Like a Flock of Homesick Cranes by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt

Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day back to their mountain nests…

― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

 

Beirut, Lebanon

1983

No matter how much pressure I applied, Maman and Daddy maintained that Beirut was too dangerous for sleepovers.

“Shelling always starts after sunset,” Maman said. “That’s when foreigners get kidnapped. Look at David Dodge.”

A shiver began in my stomach and scurried up my chest. I stuffed the Canadian stamps I’d been sorting for my collection into a tattered envelope. The president of the American University of Beirut had been kidnapped at gunpoint in mid-July while walking home on the AUB campus—the same campus my fourteen-year-old brother Etienne and I walked across twice a day. He was still being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, despite the American government’s attempts to negotiate his release.

I swallowed my fear. “It’ll just be for one night.” Ginnie’s apartment on Hamra Street was across from Groovy’s, my favourite store in Beirut’s downtown fashion district. There was a cool pair of jeans on display in the storefront window.

Daddy shook his head. “The city is crawling with terrorists.  What did Ginnie tell you about her father? What’s he doing here?”

“Most foreign diplomats have been repatriated,” Maman said in an accusatory tone. “Everyone in their right mind is trying to get out.” She glared at Daddy.

“He’s a helicopter pilot.” I fingered the delicate blue airmail paper on the back of a stamp featuring an Arctic fox. “He flies supplies out to the American warships in the bay.”

“I’ve seen Colin Lionhardt’s name on the U.N.’s list of suspicious individuals,” my father said. “Ghyslain is convinced he’s a spy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ghys thinks everyone is a spy.” Ghyslain Villeneuve, my father’s fellow French-Canadian peacekeeper, was a liaison officer whose job was to extract information from all his various sources among Beirut’s warring factions. We rarely saw him without his radio gear, even when he and his wife came for supper or a social call.

“It’s to be expected in a city at war,” my father said. “You can’t trust anyone.”

“His car has Lebanese license plates,” Maman said, as if that were all the proof required. “And how does he pay for Ginnie’s tuition at the American Community School? It costs as much as an Ivy League university.” She had often remarked on the outrageous expense. Under normal circumstances, our family could never afford to send me and my brother there. But because my father served overseas, it was paid for by the Canadian government as part of our United Nations package. “Cost of living here is way too high for a commercial pilot to pay those kinds of fees,” Maman added.

Ginnie was my best friend. How bad could her father be? “Please,” I begged. What was Grade Seven without sleepovers?  “Let me do something normal, like other twelve-year-olds.” Like girls at home in Canada.

“It’s too risky,” my father said.

***

But at last, in late spring, by some miracle, Maman agreed to let me sleep over at Ginnie’s for one night and gave me money to buy myself a new pair of jeans.  It was my first taste of freedom since we’d arrived in Lebanon in January.

On Friday after school, I went to Ginnie’s apartment on the third floor of the Mayfair Residence on Hamra, where most of the city’s Americans lived. My parents had arranged to pick me up the next morning, after breakfast. Ginnie and I would have a bit less than twenty-four hours together.

After supper, we got ready to go shopping. Her mother agreed to watch us from the living room window while we crossed over to Groovy’s.

The apartment door clicked shut behind us. Ginnie headed to the elevator — an ancient looking thing with a cage door—but I convinced her to take the stairs. They were quicker, and I hated cramped, claustrophobic spaces.

We had our feet on the first steps when all the lights went out. I should have been used to it; blackouts were common in Beirut, especially at night. But fear of the dark seized my mind, taking me captive like it had every night since childhood. I stumbled backwards and banged my shoulder against the door, making Ginnie laugh as if I’d done it on purpose.

She fumbled with her key and pushed the apartment door back open. I followed close behind. The air in the apartment was thick with the oily smell of the ground beef and onions her mum had fried for our supper. It clung to the shadowy corners like bats to a cave.

