“Manouche?!” “How don’t you know it? It is a religion here in Lebanon.” That’s how the bartender exclaimed at Café Em Nazih within our Saifi hostel. “Manouche, and Fairouz in the morning”.
He was the classic smiling bartender, the friendly early bird who would cheer me up even when my hypotensive dizzy mornings were truly hitting, the guy who daily remembered that I preferred a fresh Tropicana juice to the terrible coffee and tea on brewing, encouraging me to try different dishes from the menu every morning. He was from Syria, one of those 2 million Syrian refugees that Lebanon (population 6 million) had taken in with the outbreak of the conflict. He was one of the lucky ones to have found employment in a country already torn apart by the economic crisis, and for that he was grateful to the hosting country. But he missed Damascus. What I know of typical Lebanese breakfasts, I owe to him: foul is a puree of broad beans, garlic, onion, lemon and parsley served in an olive oil bath; fatteh is a puree of chickpeas, yoghurt, mint, garlic and pine nuts, served in a usual oil bath; labneh is Greek yoghurt strained with salt, mint and oil; the famous manouche, that is the street food adored by the Lebanese, is a kind of pizza topped with sesame seeds, thyme, zaatar (a mix of sesame, sumac, salt, oregano, cumin) or meat or cheese. As for Fairouz, she is the cult Lebanese singer of the Arab world, with more than fifty million copies of her albums sold in her career. Already in Jordan I had earlier heard of her, she is the mother of Arab mornings: every café, radio, restaurant, sometimes even public offices play the melodies of this woman, whose name is borne by half the Lebanese restaurants in the world.
Saifi was (and its remainings are still) located in the Christian quarter of Gemmayzeh, Achrafieh. On that 4 August morning, Mary and I had decided to walk aimlessly through the city of Beirut, across all the main districts. Before heading towards the Green Line, the famous demarcation road that during the Lebanese civil war separated Christian East Beirut from Muslim West Beirut, we stopped in front of a remarkable architectural complex, enclosed within a wall and a dense palm grove. It was Sursock Palace, on Sursock Street and opposite the Sursock Museum. I had read an article in Vogue, which described it as a ‘grandiose decadent mansion between a Venetian palace, the Thousand and One Nights, and a Côte d’Azur villa cupped in Posillipo’. In order to meet the palace of Yvonne Cochrane Sursock, the 97-year-old ‘Lady of Lebanon’, we had to reach the back of a hill overlooking the city of Beirut.
It was the only building that had never been bombed during the civil war. Lady Cochrane, a Greek Orthodox, cousin of Isabelle Sursock Colonna (one of the many lovers of Galeazzo Ciano, former Italian Foreign Minister and Mussolini’s son-in-law), granddaughter of George Sursock, one of the financiers of the Suez Canal (as well as builder of the palace), daughter of Alfred Sursock, ambassador of the Sublime Porte in Paris. The Sursock were originally from northern Syria, drawing their surname from a corruption of Kur Isaak, id est Lord Isaac. They migrated near Byblos (present-day Jbeil, Lebanon) after the capture of the Byzantine capital. Beirut became Ottoman from 1516, witnessing a gradual economic flowering based on trade with several Mediterranean cities, particularly Venice. Becoming landowners through the centuries also in Palestine, the Sursock got subsequently in dispute with the State of Israel over the requisition of two properties in Jaffa (Tel Aviv). Boasting a crucial leverage, the Sursock, Lady Cochrane in particular, were considered the city’s hidden ruler: it is said that KGB officers used to pay their respects to the Sursock house as first introductory step once in Lebanon.
Her house, repository of some original paintings of Guercino, Guardi and Corcos, was unfortunately not open to visitors, to us. Like two runaways, we stopped in front of the gate, ringing the bell twice, with no response other than that of two cats. What a pity, I heard about Lady Cochrane for her patronage; she had dedicated the Sursock Museum to the reconstruction of the memory of her beloved country. The museum itinerary reproduced her view of the city: once an Ottoman garden city, Beirut should have tried to return to that ideal rather than aiming for a sort of Middle Eastern version of Hong Kong, all skyscrapers and stained glass. In her mind, the ‘Brutalising architecture’ was partly responsible for the cementification of Lebanon.
