The Fragrant Garden

                                 

                                                        
Published in
Hikayat: Short Stories by Lebanese Women [Telegram books, London, 2006]
Lebanon Through Writers’ Eyes [Eland, London, 2009].


We sat in the garden, an anomaly in this city of unruly concrete invaded by trash. Gemmayzeh, just beyond the Beirut city center, had been too close to the demarcation line during the war. As a result, the area had been left pretty much to its own devices during the fifteen years of war. While the war raged, the hundred-year-old alleys and traditional Lebanese houses were abandoned, or occupied by cowering people, who had nowhere else to go. The rebuilding that immediately followed the war caught up slowly with this quaint neighborhood.
Some of the old houses had been rehabilitated by an enterprising woman who was keen to preserve what was left of her Beirut, and turned into expensive villas for rent. We were invited to the home of some friends who lived in that area overlooking Gemmayzeh. We found them sitting in the garden with some guests. It was a lovely October evening. The jasmine was still in bloom and the air was heavy with the scent.
As was often the case when Beirutis got together, the conversation somehow managed to turn to the war years, even though the war had ended some 25 years before.
“The other day my daughter asked me if the war had left any scars,” said a lawyer who had lived part of the war in Tripoli and had spent some time in Paris. “Their teacher had been talking to them about post traumatic stress disorders, about the lost generation…”
“What did you tell her?” asked an attractive woman in her 50s who was a sculptor.
“I was taken aback by the question, actually. I didn’t think that I was scarred. And then my daughter asked me a curious question. ‘What about Teta, your mother. Did the war affect her?’ And suddenly, I started to weep. My mother had died, and I had not been able to attend her funeral. I had never come to terms with that.”
“I feel like I wasted my youth…” said the sculptor, “I still can’t account for those 15 years of war, or even the years that have followed. Many of my friends never married, and this in a culture where women marry young.” She turned toward me, “Where were you during the war?”
“I lived in Beirut throughout.”
“Here in Gemmayzeh?”
“No, I lived in West Beirut. I moved here after I got married. The war had ended.”
“I went to Paris soon after the war started,” said our hostess. “I couldn’t risk staying. My son was just born, and my husband’s work could as easily be conducted from Paris, so… but tell me, was it really a horrible time throughout?”
I thought for a moment. “There was much that was terrible, yes, but yet, in an odd way, there was something about the experience that was singular. I have never lived as intensely as I did during the war.”
“Intensely?”
“Perceptions were heightened, experiences were more vivid. I can’t explain it. I felt I was really alive. I wrote - mostly poems that were compact expressions of what was happening. I looked forward to going to school and to being with the kids I taught. There was an exhilaration to our every day lives… I have not felt that way since the war ended.”
My husband added, “I remember the summer of 1989. I was one of the few people left in Beirut. My wife’s family had gone to the US and had left me the key to their apartment, on the 6th floor of a building in Zarif. I offered to feed the cat and water the plants while they were away. My sister and her family had gone to the North, and she had left me the key to her place on the 7th floor of a building about a 10-minute walk from the Zarif apartment. She, too, had a cat. I lived on the 11th floor of a building in Kraytem, about a half hour away from both houses. By then the war had gone on for 14 years and in spite of being a Maronite, continuing to live in West Beirut was the only choice for me.
The shelling that summer ravaged the city. Fuel was scarce, and basic amenities were unavailable. I had developed a ritual. I would climb down the 11 floors of my building, walk to the Sporting beach club, and swim for an hour. There was no power most of the time, so the elevators did not work. The beach was also a good place to take a shower, albeit with brackish water, since there was no running water in most of Beirut. Occasionally I would play chess with some of the regulars there. Mostly I would don my mask and flippers and go skin-diving, relishing the submersion into the dim and muffled quiet of the Mediterranean.
In the afternoon I would walk to my sister’s house- there was very little fuel and taxis were a luxury. I would climb up the seven floors to her apartment and feed her cat, then walk down the seven floors and head toward Zarif to do the same there. Then I would take the thirty-minute walk back to my building and climb up the eleven floors. We developed different ways to make the trek up the stairs easier. Keeping a steady slow pace helped preserve energy. I also discovered that counting backwards how many floors were left rather than how many I had climbed, was somehow more encouraging.
In the evening, I would meet my neighbor, a gnarled, gruff Sunni who worked at the port of Beirut, on the landing between our two apartments. The landing was the safest place to be as we were separated from the outside by three walls.”
Conventional wisdom in wartime Beirut held that shells usually penetrated one wall, sometimes two. The landings of buildings, like underground garages, were the community centers of wartime Beirut. People who barely acknowledged each other in peace time, found themselves spending long, intimate evenings together, united in the need for preservation and survival.
“My neighbor and I found we had a lot in common and had long discussions over a bottle of whisky in the dim light of a battery-powered lamp. He would tell his friends confidentially that he really liked that Maronite neighbor of his, ‘an excellent young man, were it not for his name!’” The guests in the garden chuckled. My husband’s name literally means ‘The Maronite.’
He continued, “Funny thing about all this is that when the horror of the shelling stopped, and a cease-fire was agreed upon that eventually led to the end of the war, I was miserable. Many of the people who had stayed behind had the same reaction. Instead of feeling relieved or overjoyed, I was discomfited, lost. People started coming back from wherever they had taken refuge, and normal life resumed. I couldn’t take it. My space was being invaded by all these people who returned from cities where normalcy was taken for granted. They had no idea what every shell hole in the wall or pothole in the street meant. The pace of life quickened and became banal. Life became busy again. It actually made me nauseous.”
Our host shook his head, “and here we are twenty-five years later still coming to terms with this war which touched us all.”
The delicate jasmine blooms shivered in the fall breeze, wrapping us in the perfume that only Beirut jasmines give out. The white flowers fell gently into our laps while we sat in silence in that anachronism of a garden.

