Chapter Eighteen
CATHERINE
Beirut, 1971
By the time Ann Marie was six months old, my desperation hit a new low. After Gabriel first took my passport, I lost it. My hands and limbs were trembling so much that I had to lie on the kitchen floor so I wouldn’t pass out and hurt myself by tumbling onto the table and chairs. He’d come home that day like a flash of light and turned our relationship from partners and lovers to captor and hostage. As soon as I was able to stand and see straight, I rang Brigitte again. She had just left my apartment, leaving a trail of sage advice that was intended to bring me peace. No such luck.
“I can’t understand you,” she said. “Give me ten minutes.”
She came back over and found me cradling my child, tears streaming down my face, lip quivering. “He locked up my passport!”
She covered her mouth.
“He wouldn’t even speak to me. Came home seconds after you were gone. He left work to come here and put my passport in the safe.”
“Do you know the combination?”
“No! Of course not.”
Ann Marie began to wail.
Brigitte took the baby from me and bounced with her in her arms. “Did you yell at him?”
I shook my head and buried it in my hands. “I’ve done nothing but ask to see my family.”
“Did you ask him again today when he came home?”
“No. He wouldn’t even talk to me. I tried. All he said was that I was never going to leave this country.” I looked up, furious now. “If he thinks for one second that he can lock me up and keep us from my family, he has another thing coming.”
Brigitte bounced some more and cooed at Ann Marie, who was fussing. “May I fetch her a bottle?”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Go on the terrace and try to find your breath. I will meet you out there.”
I found my breath in a pack of cigarettes and a glass of vodka as my neighbor fed my child and placed her back into bed.
Brigitte took a seat next to me. “Let me help you.”
“Escape?”
“No.” She leaned forward. “The more you talk of going home, the less he is willing to allow it, yes?”
“Why do I need his permission to see my family?”
Her face hardened. “Your stubbornness has gotten you this far. I am trying to tell you that you are married to a proud Middle Eastern man.” She clapped her hands in front of my face as if to wake me up. “And until you understand what that means for you and the baby, then his threats will be your reality.”
“You keep asking me what I did wrong today, and I did nothing.”
“I keep asking you so I can understand where we go from here. If you did not argue with him today, then let him come home from work this evening and pretend you are not upset with what he’s done.”
I laughed out loud. “So, he should get away with confiscating my passport?”
Brigitte sat back in her seat and crossed her legs. “Do you want to go home or not?”
Her message that day was not lost on me, and if I had to swallow my pride to see my family, then that’s what I had to do. With every day that had passed since Ann Marie’s birth, my relationship with Gabriel had become more and more strained, and his tolerance for my wants and needs became nonexistent. Back home, the feminist movement was plowing ahead with the force of a locomotive. But in Beirut, he wouldn’t allow me to order off a menu for myself, meet a friend for lunch—not that I had many—and even asking a waiter for more ice in my water led him to publicly ostracize me. Anytime I went to leave the building during the day, Walid was there. Even walking down to the ocean with the baby turned into a day at the beach with Walid and Ann Marie.
And then something happened. I went to get the mail, and there was a letter for me from an address I didn’t recognize. Inside was the article I’d written for the Chicago Tribune about my holiday lunch at Marshall Field’s in the Walnut Room and a handwritten note on Abigail Rushton’s personal stationery.
Dear CC,
My apologies for sending this so late, but it took me nearly as long to locate your address in Beirut from your cousin Henry. However, it was a wonderful reason to call him and catch up. But you can blame him for the tardiness of this letter! Anyway, I hope the copy of the article has made its way to you, and you should know it was quite well received. You are a talented writer. We had many inquiries from readers wanting to hear more about your other adventures and opinions. I told you, everyone loves a socialite. Hope you are well and settled in Lebanon. I must say that is a place I have never been. Do stay in touch.
A.R.
Her letter lit the mass of smoldering kindle in my belly. It was a sign that I should be writing more and not just in my journals, and it was a sign that I should be living, not suffocating. Abigail’s gesture made me bound and determined to get home to my family. And if that meant taking Brigitte’s advice, then that was precisely what I would do.
That day, when Gabriel came home from work after locking up my freedom, I never said one word about it. Never even mentioned the Tribune article that I should’ve been clamoring to show him.
The new me.
I stopped using the phone, stopped talking about my family, and focused solely on him and our home in Beirut. We began making love again and talking about growing our family. Within three weeks, he was a changed man. A man whose threats had been removed. A man who was in control of his woman again. A man who was being hoodwinked. A fool.
Early one Wednesday evening, I asked Walid to drive me to a market about ten miles away because I knew they had a bank of pay phones in the back. Some of the students at AUB had mentioned that to me as a great resource.
“Would you mind staying in the car with Ann Marie while I shop?” She was asleep in her plastic infant seat.
