A Cold and Rainy Day Mounira Al Solh
On January 6, 2023, I drove from 800 meters above sea level in Broummana, where, after my orphan-upon-birth grandfather was assassinated in the center of Beirut in 1958, the mostly Christian and Druze graveyard of the town offered him and his family this exceptional two square meters of ground to be modestly—with the inscription of the Muslim Al Fatiha prayer— buried in peace. Broummana is the Christian town of the mother of his cousin and wife, my outstanding feminist and activist grandmother, after whom I was fortunately named. I drove past the graveyard, down to sea level, took a few curves, passed the Roumieh prison road, overlooking the still deeplywounded harbor of Beirut, freshly pregnant with the waiting eyes of all its victims and their relatives, who are now being persecuted instead of cared for. Since August 4, 2020, at 6:07pm—COVID-19 times—they have been fighting to know why their loved ones were killed, waiting for the un-coming of justice. I headed back above sea level 1450 meters, all the way up to Bsharri. I counted at least 140 curves, some mild and many harsh, sharp as a knife, swinging like bony elbows between mountains and plains, alternating from sea view to mountain chain vistas. The car spun and wove around as many curves in the road as years that have passed since Jubrān Khalil Jubrān was born on January 6, 1883—or perhaps it was December 6, according to different records. The fact that I visited his museum possibly on the same day he was born was pure coincidence. And by pure coincidence I mean the way many of us physically survived the August 4 explosion by leaving the sight ten minutes prior or jumping quickly enough under the bed. Coincidences and reflexes might save you or kill you or wound you forever.
161