I passed by Yolla’s house, which was not that far from my own. I loved to hang out with her in the small backyard, in the shade of the luxuriant loquat tree, nibbling on its fruit sometimes. We would keep our eyes on the hole that had a slab placed on it to keep that damned rat from coming out and causing us to tremble in fear. We would then walk together to school, where we would sit side by side behind the wooden desk made for two. I told Yolla that Ibrahim was seizing every opportunity to stand behind us or to play around us. She would laugh with her two long braids and her large black eyes, before being gripped by the fear that her mother had instilled deep inside her when I tell her that the mean Fairuz had cornered me in the playground to attack me for Ibrahim falling in love with both of us.
Yolla made me swear not to reveal our secret. But I did anyway as soon as I arrived home to find my mother on the balcony sewing something for us. I approached her, my legs shaking and my tongue faltering, to tell her that Ibrahim told the mean Fairuz that he was in love with us, Yolla and me. My mother didn’t laugh when she saw how serious and confused I was. Her brow remained furrowed. Then she took a weight off my shoulders by saying that we should love each other at school and that was the custom, and that Fairuz should keep her mouth shut. Overjoyed, I repeated that to Yolla. And I felt that she believed me, and that I was her best friend and her family. That was how we grew, always together, until I was separated from her by transferring to another school after obtaining my first certificate.
We were apart for years. Then our beautiful war broke out. I disappeared in my village for a year, after which I went to the capital to enroll at a public high school, where I came across Yolla again. She had had her braids cut and her eyes were dewy, and they would remain that way, glistening with a vague mix of sadness and tenderness. Her father, whom she loved and resembled, was kidnapped at a checkpoint on his way from Jezzine to the capital. Nothing remained of him but his red car, contradictory news of the location of his kidnapping that black Saturday, and those responsible for him going missing. Yolla recounted to me all of this, this loss that pulled the rug from under them, of her mother’s relentless search for him, and the end of innocence for her sisters who were too young to understand tragedy. I could see in her gaze, from that day onwards, a hint of defeat that would never be displaced whether by her beaming smile or her exceptional love of life.
When we were separated to attend university, each pursuing a different major, I kept dropping to see Yolla, who was now working to help support her family. She would vow «by my father’s estrangement», and it would make my heart stop every time I heard it. I wondered secretly whether she really believed that her father was still alive, or whether that was her way of keeping death at bay from him and herself. And why it hadn’t occurred to her that he might have been killed at an armed checkpoint, like hundreds before him, and his body discarded without a trace. But Yolla kept hope alive, as news kept reaching them from here and there. So, they paid money and inquired. Then hope would die again when it would turn out that there was nothing to the promises but lies and deception.
In 1985, I left Lebanon to pursue my studies in Paris. One summer, Yolla told me she was thinking of following in my steps. This time she was trying to get away from her mother’s tight grip, the pressure, and the hatred of the other who had taken her husband away. So I said to her: «Buy a plane ticket, I’m waiting for you.» Thus, Yola left to Paris, where she was reborn and re-integrated into the world. There she came face to face with the other that the war had depicted as an ogre and reconciled with him. Gradually, she became averse to hearing news of Lebanon, and detested going there, until she was completely cut off from it. What brought her back to it was my zeal in 2005 and our participation in protests together.
Every Monday afternoon, we walked side by side, holding up the Lebanese flag, cheering and attending meetings with those coming from there, to be filled in on events, and for them to make us feel that our presence and opinions mattered. I was engrossed in my enthusiasm and analysis, talking at length about how we were going through a historical moment, one that will never be repeated, and that finally we had awakened as a people and come together. She would look at me from that fixed distance that she had set between the country and herself, she who had lost all faith in that which had taken away from her peace of mind and adolescence and thrust her in a cauldron of loss and torment.
Despite her great weariness, Yolla had also great capacity for warmth, tolerance and acceptance of the other. She was able to share his sorrow and his joy. This added strength and energy to her that were not within the reach of anyone else. As the Cedar Revolution came to an end, I could make out in her look: «Didn’t I tell that no good would come out of this country?» It was as painful for me as it was true and irrefutable. I could not cut off the umbilical cord like she had and break away from the crippled country that had filled us with sorrow and loss since the day we were born.
I remember one summer evening, as we sat in one of the beautiful squares of Paris, sipping wine and chatting about everything and nothing, suddenly blurted: «Don’t you think it’s time to bury your father?» She turned to me and said: «Yes, I do. It had been 36 years since his disappearance, which was almost the age at which he was kidnapped.» Then she broke into tears and said with a lump in her throat: «Rest in peace, father.»
We buried Yolla’s father together that evening, we both cried for that swarthy young man whose life ended just like that, and who never lived to be our age. Then I was forced to return to Lebanon. Yolla fell ill while I was away, with the disease eating away at her lungs but not getting the better of her youthful voice, her smile or her faith in life. Just days before we were set to meet in Paris, she passed away and was buried there, under a lush canopy in an area not far from her sister’s place of residence. I did not attend her funeral or visit her grave. But not a day goes by that I do not talk to her or miss her, brushing off that she is no longer with us.