Other Lives

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When will you be back home?

He asks me on our way to the Mombasa airport. I don’t say that I am coming back. I don’t say that I’m leaving. I only say that I miss Lebanon. I know that longing is not for a specific place. It’s for what’s inside myself that I’m losing everyday, for what I lose while away, for what I’ve created from the images I’ve preserved in my head for so long. It’s as though nothing is left of them now… More than fifteen years have passed since I left. I know that by going back to Beirut, I won’t retrieve what I’ve lost. Instead I’ll simply confirm my loss. I’ll confirm that what I’ve been missing is in my head, only in my head, and I won’t be able to convey it to him.

I leave Chris behind. And I leave his letter to me on my bedside table, without opening it. I know what’s inside: money I don’t want and a question about when I’ll come back to him. Since we’ve been married, he’s left me money in envelopes. Our hands have never touched, not even once, when he’s given me money.

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