I was accompanied by beautiful weather from Istanbul to Beirut, and I chose to take a stroll in the afternoon along the Corniche, then walked up along the military bath road to Bliss Street, and entered the campus of the American University of Beirut from the old high school side. I would trade all the years I have left for just one year of my years in university, which could be a year of the time when I was majoring in political sciences in the sixties, or when I was pursuing my masters degree in Arabic literature in the seventies. One year, for the rest of my life, even if I were to live as long as Lubad, the eagle of Luqman. I took a seat in front of the West Hall, and my memory took me back to the fifties, when I was in the beginning of my teenage years after the ‘Certificat', trying to enter and attend a debate between Taha Hussein and a Lebanese writer that I can't remember. I was not allowed in because I was too young, but I heard about that debate three years later from the Arabic teacher Nassim Nasr in the ‘English School' which I transferred to. To my right there was the Nicely Hall, and I remembered my English professor Mrs. Crow, and my professor during my masters studies Ihsan Abbas and also Mohamed Najem. To my left there were the Milk Bar, or the students' cafeteria, and the staircase leading to it where activists among my colleagues often stood. Just two days ago, I was in Amman for a social occasion, and I was joined at the table by my brothers from the Masri family: Maher, Zaher, Zahi and our wives, and at a nearby table, Taher Masri (al-Basha) and our sister Samar. Maher was the president of the students' council, and he often stood on the staircase and gave speeches, especially during strikes in protest of increasing tuition fees in the early seventies. I had become a chief editor at the time, and the President of AUB at the time Dr. Samuel Kirkwood used to only read my newspaper the Daily Star, and treated me as though I was Henry Lewis and as though my newspaper was Time Magazine. I had permission to drive my Mercedes inside the university campus. I thus worked as the most active ‘taxi driver' on the lower-upper campus line. My passengers were always female students, and as for men, my opinion about them is that ‘let them take a hike'. Also, we often went to the Beirut University College (Lebanese-American University now) to support the [female] students there in any cause in return for slipping among their curves... If there was any ‘accomplice' in the car it would be Zahi al-Masri, with whom I chased women until we fell in the trap and were ‘caught', and ended up both marrying our friends from childhood and from the German School in Jerusalem. I walked to the College Hall, where the offices of my professors used to be. As I was looking at the students around me, I saw some veiled students, and this was not a familiar sight in my days. Of course, my interest in the [female] students is purely academic, even as I was trying to decide whether they are prettier than students were during my university days; however, I would quickly say ‘shame!' as some of them are even younger than my daughter. There are many cats that I don't remember being there during my days at the university either. I followed a conference of cats in front of the Chapel entrance where I once saw Saeb Salam giving a speech and pointing at the men of the Deuxieme Bureau present at both gates and threatening them. I also witnessed here the meetings of the student strikers and mediated between them and the administration. This brought another memory to my mind, when the senior officials of the university were gathered at the home of President Kirkwood, with Dr. Charles Malek sitting in the corner reflecting but not speaking. In the sixties and the seventies, the flame of hope was still burning, of unity, liberation, education and having a [pioneering] position among the nations. Then we left the present generation with a heavy legacy, a legacy of failure, destruction and defeat, and I do not know whether this generation will succeed in overcoming it, or whether it will continue our descent toward the abyss. I left these sombre ideas as I heard the cooing of students around me and in front of me, and continued toward the Medical Gate. I met there my old classmates Yussuf Mesally and his wife Mariam Geagea (from a southern family different from that of Samir Geagea); we had barely exchanged greetings when my friend Walid Suleiman passed by followed by his beautiful wife Lola. Prior to my days in the university, his father the teacher Fuad was here, but I knew his uncle Moussa Suleiman, or Mister Suleiman as we would address him, and his home used to be above the gym parallel to Bliss Street. We used to stand on the staircase of the house to ask Khaled across the street for a falafel sandwich, and then he would climb a ladder on the pavement to hand the sandwich over to us. Walid asked me whether I saw any pretty girls, and I said that I am no longer looking for beauty, but for any girl that would accept me. How I wish that I can finance a new dorm for [female] students near the gate or become a ghost that keeps them company under the cover of darkness. Oh Khazen, as the professors used to call me. How could you have known that you were living the best years of your life, and that the money, fame or success that came afterwards was nothing but a mirage? [...] I would sell all that is left of my years in return for one (old) year at the university; but I cannot find a buyer. [email protected]
