We passed through the chic Raouché district, with its tall modern buildings, its entertainment palaces that never sleep, its cafés and expensive restaurants. We emerged onto the waterfront near the famous rock that the heartbroken are fond of throwing themselves off. I saw it was occupied by carts selling coffee, cold drinks, open-air tables with clothes, shoes, household appliances and vegetables.
On the other side, I noticed the façade of the Dolce Vita café, which was a symbol of Beirut’s “sweet life” in the 1960s and beginning of the ’70s. It had an air of neglect and decrepitude, just like the ruined buildings around it.
We left the coast road, and headed down the Corniche al-Mazraa. I paid a lira and got out near the Soviet Embassy. I crossed to the other side of the street, walking in front of a large supermarket and different modern-looking businesses, as I gazed at the signboards hanging over building entrances and on different floors, until I stumbled on what I was looking for.
The director of Progress Publishing welcomed me in an office presided over by an enormous color photo of Lenin. He stood out as having an extremely calm disposition, made possible by a soft, settled existence, and he reinforced this impression with his plump body and his excessive elegance.
I gave him a letter from one of my friends in which he demanded the remainder of what was owed him from one of his books. He read it carefully, then pressed a buzzer. He started assiduously examining his fingernails, until one of the young men in the office responded to the call. He asked him to bring him the file on my friend, and ordered a cup of coffee for me.
The young man brought the requested file and he looked at it for a moment. Before I could say a word, he jumped in: “So far, your friend’s book has only sold nine hundred and ninety copies, and he isn’t entitled to another royalty payment until we get a thousand out.”
“My understanding from him is that he didn’t conclude an agreement with you over his share of the profits from distribution,” I replied.
“Accounting was done on a ten percent basis,” he said.
“I think he deserves fifteen percent,” I countered.
“We don’t pay authors more than ten percent. That’s our policy.”
I did a quick calculation of what I could get from publishing my book at that rate, and decided I wouldn’t offer him the manuscript I was carrying. When I finished my coffee, I stood up, saying, “I will tell him what you told me.”
There was another publishing house, by the name of Modern Publishing, near the Gamal Abd al-Nasser Mosque. It was founded at the beginning of the 1950s, and was famous for publishing translations of books that were popular in the West. But sales of those books didn’t last long. At the same time, competing houses, very well supported by the oil-rich Arab countries, proliferated. This led to the house’s decline at the beginning of the 1970s, until it ended up on the verge of finally leaving the publishing market. It would have done so, but for the fact that in the last few years it showed some surprising vitality, meaning that the publisher had stumbled on a good source of financial support.
I couldn’t find the publisher in his office, so I left him a copy of the manuscript with a brief letter that included Wadia’s phone number. I took a taxi to Hamra. I had no difficulty being directed to the headquarters of the publishing house that Safwan Malham had founded two years ago.
I was welcomed in by a petite olive-skinned young woman with wide eyes and severe facial features. Soon enough, Safwan came out to see me. We embraced, and I walked with him into his office.
We drank some coffee as we recalled the circumstances in which we had come to know each other at the end of the 1960s. At the time, he was an editor of little consequence at one of the Lebanese newspapers that was financed by the Egyptian Embassy.
I gave him a letter similar to the one I had given to the director of Progress Publishing, regarding another book by a friend; Safwan had published it for him when he had started up his operation. He took out a file from a cabinet behind him, and went through its contents. Then he wrote down some numbers on a piece of paper and presented it to me. He smiled apologetically, saying, “There’s nothing for him. To date, we’ve only distributed nine hundred and ninety copies of his book. And taking into account the amount of money he’s actually received, he’s gotten all he’s owed and more.”
“Based on what royalty rate?” I asked him.
“Fifteen percent,” he replied.
He got out of his chair and pulled me by the arm, so I followed him to a side room where stacks of books were piled up. With the apologetic smile still on his lips, he explained, “Distribution is the biggest problem of all. A book isn’t successful unless a government buys a thousand copies of it. And of course, they pick books using extremely strict criteria. After that comes the job of dealing with the bureaucracy, and then lots of connections in high places. The upshot is that I’m continually in crisis.”
I flipped through the books, and he asked me to take what I liked. I chose one about the role of the Saudi kingdom in supporting the global capitalist system, and another about the Iranian revolution, and a third about Israel’s plans for the future of the region in the next decade.
We went out to the hall and I cast my eyes about looking for the olive-skinned girl, without finding her. We went back to his office.
“Perhaps you’ve brought something for me with you,” he said as he sat down at the desk.
I pulled out my manuscript from my shoulder bag, and presented it to him, saying: “Unfortunately, I promised it to Adnan al-Sabbagh. But if he can’t publish it, I will give it to you.”
He picked up the manuscript. “Poor guy,” he said. “He suffered a terrible loss. But he’ll get back on his feet easily: he has a lot of sources of support.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“His sources are well-known, my friend,” he replied. “There’s no need to mention them by name.”
A woman of about forty joined us. She was wearing a green chamois jacket over an embroidered dress. In her hand she clutched a pair of prescription glasses. She had fair skin and light-colored hair, but I realized it was dyed.
Before Safwan could say a word, she declared: “I’m traveling tomorrow morning.”
He introduced her to me, explaining that she was a Jordanian writer. She paid no attention to me, but instead directed her conversation to him:
“Did you prepare the contract?”
“It will be ready tonight,” he replied.
“Then I’ll be leaving now.”
I gestured with my head toward the door as she went out. “What does she write?” I asked.
“Things in the style of Manfaluti’s In the Shade of the Jujube Tree and Wuthering Heights. If it weren’t for the fact that she pays for the cost of the paper and the hiring of the printing press, I wouldn’t publish anything by her.”
I stood up. “I will let you know in the next two days where Sabbagh stands about the book.”
“How long do you plan to stay in Beirut?”
“Probably until the end of the week.”
“You must come over to my place tonight.”
“I don’t know where you live. I’m afraid I might get lost.”
“I’ll come by to pick you up in my car, or I’ll send one to you at seven.”
I asked him for directions to Wadia’s office, which was located on a nearby street, and he accompanied me to the front door. The olive-skinned woman was leaning over a book on her desk. She could feel my eyes on her, but didn’t look up.