His face lit up as if he’d been asked to represent his country in a peace summit. “I would be honored! You do not have to worry for one second, Miss. I am a father myself, as you know, and I will treat her as if she were mine.” He stood at attention.
I smiled and laughed a little too much on purpose. “Of course, you will. That’s why I asked. You are truly the sweetest man I know.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “And I will only be about fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, of course. We will be right here. You take your time, and do not be concerned for even a second.”
I ran inside to the back of the store and placed a collect call to Laura. It had been months since we’d spoken, but I’d written to her that I would try and call on that very day. How did I pick that random Wednesday? Because that’s how I did everything back then. All decisions were made to appear as arbitrary as possible.
“I need you to send me a ticket,” I finally said after we’d quickly caught each other up. “I don’t have much time to chat, but can you call a travel agent and have them arrange for me to come home next month?”
“Is everything OK?” she asked.
“Everything is fine, but I need your help with this.”
“Sure, what date?”
“Maybe November 8 or any day that week, and then ask if she will mail the ticket to this address.” I gave her Brigitte’s apartment number.
“Maybe she can arrange for you to pick it up there at a local office in Beirut?” Laura suggested.
“Just have her send it. It will be much easier for me, and if I have to change the date, I will. Please pay for it, and I will pay you back.”
“How exciting,” Laura said.
“It is, but don’t tell anyone. I mean it. I want to surprise my family.” My heart was beating out of my chest. “I miss you all so much. You have no idea.”
“I miss you, too, and can’t wait to meet Ann Marie. I can’t believe you have a daughter and I’ve never met her.”
After hanging up, I grabbed a bunch of items off the shelves, paid for them, and returned to the car. Walid was so consumed with my sweet little girl that he never bothered to question why I’d chosen that market over any other.
The next week I began to rearrange the apartment. Items that Gabriel had locked up in a storage locker in the basement were brought to light. Mostly tchotchke-type things such as his fishing poles and some old framed photographs of him when he was a child.
“I want Ann Marie to see these things as she gets older and learn where she came from,” I said to him when he came home, pleased with the changes I’d made, hoping he’d recognize the obvious absence of my own family photos. Our transfer to Beirut happened so quickly that I never had time to collect all the things I wanted from my home in Greenwich. Things like photo albums and quilts and all my seasonal clothes that were still packed in trucks in our basement when I first left for Chicago.
I began to misplace things like my winter coat and my favorite leather boots, and the wristwatch Laura had given me one year for my birthday, all on purpose and arbitrary, of course. Gabriel was willing to replace what I needed, and only once did I mention the personal belongings I’d left behind in the States.
“One of these years, I should have Laura fly them out to me, but they’ll all be terribly out of fashion by then.”
He laughed at my frivolous concerns.
Silly fool.
Whether he thought women like the new me actually existed or whether he presumed I was finally the girl he intended to marry didn’t matter. I would see Brigitte, smiling proudly from her doorway, arms crossed, when she’d catch me kissing Gabriel goodbye each morning as he left for work.
The afternoon of Thursday, October 28, I saw Brigitte coming up the front walk from the butcher as I was drying some of Ann Marie’s blankets on the terrace. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door.
She examined me closely, frowning, with a plane ticket in her hand. “What is this?”
“It’s exactly what you think it is.” I went to reach for it, and she snapped it away from me. I dropped my arms to my sides. “You’re going to keep it for yourself?” I asked.
“How could you put me in danger like this?”
“You always get the mail.”
“What if I hadn’t today? There are plenty of days that Sammy picks it up.” Her hand was shaking. “Have you lived your entire life with no consequences?”
I almost lashed out at her, but I held my tongue. Before I’d met Gabriel, my life had been void of passion. Not opportunity and blessings, but true passion. Loving and marrying him forced me to abandon a writing career, abandon my home, my family, and now my self-worth. No, I had not lived my entire life without consequences.
But once again, I strained to bite my tongue. “I would have put you at more risk by telling you and then asking you to keep a secret for me.”
“I’m not happy about this at all, Catherine.”
“That I want to see my mother, or that I sent the ticket to your mailbox?”
Her expression softened. Ultimately, she felt sorry for me, and I knew that. “Of course, I want you to see your mother and father. I just wish you would not have involved me in a lie.”
I extended my hand. “You know what Gabriel will do if he finds out.”
We stared at each other, and then she handed me the ticket. She knew what he’d do.
“Thank you, and now there is nothing more to be said. This conversation never happened.”
She blinked and placed a hand over her heart. “He will never forgive you if you plan to deceive him.”
“He has already trapped me here and forbidden me from seeing my family. I can’t think of much worse than that. It’s me who’s been deceived.”
She patted her chest. “He does love you, you know.”
I lowered my gaze and nodded. I loved him, too, despite everything, but it wasn’t enough.
“How will you leave with no passport?”
“I’m working on that.”