Читать книгу A Good Land - Nada Jarrar Awar - Страница 9

His parents had named him Fouad, another Arabic word, among many, for the heart. This was a sign that his passions would always lead him.

The family lived in the heart of Ras Beirut, on the ground floor of a two-storey house near the American University, his mother and father, grandparents and an ageing housekeeper, his brother and two sisters and himself, with fruit and flowering trees in its spacious garden and a low wall around its borders where cats often sat bathing in the sun and passers-by stopped to sniff the heady scent of jasmine in spring.

Fouad shared a bedroom with his older brother Marwan that had a window overlooking a busy street corner. On weekday mornings, being a light sleeper, he would wake up to the call of tradesmen announcing their wares or the whistle of boys running past, down towards Bliss Street and the many neighbourhoods that bordered the university compound.

Getting up to shake Marwan out of his slumber, Fouad would open the shutters to let the sunlight in and pause for a moment to sniff at the air, the thought of the day ahead already filling him with anticipation. Then, washed and dressed, his dark hair smoothed back off his brow, he would run into the kitchen to see his mother making labneh and cucumber sandwiches for the children’s school lunches and the housekeeper stirring the beginnings of that day’s stew at the stove. His grandmother, seated at the kitchen table with a bowl of French beans from the garden in her lap, would look up briefly to greet him before bending down again to her task, knobby fingers breaking the pods in two then stringing them on either side in one fluid movement.

The apartment was large with high ceilings and elegant arches for doorways, its floors tiled in repeating patterns of brilliant green and a burnt orange that recalled the colour of the dirt on the street outside, its walls solid and reassuring. The entrance way led into two big reception rooms and a dining area behind which was the kitchen and bathroom and beyond that the back door to the garden. The five doors on either side of a long hallway opened onto the bedrooms as well as a small box room where trunks and other objects were kept out of sight. Outside the front door was an elegant landing with a wide stone stairwell leading up to the apartment above where an American professor at the university and his wife had lived for as long as anyone could remember.

Going outside into the garden, Fouad would find his grandfather, his grey head disappearing behind the greenery and then coming out again, his clothes already brown with dirt, a small trowel in one hand and in the other a handkerchief that he used to wipe his brow. These hours that he spent tending the plants and flowers, the fruits and vegetables that would eventually be served at the family table, were, grandfather always said, the most important of the day.

‘Jiddo,’ Fouad called out, waving a hand.

‘Over here.’

Grandfather was bent over a bed of parsley, the still tiny shoots fragile beneath his fingers, a delicate green that would eventually turn darker, sharp and savoury to the taste.

‘Good morning, habibi.’ Jiddo looked up and smiled. ‘Not too long before we’ll be having tabbouleh with our dinner. The mint will be coming up soon as well.’

Fouad nodded.

‘Are you off to school then?’

Fouad watched his grandfather slowly straighten himself up.

‘I haven’t had breakfast yet,’ he said, waiting for jiddo to remember his promise from the night before.

A light breeze appeared and it seemed to both of them as if the garden were suddenly unfolding, the trees stretching further up towards the sky and the flowers shaking themselves awake, the plants glistening with intention. He heard his grandfather’s resonant laugh.

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ jiddo said. ‘Here you are, habibi.’

He handed Fouad a coin.

‘There’s enough there for something for Marwan as well.’

‘Thanks.’ Fouad took the money and turned back into the house.

‘Let’s go,’ he called out to his brother.

Father came out of his bedroom and placed a hand on Fouad’s shoulder. He smelled fresh and bright, like lemons do when you first cut into them, and looked very handsome in a dark suit and his red tarboosh perched on his head.

‘Good morning, son. Rushing off as usual?’

‘Hello, baba,’ Fouad replied, fingering the coin in his pocket.

Marwan appeared from the bedroom, his eyelids drooping with unfinished sleep. Fouad shook his head and motioned for him to follow.

‘Where are your sisters?’ Father asked.

‘Waiting for us by the gate,’ said Fouad, grabbing his brother by the arm. ‘We’re going.’