                                                    Mishka Mojabber Mourani                                   Revised Fall 2016

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT review

Times Literary Supplement (London):
TLS Travel 14 May 2010
T.J. Gorton and A. Féghali Gorton, Editors.
LEBANON THROUGH WRITERS’ EYES, 296 pp. Paperback.
Eland Books, 2009.


For a young country, Lebanon has an impressively long history and a surprisingly rich literature. The modern state was only created in 1920, carved out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire in a high-handed late imperialist way that has ensured generations of conflict. But while their independent state is young, the people of Lebanon can trace their story – and stories about them – back at least 6,000 years.

The earliest entry in this anthology, almost 4,000 years old, from an Egyptian named Sinuhe, tells of conflict – he is in exile from his homeland after the death of his master, the Pharaoh. The second entry, some 800 years later, tells of an Egyptian trading mission looking for cedar to build a ceremonial barque for Amun, the great god of Luxor. Trade and conflict have been the two defining themes of Lebanon ever since, from Ramses II to Napoleon, from the death of Prime Minister Hariri to the opening of the Beirut Farmers Market.

However curious the earlier writings, the anthology becomes more fascinating as it moves into the modern era. Lady Hester Stanhope, niece and hostess of Pitt the Younger, emerges as a star of the nineteenth century, both for her writing and for what was written about her. An eccentric who had completely misjudged the nature of the Bedouin when she set herself up as queen of the desert city of Palmyra, she understood enough about the warring Druze to live for many years in ever-reducing circumstances in the Lebanon mountains. Others found the country more difficult to see – the French writer Lamartine peered at Mount Lebanon through the mists; but T. E. Lawrence saw it, as so much else, with stunning clarity and his assessments were unerringly right: Beirut, he thought, would have been “bastard French” without its American college and Greek harbour, and would have been no more than the doorway to Syria had it not been for its intellectual freedom and its wealth.

The compilers of this collection, one Lebanese-born, both Beirut-educated, have cast wide for these fragments, which they have fashioned into chronological chapters, culminating in writing by the likes of Gérard de Nerval and Flaubert, Mark Twain and Pierre Loti. These are followed by brilliant sections on identities and war. The obvious chroniclers of the country’s more recent tragedy are included, among them the long-term hostage Brian Keenan and the journalist Robert Fisk. But some of the more powerful words come from less-familiar Lebanese voices, from writers such as the poet Nadia Tueni, who recognized that “We did not know how to read the omens / in those dead birds in the bottoms of their cages”, and the West Beiruti Mishka Moujabbar Mourani, whose elegiac stories heard in a fragrant garden capture some of the spirit of the post-war city.


