“I cannot imagine what is going on back there”, the voice said talking about
Beirut.
“Neither can I.”
It was true, I could not imagine what was going on back there. Every war is
different, maybe everything is déjà vu, as we grow blasé of CNN reporting.
How long can one put up with a developing story that’s eight hour long with
the title at the bottom of the screen: “Developing story, loud explosions heard
in Beirut.” Back when news was concentrated in the 8 o’clock version, one
would feel that things were happening, something was shifting, an action was
taking place. Now news feels like watching paint dry – without the word of
caution.
“We are the best, but it’s still wet paint! Miller Co.” said the signs plastered at
the ramps of the Vollum hall in Reed College – Portland. As I looked amused
at them, a plane heading towards Portland Airport made its path above me:
My natural reflex was to expect either one or two loud bangs: One was for a
bomb being dropped, two for a sonic boom. But all of this never feels real,
but rather it seems like Roy Lichtenstein’s “Whaam!” – I could almost hear
the pilot above “I pressed the fire control… And ahead of me rockets blazed
through the sky” the pilot of course being Tom Cruise (Not in action, but
rather his image on the poster of “Top Gun” with Kelly McGillis putting a
confident arm around his sturdy shoulders).
Remembrances of war do not come the way people expect them to come.
Sure, we time the war by the major timelines such as “this happened two days
before Bashir Gemayel died” (August 8th 1982), or “It was three weeks after
the “harb el tahrir” (Liberation was against Syria launched by General Michel
Aoun in 1989, then head of the state due to lack of consensus on the presiden-
tial seat), but it mostly the personal remembrances that end up triumphing.
Every night, at the shelter in Achrafieh – almost the heart of Beirut – that
woman would go on to recount what happened to her and her family on April
2nd 1982, the day of the Israeli invasion (Or rather the first Israeli invasion, to
be more precise).
And every night she would go on in the same boring detail recounting the
details, which always remind me of my own April 2nd. My vivid memory of
that day was our mother furtively opening the drawers of the wooden chest
and taking all possible pairs of white underwear, a cigarette in her mouth as I
stood next to her.

Then – with absolutely no transition – I could see the whole family packed in
my father’s Volvo 144 as we cruised through the Dbayeh highway with some
smoke starting to transpire from the visible Beirut. We left our school bags
in the classroom that day because we were told to evacuate immediately.
Months lately, nestled in the safety of the village house, my aunt who used
to teach at the same school we all went to (All maternal cousins combined)
brought back the school bag and that inherent reflex of not throwing food
away kicked in, pushing me towards trying to locate the sandwich I did not
have time to eat at recess although it was rotting and nothing could be done
with it but throw it to the lose chicken that strolled around all day.
For a long time, I lived with the impression that the events of April 2nd hap-
pened because someone at school said “tomorrow, there will be bombings
again” as an April fool’s lie – maybe the kid had overheard his parents, but I
have always taken it to be an April fool’s that happened for real. And since, I
grew extremely cautious of all April fool’s lies out of fear of them material-
izing on the morning of the next day.
Yesterday I came across Borges’ statement that “the original is not faithful to
the translation,” and it made me smile for treacherous memory can be. In my
current memory of that day, mother would be “furtively opening the draw-
ers…” of a white painted chest that’s on the left of the door of our bedroom,
but back in 1982, the chest was still in its original blue and was on the right
of the door. Through the process of time, memories get actualized and current
images get projected onto that distant past, helping bridge it to our neurons
that barely cling to it like some Christmas tree lights that gave up flickering
long ago.