Hotel Dieu, Part II

I arrived to Beirut International that evening September 9.2013 and as I sat and watched the official butting out one cigarette after another, he took out some paper and in general took his own sweet time attending to whatever it was about my passport that made immigration pull me into that office. It was really hot and I was so so tired. He avoided looking me in the eye and other young officials went back and forth out of the office seemingly doing very important things but I was the only passenger in the terminal. The only one.

After what seemed to be an hour or more, he would ask me questions about my visit and I was on the verge of tears already, standing in line to get into the baggage claim area where you go through the standard glass enclosed cubicles to have things stamped vigorously by bored and unsympathetic young men in khaki. I always wonder why they are so unhappy or at least appear to be. Little did I know how many unhappy officials I would be meeting in the coming days. One man after another clothed in every shade of gray to khaki to brown with expressionless faces and smirks.

Finally another official entered the office and the boss was telling me to go with him to the baggage claim. At last I would be allowed to leave, to get to Hotel Dieu and see dear Rabab who probably had anything but a few minutes to a few days left in her life. This I knew and was on borrowed time already as we all are but in her case, the borrowed time was finite and there were no bargains left to be had on her behalf. As a nurse, these things we know are non negotiable.

By the time I was sent to get my bags, they were already in the abandoned pile in a room near the exit. I went to the door and was thankful that my two big suitcases were right in the middle. The official just stood there and let me pull both bags by myself. A grandmother tired from a long journey and he just let me struggle and instead of taking me to customs, he indicated we had to go down to an office. He said it would be alright, I would be able to leave the airport as soon as they cleared me from immigration.

I went into his office and left my heavy suitcases outside the door. He sat across from me and began to ask the same questions I had already answered in the other office. Why are you here? How long are you staying? The usual.

I thought to myself…well obviously, this is about Syria. In early September 2013, Obama was planning to attack Syria for using chemical weapons. Now we know that wasn’t true at all but I always knew it was a lie. It never made any sense. But I comforted myself with the thought that the Lebanese were just being very careful about who was entering the country that week. I could be anyone for all they know, a spy, a terrorist, a courier…who knows really.

The official flipped back and forth through my passport. He’d stop on one thing and go back to another. In total I’d been back to Lebanon 4 times since the war and evacuation in 2006.

The official called one of his peers in and his was the first real friendly face I’d seen all night. He was a big man, bald and he obviously felt for my misery. I kept telling them I had to get to Rabab and I would cry and they would offer tissues. The two of them flipped back and forth and back and forth in my passport. They asked me again why I was there and if I’d been living in Lebanon. I then remembered the Bahar. The Beach. Lebanon’s own Normandy Landing in reverse. We left in 2006 in a mass exodus…thousands and thousands of people shuttled to Naval vessels and ocean liners in order to escape the heavy bombardment. During the evacuation, we left the country on an amphibious from the beach, on to the USS Trenton and then on to Cargo planes times two to Ramstein and then on to Newark.

I also remembered my car accident on the autostrat in a Beirut suburb in 2004. I didn’t reveal that one fearing that was why I was being investigated. A car accident that was not really a car accident but a suicide attempt: my own. I wasn’t successful obviously. But it wandered around in my mind that I was finally going to be punished for that act that sent a couple other people to a hospital and most likely ended up with a garbage truck driver with a stiff fine. And me with broken ribs, sternum and a pneumothorax.

Finally the big man asked, if I had gone out in 2006 on the “Bahar”. I indicated I had and he looked thoroughly enlightened. He explained that apparently a lot of people had the same problem as I did and had problems when returning to Lebanon for a visit. They evacuated and the US Embassy never informed immigration that we’d left the country. I was so relieved and they said they would call the judge and I would be released just as soon as they could get me cleared. It would finally be over and I could maybe get some sleep in my apartment in Aramoun before going to check on Rabab in the morning which by now was just a few hours away.

I waited and waited and made small talk with the first official. With his broken English and my broken Arabic we were able to chat and he seemed more relaxed, more tolerant of the midnight burden I was providing. Keeping him from the quintessential security guard type nap, head on chest, police cap tilted down over the eyes. I was worried about Rabab’s brother Ahmad who must be outside the airport waiting for me to arrive. I begged the guard to call him and let him know I was there but he said he couldn’t do that. I pleaded and pleaded and they relented and let me call Ahmad outside to let him know there was a problem about the evacuation.

Finally the big guy came back and grabbed one of my suitcases and the other one took the second leaving me with just my carry on. We exited the airport but through another door, the one that no one tells you about. The car was waiting just outside already and I realized that the big guy must have pulled it around to pick us up. I asked where we were headed and they told me that they couldn’t get hold of the judge and so they were taking me all the way to the immigration office itself. I didn’t question that and slid into the back seat of an old compact car. In Lebanon, officials and police don’t always have an official car, they use their own. This wasn’t a surprise. I knew that already from my car “accident”. That cop that accompanied me to one hospital (I left AMA to try to escape) and eyed me like he knew there was something more to my little accident. I had to drive that cop to the police station myself in order to answer my charges that day in 2004, his eye on me the whole time, his knowledgeable eye. The awful eye that cops have when they know a person isn’t being quite honest.

…to be continued