Anthony Sattin

Tweet

Readings of "FEBRUARY 1987" at Glendale Public Library and AUB California chapter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfSWga8rWJw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZkDaStCIjc&feature=related

Hats off

Chapeau to you and your tattoo...
Chapeau to challenging all social taboos...
To talking about cancer and radiation burns...
To your father with the brown and white shoes...
To the youth of our parents that we do not dwell on...
To their dreams and aspirations that we never consider...
To tears that children rarely see...
Chapeau to four relocations...to tenacity of holding on against a fifth...
To your girl who missed your youth...who will consume you for hers...
To Mai, a friend for life, short or long...
Chapeau to women crying behind closed doors...
To seven children on one side and one on the other...
To resilience,for wars change us, shake us, to a degree shape us...
Yet they do not break us...
To blue houses...jasmine...sycamore ...and to arches...
To balconies that look onto the courtyards of the hearts...
From our balconies we wave to you...Your Balconies are bright and sad and fun and hard and soft and overflowing with true transparent sentiments...
Chapeau, chapeau, chapeau...
                                                                 Akram Talhouk

JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN'S STUDIES: "Balconies" reviewed

Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2011

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_middle_east_womens_studies/v007/7.1.khairallah.pdf
Balconies: A Mediterranean Memoir review by Dr. Megan Khairallah Hollingsworth

BALCONIES- Arab World Books

http://www.arabworldbooks.com/authors/mishka_mourani.htm

Mishka Mojabber Mourani was born in Egypt of Greek and Lebanese parents. She moved to Lebanon and then emigrated to Australia as a teenager. She returned to Beirut to continue her studies at the American University of Beirut. She spent the Lebanese war years in Lebanon, and started writing in 1975. She speaks five languages and her writing reflects the themes of war, identity, exile and gender issues.
In the past year she has published BALCONIES: A MEDITERRANEAN MEMOIR [Dar An-Nahar, Beirut 2009] and her work has appeared in LEBANON THROUGH WRITERS’ EYES – an anthology published by Eland, UK in 2009, and, most recently, HABITER BEYROUTH? PARCOURS D’ECRITURE [Assabil, Beirut 2010].
When the war ended in Lebanon in 1991, Mishka Mojabber Mourani published a poetry collection – LEST WE FORGET: LEBANON 1975-1990. She has also published a short story in HIKAYAT: SHORT STORIES BY LEBANESE WOMEN [Telegram books, UK] in 2006.
BALCONIES: A MEDITERRANEAN MEMOIR:

Mishka Mojabber Mourani's Balconies: A Mediterranean Memoir is not only a memoir but also a collage of photos, letters, fiction and reportage. In it the author explores the themes of war, exile, identity, heritage and multicultural identities. Mojabber Mourani is a Levantine: a citizen of the eastern Mediterranean who speaks five languages and who was born in Egypt of Greek and Lebanese parentage. At the mercy of the political upheavals that rattle her world, she recounts her experiences as an emigrant to Australia, and as a survivor of a fifteen-year war that devastated her beloved Beirut, deriving purpose and optimism from her work as an educator. Throughout the book, she also celebrates life, resilience, and hope in the face of adversity and instability. She tells her stories because they need to be told, and because they need to be passed on. She consciously documents the process of identity formation and the choices that her multiculturalism impose on her.
Balconies also explores cultural and gender issues and observes the interactions between the urban landscapes and political climate of the cities she has lived in. The various vignettes and observations in the book are held together by the unifying thread of balconies. The author observes that the great and ancient cities of Alexandria, Athens and Beirut place a unique emphasis on their verandas: the place from which one sees the world. They are the vantage points and social spaces of their inhabitants, but also private spaces for introspection and reflection. They are also the urban dweller's means of communion with nature. Balconies is a book about the complexities of life, and the defining moments that make us who we are. It is, above all, a book that celebrates survival, diversity and resilience.

