Advertisement
Published: April 12th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Before heading north I catch up with Eliana, a
CouchSurfer I crossed paths with in Cairo two months ago. She’s just gotten back from a week in Paris and Rome, eager to show off pics of her shapely body in front of the Coliseum, or wrapped in the arms of a tall, muscular Italian named Mikhail. She invites me to a friend’s house in Achrafiyeh, an elegant pad decked out with abstract sculptures and brightly colored mosaics and the sort of gilded tableware that suggests breakfast with the Bourbons. Najim and Nada have made a small fortune for themselves here in Beirut, offering further proof that a career in marketing is a fine alternative should the table scraps of travel writing never turn into a feast.
We sink into their plush couches and talk about my work. Nada’s ears have perked up at the news that I’m a writer. She’s looking for some help putting together a website for her consulting firm, and we toss around a few figures that are not altogether uninformed by the fact that the dining-room chandelier would look right at home in the Hermitage. I offer to take a look at the site
and let her know what I think. Outside, a light rain has begun to fall. Najim leans forward and says, out of the blue, “I’ve been having stomach problems. I throw up anything I eat, otherwise I’d join you for a drink.”
“Thanks,” I say. And then, “Sorry to hear it.”
He gets up and pads to the bathroom and comes back with a sour look on his face. “Nothing,” he says. We sigh and nod sympathetically. Nada offers us some chocolate Easter eggs, and we take a few respectful nibbles while Najim shifts on the sofa. He’s noticed me eyeing the keyboards and grand piano in the corner and says, “Do you play?” with the sort of hopefulness that makes me wish I could at least bang out a few bars of “Heart and Soul.” We go over and he flicks a few switches and the whole room hums to life. It’s a moment that’s loaded with portent, as if thirty thousand screaming fans have just held their breath, and he alone can offer them musical deliverance.
Even to the untrained eye, it’s clear that Najim’s poured enough money into his set-up to overthrow
a handful of wobbly African governments. “I used to play the guitar,” he says, calling up a few fancy programs on the computer screen, “but this offers a lot more flexibility. I can play electric” - he punches some buttons - “or acoustic” - he hits a few more. We go through a dozen bars of a track he’s working on, a ballad with soaring chords that he plays with a pained, rock-star grimace. “It’s a hobby,” he says afterward, rather sheepishly, in the same way that Bill Gates might call computers a little diversion.
Nada is in the dining room rearranging the chairs around the table. They’re planning a dinner party later in the week, and she’s giving the place a fussy look that will soon prove to be a very grave omen. Before long the interior decorator arrives, a short, militant woman with thick-soled boots and a green velour coat. She’s appraising the house with a disapproving eye, an air about her implying that when the design police show up to see the place, she won’t be taking the fall. She shoots me a quick, clinical smile.
“
Enchanté,” I say, offering my hand.
“I speak English,” she says, taking it limply, then giving me a once-over that suggests we’ve wasted enough time already.
She moves briskly around the room, straightening the bar stools and the couch cushions and going to town on the tablecloth. If you thought four days was enough time to plan a dinner party, her manner implies, you’re better off sticking to KFC. Najim sits at his piano and bangs out a few more ballads; I look over the lyrics to one, which makes certain unfortunate connections between the pains of love and his stomach problems. A friend of Eliana’s shows up, a bubbly brunette who happily takes the microphone Najim’s been offering and croons a few tunes. I sit at the bar and drink a Bacardi Breezer, wondering when the cruise director will show up to tell us dinner’s being served on the Mezzanine.
In the dining room the decorator is barking at the servants and making exasperated little flourishes with her hands. Hell is being paid, and it seems we should all be reaching for our wallets. She calls me over to help move the table: with Najim’s stomach doing somersaults, I’m the
only able-bodied male in the room. I huff and groan and smile good-naturedly at Eliana while she rearranges the rug beneath the table.
“You take me to all the nicest places,” I say.
“I’m going to go throw up,” says Najim, disappearing down the hall.
We’ve extended the dining-room table and added two leaves and twice rearranged the carpet at 90-degree angles, so that it’s exactly where it started. I exchange a few eye signals with Eliana. “There are many places I’d rather be right now,” my eyebrows hint, “and that list includes a Yanni concert, Star Jones’ bedroom, and a waterboard in Abu Ghraib.” She makes a few tactful excuses that we’re running late for dinner, and we beat a quick retreat for the door.
On the way out Najim takes me by the arm. “Have you been to the toilet?” he asks. He pulls me aside and flicks on a switch and reveals the sort of room that’s better suited to board meetings than bowel movements. There’s an elegant, swooping mirror and a hydraulic showerhead and a few exotic plants behind a glass wall. “Our little greenhouse,” he says tenderly. Then he grabs at his stomach. He shows us to the door and ducks back inside, headed, no doubt, for the bathroom that’s seen so much of his money and insides poured into it.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0224s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb