Huda and Me by H. Hayek (readict txt) 📕

Melbourne, man,’ she says as she peels it away from her small, chubby body.

She walks over to a bursting bin a couple of metres away and shoves it in.

I laugh and realise I’ve probably laughed too loud. But I’m excited. I can’t believe we’ve made it all this way to Beirut.

‘Okay, time to go see Mum and Dad,’ I say.

Huda smiles and nods. She points to a car with a small pop-up sign on its top. ‘All those cars are taxis. See?’ she tells me.

They’re all different types of cars, most of them ancient, but they all have red signs sticking off the top that say TAXI. And it looks like they are all driven by really, really old men.

I stretch out my arm and shout, just like I’ve seen in the movies. ‘Taxi!’

Three cars screech to a stop next to us and we run over to the cleanest, newest-looking car. The other two look like something P-platers hoon around in back home.

The grandpa driver in the taxi leans over and speaks through the open window. ‘La wein?’ he asks in a dry voice and without a smile.

‘Dad’s note. Gimme the address,’ I tell my sister.

Huda shoves the crumpled paper at me. I point to the Arabic words as I pass it over to him.

His glasses sit on the tip of his nose and his lips move as he reads the address. The lines in his face look deep. I wonder if the skin lifts like a flap when he washes his face in the morning.

‘Bar Elias, Beqaa …’ he mumbles. Then he flicks his head quickly to the side to say get in.

I look at my sister. ‘That was easy,’ she says as I open the back door and climb in.

‘Shukran shukran,’ I say, trying to sound as Lebanese as possible.

Huda slides into the back seat after me and slams the taxi door shut. I stretch out my arm to grab the seatbelt. Except there isn’t one.

Huda’s doing the same thing. ‘No seatbelts! What if we crash? We’ll go flying out the window!’ my sister scream-whispers to me.

She’s right. But I can’t show her I want to freak out too. ‘Just put your backpack on your lap. If anything happens, it will act like an airbag,’ I tell her, very matter-of-fact. I know this isn’t true – we will definitely go flying through the window.

The taxi driver turns the steering wheel ready to pull away from the airport, but before he takes off, he flicks on the radio. Full blast. A woman’s voice singing some fast belly-dancing song booms through the car as he speeds out onto the Beirut streets.

At first, I can’t put my finger on what’s so strange about the streets. But then it hits me. All the cars are driving on the wrong side of the road. I blink my eyes a few times to get used to it. The early evening sun shining on my grimy, sweaty skin feels so good. Almost like a big warm hug. I smile to myself, thinking it must be Lebanon greeting me. Even though there are no seatbelts, and the taxi driver is weaving in and out of traffic like a maniac on the wrong side of the road, I actually feel safe.

The streets are busy. There are people walking all over the place, and lots of little shops and delis with kids playing out the front. Massive billboards are everywhere, seeming like they should be in Australia except for the Arabic writing. I stick my head out of the speeding taxi’s window and take it all in. I could’ve never imagined Lebanon to be like this. So much of it is shiny and new: huge buildings and clock towers, cafés and shopping strips. Heaps of people look like they’re straight out of a fashion magazine, wearing coordinated outfits and carrying bright handbags.

The driver turns into a side street and then into another little road. That’s when everything becomes less fancy and I notice the ruined buildings. They look like a huge meteor crashed into them and blew them to smithereens.

Huda nudges me. She’s still holding on tightly to her backpack. ‘What the heck happened over there?’ She nods towards a set of apartments that has the roof and most of the side missing.

I remember Mum and Dad talking about it in sad voices. And I remember reading about it ages ago. It’s why Mum and Dad have always said we’re lucky to be safe in our home in Australia.

‘War,’ is all I can say.

The taxi driver seems to hear us over the music, or maybe he sees our faces in the rear-view mirror.

‘Big bomb come from plane!’ He makes a big sound like an explosion going off, which makes Huda jump. Then he shakes his head in a sad way and shrugs his shoulders as if to say, What can we do?

The more we drive, the more we see. More buildings with more holes taken out of them.

We turn back onto a main street and traffic begins to slow. I glance ahead past the taxi driver’s head and see the cars all banked up. There are no road lines, but there are four lanes of cars. I notice most drivers don’t bother to indicate as they pull out in front of each other. And the beeping all around us begins to give me a headache. Everyone seems to be beeping, all the time, over nothing.

‘Why are all the drivers so angry here?’ I say to my sister.

‘They’re not angry. They’re just beeping so other drivers know that there’s a car close by.’

It takes me a second but then I realise my sister is right. The drivers aren’t annoyed – they’re honking their horns in little tappy beeps to say, Hey buddy, beep, I’m here, beep. Let me through, please, beep. Thanks, beep.

Huda seems to relax a little then, because she takes her backpack off her lap and places it on the seat between us. A note falls from