Chapter Thirty-Two
CATHERINE
Beirut, 1973
Desperation will cause people to take risks they would never take under normal circumstances, and that is exactly what happened after my first week in the Khalids’ home. I grew tired of waiting, tired of avoiding Yasmine, tired of her condescending looks and comments, tired of being told to be patient and do the right thing when my child needed me.
When I had been in Greenwich, I would lie awake at night feeling helpless, wishing I had the power to do something.
Now that I was back in Beirut, I did. At 1:00 a.m., I dressed in dark clothing and walked out the front door. Ras Beirut was an upscale part of the city on the edge of the waterfront. The area consisted mostly of residential apartment buildings with a few impressive old homes like the Khalids’, called qasr’s, nestled in the middle of the city for those who could afford them. There was a tall gated fence around the perimeter, and I was relieved to find it unlocked. The streets were lit, and there was some activity, not as much as during the day but enough that I felt I could blend in without being too conspicuous. If I ran, I figured it would take me about thirty minutes to get back to Gabriel’s apartment, but if I jumped in a cab or service car, it would be much quicker. At the last minute, I decided to take the walkway down by the water. It might cost me some extra time, but I thought it would be the safest and draw the least amount of attention.
Once I got to AUB, I cut through the campus and walked briskly up a few streets to Rue Clémenceau, where our building stood. I paused to catch my breath, but there was no taming my adrenaline. I reached in my front pocket to feel the keys, making sure they were real. From the street, there were no lights on in the apartment, but from the outside it looked the same as it had the last time I’d stood there a little over one year ago.
I was a woman with a goal but without a plan. Looking back, it was a perilous idea, but I was fueled by my despair and concern for my daughter’s well-being. I really can’t think of another mother who wouldn’t have done the same thing.
Two men ambled behind me on the sidewalk, speaking in Arabic and smoking cigarettes. They passed by without a glance. I walked hastily to the front door and opened it with the first of my two keys. I paused to take a breath at the bottom of the stairwell. Whatever consequences came of it, I would have my daughter and be back en route to the Khalids’ home to deal with them later.
I tiptoed up the stairs, praying that I wouldn’t run into anyone. By the time I reached the top, I had to pause to suppress my fear and summon my courage. I took the second key out of my pocket, gently placed it in the lock, and turned. Nothing.
I slid it out and double-checked that I hadn’t put the wrong one in and tried again. Nothing. My forehead was damp with perspiration. He must have changed the locks, I thought to myself. Back and forth I tried with a little more force, but it wouldn’t open. As I was taking the key out a second time, the door opened.
A man I didn’t recognize started screaming at me in Arabic. I took a step back and almost fell over. I raised my hands, trying to quiet him, which worked to some degree when he assumed I’d made a mistake. Glancing behind him, I could see there was different furniture in the apartment. Gabriel hadn’t changed the locks. He’d moved where I wouldn’t be able to find them.
I apologized profusely in English and Arabic and raced out of the building before someone alerted the authorities.
There was no wind left in my sails by the time I got to the curb. It was the middle of the night, and I was back at square one. I walked back down toward the waterfront, where some fishermen were perched under streetlamps, the scent of their fresh catch wafting through the air as the occasional car whizzed by behind them. A few blocks up, I walked into the lobby of the InterContinental Phoenicia and ordered a cup of coffee, wishing I still had a room there and a chance to be alone.
After I’d finished, I trudged back to the Khalids’ home with tears in my eyes and anguish in my heart. I didn’t come down for breakfast the next morning.
“Miss?” One of the staff knocked on my door. “Would you like something to eat?”
“No, thank you.”
“Mr. Khalid has asked that you come down and meet him in his study at eleven thirty.”
“Thank you. I will be there.”
Yasmine was seated in the room with him when I entered.
“Catherine! Please have a seat. I’ve arranged for the two of you to have lunch today,” he said.
“What?” Yasmine scowled. “I have other plans.”
“You will cancel them for today and have lunch with Catherine. She is a very important guest, and you will do as I say.”
Neither she nor I was happy with the idea.
“I have a car coming at noon to take you both out of the house,” he said and began to walk out. “Do not let me find out that either of you canceled on the lunch.”
We rode in silence to a French bistro near the university campus. There was a large bar on one wall of the restaurant covered in gold leaf, and black crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. We were seated out back in a covered porch that had Plexiglas walls, both of us with our arms and legs crossed until the wine came.
“This may be the only way I will get through the meal,” she said as the waiter filled our glasses.
I refused to play an insulting game of tête-à-tête, choosing to sip in silence, but I was worried that our continued dislike for each other would upset Danny, and worse, get in the way of finding Ann Marie.