I stood in the entryway, unsure what to do. In my family’s apartment, we had candles and matches on every tabletop. I wished I’d thought of grabbing a flashlight when I’d packed my overnight bag that morning before school. The panicky feeling from the hallway and stairwell wouldn’t let me go. I felt as if a bully had stepped on my only pair of glasses, leaving me nearly blind and vulnerable.

While Ginnie went in search of a candle, I wrapped my fingers around the Lebanese lira in my pocket and then released them, trying to get myself to relax. The large living room window let in a trickle of moonlight. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could discern the forms of the couch and coffee table, the lamps and ottoman.

On Hamra Street below, a car’s high beams lit up the jeans on the slender mannequin in Groovy’s storefront window. If the power hadn’t gone out, I’d be trying them on in the shop’s tiny changing room while Ginnie waited for me on the other side of the curtain next to the funky gilded mirror. Now I’d have to wait until morning and hope the electricity would be back on, or that the shop owner would open up regardless.

My legs felt wobbly. The unbearable onion stench was making me nauseous. I tried to recall the Louis Armstrong song that had been playing on the stereo during dinner, with its madcap trumpet riffs, but couldn’t remember anything beyond the phrase, “It’s a Wonderful World.”

“Boo!” Ginnie yelled, and almost knocked me off my feet. She struck a match and held it under her chin. “It’s a good night for ghost stories.” When she laughed diabolically, a shudder ran through me. The angle of the light twisted her into a menacing waif. I was relieved when the match scalded her fingers, and she was forced to blow it out.

Her mum, Hanalea, came into the living room with two pillar candles that she set down on the coffee table.  “No power or water,” she grumbled. “For the rent we pay every month, you’d think we had a suite at the Waldorf. But we’re not much better off than the camps.” She put her hands on her narrow hips. Under five feet tall, like Ginnie, she had the slim body of a child, with almost no breasts. In her jeans and Rolling Stones T-shirt, she could have easily passed for Ginnie’s sister, though she was much paler and more hollow-cheeked.

I took a few deep breaths through my nose, grateful for the waxy smell of the candles and the soft light they cast.

Ginnie pulled a Monopoly game out from under the couch. “Wanna play with us?”

Hanalea shook her head. “The hospital was a jungle. Tell Dad not to wake me when he comes home.”

“Did you give blood again?” Ginnie turned from her mum to me. “The Sabra hospital keeps running out, so she keeps giving it.”

I pictured Hanalea like a vampire’s victim in the refugee camp, getting bled dry by a lab-coated doctor with fangs.

“In the morning, if there’s still no water, we’ll ask Dad to take us to the embassy locker room,” Hanalea said. “We can shower there.”

“What if he’s not back by then?” Ginnie pinched her nose and pointed at her armpit. “What if he gets called away on one of his special assignments?”

My shoulders stiffened. Maybe my dad was right about Ginnie’s father. I hoped he wouldn’t come home. I tried to concentrate on straightening the Monopoly money into tidy piles next to the game board.

Hanalea shrugged. “We can shower at the nurses’ hostel.”

“I don’t mind not having water,” I said. “I grew up camping.” Except I wished I could wash the supper dishes and get rid of the onion smell. Maman never left the dishes piled up after supper. She kept extra jugs of water on the counter — for emergencies — and used ammonia to disinfect everything. And she had tricks for making the apartment smell good, like putting a drop of vanilla extract on a cookie sheet and warming it in the oven.

A wave of homesickness washed over me. I thought about asking to call home, just to hear Maman’s voice, but I didn’t want Ginnie to think I was a baby.

“Colin told me he’d be home for supper,” Ginnie said. “He was supposed to bring shwarma for us, and pastries from Baalbek.”

For a twelve-year-old, Ginnie sounded so mature. I couldn’t imagine calling my parents by their first names, as if they were my friends or roommates.

“I thought the Bekkaa Valley was off limits because of the war,” I said, remembering what Ghys had told us when Maman had proposed a trip to the Roman ruins at Baalbek.

Ginnie rolled the dice onto the Monopoly board. “I guess not. Colin says the war is his bread and butter.”

I looked up to gauge the expression on Hanalea’s face, but she’d turned away and was headed to her bedroom.

My turn. I picked up a Chance card and moved my favourite peon—the silver boot—to the nearest railroad. When a car rumbled past on Hamra Street, muffler roaring, I jumped. The car’s taillights lit up bits of the living room wall and then disappeared.

I had Boardwalk and Park Place. It wasn’t long before Ginny’s silver thimble would land on one of my hotels and she’d have to hand over all her money and most of her properties. But I didn’t want the game to end. Without any electricity, we couldn’t watch Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon like we’d planned. We’d had gym class in the morning and basketball practice after school—a lot of running and drills— and Ginnie had been yawning for the last half hour. It wouldn’t be long before she’d want to head to bed. I knew I’d never be able to sleep on the inflatable mattress she’d set up for me on her bedroom carpet. If I couldn’t sleep at home, how could I sleep here, especially if Ginnie made good on her promise and told me one of her famous ghost stories?

***

Lying on my mattress, hours later, I was reading a Nancy Drew mystery with Ginnie’s pocket flashlight when I heard the front door open and shut, followed by a man’s heavy footfall. Every part of me strained to listen. The person went to the toilet, then walked around again. It had to be Colin. But still, my heart thudded. I wished I were back in my apartment bedroom, with Etienne next door and Maman and Daddy down the hall.

I remembered when I was small, how Daddy used to tuck the silky edge of the blanket under my chin before kissing me goodnight. It was usually Maman who tucked me in—Daddy was often away or working in the basement — but I loved it when it was him.

It had been years since he’d tucked me in that way, but I imagined the feel of the silk trim under the tender flesh of my chin and how secure I’d felt as a small girl, knowing my dad was nearby.

***

I’d finally fallen asleep when a bright flash of light lit everything in the room, followed by a roaring thunderclap. The potted cactus on Ginnie’s windowsill crashed to the floor and her picture frames fell off the wall.

Ginnie sat up. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Across the street, a shrill alarm. Voices shouting in Arabic. A woman’s scream.

I tried to switch on the light, but the power was still out.

Ginnie was at the window. “Fire!” She ran out of the room. “Mom! Mom! Daddy!”

I grabbed my book and followed her, not wanting to be left alone.

“Dear God.” Hanalea had wrapped herself in a blanket and was clutching the ends against her chest. Her naked shoulders shuddered with cold. We stood next to her at the living room window.

The building across the street was on fire, right up to the third storey. Flames from a burning car leapt into the night. Glass littered the sidewalk. Groovy’s neon sign was gone. A black, gaping hole stood in place of its windows. A turbaned man ran out of the ruined shop with an armful of clothing. Another man followed behind with a mannequin over his shoulder, thick billows of smoke chasing behind as they disappeared in the gathering crowd.

Colin joined us at the window. “Car bomb.” He was fully clothed; he must have slept in his jeans and T-shirt.

Where had he been all night? What had he been doing? I stepped away from him, pretending to get a better look at the fire.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Hanalea said.

“No. They’ll get it under control.” Colin wrapped his arms around Ginnie from behind. “We’re safer here than on the sidewalk.”

In the distance, a muezzin sang the Fahr, the first prayer of the day, over a scratchy loudspeaker.

I turned my back to the fire so that all I could see was Ginnie and her dad and the identical cowlicks that made their bangs stand up straight over their left eyebrows.

“We should go to the Embassy,” Hanalea said. “We can’t stay here. We’re too close.”

“I told you, no.” Colin’s voice had an edge to it. “The streets will soon be blocked off. If we leave, we won’t be able to get back. It’s better to stay put.”

“That’s crazy. We need to evacuate.” Hanalea looked over at me. “We have someone else’s child, for God’s sake.”

While Ginnie’s parents argued about what to do, I navigated around the furniture. My eyes had grown accustomed enough to the darkness that I could see my way to the kitchen. I picked up the rotary phone on the counter. I needed to hear Maman’s voice.

