Ghady & Rawan Read online

  EMERGING VOICES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  Series Editor

  Dena Afrasiabi

  Other titles in the series include:

  Dying in a Mother Tongue (2018) by Roja Chamankar

  Using Life (2017) by Ahmed Naji

  Limbo Beirut (2016) by Hilal Chouman

  A Bit of Air (2012) by Walid Taher

  I Want to Get Married! (2010) by Ghada Abdel Aal

  Ghady & Rawan

  Fatima Sharafeddine and Samar Mahfouz Barraj

  Translated by Sawad Hussain and M. Lynx Qualey

  CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

  The University of Texas at Austin

  This English translation copyright © 2019 by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935331

  ISBN: 978-1-4773-1852-2

  ISBN: 978-1-4773-1853-9

  Translated from Fatima Sharafeddine & Samar Mahfouz Barraj, Ghadi wa Ruwan. Dar al saqi, Beirut, 2014.

  Cover design by Samantha Strohmeyer

  Book design by Allen Griffith of Eye 4 Design

  CONTENTS

  Goodbye, Summer

  The Empty Balcony

  Brussels

  Getting ready

  Encounters

  Time Machine

  No Title

  The First Day

  Ghadghud

  Blurred Days

  Thomas

  A Difficult Day

  Disillusioned

  Strange Feelings

  School Bullies

  Campaign Prep

  Behind the Gym

  Strange Situation

  Madness

  The Phone Call

  Unpleasant Surprise

  Confusion and Worry

  What Now?

  Nothing Matters

  Worst-case Scenario

  Pink Shoes

  To Seville

  Escape

  Even Matthias?

  Chocolate

  The Fight: 1

  Again, the Mirror

  The Fight: 2

  The Secret of Change

  Ghady’s Decision

  A New Day

  Unsafe at School

  Mountain Home

  In the House

  Special Drawings

  Hero

  Secret Admirer

  A Gift

  GOODBYE, SUMMER

  THE LIGHTS GO OUT in the apartment and everyone goes to sleep, but Ghady’s eyes stay open, refusing to surrender to the end of the day. He knows exactly why he’s flooded with worry. It isn’t the first time, and it definitely won’t be the last.

  The days here flew by so fast! But summers in Lebanon are always like that. As soon as one summer ends, Ghady starts the countdown to the next. And every year, like today, he feels sad. Just a few more days, and he’ll be starting school in Brussels, the city where he moved when he was three years old.

  “What are you dreaming about? Come on, we’re here.” His sister Zeina shakes him by the shoulders to get him to open the car door and make room for her to get out. Ghady says nothing. He steps out, slings on his Eastpak, and drags his suitcase behind him, following his parents. He walks beside his cousin Jad, who has come along to say goodbye.

  Back at the house, while saying goodbye to his grandparents, Ghady had held back tears. Now, when the time comes to part, he avoids Jad’s hug. Ghady pulls away, waving as if he’ll be back shortly. “Bye. See you soon!”

  The wheels on the plane speed up, and the roaring of the engines grows louder, putting pressure on Ghady’s already strained nerves and on the tears he’s been trying to hold back. When they leave the ground, his heart sinks, and with the power of the plane’s takeoff he feels a hot, thick stream of tears break loose against his will, running free. He can’t control it. He sticks his face right up against the small window so his mom won’t see him crying, and he sees Beirut recede farther and farther away until it becomes a speck on the horizon, then disappears. The plane glides over the sea, its shadow reflecting on the calm watery surface below. No waves . . . . Waves are only by the shore, and by now the shore is far away.

  Ghady leans back against his headrest. He closes his eyes and thinks of Jad and Rawan, his grandparents’ neighbor. Ghady only sees Rawan during these yearly trips to Beirut, but they are really close friends. Yesterday, Rawan invited him and Jad to spend the day with her family in the mountains. He had so much fun out there that he forgot about his rapidly-approaching departure. They didn’t ride bikes like they usually did, and they didn’t climb to the top of the mountain behind the house. Instead, they spent hours in the treehouse that Rawan’s father had built in the crown of a huge walnut tree. The treehouse was the only place where they could talk freely without Rani, Rawan’s older brother, annoying them with his sarcastic comments. They had laughed so much at Jad’s hilarious jokes, and at Rawan, who had brought grapes up and dropped them onto the heads of the adults sitting below.

  Now, Ghady thinks about how much he will miss his friend between now and his next summer visit. He pulls at his shirt collar and stretches it up toward his face, wiping the tears. When he’s sure he has gotten rid of any evidence of crying, he turns to his mother. “Mom, when are we coming back to Beirut?”

  She chuckles. “Are you missing it already? We’ll be back in about ten months.”

  Ghady quickly counts up the days. “That means . . . after 300 days?”

  “Just about,” his mother answers, preoccupied with reading a magazine she has plucked from the seat pocket in front of her.

  “Don’t forget to book the tickets when we get back to Brussels.”

  “Sure thing, Sir.”

  The plane rises above the clouds and the turbulence stops, allowing the flight attendants to offer the passengers food and drinks. Ghady heaves a huge sigh. His nerves are calmer now that he’s cried and vented his frustrations after the end of a trip he enjoyed from start to finish.

  “I’m starving,” he says.

  “You’re always starving,” Zeina retorts from the seat behind him. She also has a window seat, next to their father.

  “Spare me your stupid comments,” Ghady snaps. “Why don’t you just put your headphones back on.”

  “You’re the stupid one. Why are you being so mean?”

  Ghady knows what he said to his sister was over the top. In truth, he envies Zeina’s attitude. Unlike him, she is happy to go back to her own room and bed after two months of chaos, when she wasn’t able to shut herself away in their grandparents’ home. She likes reading and listening to music, and she needs time alone, without interruptions. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have fun during their summer visits to Lebanon—especially when their mom lets her go out at night with older cousins, or when she spends a few days with them in the south, in a cabin on the beach.

  Ghady cheers up as soon as he gets busy eating everything on the tray in front of him. He leaves nothing, not even his mother’s untouched dessert.

  He draws a book from his black backpack, which he’d flung between his feet, and starts reading. “This will make the time go faster, and that way I won’t get too bored on the plane,” he says, not expecting his mother to answer. He knows that when she’s absorbed in reading, she won’t hear anything around her.

  After a while, his eyelids begin to droop. The book slides from his hands, and he turns his head and rests it on his mother’s shoulder, dozing off.

  Ghady doesn’t wake up until a hand ruffles his long ringlets and whispers in his ear, “Come on, wake up sweetie, we’re here.”

  Ghady wakes with a start and remembers: he’s in Brussels. Oh well, it would do for now.
He no longer feels down. Instead, he’s excited about going back to the house, to his things, his video games, after such a long time away.

  THE EMPTY BALCONY

  THE PHONE IS RINGING, each ring louder than the last.

  Almost every room in the house has a phone, and every phone has its own ringtone. Rawan listens to this strange symphony, and her mind wanders as she gazes at the sapphire sky outside her window and snuggles up between her pillow and duvet. Looking at her clock, she thinks, Ghady’s plane must have taken off by now.

  “Someone pick up the phone!” Rawan’s mother yells. “Rawan, can’t you hear it ringing? I’m busy in the kitchen and my hands are dirty! Hurry and pick it up!”

  Rawan rolls out of bed, grumbling. “Ouff . . . what is this? Rawan do this, Rawan do that! It’s always Rawan who has to pick up the phone. I don’t get it! Why wasn’t I told I’d been appointed Guardian of the Phones in this house? Anyway Mama, I’m sure this call is from one of Mr. Rani’s friends or admirers, or else it’s Nawal next door who’s always asking you about some recipe. Why doesn’t she just buy a cookbook and leave us in peace? I mean, no one ever calls me on the house phone!”

  Rawan picks up the receiver, irritated. “Hello? Yes? . . . Oh. . . . Hi, Jad. How are you? . . . Really? Well . . . thanks for calling. Why didn’t you call me on my cell, like usual?” She raises her voice so whoever is at home can hear. “Ah . . . Well, seems like it needs a charge. Catch you later.”

