Sayidi wa habibi (My Master and My Lover), , Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 2005. pp283 The novels of the Lebanese writer all show a desire to link the lives of the characters with an important event or series of events determining their lives. Thus, the general historical context, including the wounds and repercussions of the Lebanese civil war and the sectarian divisions that went with them, is presented as the backdrop to the narrative, the whole typically being placed within a larger, cosmopolitan frame. Sayidi wa habibi (My Master and My Lover), Barakat's latest novel, is no exception to this rule, the novel being told by two voices, that of Wadie, who tells the story of his life since childhood, and, following his disappearance, that of Samia, Wadie's wife and lover. Samia's narrative picks up the story told by Wadie and provides corrections to it, as well as further details that sometimes shed doubt on what Wadie himself has revealed. As Wadie's narrative progresses, the reader learns that he was a successful student, and that he established wide friendships when young, notably with Ayoub, who helped him to achieve a balance in life. Wadie's father worked as a cook, but Wadie did not much like his father, especially after his mother's death. A retiring boy, Wadie was bullied at school, and one day he decides to drop out of school and befriend the bullies instead. This course leads him to deal in drugs, and with the money he gains in this way he is able to marry a pretty neighbour, Samia, and rent a luxurious flat in a rich neighbourhood. In so doing, he deserts his sick father and loses contact with his old friends, including Ayoub. Thanks to his new wealth, Wadie succumbs to the worship of power for its own sake, including an urge to kill others as a form of domination. "Killing for killing's sake," he exults. "It's like a fever that overcomes me, then subsides ... I'm not a serial killer. When God destroys people to purge the world, he's not called a serial killer. When He sends floods, volcanoes and earthquakes, shaking this world as if it were a tree covered with rotten fruit, He's not called a serial killer." Yet, this obsession does not last long, and Wadie's success arouses the hostility of various other gang leaders and militiamen in the city, who force him to quit Beirut for Cyprus, leaving his wealth behind hidden in the old family house. Once in Cyprus, Wadie sinks into depression, made worse by the news that his old friend Ayoub has been murdered in Beirut. Samia meanwhile secretly starts to work in a Cyprus nightclub in order to support her husband, and an old acquaintance persuades her to encourage Wadie to work in a company owned by Tarek, one of his relatives. Wadie's interest in life seems to revive, as does his desire for power, and things continue in this vein until one day both Tarek and Wadie mysteriously disappear. It is at this point that Wadie's narrative stops, and Samia's voice takes over, revealing elements in the story not disclosed by her husband. Thus, the reader discovers that Samia has had relationships with both Tarek and with a Libyan intelligence officer she has met in her work at the club. The acquaintance who recommended Wadie to work in Tarek's company also informs her that Wadie was involved in smuggling arms to Lebanon, and that he fell out with Tarek before they both disappeared. The Libyan intelligence officer tells Samia that Wadie has had a relationship with an Israeli spy, and it was this spy who helped him flee to Israel. The possibilities concerning Wadie's fate multiply, and the reader begins to suspect that Wadie's own version of events may not after all have contained the whole truth. In the novel, Wadie distances himself from the Beirut of his childhood and from his childhood friends, among them Ayoub. However, his career is a short-lived one, put an end to by the gangs and militiamen who force him to flee to Cyprus before briefly bouncing back through his association with Tarek. Thus, the time between Wadie's childhood and adolescence and his later life in Cyprus is shadowed by multiple possibilities and interpretations, and the novel poses the larger question of who, or what, decides the paths we take in life through its examination of the life of Wadie. Indeed, this is a question that takes on larger dimensions as Barakat suggests many different interpretations to the reader, her novel being characterised by a beguilingly poetic use of language and a dynamic narrative technique. The novel leaves many doors open, inviting speculation about what has happened to Wadie while not giving any definite answers. Barakat adopts a strategy of ambiguity and suspicion, constantly questioning the truth value of the narrative, and in this way her novel outgrows its subject matter and takes on wider dimensions: what begins as the story of a man and a women whose lives are played out against the backdrop of Lebanese society with its rich mosaic of peoples and its permanent wars becomes a depiction of the human condition in general and one that could apply to people at different times and in widely different countries. Wadie and Samia thus become types whose attempts to deal with the large questions of existence are universal ones. What begins as the story of a good student corrupted by crime shifts onto imaginary terrain when Samia's voice takes over the narrative, revealing the discrepancies in that told by Wadie. Was Wadie really repentant about his former activities when he sought a new life in Cyprus, or did he merely become a partner in the criminal activities of his new boss? Did he know that his wife worked in a nightclub, and was she really working as a prostitute when she did so? Such questions naturally arise due to the fractured nature of the narrative and the gaps that open up in it. For her part, Samia seems unashamed of her new life as a hostess in a nightclub and probable prostitute. She takes on this work to support the "master and lover" referred to in the novel's title, and she is forthcoming in the story she distells and in her estimation of her chances. However, the more Samia feels devalued as a human being through her work, the more she clings to the power of words -- words that provide her with some consolation for what she feels is the emptiness within herself and the vulgarity of the life around her. The facts about her husband have long since become clear to her: he is just "a small, solitary player on the margins of the margins." Nevertheless, Samia persuades herself that she loves him dearly and that he is "my soul mate, my husband, my master and my lover." In a similar way Wadie summons up the power of words to counter his feelings of degradation and of his life's loss of values. He thinks of Tarek as "a dear master and cherished companion," a tragically ironic judgment and an expression of the collapse of any sense of values he might once have had. Yet, despite this words continue to provide solace and despite their evident divorce from reality. It is as if in order to continue living one needs to lie, such lies in turn allowing shelter to be found in otherwise illusory friendships. At the end of Sayidi wa habibi the reader is still unsure as to the nature of Wadie's demise, the novel breaking off open-endedly as if to suggest yet further answers to the large questions of existence that it has raised. "Amidst all the clamour and the anarchy of the passing days," the narrator notes, "one does not pay much attention to how one is changing ... letters spilled onto paper, which may or may not form words, and may or not form meaningful sentences. Perhaps it is not exactly like that; yet, one's life takes on a meaning that one is entirely oblivious to. One might even be oblivious to the meaning of existence throughout one's entire life." It is this question of meaning that stays with the reader after finishing Barakat's latest novel, leading him or her to question the meaning of existence and of a life that swings between noble intentions and aspirations and the crassness of everyday life with all its triviality and futility. This is a life that is divided between the fascination of words that eloquently idealise our lives and the ordinary prose of a mundane existence that clips our wings. By Mohamed Berrada
