I am standing in front of Al-Birkeh [‘The Fountain'] in Beirut Souks, remembering Mrs. Salma Mroueh, may she rest in peace. How? Why? Sitt [Lady] Salma, as we used to call her, climbed the stairs of Al-Hayat's offices on May 16, 1966, after the assassination of her husband Kamel Mroueh, the publisher and chief editor of Al-Hayat at the time. She saw ‘The Uncle' (Kamel Mroueh's uncle) sitting on the stairs and weeping. But she chided him and said, “People, our men do not cry”. Sitt Salma left us. But perhaps she was relieved, as she will see nor grieve over anything anymore. As I stand in front of ‘The Fountain', I resist crying in the almost empty street. There are no men left, only crying. Thank you March 14. Thank you March 8. Thank you Progressive Socialist Party. Thank you Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Thank you Phalanges and thank you Lebanese Forces. Thank you all. All you have left us with is crying. But at least I am not alone in Lebanon. I have fear by my side, fear of my today, and fear of my tomorrow. When did I stand in front of ‘The Fountain' for the first time? Was I still a child and was my mother still holding my hand then? And when did I stand in front of it last? In the mid-seventies before I left Lebanon without bidding it farewell? A week off in London and then I return; but then my whole life passed and I still had not decided whether to return or not to return. If this is ‘The Fountain', then where are the people? Where is the Jallab? Where is the hustle and bustle of life around it? How can there be a Fountain and Souk el-Tawileh, without Al-Nahar's offices? Many are the times that I climbed those stairs to the first floor, and that I walked to Al-Ajami at the end of the road. L'Orient's building – which later became L'Orient Le Jour – is in front of me, the remnant of a building without a soul. A few minutes ago, I was in Al-Hayat's building near Al-Nijmeh Square (the clock tower), with colleague Ghassan Charbel, the editor in chief, in his office. We were joined by Minister Youssef Saadeh and Suleiman Franjieh, Media Coordinator for the Al-Maradeh party, and a number of colleagues. The conversation was polite and refined, and no one was insulted or badmouthed in their absence. We tried to exchange information and ideas, and feel the way forward. I left the building wondering why the Lebanese are good people as individuals, but bad as a group. I have no answer. The Azan, the Muslim call for prayer, could be heard from the Great Umari Mosque. The mosque is still Great, but not the people. ‘Neither ears are still ears; Nor the Azan still an Azan' (with apologies to Ahmad Shawqi). We have 17 sects but everybody worships God and renounces Lebanon. A new crisis then; but is it the same new old crisis? Has it been the same crisis since independence and will it continue until the end of days, or the end of the country and its people? I crossed the street in front of the mosque. The tramway that once stood here and that I used to take on my way to school is no longer there. I ended up in front of ‘The Fountain'. When do I return to Lebanon as a resident, not as a visitor? I wanted to return to my country to live there. Today, I fear that I may be deprived the chance to return to die there. Someone else before me said, “If I die in a strange land then I will ‘explode'”; a Lebanese expression that means dying of sadness, or dying twice. I had taken with me from Lebanon some colleagues to work in the newspapers that I headed abroad. Some died in London and were buried in and around the city. May God have mercy on your soul, Mahmoud Kahil, my colleague in university, the Daily Star and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. I overcame my tears, Sitt Salma. “Our men do not cry”. I called my son in London. He is also known as “Abu Arab”. I told him I am depressed and desperate, and that I want to hear something that would cheer me up. It was not the first phone call of this kind. My son knows what I am saying and he understands me. I called him many times from Beirut, when I looked for my memories there but could not find them. He replied angrily: Father, forget it. You are in love with a prostitute that has a new lover every day. You are thinking like a lover and your heart is blinding your mind. The country you knew is gone forever and will not return. Perhaps it did not even exist. I bade him farewell as I strolled around ‘The Fountain', thinking. Wake up, man. Has the Lebanon of my memories never existed? Did I draw, over 35 years abroad, an illusion of a country? When will I wake up? Two days later, I am in London, drawing the same illusions again. I left the Souks to the street, as the sky drizzled on my head and face. The sky was crying with me. [email protected]
