And then ...

We are going to see the apartment, he announces at the end of class. I have become more resigned to Zouk recently, or at least appeased by the money that I save, and faintly regret my grumblings that have led to this unplanned late-night excursion. But in French I must needs be even less intelligent and diplomatic than other times, simply because I cannot keep up or spontaneously express myself with delicacy, if at all. So we drive through Beyrouth in the dark, leaving faint nervous smudges of social awkwardness in our wake.

So because I do not have the presence of mind to say no, I find that the building is old and beautiful, the domain of enormous plants and graceful iron railings. The landlady is an exceptional French beauty, a filmmaker, with a malleable Siamese cat who answers infrequently to the name Mina. Her apartment is high ceilings, dark walls and Byzantine furniture. Up dappled flights of stairs, she pauses on a verdant terrace and opens a door to a tiny theatre, polished floors and red velvet curtain and fading posters, where she encourages the youth of Beyrouth to express themselves on weekday afternoons. Tiny costumes hang from railings, and plastic cutlasses lie on a sideboard. Beyond this is bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, all mine for the asking, and the whispering hum of the city insistent outside. We go back down and are entertained by an inedible effort at a Lebanese cake, and I try to keep my wits about me in French after three hours of Arabic and eight of proofreading. I feel far removed, yet aware that this is a rare chance.

A sleepless night and nervous morning later, I manage to remind myself why I came to Lebanon, and that I enjoy challenges and beauty and independence. Still, it feels like Zouk had almost tamed me, and there is a feeling akin to that experienced before a scary party where you are afraid you won't have anything to say.

I will be much poorer. I will have to learn to commute again, in a land without trains, after indulgent months of tipping out of bed and into work with pillow-creases still disheveling my cheeks. But the world will look different, and Beyrouth will be my home. This is how it goes, it seems, and the next page turns.