No signal. I hung up and tried again. Still nothing. I tried again and again, twenty times or more, feeling the panic rise in my chest with each failed attempt.

Finally, I went back to stand with Ginnie and her family. A firetruck with a powerful hose had arrived. The road was full of military police, honking cars, barefoot people in pyjamas.

I tried the phone every fifteen minutes or less for the rest of the night, but to no avail.

At sunrise, Colin left the apartment. He returned mid-morning with a bag of pita rounds and two tiny cups of steaming coffee. His jeans and white Adidas tennis shoes were smeared with soot.

We spent the rest of the day watching the chaos below. By noon, all the Groovy’s merchandise—jeans, funky skirts and sweat tops, the newest fashions from Paris and London—had been burned or looted. The shop was charred black. The sun glinted on a couple of metal hangers sticking out from the piles of broken glass.

I pulled the phone into the living room as far as its cord would go and held it in my lap while Ginnie and I played marathon rounds of Uno, Crazy Eights, and Gin Rummy with her dog-eared pack of cards, interrupting our game every five minutes to listen for a dial tone.

All I could think about was going home. I wanted the refuge of my stamp collection: my favourite pastime, second only to reading since we’d arrived in the Middle East in September. Regardless of what went on outside our apartment walls or on the streets below, I could methodically soak, dry, press, and catalogue.

Ginnie didn’t know about my nerdy hobby, and I wasn’t about to tell her. No one on the shows we liked—Fame and Solid Gold and Magnum P.I. — would do such an old-fashioned thing.

We were eating the last of the pita, smeared with rancid American-style peanut butter from Ginnie’s father’s stash, when a loud knock sounded on the door. “Tanya? Tanya? Es-tu là?”

It was Maman’s voice. I ran to open the door and tumbled into her arms.

She shook me free. “On sort d’ici au plus vite.” We need to get out of here.

She nodded stiffly at Hanalea and grabbed the school backpack I’d placed by the door hours earlier in anticipation of this moment.

“Wait!” Ginnie wrapped me in a bearhug. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” she said, before surrendering me to my mother.

“Plus jamais,” Maman said once the apartment door was closed behind us and we were heading for the stairs. Never again. Anger singed the edges of her voice. “I was sure you were dead.”

I wanted her to hug me the way Colin had hugged Ginnie. I wanted tender, reassuring words. But Maman raged on. “I never should have let you come here. I should have listened to Ghys.”

We exited the building and were stepping onto the sidewalk when two French military police in riot gear stopped us. “Nations Unies,” my mother insisted, but they wouldn’t let us pass until she’d pulled her United Nations ID card out of her purse.

She hustled me down the street and around the corner, in front of damaged storefronts and shuttered businesses, to where my father was waiting in the U.N. jeep.

Daddy nodded at me but kept talking into his walkie-talkie as he manoeuvred the car into reverse and headed down the narrow, potholed street.

“It took us two hours to get through the roadblocks,” Maman said to me. “And then I didn’t know if you’d still be at the Mayfair. We had no way of reaching you.”

“I tried to call.”

I’d felt desperate to hear my mother’s voice. But now that I had her next to me, in person, I felt foolish and small—a huge inconvenience— risking my life for a sleepover and a new pair of jeans.

When we got home, Ghys was sitting on our living room couch. Wires and antennae spilled out of his shirt pockets. He nodded at my mother but didn’t step in to kiss her like he did on social calls, when his wife Violette was with him.

He sized me up with his yellow, coyote eyes. Beneath them, his cheeks and nose were thread veined. “Hope you enjoyed yourself,” he said to me in French. “You gave your parents quite a scare.”

“They weren’t evacuated.” Maman settled onto the couch and picked up her knitting project. “So foolish, but just as well, or we might never have found her.”

“Your father told me you were right across the street when the car bomb exploded on Hamra. Close call. Were your friend’s parents there?” His yellow eyes matched the colour of my mother’s yarn.