The two boys walked their sisters, Samia and Afaf, to the evangelical school for girls in the Hamra district moments away from home, and then doubled back towards Bliss Street and the international college they had both attended since they were very young. On the way, they went through fields filled with flowering cactus and, in season, sour sops and daisies, kicking the dirt and pebbles with their shoes and grinning at the rising dust.

Once on Bliss Street, Fouad took the coin his grandfather had given him out of his pocket and showed it to Marwan.

‘For kaak,’ he said.

A tram came roaring past. Fouad looked up, catching a glimpse of a carriage and passengers crowded inside. He felt Marwan grab the money from his hand and run towards the kaak vendor on the other side of the street.

‘I don’t want zaatar in mine,’ he called after his brother.

Then Fouad smiled because the day had begun exactly as he had imagined it would.

They went to the movies on Saturdays after school, to the Roxy and the Empire cinemas in the Bourj in downtown Beirut, getting on the tram during morning break to buy the much-sought-after tickets, then back again to wait impatiently for classes to end and the weekend to begin.

The films featured Fouad’s favourite stars, Stewart Granger and Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers and Betty Grable with her famously beautiful legs, gutsy westerns and spy thrillers in black and white or lively musicals that attracted girls from the French Protestant College to the cinema who sat where the boys could watch them too.

Fouad would stare resolutely at the screen as Marwan and his friends tried to attract the girls’ attention, sometimes even striking up a whispered conversation until a litany of shushing echoed through the theatre, and still he watched, focused and fascinated, the heroes himself in different guises, his head filled with fast-moving pictures.

Then on the way home in the clattering tram, squeezed between an old man in a straw hat and a woman with a small child in her lap, perhaps catching the eye of a young girl as she sat quietly in her seat across from him, her brown hair falling softly to cover one side of her face, her hands wringing nervously in her lap, and finally the faint glimmer of a smile before she quickly turned away again. His heart fluttering briefly in his chest before settling down, his feet involuntarily shuffling back and forth on the floor of the carriage and the clang clang of the overhead bell in his ears, he jumped up to the exit and leaned out of it, both hands clinging to the railing, the wind in his face blowing away his embarrassment and reminding him that he was destined for greater things.

1939 and just turned nine years old, Fouad heard of war breaking out in Europe. Tiptoeing into the living room late one night, he crawled under the dining-room table and watched his father and grandfather as they listened to the news on the radio and discussed the situation, their voices hushed and solemn. Lebanon’s position as a French mandate, baba said, means it is bound to be adversely affected by events in Europe. Jiddo sighed loudly. The French will never give us our independence now, he said. They’ll use this as an opportunity to stay on, you mark my words.

The next day mama began stocking up on food, huge bags of burghul, rice and flour, of lentils, split peas and broad beans arriving at their doorstep, Fatima the housekeeper picking them up one by one and placing them in a row beneath the pantry shelves, her back bent low and the hem of her long, cotton work dress lifting to reveal old, tired legs. She shooed Fouad away, off you go young man, not answering him at first when he asked her what all the food was for, then turning to him to say: We’re not going to go hungry this time, not if I can help it.

Like many in this country, Fatima’s family had had to go without during the Great War, his mother later explained, and she is a little anxious about the future.

‘A boy at school said we’re all going to starve,’ Fouad said. ‘Is that true, mama?’

She pulled him to her, gentle fingers smoothing back his hair, her sweet breath permeating the air around him.

‘No, habibi, of course we’re not going to starve. This war is a long way away and it has nothing to do with us.’

But things did change, after all, Fouad becoming more aware of the French soldiers who roamed the streets and manned barricades around the neighbourhood and of the bitterness people felt at their constant presence.

One afternoon, walking home from school with Marwan, he looked on in horror when a passing French officer pulled out a gun and pointed it at his brother. What did you say, you rascal, the officer shouted. Marwan grabbed his hand and pulled Fouad behind him as they ran through familiar streets, back to the safety of their home.