BALCONIES reviewed on NOW LEBANON

http://nowlebanon.com/Arabic/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=204395

Mishka Mojabber Mourani is a Levantine: a citizen of the eastern Mediterranean who speaks five languages and who was born in Egypt of Greek and Lebanese parents. In her Balconies: A Mediterranean Memoir she explores the themes of war, exile, identity, heritage and multicultural identities. It is a memoir rendered in the form of collages of photos, letters, fiction and reportage.
At the mercy of the political upheavals that unnerve her world, she recounts her experiences as a child and then an adult, relocating to Beirut from Egypt and later emigrating to Australia, only to return to Lebanon just as the embers of war were being fanned. As a survivor of a fifteen-year war that devastated her beloved Beirut, Mojabber Mourani derived purpose and optimism from her work as an educator at International College.
Throughout the book, she also celebrates life, resilience, and hope in the face of adversity and instability. She explores the theme of family and the significance of a Mediterranean heritage. She tells her stories because they need to be told, and because they need to be passed on, documenting the process of identity formation and the choices that her multiculturalism impose on her as events change her life.
Balconies also explores cultural and gender issues and observes the interactions between the urban landscapes and political climate of the cities she has lived in. The various vignettes and observations in the book are held together by the unifying thread of balconies. The author observes that the great and ancient cities of Alexandria, Athens and Beirut place a unique emphasis on their verandas: the place from which one sees the world. They are the vantage points and social spaces of their inhabitants, but also private spaces for reflection and introspection. Describing her love affair with Beirut, a city of contrasts and contradictions, the author also attempts to explain how urban dwellers negotiate their communion with nature.
Balconies is a book about the complexities of life, and the defining moments that make us who we are. It is, above all, a book that celebrates survival, diversity and resilience.
Excerpts from Balconies: A Mediterranean Memoir have been translated by Aida Y. Haddad and have appeared in the daily Al-Hayat. the author has been invited to speak about the book in the US, including book readings hosted by the World Alumni Association of AUB and the Glendale Public Library in California.
Mishka Mojabber Mourani has published a collection of poems, Lest We Forget, Lebanon 1975-1990, and co-authored a series of four grammar and writing text books, Highlighting the English Language Program, as well as several articles on education, culture and current affairs.
In 2006, her short story, 'The Fragrant Garden,' appeared in a collection entitled Hikayat: Short Stories by Lebanese Women, published by Telegram Books (London, 2006). The story was selected for inclusion in a a book entitled Lebanon Through Writers' Eyes, published by Eland (London, 2009).
Most recently, Mishka Mojabber Mourani's work has appeared in an anthology celebrating Beirut and published by Assabil in 2010 entitled Habiter Beyrouth? Parcours d'ecriture, on the occasion of Beirut being declared Book Capital of the World.

Mojabber Mourani, Mishka. Balconies: A Mediterranean Memoir. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar An-Nahar, October, 2009 -101 pages
ISBN 978-99530-74-257-1 -                                                AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM

Excerpts from 'Balconies', 'Habiter Beyrouth?' and 'Lest We Forget' on al-hakawati.net

Visit  the al-hakawati Arab Cultural Fund's website http://www.al-hakawati.net/ for a wealth of information on the arab world and its heritage arranged thematically.
View excerpts of Mishka Mojabber Mourani's published work at
http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Arabpers/poetry2.asp
http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Arabpers/poetry6.asp
http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Arabpers/poetry3.asp
http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Arabpers/poetry4.asp
http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Arabpers/poetry5.asp

Times Literary Supplement May 14, 2010

Review of  LEBANON THROUGH WRITERS' EYES by Anthony Sattin

with mention of "The Fragrant Garden"

AL-HAYAT: excerpt of THE FABRIC OF CERTAINTY translated by AIDA Y. HADDAD

http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/119945

AIDA Y. HADDAD's translation of an excerpt from BALCONIES appeared in Al-Hayat - March 17th, 2010

نسيج اليقين  في ذكرى مي غصوب

الاربعاء, 17 مارس 2010

مشكا مجبر موراني

غادرتنا مي غصوب قبل عامين، وما زال غيابها ملموساً كجرح طري لم يندمل، وما زالت جزءاً من حاضرنا.

