White Pages

WHITE PAGES

He opened his eyes

White walls. Cold light

He felt pain, deafening pain

And he heard the silence

Alan remembered…

She’s there. Dinah’s waiting for him. He must hurry

Fast. Fast. He must get up. Now. Go where she is.

To the hospital

White walls. Cold light

“I am here my love. I did it!

We are going to live.

Forever!”

No one can stop them now. He has twenty thousand dollars in his pocket

Twenty thousand dollars –that they paid him in this underground surgery room-

for her life, “for our love

I sold my kidney. Let’s buy our forever!”

White walls. Cold light

A white corridor leading up to the rooms

To her, somewhere…

Four chairs. Four men. Sitting. Dressed in cold white coats…

And Dinah’s heart is cold. “Cold”, the man in white says

Alan looks at the doctor who got up to tell him that she’s gone, that her heart has stopped.

“That you are dead. My love.

I was too late

And now I am dead, too”

He will die. He will kill himself. Now. No not now ;

He must call her parents first. Then her friends. And then their friends.

He needs to collect her things now. Where’s her room? Which one is her room? What’s the number? Oh, he knows. He will ask the kind doctor. “The mean doctor. The doctor…”

There. Here’s her bag. And in goes her nightgown. In go her slippers, her perfume, her magazine, her pen, her novel, her… notebook…? “What is that? What’s this black notebook doing here? It isn’t yours, I’m sure. I’ve never seen it before”. It isn’t new though… yet it’s empty. There is nothing in it… He flips through the pages… White pages. She hasn’t written anything in here…

He closes her black notebook, keeps it in his hand.

He needs to get out of this place, now. He will wander the streets of Beirut, carrying her bag close to his heart. Hugging her

… Missing her

…Feeling the void… and the unbearable weight of the envelope in his pocket

“What good will this money do me now?”

He runs into a little boy. And he remembers… The child with the bicycle… the child without the bicycle. The little boy looking at his broken bicycle, with tears in his eyes

And he remembers Dinah’s voice pleading with him to find a way to help this kid. “Can’t you fix it? Can’t you find parts to reassemble it? Maybe your friend Nadim could help… please, we have to do something!”

He must write this somewhere. He must remember to fulfil her wish. He opens the black notebook…

…And he sees a drawing in Dinah’s unmistakable stroke! A drawing of a little boy kneeling on the pavement, and a bicycle, or at least what is left of a bicycle. “Dinah drew this… How??! When??!” Alan can hardly believe what’s right in front of his eyes “What just happened??!” … Well, he must have missed this page… probably. There’s no need to write anything down anymore. The drawing is there. It will help him to remember.

Alan keeps on walking… lost in the sound of her voice. A different voice startles him… An old woman’s voice. A tired, yet bright, voice. A hopeful voice. “Hello, young man, how are you today? Have you come to visit with us? My husband is somewhere inside the house. But, where’s your beautiful fiancée? …Please come in. Would you like some coffee? ...Oh, I’m sorry…” She has just remembered that she has no stove anymore to heat water for the coffee, or for anything else for that matter. She turns her gaze towards the door of her broken-down house, then wipes her hands on her flower-printed apron, thinks for a minute… then says “You know what? The weather is too warm for coffee today. Let’s have something fresh instead. Some juice, for example. Do you like pineapple juice? Elie, the grocer next door, brought me some this morning. Is it okay if you drink it straight from the bottle? Do you mind?” He mumbles something indistinctly… then says he’s in a hurry… that he will surely come back, someday.

This old woman needs a stove. Urgently. “I am going to write this down in Dinah’s black notebook”. So he opens it again, and there, right in front of his eyes, there’s a second drawing… of an old woman in a flower-printed apron, smiling, with her eyes full of hope. And, in the background, a decrepit house, and rubble… “What the…?!! This is unbelievable. I am going to wake up now…”

He quickly closes the black notebook. And starts walking again. Puzzled…

Lost in his thoughts

He is trying to understand, but it’s too… unfathomable

For someone like him who only believes what he sees…

Well, he did see the drawings… the drawings that weren’t there just moments earlier…

A first drawing… then the second one!

He will not try to understand. He will just follow this dream, retrace his footsteps with Dinah…

… listen to her call

“I must go back and find this little boy, now… Let’s hope he’s still there”

So he walks back… And there’s the little boy kneeling on the –almost inexistent- pavement, in front of his –almost inexistent- bicycle. “Hey there! Would you like me to help you fix your bicycle? I can, you know? I am very good with my hands!” The surprised little boy looks at him, with a frown on his face… that slowly melts into a shy smile… that quickly becomes a playful grin illuminating his not-so-long-ago sad face. “I'd rather have a new one”

Alan reaches into his pocket, takes out the thick envelope, counts a few bills… The little boy’s innocent hope has won him over. “There’s a little boy who sure knows what he wants!” and he gives him some money, ruffles his hair quickly “Here you go, you little rascal. Now go ask one of your parents to take you to the bike store and get you a new one. Now run, buddy! Before I change my mind”. And he walks away, smiling

…He opens the notebook

… And he sees colors… Colors have now brightened Dinah’s pencil strokes!