‘What happened?’ Fouad asked once they were standing at the front door.

Marwan grinned.

‘I just told him what I thought of him,’ he said.

‘What’s that then?’

Marwan shrugged and turned away with a look of disgust.

‘You’re such a baby, Fouad. Don’t you know anything at all?’

Two years later, the Vichy government in France finally defeated, Allied troops began to arrive in Beirut, British soldiers who spoke English with a quick, clipped accent that was difficult to understand at first until one became accustomed to it, and Australians who became known for their fondness for beer and pretty girls. More French soldiers came too with troops from their colonies in Africa.

When the YMCA set up a dormitory and canteen for the newcomers from Britain at the American University, Fouad and a few of his classmates volunteered their services, selling luncheon vouchers at the canteen on weekends as well as helping with a variety of other tasks to make the soldiers’ stay more pleasant. He would arrive on a Saturday morning, bright-eyed and full of enthusiasm, his cinema days well behind him, eager only to learn more about these men who in many ways seemed out of place here but who also promised something better for Lebanon, the autonomy he had heard spoken of so often, a future filled with opportunity.

Before long, he had made friends with a number of the soldiers who came to stay at the dormitory during their leave, was secretly pleased at having gained favour for being quick and efficient and speaking better English than the other volunteers. And during the many evening performances staged by the officers and their men at the university’s West Hall, plays and musical concerts and the like, he would stand watching from the back of the theatre and listen for the audience’s laughter, for their occasional shouts and cheers and that breathless moment when a complete hush took over the room.

At a café by the water that was crowded with Allied soldiers, Fouad sat one afternoon with jiddo and Marwan, Beirut’s lighthouse perched on a hill behind them and the Mediterranean washing over the rocks by their feet. While jiddo puffed at a nargileh, occasionally handing the pipe to Marwan who drew on it gingerly only to cough noisily afterwards, Fouad watched a group of Australian soldiers eating and drinking at a nearby table, their voices and laughter growing louder by the minute. They were tall, beefy men with fair skin that was burned red from the sun and they spoke a version of English that no one was familiar with, though it was usually easy to tell what was on their minds just by the manner in which they said it.

‘Look,’ Fouad nudged his brother. ‘There’s a French soldier from the table up there coming towards them.’

The two boys watched as the Frenchman stopped to talk to the Australians.

‘What do you suppose he’s saying?’ Fouad asked.

Moments later, he gasped as one of the Australians stood up and grabbed the French soldier by the collar.

‘There’s going to be a fight,’ Marwan shouted, getting up from his seat with Fouad following close behind.

It was not long before the whole café was plunged into chaos, men knocking each other down and a group of local boys, Fouad and Marwan among them, handing plates and bottles to the Australian soldiers which they then broke over the heads of their rivals. Fouad stepped aside for a moment and noticed the owner of the café arriving on the scene and begging the men to stop. Looking behind him, Fouad saw his grandfather smile. This is what it feels like to finally be on the winning side, he thought to himself, heat rushing through his body at the sudden realization.

Overhearing a conversation between his father and the American professor from upstairs a few days later, Fouad felt confused about the situation once again. The two men stood on the landing outside the front door. The professor, tall and thin with shoulders that stooped a little and bright-blue eyes, had one foot on the stairs and a slender hand on the balustrade. He smiled and nodded at Fouad’s father as he spoke.

‘It’s not as if the British themselves haven’t been brutal colonizers elsewhere,’ baba was saying. ‘How can anyone overlook that fact?’

A sad look came over the professor’s face.

‘It’s not unheard of for people to use the strength of one occupier in an attempt to rid themselves of another without being aware of the dangers involved,’ the professor said quietly. ‘And now that America has also joined the war, it’s likely that we’ll take a position on what’s going on in your country as well.’

Father shook his head.

‘It’s almost as if we have no real say in our own destiny,’ he sighed. ‘This is the inevitable fate of a small country, I suppose.’

Yet there were days when nothing seemed to have changed at all, when the family went about its business as usual, sitto