Martyrs’ Square
We would return back to Achrafieh only in the early evening. After our Sursock stop, we later on went down towards West Beirut.
First stop: Martyrs’ Square. Situated in the centre of the Green Line, this square is the main site of clashes in times of war, demonstration ground in times of peace, today a meeting ground for Lebanese of all creeds (I had lost count of how many in all? Christian Maronites, Christian Orthodox, Druze, Sunni Muslims, Shiites, Christians of the Armenian church, I’m sure I’m forgetting something). In any case, Martyrs’ Square is the traditional meeting point of great civic occasions, whether it is shooting or hugging.
In reality, this square seemed to me rather ugly. There was only a bronze statue in the middle and the headquarters of some banks. And then yes, as I had already experienced in Israel, it was the classic place where the sound of the muezzin alternated with the ringing of bells. The Sunni Mosque of Al Amin is in fact opposite the Maronite Cathedral of St George (19th century). The two buildings are framed by the excavations of the ancient Roman baths, the cardo maximus (oh I forgot, Beirut is a city with more than 5000 years of history) and the governmental palace, perched on a hill. Finally, in this urban multicultural crossroads, we stumbled upon the first Lebanese control station, distinguished by its distinctive cedar tree with red and white colours. Is Martyrs’ Square kinda peaceful after all?
We descended into the so-called downtown to immerse ourselves in the Beirut Souks, a hybrid between an open air shopping mall and a fancy Champs Elysees with Arabian allure, an ode to Western consumerism in grand style: Haute couture boutiques, food courts, cinemas, brands from the usual clothing chains, the various Starbucks, Costa, Caffè Nero. It is the new shopping district designed by Spanish architect José Rafael Moneo Vallés for Solidaire, the ‘Societé libanaise de rencostruction’ created by the former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, murdered by car bomb in 2005. I actually liked the architecture, it was really elegant. (But hadn’t we just passed through an army station?).
All that remained of the old Levantine quarter was a large building, opposite to shops and a futuristic shopping centre under construction (Zaha Hadid’s latest project). The building, empty, riddled with bullets, now lies in memory of the fighting that took place in the 1975-1989 war (150,000 dead, 900,000 emigrants, two million refugees), the same war that tore apart what was once the stunning “Switzerland of the Middle East”.
We rolled into Zaitunay Bay, a futuristic block of skyscrapers and worldwide hotel chains as Hilton and Kempinsky, a series of bars jutting out over the row of boats and yachts, an artificial beach with swimming pools. All very nice, neat and Dubai-like. Artificial? Mah. The marina was crowded, the clubs full of wealthy attendants, with flourishing botox girls posing for the ritual IG pics on the public pool, satisfying the gazes of gym-goers. After all, it was just what is seen in many parts of the world, although Lady Sursock would surely associate this Emirati surrogate with the ‘brutalisation’ of Beirut.
Further along, we finally made our way to the famous Corniche, Beirut’s kilometre-long promenade, another world. A counter on the Mediterranean, where the saltiness mingles with the smell of diesel and the hubbub of traffic. The houses were more dilapidated, the atmosphere more informal. A moment later we were met by street vendors until… wow! A group of barefoot children were having fun diving off the quay overhanging the sea. The quay was quite elevated, the sea quite rough, the seabed rocky. But once they had captured our interest, the children entertained us by showing us their kilometre-long sea dives right in the city centre of the town. This was exactly a few metres before the headquarters of the American University of Beirut. Being a sort of city-state nestled in the Muslim part of the city, the prestigious private university was founded by Protestant missionaries in 1866, although the university’s charter is based on strict secular principles. Just by looking at its size on a map of Beirut, one can tell AUB is a real institutional pillar of the city. In the Middle East, there is a saying that every Lebanese has studied sooner or later at the American..
Walking up the Corniche, we looked out at one of the entrances gate of the university, or probably one of the retros.. It was unclear where Hamra, Beirut’s famous nightlife district, began and where the university ended. The fact is that we wandered among buildings of old elegance, the headquarters of some ministries and embassies, sometimes among complexes still pockmarked by the war, or dim and desolate squares inhabited by stray kittens. We were in search of Hamra, its main street, Hamra Street! Did it really exist?
[continues…]
