Free Other Lives by Iman Humaydan Page B

me, “don’t worry.” It’s raining hard but my father doesn’t care. It’s July, the height of summer, he says, the rain’s just fleeting and it’ll pass quickly. My father never accepts that it’s winter in July and that rain lasts for months here. He lifts his head toward the gray sky, where there are clouds that can’t reach him and words that still trouble him, the words of my grandfather Hamza, which remain planted in his mind, body and soul. Hamza is dead but Salama has never healed from the violence of these words. Even though these violent words can no longer reach him, he hasn’t healed. I leave the wooden bench on the sidewalk and walk toward him, while my mother takes shelter in a small kiosk in the center of the park, fleeing from the rain. I try to grab my father. But he keeps walking back into the crosswalk, heading from one side of the street to the other, rain completely soaking his clothes. I don’t know what to do. I look for my mother and see her running toward us, holding her book over her head to keep it from getting wet. I hold onto my father’s arm, water pouring down from his hair into his eyes and over his face. My mother reaches us and extends her arm to Salama and meekly he stops moving, muttering unintelligible words. He holds onto Nadia’s arm and the three of us pass through the neighborhood park in Paradise, crossing the street while my mother takes the house key out of her purse, saying that it’ll be night soon and we should get back.
    In the first days after my return to Lebanon I have to prepare a number of legal documents to present to the Ministry of the Displaced. They tell me that it’s a matter of days. But now I’ve been in Beirut for more than three months and am still filling out forms whose purpose I can’t understand. The last forms I had to fill out were exactly the same as the ones I’d filled out the time before. When I let the government employee see my irritation and bewilderment, he answers me with open sarcasm, “Don’t worry, ma’am, you can practice your writing skills.”
    Why did I come back? I ask, blaming myself and cursing the employee. Why am I here? I could’ve assigned my power of attorney to Olga or someone else. But they’d asked for my father to come in person because someone wants to buy the building and tear it down to build a big new one in its place. This building will overlook Beirut’s downtown, destroyed by the war, which a private company is now undertaking to rebuild. My father is lost in his insanity, however, and it took days to prepare him for our visit to the notary in Adelaide where he could sign over his power of attorney to me so I could take care of this.
    When I first arrived in Beirut, I didn’t see anyone. There were only Nour’s visits, which have increased until they’re pretty much every day. The apartment I’ve rented is small, lost at the end of a corridor on the second floor of a neglected building near the American university. When there’s a knock on the door, I can’t imagine who would visit me today. It’s Nour. He hugs me as though he’s known me for a long time. I’m happy that I’ve met him, it’s as if he’d been waiting for me here. This man comes as a surprise to me. His visits are what I needed to connect to Beirut—meeting a man who has also come back to search for a lost connection.
    We leave my apartment and walk toward the sea; the autumn chill is mild. Nour draws close to me and puts his arm around my shoulder for a quick moment, then pulls away. It’s as though he wants to say something but has changed his mind, or perhaps suddenly feels that he’s hurrying something by showing his emotions. I feel at once anxious and slightly hopeful. I want him to leave his hand on my shoulder and tell me, without thinking, what he’s feeling.
    Autumn in Beirut is