The bicycle is red… The little boy’s shirt is yellow… The building is brown against the bright blue sky!

Yes. Yes! This is what he’s going to do. This is what he has to do!

And now, he will go back to the old couple’s house… of course. He must go there!

The woman looks surprised “I didn’t think you’d come back. At least, not today. You look so sad, young man. Tell me, what’s bothering you? Is there anything I can do to relieve your pain?”

Oh, how beautiful human nature can be! It will never cease to amaze him.

“Yes, there is something, in fact. My fiancée and I would be honored if you’d accept this”. And he gives her a few bills “This is a gift. It is for you to buy a new stove… and maybe some tumblers, if you wish”. She wasn’t expecting this, and can’t seem to find the words to thank him. So she just hugs him, for a long minute. Then looks at him and smiles, her eyes glowing with tears and gratitude, turns her back and goes inside the house.

He eagerly opens the notebook… And there she is, the tiny old lady with her red and blue and yellow flower-printed apron and her green dress…

Then he turns the page and sees a drawing of their mechanic in his garage, surprisingly intact except for his equipment… and he smiles, remembering the innocent joke Dinah had made about his mustache…

“Where was the garage again?”

And he starts walking again through the streets of Beirut; some of the rubble had been cleared and he could now see the once majestic Lebanese houses, still beautiful though… and the emptiness where some of them used to be… before the port’s gigantic explosion that ripped Beirut open, leaving so many of its inhabitants destitute.

While looking for the garage, he wonders how much a mechanic’s tools would cost… he has no idea.

And he finds the mechanic, standing in his garage, daydreaming. “Hello”. The mechanic, astonished to see this client there, wonders how he’s going to be able to help him without his equipment… “How can I help you?” Alan answers “As you can see, I came here walking. My car won’t start… I don’t know what’s wrong with it. Umm… but I remember you telling my fiancée and I that you had no more tools. So what I’m going to do is this. I am going to pay you in advance… and maybe we can fix my car tomorrow morning, ‘cause I’m a little busy now”. And he gives the money to the baffled mechanic

…and goes.

… and opens the notebook to a colorful page depicting the wide-eyed mechanic with the funny mustache, a dazzled look on his face.

“Thank you my darling… for showing me the best way to use the money… What good would it have been to me dead?”

And he walks on, following the path of Dinah’s drawings, retracing their footsteps, helping those they had visited, all those Dinah had sketched, to the best of his ability and means…

The sun had already set when Alan finally reached his room.

He’s standing by his bed.

“There. I think that’s it”

…And he lists them all mentally; the little boy and his bicycle, the tiny old woman and her stove, the mechanic with no equipment, the shop owner with no shop, the young girl who had lost all her savings, the flower boy in his wheelchair, the teacher without her books… and so many more

“Your Majesty, My Queen. Your wishes were carried out successfully! There’s not one penny left. I visited each and every person you wanted to help. So now… tell me… Am I allowed to rest? ...A little? Make some spaghetti? Have a bite? Draw a bubble bath, maybe? ...Or do you have a new task for me? Shall I open your notebook and check? Huh? ”

In any case, he still hasn’t checked the last drawing

So he opens the black notebook…. and sees all the colors.

It’s the last page.

No! It isn’t! “What? No way!” There’s now something else: A letter, in Dinah’s handwriting, not surprisingly

Beirut, 2021

My love,

I already miss you. And I know you already miss me too.

Don’t try and understand, you just did the right thing. That’s all that matters. I’m so proud of you!

You didn’t need that money to live, you know that… You just need to live… You must!

True, I didn’t make it. But you’ll make it for both of us. You already are

I needed you to do this for them

And you made them happy

Now I need you to do this for me, for us , for you

I am happy because you are alive

And you can keep on making me happy, by doing what you do best, what you were born to do, and which you must keep on living for. Because it is your journey now. Because you owe it to yourself.

P.S.: A bubble bath? Seriously?!

I love you, always

And forever

Dinah

And so he understands what he must do with Dinah’s Moleskine black notebook now. He closes his eyes and absorbs her scent. “I will become a writer. I will fulfil my dream. For us both”

He flips through the white pages... then goes back to the first one, grabs his pen and traces a letter, then a second… the first word…