  Her brother Rani pokes his head out from his room and mimics her voice: “I mean, no one ever calls me on the house phone . . .” She cuts him off angrily. “Argh, Rani! You’re lucky this time, but next time this annoying phone rings, I won’t answer if it’s for you. Trust me, if I see one of your friends’ numbers on the caller ID, I won’t pick up. I’ve memorized all their numbers from their billions of calls!”

  Rawan makes her way to the sitting room, thinking about what Jad has just told her: “Ghady says hi. He says he really misses us already, and that he’s counting the days until he sees us again.”

  Rawan stands at the window and looks out at the fourth-floor balcony of the building across the street. The balcony looks empty and sad, even though its pots are bursting with colorful flowers and leafy plants. Ghady’s gone, and she won’t see him standing there again for a long time. Ghady used to look out every morning from that very balcony: He’d wave at her and give a short whistle, announcing a new day of fun and adventure. That whistle was a signal for them to meet up at the field behind the building, where they’d get together with Jad and a group of neighborhood kids.

  Now, Rawan feels glum. During the summer vacation, she had so much fun, giggling with Ghady and Jad in a way she didn’t the rest of the year. She’s already bored, and Ghady has been gone only a few hours. Having Jad nearby won’t fill the emptiness she feels in her heart. The three of them make up “The Three Musketeers,” as their families call them. But it’s different without Ghady, the friend who understands her and who lets her be her true and complete self. Rawan steps into the kitchen. She eats a banana. She drinks a glass of juice and, without thinking, gulps a glass of water straight after. She doesn’t realize what she’s done until she feels the uncomfortable swelling in her stomach. She goes back to the living room and sprawls out on the couch, turns on the TV for a few minutes, and turns it off. Then she makes her way back to her room. She waters the plant on her windowsill and stands in front of the mirror.

  Rawan contemplates her face and her long, silky, wavy hair. She grins. She remembers what Ghady told her at the start of the summer. “Rawan, you look really nice with long hair. It looks like the waves on the sea . . . Don’t ever cut it, or I’ll call you ‘Rawan the lamb’.”

  She draws closer to the mirror and discovers a few small pimples ready to blossom again on her forehead. That’s how she sees and imagines them, as tiny flower buds. She always tries to see things differently, like you would in a cartoon, in the “Rawan way,” as her friends call it.

  She heads to the bathroom and washes her face with a special soap for getting rid of those tiny buds, which are preparing to adorn her beautiful face. As she dries her face with a towel, she thinks, If only things were better in Lebanon! Then Ghady’s parents would come back here to work, and they wouldn’t be forced to work in Belgium and take my best friend with them. It would be so great if they were here all the time! But I don’t understand why Ghady doesn’t like living there. I mean, life in Belgium must be tons easier than life over here. He’s super lucky.

  BRUSSELS

  GHADY AND HIS FAMILY find the taxi driver waiting for them—the same driver who meets them after every trip. Ghady’s dad always asks this driver for a ride to the airport at the start of the summer, and for a pickup when they get back to Brussels at their vacation’s end.

  The arrivals hall here is so different from the one in Beirut! When Ghady gets to the airport in Beirut, Jad and Rawan are always waiting, even if he lands at one or two in the morning. Here, in Zaventem Airport, the taxi driver is the only familiar face . . . There’s no friend, no cousin . . . Ghady has friends here in Brussels, sure, but it’s different. They aren’t in touch over summer vacation, since everyone is busy with themselves and their own things.

  It’s raining as Ghady walks with his family to the parking lot. I almost forgot how many more rainy days there are in this city, he thinks.

  “Brussels welcomes us!” Ghady’s dad says, laughing.

  “I love walking in the rain,” Zeina says. “I’ve missed it.”

  Ghady doesn’t say anything. He just closes his eyes and lifts his face to the sky, as if it could wash away the longing that rises up inside him at the sound of raindrops pinging on the roofs of the cars.

