In Beirut, Monday is followed by Tuesday, Tuesday by Wednesday, and so
on till Sunday. Which seems normal. Except that it isn’t. There’s an unof-
ficial self-imposed curfew that makes it a ghost town at night, even “Torino
express” the hip pub in Gemmayze is having trouble filling up. The rule of
thumb says that as soon as Torino fills up, the “spill over” gets distributed to
all the other places. We all like to pretend that we are at “Biba” because it is
more quiet, or at the “Dragonfly” because the drinks are good, but basically
it’s because we couldn’t sneak a place at Torino.
But a lot of things remain the same, the shopping frenzied ladies, the hunks
and babes at Dunkin’ Donuts, the suicidal drivers, the whatever-time-of-day
brunches at restaurants. Until it’s time for the curfew. But maybe it’s just
because it’s summer and the action has moved up to summer resorts such
as Broumana and Qleiat, maybe that’s why Beirut is so empty. Maybe it got
back in touch with its demons, the demons people tried so hard to tame since
the cannonballs stopped flying. Maybe Beirut needs those cannonballs to rec-
ognize itself, to take respite from the Sunday dress that was forced upon her.
Beirut is just like JonBenet Ramsey, sometimes the culprit is an insider to
the house, sometimes it’s an intruder, but the murder is there, just inevitable
and waiting to happen. With a beauty immortalized and romanticized, with a
destiny that survives on memory and a legacy that thrives on those who knew
its fleeting beauty while alive. And all the John Mark Karrs of the world, are
there to reap the benefits, to enjoy the spotlights, to claim the non-existent
mad love affairs, the never-in-a-lifetime mutual obsession, but who “Shall Be
The Conqueror?” Who shall be the conquered?
Or perhaps it’s not Beirut that changed, maybe it’s just me. Well, no matter
how much I try to say I did not, I eventually did: And my cell phone agrees.
Yesterday, in the span of two minutes, I received four text messages on the
phone, that unequivocally as “Madonna”.
Since the advent of the internet and before the Arabic compatible programs,
chatters throughout the world who speak Arabic improvised a latinized al-
phabet with the numbers 2, 3, and 7 replacing certain common sounds of the
Arabic language. For anyone with an untrained eye, it is a nightmare to read
these interpretations of the spoken language put to writing. And so it took a
bit of an effort to decipher the messages addressed to “Madonna”:
“hi madonna 2ana kanet nater hal yom 3ashan shufek 3ashan ana ktir
mashat2lik”

“ya but its ok bass 2ana wafa2et ala bokra ashan ma badi za3lik bil khabar
bass bokra nashalla bekon wareja3”
“zabet el wade2 bass plz madonna badi minnak shi ino dali tad3eli kil ma
2okhtor 3ala balik min el yom la bokra”
“i live u kteer”
All of the messages were signed “haydi_anna” or “It is me”
These roughly translate into: Hello Madonna, I have waiting for this day to
see you because I miss you a lot, but it’s OK, because the reason I agreed
about tomorrow is in order not to break the bad news to you. Because hope-
fully tomorrow, the situation would have been back to normal, but please,
all I want is for you to send me good wishes whenever I cross your mind
between today and tomorrow. I love you a lot.
So I automatically tried to put myself in Madonna’s shoes (A pair of Blah-
niks of course) now that I have her cell phone. The most obvious query was
trying to figure out the message, why was Madonna spared the bad news
(Was there a glitch in the sales, or a missed top five hit, or some out of con-
trol paparazzi), and what will go back to normal the next day (Some rumor
leaked that will boost the sales, a heavier download of the single to propel
it into three top three, some constraining order on the photographer to keep
him from selling Lourdes’ photos to the tabloids).
But the person who sent the message, knows how powerful Madonna’s
Kabala invocations were, so whatever is wrong will be made right as soon
as she invokes that person whenever she (Obviously, due to some Arabic
subtleties, I was able to know that the gender of the sender is female) crossed
Madonna’s mind. Well, now that Guy Ritchie is not directing any movies, he
could join in the invocations, so that “this is me” would have her situation
corrected. “A family that prays together stays together” said those murals in
the US in the mid-60s, and so to keep her household together, Madonna will
surely summon Guy, Lola (Short for Lourdes) and Rocco for a good heartfelt
prayer.
So I am Madonna, and I am worth some 613 Million Dollars by the latest
count. Yet some days, I feel really, really worthless.