Sylvia's Journal

Axel sat by the window as the plane descended into Beirut airport. He became very quiet. Later he explained that flashbacks were exploding in his head. I had no such emotional entry in Beirut as everything had so completely changed that I could have been landing in any new city.

The last time we were at this airport was 32 years ago, me to fly in from Amsterdam and Axel to pick up his mother who had escaped just in time ahead of the famous blizzard of 1978 that obliterated what would now have been our small beach house at Lobster Cove.

Alistair stood waiting for us at the airport. I met him first at our house in Rue Nigeria, 33 years ago, when he and his friend Peter were expulsed from what was then still North Yemen. We have all remained friends all these years.

The road to the city used to be long and surrounded by Palestinian refugee camps. I gather they are still there but large buildings have gone up everywhere and so they are no longer in sight.

I kept wondering how a city, so destroyed and bereft from its intelligentsia, stocked with men with guns could have so transformed. Is there hope for Afghanistan? Can Kabul join the modern world, ever? Not with those millions of dollars leaving Kabul every week, thought Alistair.

We drove to Alistair and Birgit’s apartment near the only (tiny) park in Beirut. I suppose that if you are draped along the Mediterranean Sea you don’t need parks.

I had forgotten how French Beirut is even though very few of the old French apartment buildings with their louvered shutters, wrought iron gates, balconies and window bars remain. Most are being torn down and replaced by soulless hi-rises that have no personality to speak of but where rents can be quadrupled.

After a lovely dinner, preceded by cocktails and accompanied by Lebanese wine, we left Alistair with the dishes. Birgit, Axel and I walked down to the Corniche, the place where all of Beirut and surrounding areas comes to enjoy a kind of freedom that is so total alien to us now: thinly clad young women run down to the cornice, along the up and down alleys, in the dark, alone.

Heavily wrapped up women, young and old, stroll with their men from the most western part of the Corniche into downtown.

Young men sit in their fancy cars, doors wide open, treating us to music that may or may not be to everyone’s choice. One mullah type was trying to pick up girls with recitations from the Koran. There were audiences for just anything, whatever works.

Men and women hold hands, men and men, or women and women. Young girls and boys check their phone messages, roller blade, jog, do bike tricks or smoke the hubbly-bubbly. A few diehards continued to fish in the dark, off the rocks where we used to swim.

We walked all the way from Ain Mreisseh to Rue Nigeria where we used to live. I occupied with my ex the 3rd floor, while Axel, Alistair and Peter were on the 2nd floor. It was a beautiful old building with terraces on each side, the biggest looking out over the Mediterranean. Each apartment covered the entirely floor with three large bedrooms, an immense living room, and a large kitchen with marble countertops.

The building was owned by the Khalidy family. The youngest daughter, Ilham (which means inspiration) got a bit testy with us as tensions all around us began to rise and real estate became valuable again. Their testiness was problematic as they also had guns. After we left things got unpleasant and Alistair and Peter left. Eventually the building got sold and torn down and the guys left Lebanon. Many years later Alistair came back to Beirut with his new bride to live where we are lodging now.

I recognized little along our walk on the Corniche. Even Rue Nigeria was
hopelessly altered, not for the better I think – what is it with architects who build new hi-rises in old cities?

I suppose when architecture moves from art to commerce that’s what happens. One day whole cities will wake up and say ‘what have we done?’ All they have left is the pictures and the paintings of these olden days. I made an etching of our house, something I had forgotten; but it hangs on Alistair’s wall as a reminder of both good and bad old days.