CHAPTER 6
Toni“Yalla habibi!” Toni yelled, right before the interview began. In the context, it sounded rather flippant. I gave him a somewhat distressed look. He immediately added:
“Come on, we’re not gonna dwell on it. The show must go on, like the Americans love to say.”
“Do we really want the show to go on, Toni?” His apparent nonchalance was actually shocking.
“What happened here was written long ago. It’s the intermission now. I bet the second act will be worse.”
“Lebanese men are always such positive thinkers, aren’t they? Nothing seems to ever bring you down.”
“Beirut was almost entirely swallowed by an earthquake in the year 551. It rose from the ashes. After twenty years of a bloody civil war, the Syrians now bomb us every summer to scare the tourists away from Beqaa valley
