Nawal Nasr
We leave their house full of inexplicable feelings, very difficult to convey, impossible to explain, for the story of Nicola and Laure is one of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, we think it is a fictional novel, and when we touch it with the naked eye we realize that life can be sweet even if it is not modified. Nicola and Laure, Laure and Nicola, the story of two lovers, who were injured in the Lebanese war, got married, and spend their lives in two wheelchairs, the society failed to marginalize them, even if the words of many left scars on them.
“She is my life,” he repeats. She looks at him, smiles, and says: “The will of God is stronger than everything.” We pass to their house in the Hadath area, which overlooks the wonderful scenes of Lebanon, and they welcome us. Everyone in his wheelchair. They sit side by side, four wheels and two hearts broken by life, instead of once, but they refused to give up. Pictures of a child gradually become pictures of a young man like the moon, Elias, their son, explaining details, every detail with two hearts we can almost hear their beat: here Elias is four months old. And here is the brevity certificate. And here on the mountain. And here in his first sacrifice. And here in the Deanship… Elias is the marvel of Mar Elias in their home. What is the story of Laure, Nicola and Elias? How cruel was the world with them? How much were they marginalized and how did they make weakness into strength?
Young Nicolas carried the rifle in the ranks of the Christian resistance, in defense of land and honor, and confronted the attacks of the Palestinians at the point of the incident, St. George. On the followingnoon of September 24, 1976, at exactly six o’clock, a bullet entered his body and rendered him unconscious. Five days later, he woke up at the Hotel-Dieu hospital. He tried in vain to move. A day later he came back and tried but mightn’t. He asked his doctor and insisted: Please tell me the whole truth? He answered frankly: I have completely lost the ability to walk and will spend my life in a chair. Be strong.” He remembers: “I cried for regarding ten minutes or so, then wiped my tears and asked: What regarding the next step? How do I face the challenges of the coming days?
The challenges were many and the people were not very “fair” and the marginalization of the different person is a “norm” in our country. Nicolas entered the Lebanese Institute for the Handicapped in Beit Chabeb. learn drawing. Learn to face life. And he learned that the night, no matter how long, must pass. And he started making money. He worked painting on wood and pottery 18 hours a day. He put clothes in his car and sold them in the villages. He refused to calm down, perhaps to forget and perhaps to found the family he had always dreamed of.
people talk…
What regarding the love in his life? He answers, “I loved a girl for 11 years, and she loved me very much, but every time I approached her regarding marriage, she would evade. She was not convinced of the possibility of marrying from a seat. She said that her family would “kill her” if they knew. The disabled, according to many, should not marry, withdraw and die before death. We separated. And by chance, they told me regarding a girl, the only one in her family among seven young men, who was hit by a bullet that left her incapacitated and intends to commit suicide. It was Laure who became my wife.
We look at Laure and discover a strong glint in her eyes. She looks very smart. She was hit by a bullet that entered her house on the sixth floor, from a building in the Al-Syrian neighborhood in Ashrafieh. She was working in Fattal Company, dreaming and aspiring, and in a moment, in less than an instant, the world turned black in her eyes. It is so dark that I thought it was impossible to get out of it. She is Laure Habib Saad, the youngest girl who came following seven youths. She says: “I was injured on February 14, 1989 and I thought that life was over. They took me to a youth hostel and there I met Nicolas. He had been there for 16 years, so I drew my strength from his experience in The new life. Draw close to me. He loved me. On the day he confessed his love, I told him: Are you crazy? Frankly, I did not love him at first.
In those moments I thought of the challenges I might live with. I tried to sweep the house and mightn’t. I cried a lot but I went back and tried once more. I wanted to rely on myself. Nicholas continued to persuade me to marry. My family, like his family, told us: Think more, as this is a great responsibility. Society was also harsh with us and they started asking us: How will you do this and how will you overcome that? Many questions hurt the injured and reinforce oppression from a situation in which he had no hand. The saddest thing for me was the day I agreed to marry and we went to church together. I heard someone saying, behind our backs: “Why did you marry them? (Their marriage). Is there a way for them to have children?”
Elias their world
Thirty years have passed since their marriage, and Laure’s “people’s talk” still troubles Laure’s heart. She got pregnant three times and miscarried before she dreamed of Marilias. He lit a candle. A few days later, she became pregnant once more, and her pregnancy was confirmed, and she gave birth to a boy, radiating the light of new life from his face, and they named him Elias. It is a new joy and a challenge. He and she help in carrying him, feeding him, taking care of his cleanliness and health, and he has grown up by an inch and a vow. God’s hand was with them. And Maralis is his father-in-law, and he was not hurt like other children when he was young.” Laure looks at the pictures of Elias scattered all over the room and says: “The will of our Lord is stronger than everything.”
Today Elias is young. He works as a car mechanic by day and takes care of my heart, Nicolas and Laure, in the evening. He saw him care and increase for two people who were injured in the Lebanese war, and they did not find care from a country that does not understand anything regarding human rights. People’s words continued to oppress them from time to time. Every time they saw the challenges the crippled couple had to overcome, they were astonished. One of them said to Laure: It’s strange how your house stays clean all the time! She replied: Is your house dirty? She told her: I run day and night. She answered and I also run day and night on two wheels and two hands.
No rugs in Laure and Nicolas’ house. Carpets hinder their movement. But everything else was prepared, by them, for their convenience. They hold each other’s hands and look into each other’s eyes, then at the images of their only one, and they own the world and what is in it. It is their own “dunya” that many have over them.
We look at them. We ask them whether they would repeat the acceptance of all the challenges they went through if the clock went back forty years or more. He is quick to say: “If the stranger came back to penetrate our villages, I would grab the gun once more and face him.” Isn’t there a lot of idealism in his words? He looks at us as if he blames us for our question. For him, the homeland is “a good tree that grows only in the soil of sacrifices and is watered with sweat and blood.” It spins around the narrow room. The wheel of his wheelchair collides with the wheels of his wife’s wheelchair, and continues, “Life is also an analysis for us. Love is our right. It is our right to live life and not withdraw following our injury. Laure was heaven’s gift to me. Elias is her gift to us together.”
She continues where he stopped, saying, “Our Lord’s way is our way.” Yazid is her “champion lore”. She looks at him and says, “Hajj (Nicolas) is the hero.”
Both are invalid and the Lord is their shepherd. As for people’s words, they leave scars that cannot be erased. “People do not do justice to the neighborhood between them, even if they hide from them, they regret it.”
Laure and Nakoula heard a lot regarding the handicapped law, but they did not see anything, and they did not care regarding all the treasures of the world. Alone Elias all life. He is the lung, the heart, the soul, the shoulder, the feet, the past, the present and the future. And they turned their dog on everyone who was injured in war and bombings and those born with disabilities, “God gives them health, strength, and the ability to struggle and confront and not give in to the will of those who try, intentionally or not, to marginalize them in a life for which they are not responsible.”
Today, the couple continues their struggle in this life with “great joy” and they are sure that the farther away from the “ignorant” they will be able to persevere forward. Both of them gave the homeland in blood and sweat, but the homeland only gave them promises. Did not matter. It doesn’t matter to Nicola and Laure anything outside the house – the fort. Whoever did not want to die on the day of their injury, he will not leave them in all the details of the remaining life.