted with bright red lipstick.