She must have been the most beautiful girl who had ever looked at me in my whole life up to that age of ten. There was joy in her eyes. Such joy as if tempting her to break free from her father’s hand and run to me and shower me with kisses. That much joy, I am telling you. Ah, the way she had looked at me as she and her father, or maybe uncle, had passed by me that magical afternoon in a back street of the Hamra neighborhood in Beirut. I was on my way to my usual Sunday movie matinee when we crossed paths. She was somewhere around my age. With her aqua-colored pants, flower-patterned yellow sleeveless top and glittering tanned complexion she looked like a beauty from a fairy tale.
Just one glance from her and I was bewitched…enamored. I turned to see if she will look back, and believe it or not, she was walking with her head turned looking at me…as if longing for something she did not want to leave behind. The man she was with kept walking unaware of what had gone between us. I wanted to run after her and look at her sweet face again. But they had stopped at the entrance of a building not far from where I stood watching her. My heart was pounding because I knew once she went in, I would not be able to follow her. I was panicking, lost at what I could do to come face to face with her again. Then, as they were entering the building, she turned around and smiled at me tenderly as if saying she was sorry too that our encounter had been so short.
I had fallen in love, I was sure. I could not leave; I had to see her again. But how? There was still a long time before the movie started. I decided to wait there. I did not know if that was where she lived. It was a four-storey building with balconies. I was hoping that soon she will come out on one of them to check if I were still there…maybe she would wave at me or signal a silent message that she was sure I would decipher. I just stood there and waited. My eyes scanned the balconies floor by floor. From time to time, I would close my eyes for a few seconds and then open them hoping she would be there. I waited and waited, sometimes walking up and down the sidewalk. The wait was long and I began checking out the store windows on that street. They were very elegant and expensive stores. After all, it was Al Hamra, a neighborhood like Nişantaşi used to be a decade ago...affluent and exclusively for the rich.
One particular store sold jewelry made from precious stones and colorful beads...bracelets and necklaces. It must have been a store importing from Africa because there were also some framed drawings of African women’s profiles on the store walls. The items in the display window were amazingly beautiful. One of them had caught my eye when I first looked. You could tell that it was special. The design of the necklace with its colorful stones was so tasteful that I chose it to be my favorite. I kept checking the entrance of the building and the balconies meanwhile, but there was no trace of my young beauty. By this time the movie I had planned to see had already started and maybe finished. It did not matter. I was fantasizing about how beautiful the necklace would look around her neck. It would be my first gift to her. I was thrilled at the idea of how happy she would be on receiving my gift, my token of love to her.
She did not show up at the end. I was tired from standing all those hours on my feet. I was disappointed but of course I made up all kinds of explanations as to why she never showed up. Certainly, the man she was with, had sensed something and had forbidden her to come out on the balcony. Even though I could have waited till midnight, I began heading home because I had a curfew...I was young and my mother allowed me afternoon matinees only. But I was happy...reminiscing how tenderly she had looked at me. I was so sure I would find her that for the next three Sundays I kept skipping my matinees and instead I lingered on that same sidewalk throughout the afternoon, sure that somehow I would run into her. And every single time, I checked out the beautiful necklace in the store window and let myself flow in fantasies with my young beauty. At the end, I gave up and decided that it was not meant to be. By that time, I was so familiar with the necklace that I could draw and color it by heart.
I never saw her again. But what I lived through because of the way she had looked at me, because of that spark in her eyes, has always made me believe that falling in love should always be like that…mutual and at first glance. And one has to be patient and hopeful when it is a matter of love...even if nothing happens.
As for that glance that the beautiful fairy gave me that day, I have never forgotten it...it still tickles my soul when I remember it.