“Yes,” I said, and then remembered that Colin had been out for most of the night and had come in before the bomb went off. I explained all that to Ghys.

“Just as I thought,” he said. “That guy is a mercenary. Double agent.”

He took a long drag of his cigarette. The tobacco strands flared as he narrowed his eyes at me. “I heard the police report. That building was supposed to be empty by sunrise. Why didn’t you evacuate like everyone else?”

“Colin told us not to.” I regretted it as soon as I’d said it, but I couldn’t take it back.

Ghys cocked an eyebrow. My mother’s knitting needles stopped clicking.

“He’s not a spy,” I protested. But how could I be sure? Ghyslain knew these things; it was his job.

My brother looked up from the bowl of Cornflakes he was eating at the dining room table. “Remember the Russian at the MAC House in Damascus?”

“Shut up,” I told him. Could Ginnie’s father be like that man in the United Nations officers’ lounge, pretending to be someone he wasn’t? The Russian attaché had claimed not to speak a word of English and made a show of not understanding anything on the menu. But later, Etienne and I had seen him read the Far Side cartoon strip pinned to the bulletin board and chuckle to himself.

“No more sleepovers,” Ghyslain said to my mother. “You’re already at risk of kidnapping.” He made a notation in his logbook. “You shouldn’t be letting your kids go anywhere.”

A tinny French monotone from the radio filled the room. I hated the reporter for the way she commanded the men’s attention. I wanted to shout at her to shut up.

I hated Ghyslain for being such an alarmist. I hated my parents for bringing me to Beirut. I hated my brother for mentioning that stupid story about the Russian spy. If we’d still been in Tiberius, or back in Yellowknife, sleepovers with Ginnie would have been an easy sell. But not here. I could see it all over Maman’s pinched face and the way she crossed and re-crossed her legs, as if she needed to rearrange her body along with her thoughts.

It wasn’t that I’d had such a great time with Ginnie. But I was sure the next time would be better. We’d watch movies and maybe even invite some boys from Grade Seven or Eight.

I had set up my stamp collection on the dining room table and was sorting through the fresh pile of stamps Daddy had brought me from the UN headquarters when the phone rang. It was the sound I’d been longing to hear all morning at Ginnie’s. It sliced through the French news commentary babbling from Ghyslain’s radio.

Maman checked her watch and ran to answer. Late afternoon in Beirut meant mid-morning in Quebec when her parents usually called.

I slipped a British stamp — Queen Elizabeth’s head on a purple background—next to an identical orange one.

“Oui, allo?” In her brightest voice, Maman proceeded to say how wonderfully everything was going, how well Etienne and I were doing at our new school, and how safe we all were. Not to worry, she repeated. Pas de problème. All is well. Pas de soucis. Ne vous en faites pas.

She held the phone out to me. “Don’t tell them about last night,” she whispered with her hand over the receiver. “Don’t say anything about la bombe.”

“Allo?” When I heard my grandmother speak my name, a wave of homesickness crashed over me. Tears threatened. But Maman was making a zipper with her finger over her lips, so I launched into the useless American history I was learning at school: the names of all the presidents, the Preamble to the Constitution, the American Civil War.

I expected Maman to claim the phone back from me as she usually did, but she was staring at the Persian carpet she’d bought in a Beirut warehouse the week before. Its green paisley flowers clashed with the blue couch in our furnished apartment, but when we’d bought it, she’d said what mattered was that it matched our furniture at home, in Canada. Our real furniture.

“Maman,” I said, “Do you have anything more to say?”

But she continued to study the carpet as if there were a message hidden there among the flowers and leaves.

***

Author’s Note: In 1983, when I was twelve years old, my family lived in Beirut, Lebanon, where my father was a United Nations peacekeeper. I’ve written extensively about my experiences in Peacekeeper’s Daughter: A Middle East Memoir (Thistledown, 2021). “Like a Flock of Homesick Cranes” is a personal essay drawing from my memories of life at the centre of a civil war.

Image Source: Crethi Plethi / Flickr Creative Commons