The long large sidewalk encircling the capital promontory on the edge of the sea. It’s a spring afternoon, year 2024. More than a decade has passed since, to an April day. The light is warm, like a halo effect of an old postcard. I had left the city long ago.

I turn to look at the cityscape facing the sea and Beirut suddenly grips me in a flash of heartache.

It stares back at us, with a cold calmer gaze. Transfixed, a landscape of steel glass and concrete. As I try to separate between an air of nostalgia taking over and some other thing, more forsaken, a bittersweet refrain, commonly called disappointment.

Searching through it, I’m eager to find in it some familiarity, what we knew of each other, where our stories grew.

The little houses Feyrouz sang about in Li Beirut sending kisses to the wounded beautiful city do not exist here anymore.

The hidden passageway harbor of Ain el Mreisseh fishermen has disappeared. It’s a modern parking lot now apparently. Adjacent to that tower, which they tell me appears empty, with no lights at night streaming out from the big floors.

Akin to a sailor’s face the song compared the capital gushing into the sea.

Some years after the war had stopped, for a photo project documenting a Beirut rising up again, an image of a group of kids under an August sun, diving carefree in that little harbor, below an array of flags red and white, seemed to me, like all that it would take. It was national army day, 1999, everything then, seemed possible.

They would tell you then, almost proud, Beirut was an exception in a period of economic crisis- albeit an economic war- land sales and real estate boomed. Beirut was a miracle, flaunted as a straight flush poker lucky hand, where money from the gulf, to be laundered, came out swinging.

And true to our legacy of merchants, we sold it.

The erosion of the city happened almost innocuously. And one by one, house by house, a heritage got surgically removed.

From this seed of greed, a gray concrete town grew and dwarfed the small awkwardly born jewel of Mediterranean, Arab and Levantine influences.

Like a bent branch made tame by some persistent wind, they chiseled, carved another facade out of it, painstakingly, more to the liking of investors, a playground for the “sister” countries of the Gulf.

I remember then when a part of a Phoenician wall port was found in a building excavation, right next to Phoenicia hotel, a home brand of our welcoming tradition. Quickly along with the

bank investing in the land promotion, a solution was found by developers. Cut it out and place it somewhere where it would not bother the construction anymore. History was packaged to be delivered elsewhere easily indeed. The tower was branded with the name Venus, like a promise rising out of the seabed in Botticelli form.

Advertisements featured contractors and real estate empire projects from the Gulf. There the construction had halted in the crisis. Beirut was a boon.

On the big breakwater of the reclaimed land Solidere had built, I used to walk to be able to just see the city from this artificially far point, deep in sea water, and imprint it more, like a tattoo in my memory. The cranes in the backdrop then announced the new tempo.

On the street walls of old neighborhoods like Mar Mikhayel and Qobayyat, advertisements were plastered all around asking for what was remaining of its old buildings for sale.

About a garden, a park meant for the public. Unless you had the luck to have been handed a French passport, not a Venezuelan one nor an Swedish, definitely not a Lebanese, you could not  have ventured and sat under the trees of one of the rare spaces in the city, Horsh Beirut. If you’d ask the army guarding it, they would tell you, matter of fact, the same. Dare you ask?

At some point before I left, authorities frolicked with the idea of selling Sanayeh park for another park, of cars.

Then one night, on a cold January, an old residential building in the Ashrafieh area crumbled down, with 27 residents losing their life in the rubble. Recently sold, the owner was against doing renovations to the edifice; and the old rents barely covered that. They said the new tower getting built next to it had maybe also rendered the older one more fragile. Old rental laws, shamelessly permissive new construction laws, neglect and poverty… A drafted script preparing a tragedy.

So there was the metaphor. For this wounded broken place…Losing its soul in the concrete rubble.

I stare away from the backdrop, and remember Nadia Tueni’s poem, Beirut dying a thousand times, a thousand times reborn again.

We will meet then sometime again one day.

we turn on the radio, the news jingle on the channel is the same as 20 years earlier when we clung to the tune announcing the low-down on how many days saw us staying in the shelters.

Crowds gathered out on the streets to see what the loud sounds of the military air force parade on Independence Day were all about.

They guessed right, Israeli planes zigzagged in a November sky, breaking the sound wall for a celebratory popper on this holiday.

The spontaneous gathering swelled into a mass by noon and the Ministry of Justice on Badaro was the first institution to see a mob now assembled in protest. Most are young, discernably lots of street peddlers amongst them, delivery guys, shoe shiners, child flower sellers…Not just those fresh with notions from university books in their mind, but also those with only a sense of hunger for better possible things. Those who are 40% of the population below the poverty belt, living on less than 300 dollars a month. Asked what they’re doing here “it all starts here, the structure on which the system is based is corrupt”

Theater to the deep seated rivalry of those in government sanayeh sees the mob marching towards the ministry of interior: March 14 and March 8 forces are targeted representing the government’s guard dogs: Internal security forces ISF and the General directorate of General Security, symbols of political, sectarian influence and corruption.

Down with the ISF intelligence office, the system’s tentacles and spy body made legal. Khadarji grocers and Arguileh charcoal delivery guys are seen gathered there, ready to hurl stacks of merchandise in Muntathir al-Zaidi fashion.

More acts of civil disobedience spreading to parts of the capital are recorded through the day: At the airport: entrance to a country the government seems to only be proud is replete with uncrowned wonders like Jeita ans plastic surgery. A huge demonstration locks up the arrivals and departures roadways “Lebanon as an amusement club for the Gulf” “middle eastern spies no more” “Real estate whore for oil money” banners read quickly handwritten.