خلال الحرب الاسرائيلية على لبنان في تموز (يوليو) 2006، بقينا على اتصال من خلال البريد الالكتروني والرسائل الفورية. كانت دار الساقي للنشر على وشك أن تصدر احدى قصصي في «حكايات - مجموعة قصص قصيرة كتبتها نساء لبنانيات». وقصتي كانت من دفتر يومياتي عن الحرب والندوب التي تخلّفها، كما عن المصالحة والتئام الجروح. ثم اندلعت حرب تموز 2006. هكذا استمررت في كتابة يومياتي، مرة أخرى، عن حرب أخرى.

اليوم الأول

مجرد صباح آخر، فيه دفء تموز ورطوبته. انتهى العام الدراسي قبل أيام قليلة. أدير التلفزيون «أغلق مطار رفيق الحريري الدولي بعد تعرض احد مدرجاته لقصف اسرائيلي». استيقظت بيروت على أخبار الاعتداء على المطار. وتعرضت مناطق في جنوب بيروت وجنوب لبنان الى قصف أوقع 20 اصابة.

كانت أختي قد حضرت مع عائلتها لقضاء عطلة الصيف في لبنان، إضافة الى سبع عائلات أخرى من أصدقائهم، حضروا من أماكن مختلفة في الولايات المتحدة الأميركية ليلتقوا في المكان نفسه للمرة الأولى منذ سنوات، في لبنان خلال فترة الصيف.

على طاولة في الوسط جريدة محلية نشرت في عنوانها الرئيسي ما تداولته الصحافة الأجنبية «بيروت واحدة من أول عشرة أماكن يقصدها الناس». وتحت العنوان ورد تعليق لأحد المسؤولين في وزارة السياحة «يتوقع حضور مليون سائح الى لبنان هذا الصيف».

ماذا سيحدث لهم، أتساءل، كيف يغادرون؟

وماذا سنفعل نحن؟

كل شيء معلق في الهواء. لا شيء أكيد... مرة أخرى. ما إن بدت الأشياء توحي بالأمان وصارت الأمور اليومية شيئاً مسلّماً به... يتمزق نسيج اليقين.

اليوم الثاني

بعد ظهر اليوم ألقى الإسرائيليون قذيفة على مدرستنا. ذهبت الى حرم المدرسة مساء لأرى مدى الأضرار التي أصابت ملعب كرة القدم. كان الدمار محدوداً، فالقذيفة كانت عبارة عن وعاء ملأه الاسرائيليون منشورات دعائية، تركت حفرة في الملعب ومئات الأوراق. ذكرى أليمة للمنشورات التي ألقوها فوق بيروت أثناء الاجتياح الاسرائيلي عام 1982.

أثناء وجودي في المدرسة، قامت زوارق اسرائيلية بقصف ميناء بيروت الذي لا يبعد عن بيتي أكثر من 500 م، كما قصفوا المنارة وموانئ صور وصيدا وجونيه وطرابلس. وصلت البيت مهزوزة مضطربة. كانت ليلة هادئة حتى الآن.

اليوم الثالث

أمضيت الصباح في المدرسة للتأكد من سلامة حرمها وأمنه، وكي أنظّم حملة جمع الطعام والمؤن، وقد عبّر الكثير من أساتذتنا وموظفينا الذين كانوا هناك عن استعدادهم للمساعدة في أي مجال. أرسل «ايميل» الى مكتبنا في نيويورك:

كل شيء على ما يرام في بيروت. زرت حرم عين عار بعد ظهر أمس، وحرم رأس بيروت حتى ساعة متأخرة نسبياً: كل شيء على ما يرام. سأبقى على اتصال.

مع تحياتي مشكا

اليوم الرابع

استيقظت باكراً وأدرت التلفزيون، وبدأت أمارس طقوس الصباح، أرتشف القهوة وأنا أغيّر القنوات بين محلية وعالمية. «الأوضاع في بيروت هادئة هذا الصباح بعد قصف ليلي...». يعاودني هذا الشعور بشيء يقبض على أحشائي... لم أشعر به منذ 15 سنة، ولم أنسه... ان ذكرى الحرب تتخدر مع الوقت ولا تمحى.

