It’s a chapter from Bakhti’s hilarious and moving novel, Between Beirut and the Moon. The scene is a schoolyard in the city, where an Egyptian boy called Abed with “a deceptively deep, strong voice” stands in the middle of a football pitch and commentates on the matches that play out around him. Abed reminds everyone of an Egyptian football commentator whose voice could be heard throughout Beirut during the 98 world cup. But unlike that guy, Abed uses his commentary to influence the game.

When he finds a loudspeaker to amplify his voice, the emotional weight of his words is also amplified: “he seemed to know strange, intimate matters” about some of the boys, and he puts them off their game by speculating about their family lives.

The loudpseaker remains at the physical centre of the pitch while it becomes a political centre of gravity. When a fight breaks out, Abed turns his commentary upon the fighters, playing them like fools with his expert provocations.

When Abed gives up commentary and takes up football, he kicks the speaker across the ground, and the people are spared from his weird verbal habits. Throughout the episode, the quickfire comedy comes from nested acoustic contexts: the close-range conversation between the boys playing the game, the mid-range commentary through the loudspeaker, and the wider context of the city and its history.

Published in Between Beirut and the Moon, Influx Press, 2020