A Good Land. Nada Jarrar Awar

by the officers and their men at the university’s West Hall, plays and musical concerts and the like, he would stand watching from the back of the theatre and listen for the audience’s laughter, for their occasional shouts and cheers and that breathless moment when a complete hush took over the room.

      At a café by the water that was crowded with Allied soldiers, Fouad sat one afternoon with jiddo and Marwan, Beirut’s lighthouse perched on a hill behind them and the Mediterranean washing over the rocks by their feet. While jiddo puffed at a nargileh, occasionally handing the pipe to Marwan who drew on it gingerly only to cough noisily afterwards, Fouad watched a group of Australian soldiers eating and drinking at a nearby table, their voices and laughter growing louder by the minute. They were tall, beefy men with fair skin that was burned red from the sun and they spoke a version of English that no one was familiar with, though it was usually easy to tell what was on their minds just by the manner in which they said it.

      ‘Look,’ Fouad nudged his brother. ‘There’s a French soldier from the table up there coming towards them.’

      The two boys watched as the Frenchman stopped to talk to the Australians.

      ‘What do you suppose he’s saying?’ Fouad asked.

      Moments later, he gasped as one of the Australians stood up and grabbed the French soldier by the collar.

      ‘There’s going to be a fight,’ Marwan shouted, getting up from his seat with Fouad following close behind.

      It was not long before the whole café was plunged into chaos, men knocking each other down and a group of local boys, Fouad and Marwan among them, handing plates and bottles to the Australian soldiers which they then broke over the heads of their rivals. Fouad stepped aside for a moment and noticed the owner of the café arriving on the scene and begging the men to stop. Looking behind him, Fouad saw his grandfather smile. This is what it feels like to finally be on the winning side, he thought to himself, heat rushing through his body at the sudden realization.

      Overhearing a conversation between his father and the American professor from upstairs a few days later, Fouad felt confused about the situation once again. The two men stood on the landing outside the front door. The professor, tall and thin with shoulders that stooped a little and bright-blue eyes, had one foot on the stairs and a slender hand on the balustrade. He smiled and nodded at Fouad’s father as he spoke.

      ‘It’s not as if the British themselves haven’t been brutal colonizers elsewhere,’ baba was saying. ‘How can anyone overlook that fact?’

      A sad look came over the professor’s face.

      ‘It’s not unheard of for people to use the strength of one occupier in an attempt to rid themselves of another without being aware of the dangers involved,’ the professor said quietly. ‘And now that America has also joined the war, it’s likely that we’ll take a position on what’s going on in your country as well.’

      Father shook his head.

      ‘It’s almost as if we have no real say in our own destiny,’ he sighed. ‘This is the inevitable fate of a small country, I suppose.’

      Yet there were days when nothing seemed to have changed at all, when the family went about its business as usual, sitto