Qadisha Cave

By Saleh Razzouk (trans. by the author with Scott Minar and Philip Terman)

On the way, from Bsharri to Qadisha Cave, Janni, who drove the taxi, asked me: Do you have good clothes with you? The air inside is nearly freezing.

I nodded with a smile. But Paulin didn’t want to think about what his question meant. We were both under the spell of these fascinating scenes, particularly the mountain where you can’t move an inch without difficult climbing. 

Paulin was a colleague for this ride only—she originally came to this country on a visit after an invitation from me. At first, things on her end didn’t go well. Her father strongly rejected the whole idea, partly because he did not know me and because he had bitter memories of the East.

I am not sure about the nature of the rotten seed that grew inside his head about us. Better to say inside his distressed heart. But I am sure it has nothing to do with religion or tolerance. It was politics in this case. Paulin's father was originally from India, but he was forced to immigrate after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and he had no choice but to quit his job in the army. Much earlier than expected, he drew thick iron curtains down on his career, killing his future and its hopes. So he terminated his life in the East, from the sad side of it, since he had lived there half-heartedly. His daughter can’t recall hearing him ever laugh. I asked her how she got him to agree in the end. She said: I told him I’m over eighteen, and I’ve never been a soldier in your barracks, Mr. General. 

***

In the middle of the road, when we passed an aluminum warehouse, Janni shook his head and hit the wheel with his hand in anger or sadness. Depression overwhelmed me. Had he realized we’re on the wrong road? But he quickly explained—this warehouse was his, but he sold it a week ago for $100,000. Now the price had climbed to $300,000. 

With a sigh, he added: I regret it, but nothing can be done now. 

I noticed how he fixed his sight on the little rearview mirror. Obviously, he felt that loss like an ardent lover.

To make it easy for him I asked: What you have done with the hundred thousand then?

He replied that he’d paid for his son’s study at the university. What was left will go for a supermarket he plans to build in Bsharri.

How miserable you are, o, Lebanon.

That this fascinating animus had entered in first place—the circle of violence and chaos—and slipped into a double abyss in which we suffer. Backwardness and corruption of the East on one hand, and the West’s selfishness on the other. The West caught in the ethics of the market and in the abuses of capitalism just to flood us with the same.

This thread of thoughts came to an end when I saw a giant picture of Samir Geagea, one of the war lords in Lebanon. I saw it all in a moment when we were climbing the cliffs. But the picture of his wife next to him touched me with soft, warm fingers. Her face was in fact angelic and soon her features vaporized all of the cruel memories of that savage war. I felt my soul drawn to the border of her beautiful nature. The grey and mystified nature that poured from all sides as if it were a sign of salvation. 

I wondered if Paulin had this feeling, and if she would be able to transmit this message to her father—to calm him down and to open again the closed roads with dead ends in his mind.

***

On approaching the cave, Janni stopped his car. He said we had to continue on foot. Then he pointed to an unpaved ascending road. 

The road was too narrow—thin in fact, like a gossamer thread. 

From here, you can see all of Bsharri, including the house of the famous writer and poet, Jibran Khalil Jibran. It was like a dot of ink on an open page. Farther out was Hasroun, and the house of acclaimed politician Michel Aflak. In other words, from the cliffs and these heights, you can see a compact and revealing map of all of Lebanon’s nature.  

On the threshold of the cave, a sheer, cold breeze blew across our faces. I noticed from there how tiny the car looked. It was another dot on this marvelous and ambiguous page. But the details of Janni, the driver, were unclear—in fact they were absent.  I failed to register his presence, or even to determine where he had gone on the screen of my sight.