  Each of them drags a bag or two, following the walkway—except Ghady’s mom, who runs to the car, trying to escape the rain by huddling beneath her purse. The driver puts the bags in the trunk as they settle in the car, water dripping from their hair and the tips of their noses. They close the doors, and the car starts up.

  Ghady looks out the window. “What a change!” he says aloud, and Zeina asks, “What are you talking about?” He doesn’t answer, just nods his head toward the outdoors.

  “Ohh,” she says. “You mean the roads and the street signs? Or how clean everything is? How it’s so calm and orderly?”

  He nods.

  His mom laughs. “See? There are good things about living here.”

  “Yes, but Ghady doesn’t see them! It’s not like Lebanon, the love of his life,” Zeina says to annoy her brother.

  Ghady’s face flushes tomato red. “You don’t understand anything! Rawan is my friend. Just a friend! Dad, tell Zeina to stop being such a brat!”

  Their dad turns from his place in the front seat. “Don’t get so angry, bud. And you, Zeina, leave your brother alone.”

  Silence returns, and Ghady goes back to thinking about Lebanon and his friends there. This time, he forces himself to hold back his tears. Not now, because Zeina will show no mercy. She’ll definitely attack if she sees tears. Plus, his parents will be worried.

  At home, Ghady runs to his room to make sure his stuff and his video games are all where he left them. Then he remembers the letter and opens his bag. Rawan wrote it, asking him not to read it until he got home. He pulls out the paper, which has been folded twenty times, from the inside pocket of his bag.

  Wednesday, September 3, 2008

  My friend Ghady,

  When you read this, you’ll be far away, and I’ll have started to miss you. We had so many fun summer days! No school and no homework. We partied a lot and slept till noon, visited friends, swam, played volleyball at the club . . . Now you’re gone, and soon school is going to start. Then we’ll be back to classes and brutal exams . . .

  Oh Ghady, you’re so lucky you live in Europe. Everything there is so well-organized, plus you have so many green spaces and fast internet. I’m so jealous. I wish I could leave Lebanon and live in a country like
Belgium. I wish I could study in a school like yours, where there are no heartless exams . . .

  I hope this year is fun for both of us, and that it goes by super fast. Write to me sometimes. Don’t forget about your friends in Beirut!

  Best,

  Rawan

  After Ghady reads the letter, longing surges back into his heart. Why is life like this? Is his family ever going to move back to Lebanon? Rawan is definitely exaggerating about how hard the schools are. He’d be so happy there, and his classes would be easy.

  He decides to turn on his computer and send her a message.

  Wednesday, September 3, 2008

  My friend,

  This city is cold and empty. Seriously, Rawan, there’s a huge difference between Beirut and Brussels. Ahh! I want to come back to you on the same plane, which is probably still parked in the same spot at the airport. I don’t want to be here. The noise of the Beirut streets, with all its car horns, is better than the silence here. I’m happy to be back in our house, though. Honestly, I missed my comfy bed and a room that no one comes into without knocking. And hey, when I got here and read your letter, I felt like you were with me. So thanks.

  Tell Jad I said hi. (I know he hates to write letters.)

  Best,

  Ghady

  GETTING READY

  “MAMA, TELL RANI to get out of the bathroom! He’s not answering me. And he’s been in there for seriously at least half an hour!” Rawan calls. “This is unbelievable! He changes his clothes in the bathroom, he reads magazines in the bathroom, he talks on his phone in the bathroom . . . not to mention the cologne he sprays on every day, which I swear is giving me an allergic reaction. He thinks girls are going to follow him just like in the ads. Pathetic!” She lets out a shout of rage and pounds on the door. “Rani! Get out of there—and fast! This isn’t your private bathroom!”

  Rani opens the door and walks out in a cloud of overpowering cologne. As soon as it hits Rawan, she starts to cough and sneeze. Tears stream out of her eyes, and she asks: “What is this cologne even called? Insect repellent smells better. Have mercy! Why can’t you do it in your room?”