“What a catch he was. Gorgeous, and so slim he could slide his body through a wedding ring. Handsome, tall, and elegant; spiffy and à la mode. But what a loss; he turned out to be a sissy. Once they’re in the presence of women, men become women. I understand men,” she said to Gandhi. “In the presence of women men become women. He was a macho man around men, but with women, he was a wimp. And that’s what your son’s like with Madame Nuha.”
Alice’s story with Lieutenant Tannous was a long one. We don’t know where it begins, but we do know where it ends, because Alice tells the end clearly. It’s the beginning we don’t understand well. Maybe it’s because things got all mixed up in Alice’s mind, or because she didn’t want to tell us the truth. This obscure beginning starts with her escape from Shekka. Alice told us she was an only daughter. Her mother died and her father never remarried. He was a fisherman and was always drunk. Here Alice would tell the beginning in classical fashion, for the majority of the prostitutes in our country began their profession after being raped by their fathers. And this is precisely Alice’s situation. She’d talk about a bad childhood, how she started working as a maid at age thirteen, and how she remembers nothing of her father except the way he smelled of fish, and how he used to hit her, and she remembers her loneliness. Back then Shekka was a small village, and the man who was called Abboud Murad spent his time between the sea and gambling. Alice said he raped her, but her memories concerning this subject were muddled, because when he came to her, drunk, in the middle of the night, she felt only a minor pain between her thighs. She felt him on top of her, but went on sleeping just the same. She didn’t know why she didn’t dare let him know she was awake. When he finished, he went back to his bed, which was on the floor next to hers, and she listened to him snore. Alice didn’t leave the house right away after that. She was ten years old and believed the time to leave home would be when she got married. But after what had happened, and she understood what had happened, because she knew all about it, she decided to run away. Then a year later she got her chance. The man was a friend of her father’s, a fisherman, fortyfive years old, older than her own father. He told her he was going to Beirut and asked her to go with him. He said a relative of his had gotten him a job at the port, he had a place to stay, and he wanted to marry her. Alice knew the man was lying to her, but she ran away with him anyway. She lived with him in a small room on Wegand Street and there the whole world opened up for her. She stayed with the man three years. He didn’t marry her, and she didn’t ask him why. She knew when she ran away with him he wasn’t going to marry her. And on Wegand Street she fell into the snares of Abu Jamil, and the world opened up before her. Alice was fourteen, and Beirut was just beginning. Beirut’s nightlife began in the mid-forties, and from there Alice began her journey.
Even though this beginning sounded like the stories of other prostitutes, hers differed in that she never claimed she didn’t like the profession. One of those nights in the Salonica Hotel, she herself said, after telling me the story of Lieutenant Tannous and drinking half a bottle of arak, which made her hands stop shaking, that she couldn’t stand how some of her prostitute friends constantly came up with this nonsense about hating the profession. Alice said she enjoyed her life a lot, she loved and lived.
“If it hadn’t been for the impresario Abu Jamil, I’d still be with that old man, in that dark room. I’d be a maid, working for nothing. With Abu Jamil things were different. He took me and made a lady out of me, and the world opened up for me. With him I discovered real pleasure, the pleasure to dance and drink and live. With him I learned about love. But my true love was Tannous, God love him. I don’t know where he ended up, but I know one thing. He was a man, and it was I who told him to go.”
Alice worked at Shaheen’s nightclub, and it was there she met George, “king of the night.” Abu Jamil warned her about him, said he kills women. But he was extraordinarily handsome, indescribably beautiful; thick blond hair, tall, fair, and rich. He’d sit down at a table and everyone would rush to his service. He’d wave his hand and the champagne bottles would be popped open. Money just poured from his pockets, and it was nothing to him. He saw Alice after she finished her dance routine. Alice wasn’t a dancer, she was a cocktail waitress, but from time to time she’d dance when the owner Salim al-Hibri would ask her to do a short number. King of the night requested her, so she came. For the first time in her life, she was awestricken and got drunk. She sat and started drinking while he doled out his smiles and jokes to the crowd. Then he took her by the hand and went. She didn’t change out of her dance clothes; she went with him half-naked. He took her to his apartment and there they kept the night fires burning till dawn; he sang and she danced until she passed out. He left her there on the living room floor and went to sleep in his bedroom. But before he went to sleep, he leaned over and kissed her and said he wanted to see her the next week at the Epi Club. When Alice got up the next morning, there was no one but herself in the apartment. She called Abu Jamil, and he brought her clothes and took her to his house. Two days later the white king died; someone had put a booby trap under his bed. There were rumors he was an Israeli spy. But Alice didn’t believe the stories about the white king. Tannous told her night was starting to slip away, and when night slips away, day falls apart. Alice didn’t understand at all. She was annoyed with Tannous because every time he slept with her, he’d start talking politics. He’d sit on the edge of the bed, light up a filterless Lucky Strike, talk, and cough. She worried about his health because of those damned cigarettes while he went on about politics and told her the secrets of the night. He said the problem with the white king was that he was selling the white stuff and it’s hard to bust cocaine dealers because they operate in areas that are hard to control.
“We grow hashish; we know the story from A to Z. They smuggle it to Egypt and Israel. No problem, hashish is a national resource, and it’s not bad for you. But cocaine, where does it come from? We don’t know. This means it’s slipped out of our hands. Night is running away, Alice. God help us.”
Alice didn’t understand how night could slip away. And what did this officer have to do with smuggling hashish, and why did they kill the white king? She was convinced he’d been working for the Israelis, as Abu Jamil told her, and she loved Abu Jamil. With his white hair, small eyes, and deep olive complexion, and his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, Abu Jamil inspired her with a strange confidence. This eccentric man, a Beiruti down to his bones, who lived only at night, treated his hookers as his own daughters.
“I’m a religious man,” he’d say. “I don’t take what isn’t mine.”
When Alice found out he was married and lived a traditional life in the Ramal al-Zarif area, and his wife wore a veil, she wasn’t surprised. Alice saw Abu Jamil as the model of what a real man should be. He rarely drank. He’d put his drink down in front of him, and the glass would get more full as the ice melted, and he himself would constantly add more ice. Abu Jamil told her that the king of the night was a spy and that the Armenian Kasparian was the one who organized the network that was set up to catch Arab military attaches and question them for Israel, and he used to murder young women using a syringe he got from a Turkish doctor who belonged to the organization. When things were exposed, Kasparian got out of it, sold the Epi Club, and took off to Brazil. Lieutenant Tannous said nice guys always finish last; Kasparian got away and the white king died.