The Ministry for Administrative Reform has been also vested with standers-by: For being a farce since the war ended and testing the people’s patience with its officially proclaimed mission “Lebanon will be a civil society respectful of the rule of law, formal and informal, promoting equality of opportunity.” A ministry with 20 years of epic trials and failures born to mend the wounds of a 230000 civilians killed, a quarter million emigrating, and 25 billion dollars of loss in infrastructure. Slogans there carry one word “Shukran”

As dusk fell on the city, the gatherers were seen walking to Beirut central district or Solidere. Graffitti sprayed the old Beirut city heart where even singing in public is now reprimanded by army guards. The new motto flags with “Solidere, places for life” were taken down and carried up scribbled with dollar signs and “Solidere, lives on sale” instead.

There was something peculiar about the crowd though, filmed from far on tv it seemed like an array of smaller people, when the lens got closer it revealed a horde of kids, chanting in chorus the places they came from “Ouzai, Dahyeh, Nabaa, Burj el Barjneh, Hay el Sellom…!!!!” the poorest most neglected parts of town.

Every store closed shop quickly that evening, except for an ice cream parlor, a beacon in the night for things that might come to light someday maybe, for a kid living here on independence day.

5 heures 30, le port de Beyrouth apres les pluies.

Un touriste est posté au milieu du boulevard, sur la chaussee qui le separe, une grosse camera avec tripod fragile, des voitures de toutes les parts.

La lumiere offerte est belle le dernier jour d’Octobre.

A côté du port quelques bateaux, tankers couchés sur une mer argentée.

Le ciel se tient calme, haut dans une atmosphere qui se pare se prepare..

C’est une des parties de la ville, ouverte, inconstruite..Comme il se doit d’en imaginer une, Avec son port, Beyrouth ville sur la mer

L’as tu oublié?

Toi? Habitant des quais du ventre de la ville maudite

un camp d’armée s’y poste, a gauche la garnison, droite un portail

au milieu ma camera vise bien les tankers, 2 gros côte a côte, presque freres et soeur, ou roi, et reine, unis par la mer dans un palais d’eau aux oubliettes

le soldat m’interpelle de derriere la grille du portail

je connais la chanson

je lui dis non

depuis deja un bout de temps il me voit, le seul centre de son attention la-bas

tout en me laissant a ma guise il a cuisiné son attente

il me dit de ne pas m’emballer en lui criant dessus

c’est vrai je m’en fous

je lui dis tout ce qui me passe par la tete, en commencant par est ce que tu sais ce que tu veux?

Petit sourire

moi je veux des bateaux

je ne l’ai meme pas pensé,

pourquoi ne ne pas lui poser des questions

puisqu’il porte une arme

la plus grande des exclamations, sans point..

et moi juste avec une memoire qui manque comme la ville

“les bateaux, d’accord la garnison non..

on se comprend

son chef apres une dizaine de minutes a d’autres idées

je leur dis qu’il ne savent meme pas ce qu’il faut ou pas

plein de faux pas

en partant d’autres soldats du coté de la garison viennent me dire pas de probleme mademoiselle

les oiseaux entre nos deux cages sont a toi

puis “ben non pas vraiment”..c’est l’adjudant

qu’est ce qu’on s’ennuie en soldat en revant a côté d’un port interdit…

mon roi et reine doivent etre effacés

pas de memoire pour bateaux

je refuses

il m’escortent pour parler au lieutenant en chef

le soleil s’est couché

ca fait deja une presque une heure juste pour essayer d’echapper par images dans un bateau..

4 jeunes soldats m’entourent

“pourquoi tu ne les prendrais-tu pas le matin de la place au-dessus,

“demandes au lieutenant” lui dis-je

ils me font de la peine presque

rien a faire qu’effacer une memoire de vieux bateaux

que c’est triste d’etre en prison avec une prison de soldats..Une fenetre se referme

je leur dis stop, ok je partirais sans les photos

non…on attend le chef

encore

il fait nuit

la mer et le ciel se sont eteints

l’adjudant aux lunettes conquerant “plus besoin d’attendre on va y aller,

sedition

on ouvre mon appareil

j’appuies sur “effacer” il me dit

non…

laisses donc celle-là

elle est belle

Roi et reine

au commencement etait

une question

qui s’est echappé en bulle

s’elevant a formé un nuage

le nuage

avec la lune

a mis

un orage,

spectacle pour les etoiles

la pluie est arrivée,

du vent l’a fait dansé

puis en s’arretant

a fondu

en rivieres

aux rivieres

nous nous sommes

noyés

en milles mirroirs

bercés

spectacle de naufragés

An ease of movement combined with a certain absence, a disregard of the act of walking and its order, the sidewalks, as if it was given as breathing..A type I could imagine crossing streets barefoot as customarily as walking into some kitchen.. The candidness was elegant, she looked like she was constantly stumbling out of a train ready to tread the streets of some destination.

It was 1 am a midweek thursday night, the “tarmack” of the week she’d love to say, back from an outing again, pulse rapidly chasing beating her cheeks red and lips bitten up by stain marks from a glass of red wine.

Running that small half lit street she stopped midway when she saw me standing on the crossroad sidewalk, taking breaths in between laughs at being caught in a frenzy.

We had an argument some months before,  she was at times as excessively reactive as I was unwilling to engage. I asked her then what was it she was running away from, and she answered that her tired legs have not even danced enough.

I had entered into that foggy zone of trying to get close to her as a friend while my intentions were more than unclear..Every reference to any ongoing story she got into turned into a mash of emotional soup. I had looked for that perhaps..emotional rollers on her coast..

Part I