Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh Page A

eyes and smiled at him and let him put his lips on mine. The only sensation I got was the smell of wine and cigar, but I submitted to his lips and kissed him back and let him put his tongue in my mouth, although I’d already decided I wouldn’t let him go any further. But all he did was put his hand on the blanket where my breast was, then he heaved a deep sigh, stroked my hair, and said good night.
    Morning in the castle-house was even more beautiful than night. From a distance came the sound of cocks crowing, animal bells jingling, voices talking in Spanish. It wasjust like dawn in our village when the farm laborers rose to start work. Day arrived concealing the damp scents of the night. I wondered if the bush they called queen of the night had stopped giving off its intoxicating perfume of the night before. The sounds came drifting up to me again, and I pictured myself rising in the morning once I had become mistress of this place.
    I rose and went strolling through the vast high-ceilinged rooms and noticed that now instead of swallowing me up they seemed to draw me in. I wished I could speak Spanish so that I could ask the way to the paradise-garden. The voices exchanged banter and it was like being at home. The laborers greeted me. They must have been used to the sight of women of different ages and races in this house at all times of day and night. But they didn’t know I was different: I didn’t want to throw parties, acquire money or jewels, but just to exist in the midst of this beauty, start a new life.
    But the Spaniard was in a hurry. He was a lawyer. He picked up a leather briefcase like any man going to work, and the illusion that whoever entered this castle-house severed any connection with the outside world vanished. But it didn’t matter. It was all the better for me. Most of the time I’d be alone in this paradise.
    In the car I learned that not only would I never be alone there, I’d probably never see it again. The man offered me lunch in an apartment he owned in town, because Vera had started to have doubts. I knew I’d been thrown out of paradise and Vera had him in her clutches. I’d never been as sad as that day. It was worse than when I was waiting for Naser to call day after day. I’d been happy to bargain with my bodyand emotions for the sake of that house and a new life, and still I’d been refused.
    I can feel you growing impatient, Jill Morrell, but that’s what hostages are like. Reliving the past. Conducting a constant dialogue with it. We should return to the question of the kidnappers and their victims. You want comfort and rapid information, but perhaps I’ve opened your eyes to something you hadn’t taken into account before. Now I’ll tell you how senseless kidnappings have become a commonplace of this war. There are no rules. The war is changed by a shift in accents and uniforms. Sad things have become laughable, funny things sad, kidnapping a legitimate practice.
    A relation of Hayat’s who was held for a few months woke up one morning to be told, “Congratulations. We’re going to let you go today.”
    He was terrified that they were going to kill him. He was taken blindfold to a car and driven to some other building, but before they dumped him they removed the blindfold. As he struggled to get used to the light, the din of voices, the screech of cars, the strident call from the muezzin, he thought how someone in his situation focuses entirely on himself and his five senses. He pushed open the door and heard his first sentence on the outside: “Good to see you. Come on in. Your family’s expecting you.”
    The speaker shook his hand. He was a youth dressed in ordinary street clothes. The released man was still in a state of shock. The room was packed with young men, all in ordinary outdoor clothes. One of them picked up a water pitcher and drank from it, while he stood there open-mouthed. Then he began to cry as someone handed him histrousers and he put them on over