Mandour also addresses the social reality of female domestic workers in Lebanon. Despite the fact that Koko, the narrator’s cleaner, is portrayed as a strong and independent woman, she is a Sri Lankan domestic worker and is therefore excluded from the protection of the Lebanese labor code. Although progress has been made on this social issue in Lebanon, many domestic workers are still being abused as legal and social change manifests slowly.
Religion—a topic that remains sensitive to many in Lebanon—is lightheartedly touched on in 32. Mandour underlines the absurdity of religion, demonstrating how politicians employ it as a technique to manipulate the masses and exploit it as a sales pitch in today’s capitalist market. People continue to be seen as pawns to the elite, preying on religion’s sensitive relationship to their history and fragile identity.
To define one’s identity as a Lebanese is a debate that remains heated. The civil war plays a major role in the definition of the Lebanese identity, as does Lebanon’s complex and intersecting history and its inseparability from religion. Sahar Mandour proves that, as a Lebanese, writing your own story is not an easy thing to do. By being Lebanese and explaining the whys and hows of one’s life and country, it is nearly impossible to produce a logical and relatable work. Toward the end of the novel, the narrator comes to the realization that all people can do is take life one day at a time and write their story one page at a time, hoping it might help them understand themselves better.
In 32 Mandour tackles several highly important topics in contemporary Lebanon and the Middle East in general. She treads on these subjects with sensitivity and often humor while emphasizing their significance and the misfortunes that people face as a result. Through this novel, Sahar Mandour provides insight into an important time in Lebanon’s recent history. She offers a view of life during that period that is unfamiliar to many, and she gives a voice to her generation—the product of the civil war.
There’s something about Beirut that makes the ending obvious from the beginning.
Knock knock knock. . . . Ring ring ring.
Door knocking. Bell ringing.
Am I dreaming or is someone at the door? I want to sleep! I’m a guest here; I shouldn’t have to open the door. There’s no one there anyway.
Knock knock knock. . . . Ring ring ring.
What time is it? What’s going on? An attack?
Oh. It’s Komodo.
And as soon as I stop asking questions, my phone starts ringing. Door, doorbell, phone. . . . The sky is falling on my head, and my head is trying to shield my body with a last desperate command: Sleep, ignore it, sleep!
I get up, not because I don’t want her to wait any longer but because I want to put an end to this nerve-racking beginning to a sunny day off that comes once a week only.
I open the door to find no one there. I glance at the elevator—it’s going down.
I rush barefoot to the balcony.
With my head poking out of the bedspread of green plants, I wait for her to walk out of the building. I stand there like a wild rose, eyes half-closed, old prescription glasses weighing my eyelids down even more, hair pointing in all directions, and wearing a slightly-too-loud pink top inappropriate for balcony appearances.
No one exits the building, well, at least not Koko (short for Komodo, my pet name for her when I’m feeling friendly).
I go to my cell phone that is almost out of minutes—a result of laziness, not poverty. I find a missed call from Koko that didn’t wake me. There’s a text message from Mona too: I’m up and ready for our day off, let’s have some fun! I get exhausted just reading her text with all its energy and enthusiasm. I’m still dead; I’ll text her back later.
The phone rings again in my hand. Komodo. I hang up and run through the door to the balcony overlooking the silent Ras Beirut. The problem with silence is that the laugh of a baby can destroy it. In the silence, loud sounds become jarring, targeting the ear and violating it, affecting a person’s mood directly. They travel through the veins and make people lose their temper. Just like the beeping sound in someone’s ear after an explosion—if, that is, before that explosion, the ear had been enjoying the silence. And in this country, life is trying to accustom people to absorbing the highest amount of beeps possible; and to do so with patience. Because people don’t like to wait even if the wait is justified, like if an old woman is getting out of a car, or if a bewildered, sweaty man’s car has broken down because of the heat. Even the sun is more compassionate than the shouting of “why can’t you discipline that car of yours!” and the honks that make a person jump out of his own skin. They’re not patient. And they’re free not to be.