After my second glass, I had the courage to engage her in conversation and was willing to do whatever I needed to do to keep the peace if the Khalids’ were my best shot. “It’s nice of your husband to send us here today. I only want to find my daughter, as you know. I don’t want to be trouble.”
Yasmine was on her second glass as well. “We somehow got off on the wrong foot.”
“Yes.” I uncrossed my legs and sat at the edge of my chair. “And if it was something I did, then I apologize, although I have to be honest. I just thought you disliked me from the moment you met me. No matter what I could have done.”
She tilted her glass up and drained the last drop. The waiter brought us another bottle.
Yasmine studied my face. “Did you know Gabriel was engaged to be married before he met you?”
My eyes went wide, and by the look on my face, she knew I did not.
“It’s true,” she said. “To my sister.”
My hand went to my forehead. “I had no idea.”
The waiter draped a white linen napkin over his forearm and poured some more wine.
“Thank you,” she said to him and took a sip. “Yes. It was about a year before he went to the States. He proposed to my sister, Rynne, and then broke it off over the phone when he was in America. A few months later, we found out that he had married someone else.” She looked away and then back at me. “My Christmas party was the first time I had seen him since.”
“I’m surprised you and Danny were so polite to either of us.”
She took a deep breath. “It’s a complicated web of relationships, but Danny is not a fan of Gabriel’s, either.”
I was glad to hear that.
“But he is a gracious host and insists I am the same.”
“Gabriel never told me that he was engaged before. I’m very sorry about your sister.” I lifted my glass and took a drink. “But she may have been better without him, if you ask me.” I placed my glass back on the table. “I don’t know if we were doomed from the start, but I try not to look at it that way. When we first moved away from Greenwich, Connecticut—where I grew up—to Chicago, he encouraged me to get a job and said that we would be there for a while. Then he moved me away after only a few months. I was newly pregnant and missing my family, and I trusted him to look after me here, but he was gone for many hours each day and left me with a driver who felt more like a spy. Then, as soon as I had Ann Marie, he forbade me from using the phone and speaking with my family.” I paused and shook my head, remembering. “I caught him in so many lies, and I know he was cheating on me with a woman in the mountains. And then when he locked up my passport, I knew I had to save myself.”
She made a tsk sound. “That’s terrible. I believe that you didn’t know about my sister. I would like to apologize for blaming you and taking it out on you. That was wrong of me.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t help yourself.”
She smiled.
“Is that why you called me a fool? Because I didn’t know what I was getting into?”
She shook her head, her expression softer. “I don’t know why I said that. If I’m honest with you, I think you are the opposite. I think you are brave for coming here, and Danny and I both can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.”
No one knew what I was going through. Despite the people lined up to help, I felt truly alone when it came to fighting for my daughter, whom I feared wouldn’t even remember me.
“I feel helpless, not brave. I’m scared that she won’t want to come home. That she won’t recognize me. That he’s going to fight me to the bitter end, and that I’ll never see her again.” I dabbed under my eye with a napkin. “I can hardly sleep at night. Days and weeks and months have passed, and yes, I’m finally back here, and I know everyone is doing what they can, but sometimes it feels like it’s no one’s priority but mine. I imagine she has a cold or an ear infection. I’m sure she’s already speaking and maybe walking. I will never hear her say Mama for the first time, if she’s even said it at all. He’s robbed me of so much more than my heart and my happiness. He’s taken memories away from me.”
Yasmine sighed. “It’s so very grave what he’s done.” She took another sip of wine. “Danny and I have tried to have a child for many years. I have an older brother, and he is the only one on my side who has been blessed with children. I have two nieces and a nephew who I adore, and about two years ago, I got pregnant.” She smiled at the thought. “I called my mother and father immediately, and we were all so happy. Danny cried, he was so overjoyed . . . but then three months later, I lost the baby.” She shrugged. “No one knows why. The doctor insisted that it was nothing I had done and that miscarriages happen all too often, but to be glad I was able to at least get pregnant, and it would happen again for us.” She paused. “It has not happened again. I do not pretend to know what it’s like to lose a daughter in the way that you have, but I have lost a child, and I have felt helpless in that regard.”
“I’m very sorry.”
She shook her head. “I have many blessings of my own. I’m only thirty-two years old, and I won’t give up trying for our baby.”
“I will pray for you.”
“And I will pray for you.” She raised her glass. “To wine and women and new friends.”
Yasmine and I decided to walk home that day instead of taking the car. We strolled arm in arm along the waterfront and up through the side streets of Ras Beirut, laughing and crying and thanking God and wine—the great equalizer—for finally bringing us together. I had a friend again, and I was going to need one.