Limbo Beirut by Hilal Chouman

Author:Hilal Chouman [Chouman, Hilal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

As the gurney went past them, Salwa looked at the left arm of the injured man. There was a blue tattoo of a telephone number and address on it. She forgot her pain for a moment and followed the gurney with her eyes as it moved away. The man’s face, its features obscured by the quantity of blood, was square. Suspiciously square. Square like a Sudoku puzzle! Then the pain in her belly increased. The stabs were directed lower now. She saw liquid underneath her on the floor tiles. She gave a single scream that brought the young doctor hurrying toward her. Salwa was thinking about the telephone number on the man’s arm. She wondered, in the midst of the clamor of her pain, whether the reprinted magazines left behind in her room contained the telephone number for a new publisher’s office on the second page, like in the old issues from the eighties. It shocked her that she had not considered this simple detail since putting the magazines on the bedside stand. She began to squeeze the wrist of the young doctor as she closed her eyes, and the song continued in her ears: Sitting here in limbo / I wait for the stream to flow away / Sitting here in limbo / I know that I must leave.

At that instant, Salwa became certain that the child was going to come out of her. Now, or in a little while. He would come out.

Her father stood on the sand facing Yamm and holding a bundle of magazines for her. She was looking at him from behind and she knew it was him. She knew also that these were new magazines whose puzzles she had not yet solved. Then the vision transitioned to show the spectral form of her “different” husband. He appeared in front of her, smiling, not laughing. But this time his smile was strange. She sensed that he wanted to explain something to her, but he did not speak. She could almost hear herself cry out to him.

“Where are you, Alfred?”

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