Outside, he looked up at what remained of the blue sky above his neighborhood. Then, eyes on the ground, he walked on, trying to avoid any glimpse of that monstrosity up there ruining his life. He left his familiar precincts and ambled through the streets leading down to Mar Mikhael. When he reached Armenia Street, he turned right and followed its gradual descent. He was used to walking in the opposite direction, toward Gemmayzeh Street, Martyr’s Square, and downtown. From there, he would continue on to where there was still a sea, a boardwalk, and seaside cafés.

Mr. N reached the corniche along the Beirut River, where he was forced to a stop at an intersection, waiting for the light. He could see the small bridge spanning the river. Sometimes the riverbed filled with streams of rainwater that had lost their way, but more often it was empty, a slick of mud waiting to be dried in the sun into a solid mass with all the filth that tended to accumulate there. The light turned green, but the line of cars did not move. Drivers began leaning on their horns to rebuke the dawdling cars at the head of the line. As they came to life and shot off down the road, Mr. N smiled at their idiocy and pressed his palms over his ears to protect them from the blaring horns. After he made his escape to the narrow, rising sidewalk on the far side, he slowed to a walk as the muscles of his legs reined him in, struggling with this modest ascent after so long with almost no exertion. He stopped, wiped away the sweat, and put his hands on his hips until he caught his breath. The district houses, most of them grouped on the left-hand side of the river as you looked downstream, came into view with a thousand colors and shapes. The first was a square apartment building, some of its seven floors decorated with green curtains, looking as though it had somehow escaped a thousand and one wars. At the next turn, Mr. N saw the outskirts of the Karantina district and the overpass to the highway to Daoura.

A picture sprang to mind of his father putting on his sunglasses as he drove his white Chevrolet with its red leather interior alongside the river. Mr. N sat in the back, not yet ten years old, while his brother, older by seven years and seven months, got to sit in front. They were listening to their father talk about the river, which in decades past had actually been a river, one to which the families of the surrounding neighborhoods would make their way to bathe or else to clean and dry their sheep’s wool before using it to stuff mattresses and blankets. Mr. N’s father also spoke about the train that crossed the river nearby on its way to Mount Lebanon or the north.