About this story
A boatman wants half his fee now and half for his silence. An Ottoman clerk calls your steamer tickets decorations and waits with his hand open. On the ship's ledger he writes peddler beside your name without asking. Rihani's opening — the first Arab American novel — ends with the gangway rising and Lebanon going dark behind it.
Who you’ll meet
Khalid, the friend you are leaving Baalbek with, talking his way past the Ottoman port official at the Beirut customs shed with his cloth-wrapped lute held out of the light and the lighterman waiting at the steps below.
How it opens
Night concealed the Beirut quay without quieting its porters and patrols.
You carried a rug, a bundle of clothes, and poems nobody had agreed to buy.
America waits beyond that steamer like a creditor we have not yet offended.
Creditors usually know a man's name before welcoming him.
Then New York may be the first to learn ours profitably.
Choose
A distant city is not improved by our ignorance of it.
We should reach the ship before praising its destination.
Baalbek will look better once the sea lies between us.