انزلقنا الى حالة حرب من دون أن نعي. كنا نتناول العشاء على بلكون أمي، وعائلتنا الموسعة اجتمعت للاحتفال بوصول أختي وعائلتها من الولايات المتحدة الأميركية. وفي صباح اليوم التالي، وجدنا أنفسنا في حالة حرب. قصف الاسرائيليون مطار دولة ذات سيادة. هكذا ببساطة. لقد دفعنا ثمن حرب وعنف خلال خمس عشرة سنة طويلة. وبقينا على قيد الحياة لنشهد جولة إثر جولة ومرحلة بعد مرحلة من هذه الحرب الشنيعة التي ابتلعت معظم سني الشباب. والآن؟ أيعقل هذا؟ أن يعيش المرء حربين في عمر واحد؟

لا أذكر انني كنت دائماً خائفة طيلة الخمس عشرة سنة من الحرب. إحدى الفترات التي خفت خلالها فعلاً كانت في يوم في حزيران (يونيو) 1982. أذكر انه كان يوماً حاراً وأن أهلي كانوا قد غادروا البيت باكراً. جلست في غرفة الطعام أقصّ قطعة قماش بحسب نموذج للخياطة حين سمعت أزيز طائرة، أكثر من طائرة، أدركت أنها طائرات اسرائيلية. كان بيتنا في الطابق السادس في بناية مكونة من سبعة طوابق. شعرت بأحشائي تتقلص، عرفت كالحيوانات التي تحدس بوقوع هزة أرضية قبل وقوعها، انني لا أستطيع البقاء وحدي في الشقة التي يعلوها طابق واحد فقط. رميت كل شيء من يدي وهرعت الى السلالم. أين أذهب؟ لم أكن أعرف، فلا يوجد دور تحتاني في العمارة. قابلت بعض الجيران الذين وقفوا على منبسط الدرج في الطوابق السفلية «ابقي هنا» قالت السيدة ن. جارتنا في الطابق الرابع، «فثمة حائطان بيننا والخارج، وثلاثة طوابق فوقنا». هذا النوع من الحسابات، مهما بدا غريباً، كان معياراً متعارفاً عليه في بيروت 1982 بعد سبع سنوات من الحرب. فأينما ذهبت لزيارة أحد، تحدد تلقائياً عدد الحيطان التي تفصلك عن أي قصف محتمل. كانت السيدة ن. على حق، فهذه خطة جيدة.

استمرت الطائرات بهديرها المنبعث من كل مكان في التحليق في سماء بيروت. حضّرت السيدة ن. القهوة.

اليوم الخامس

أفقت باكراً وهرعت الى روتيني، القهوة، التلفزيون، الايميل. صار عندي روتين إذاً، لعل الروتين يضفي شيئاً من الطمأنينة، مثل تلك العرائض على شبكة الانترنت التي نرسلها الى الأمم المتحدة وأي جهة أخرى قد تتأثر بما يحدث وتفعل شيئاً ازاء هذا الرعب الذي جعل وطناً كاملاً تحت الحصار. وكان روتيني أثناء فترة الحرب أن أنهض عند الفجر، فغياب الوعي اثناء النوم ترف لا قدرة لي عليه. اليقظة هي كل شيء. فجأة، اهتزت الشقة من دوي انفجار كان من القوة بحيث ان العمارة كلها ارتعدت. ركضت الى الرواق وابنتي بين ذراعيّ. يضمّنا زوجي معاً. «الانفجار قريب جداً».

من شباك المطبخ رأينا كتلة دخان أسود، لعل مصدرها ميناء بيروت الذي تطل شقتنا عليه... انفجار ثان يجعلنا ننكمش في الرواق ثانية. كان الانفجار الثالث أبعد قليلاً.

ترتجف طفلتي بين يدي من دون أن تقول كلمة. ترفع نظرها اليّ فأرى أن عينيها صارتا عيني شخص راشد. تمسكني من كتفي: «عديني أنك ستأخذينني بعيداً من هنا».

«لا تقلقي، سأفعل». «عديني» تمسّني تعابير وجهها في الصميم. «أعدك».

(مقاطع من نص طويل)