Memories

As I was driving behind this car yesterday, I was reminded of an old photograph I have of my father while he was in Lebanon, way back in the fifties or sixties. I think it was the luggage rack that made the connections. Although the car in the picture is obviously older, the rack is almost identical. I am not sure where the old pictures were taken. Somewhere between Beirut and Damascus, is my guess. Maybe the Bekaa Valley. They are a KLM crew. My Dad is the one with the Ray Bans. From the way it looks, the cab overheated.

That too is pretty familiar. Every time I go to Damascus with a cab, the thing breaks down. The last time was last winter. It was freezing cold, and there was sludge and snow on the mountain pass at Deir el-Ahmar. I was in a shared cab, with another five guys who made a concerted effort to keep Phillip Morris out of the red digits. I rolled down the window, but the five of them were puffing away the cold, fresh mountain air.

Within an hour, we had overcome an empty gas tank, an empty battery, and finally a flat tire without spare and jack. All this before the Syrian border.

I couldn’t care less; I was not on a schedule, and I did not have to push the wreck all the way to Damascus. That’s one of the perks of being a woman in the Middle East.

It is funny how life runs. For every child, my father bought my mother gold. As it happened, when I was born, he bought my mom a gold watch, and he bought it in . . . Beirut. My mom had never been in Beirut, and for his work, he just happened to pass through Beirut. Who’d have guessed that baby would end up in Beirut some 25 years later?

You can read the license plate; 14008. I wonder if that one is still around. Anyone recognizes it?