A Host of Anxieties in Social Beirut

When is it a good time for a party in Beirut?

Why, when there’s electricity.

In Los Angeles, the biggest disaster to befall a social occasion is when the truck from Rococo gets stuck on the Santa Monica Freeway. But Western residents of the Lebanese capital have learned how to deal with a smorgasbord of obstacles that make throwing a party here far more problematic than planning Liz Taylor’s latest wedding.

To be sure, there’s no shortage of guests. But if the electricity goes off even before they appear, which happens about half the time, they’ll arrive short of breath from hauling themselves up the stairs--and in need of immediate, carbonated relief.

For such self-sacrificing celebrants, one considerate couple, who live in a sixth-floor apartment, arranged some chairs midway--a kind of rest stop for those times when the elevator is useless. Others space lighted candles along the way to cut down on cursing the dark.

Now, if the electricity fails while the guests are arriving, etiquette dictates that a rescue mission be mounted. Most apartment residents know how to manually operate the elevator rigging in their building and retrieve the hapless guest sooner or later.

“If not,” a merrymaker once quipped, “we just switch from birthday party to wake.”

Finally, should the electricity go off mid-party, hosts can expect guests to stay on and on, since the prospect of walking a half-dozen flights of dark stairs while slightly tipsy can lead to another kind of social call--bedside, in the hospital. Meantime, candles, camping lights or personal generators fill the gap for the evening, or until power can be restored, sometimes much, much later.

Evidently, parties here are very serious business indeed. How else to survive the madness of 15 1/2 years of war? For the Western diplomats and journalists still in Beirut, the sense of community that parties provide is a needed touchstone.

Even now, when a semblance of peace has been established, news of the release of a Western hostage may call a journalist-hostess away from her own bash--but she would never think of canceling it. Instead, she leaves the key and “directions for the do” under the doormat.

Just letting guests know there will even be a “do” is tough enough.

Beirut is a place where you make your own invitations, if you want to write them out at all. The thought of dropping them in the mail hasn’t crossed anyone’s mind in more than a decade, thanks to the war, so generally they are delivered by hand. Calling is frustrating--especially because most people’s telephones don’t work. And to RSVP is fruitless because it means either guest or host has to hit the pavement again.

An easier way is to let the grapevine take over. One American begins to spread the word for his “sundowner” parties (drinks on the balcony around 7) by quoting from “Casablanca”: “Round up the usual suspects.”

Indeed, if the occasion is right, the usual suspects will climb just about anywhere, at any time.

One creative excuse for not coming to a party recently was given by a Norwegian woman married to a Lebanese man: Because of the lack of water in Beirut, she had to go to her husband’s village to do the family laundry.

But for some party-goers, it’s not the lack of water that’s a problem, it’s the lack of men. The national pastime of kidnaping drove out nearly all Western males years ago; consequently, most get-togethers look like ladies’ night out.

Still, the current peace has brought back a number of men, and this year’s invitation to the foreign community’s Halloween party promises “more Adams than last year.”

Indeed, for Westerners the Halloween party is the social event of the year. Costumes are do-it-yourself affairs, but help comes from all quarters. One guest this year, for example, has decided to come as a butcher and will borrow his get-up from the meatman at a nearby grocery.

For the Syrian soldiers whose barracks are in the apartment building where the party is always held, each Oct. 31 promises an eyeful as pirates, killer bees, geishas and Little Miss Muffets pass the Syrians’ checkpoint. (One year, a fellow who came dressed as a terrorist made the wise decision to change into his costume after he was safely inside the apartment.)

After the outlandish Halloween festivities, Thanksgiving often carries a poignant and somber note.

For a number of years Jean Sutherland hosted the Thanksgiving feast for the American community in Beirut. Her husband, Tom, dean of agriculture at American University, has been held hostage since June, 1985. The prayer before the meal always included the wish that it “won’t be long before we can be thankful for Tom’s release.”

At Thanksgiving, 1986, the carver of the turkey was Alann Steen, journalism professor at Beirut University College. Two months later, on Jan. 24, 1987, Steen and three other professors, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh, were kidnaped from the college campus by members of the militant Islamic Jihad. Only Steen remains a captive.

For the holiday feasts, most traditional American foods--like turkey--are readily available, and the occasional missing item is easily replaced with a substitute. Grocers have put in this year’s orders for butterball birds, cranberry sauce and packaged dressing. For more exotic repasts, Chinese black mushrooms, taco shells and California wines are no problem.

Well, unless you get home from the store and there’s no electricity.

Haul time.