Beirut Blues (21 page)

My grandfather tried to tell her in a lighthearted way that it wasn’t all for her: he’d brought presents for the women who pampered him and gave him their affection. He had a reason for everything he brought. He’d give them a bag of almonds and delicate little green plums, saying, “To make you drool like I do when I see you!”

He even told my mother that whoever had the biggest breasts would get the lion’s share. “To be eaten raw without salt or spices, just like you!” he would say as he set a piece of meat before them.

They snorted with laughter and struck him playfully on the shoulder until Isaf came and snatched it away from him and began to beat it to make kibbeh.

They waited impatiently for his visits, taking it in turns to pray that he would soon be there. He took them to summer resorts and invited them to dine in famous restaurants, where they relished being among the beautiful rich women who dominated the gossip columns. Sitting there with garlands of jasmine around their plump necks and plates of food in front of them, they were exultant; not that they were desperate to eat, but it was just so enjoyable to have someone waiting on you while you smoked a cigarette or a water pipe, and it made you feel important.

Did my grandfather bury his face in Juhayna’s breasts, or was he content to touch them? Did he ask her to take off her clothes for him? And was he bowled over by the parts of her which he had only pictured in his mind till then? Or did
he just like chatting, and find that affectionate talk, which was sometimes honest too, made him feel masculine?

And what about desire?

I can’t imagine my grandfather doing anything less than planting a kiss on both cheeks, reaching out a hand to the shoulder and the thigh, and then as he touched the breasts, saying, “God bless you! You’re getting very strong and healthy. God bless you!”

Zemzem and Naima were like two lionesses eager to hunt Juhayna down. They were afraid that her stomach would swell up and bring shame on our family, and my grandfather would be forced to marry her. It didn’t seem to occur to them that he might not have any seeds left, as they were certain that the men in the villages didn’t age unless they were ill and approaching death. Zemzem was eager to stay awake till first light to catch them alone together, but I refused to join her, although I was curious, and I deliberately put the idea out of my mind. He must think he’s entitled to his relationship with Juhayna, that it’s fate. If we asked him about it and mentioned her age, he’d probably say that he hadn’t forced her, and she often seemed older than him.

I must admit I stopped bothering about what was going on between my grandfather and Juhayna after a few days. When I saw him looking happy from time to time, I even thought their relationship was a blessing. His cheeks were pink, his hair looked less gray, he was in love again and forgot the pain, for a time at least, although it must be like pincers in his flesh every time he turns his head and sees the orchards.

Until I found myself listening to her, perhaps because it
was nighttime, and at night conversations become real. She was in her nightdress, with no gold, no chewing gum or blue hair ribbon. She usually kept the ribbon in to protect her from the evil eye, since her sister—who was veiled—had tried to cut off her hair while she was asleep. To my surprise she seemed innocent, sitting on my bed with her chin propped up on her elbows, and I could see nothing in her face but a young village woman’s naïveté, as she asked me if I had been in love with one of Yasir Arafat’s comrades.

I had no doubt she had brought up this topic in order to talk about my grandfather. But she didn’t talk: she undid the buttons of her nightdress and I wondered what she wanted me to see. Then she peeled off her nightdress and bra while I sat there dumbly, too shocked to react. I saw mauve bruises made by teeth or fingers. My grandfather’s? Her nipples were big, round as moons. I pictured my grandfather’s hands on them, his teeth, and shuddered in disbelief. I looked down at the floor. For the first time I calculated that he must be in his seventies. I didn’t think about why this had happened, but I felt annoyance rather than the sympathy she seemed to want. I was still dumbfounded by what I saw and disconcerted by the fact that I couldn’t imagine what was going on between them. Had I encouraged her without realizing? Had my silence been taken as acquiescence?

It was as if he didn’t care about keeping their relationship secret. As the dark bruises grew larger before my eyes I wondered if he intended to marry her because everything around him had run dry. Marry a girl and become young again, turn a new page and bury you, me, the land, and the past.

I remember Ruhiyya warning me against having Juhayna as a friend because she was scheming to get control of the land, especially if she could give my grandfather a son. As soon as the old man died she’d be off in a fur and diamonds to a famous composer; he’d write a song for her and she’d be a star. She’d progress from tea and cookies to Nescafé and gâteau. “Listen, Asma, my dear,” Ruhiyya had admonished me, “everyone wants something from someone else. The ant wants a grain of wheat. The wheat wants the soil. Why they want it isn’t important. It’s what they want that matters. I wanted my husband to love me without being out of his head. He wanted drink. Death wanted him. It’s not easy to figure out!”

I looked hard at Juhayna. Was she being extremely clever when she chose my grandfather? Whatever the reason, in choosing him she was merely choosing the past, which had proved its authenticity compared to the bearded leaders, the conflicting voices, the clash of arms.

Juhayna sighed as if she understood my silence. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. If I left your grandfather, I swear he’d die.”

Then she was silent in spite of herself, for there was eloquence in her silence too. She fastened her bra and put her nightdress back on. How had it happened? My grandfather seemed like a sick child with you, looking at you with a lost, tearful expression, his eyes begging, “Please God I die in your arms.”

You put hot vinegar poultices on his head to try to bring his temperature down, read to him from your book of prayers, and invoked the great leaders of the faith one by
one. Did he make dark bruises on your body, or didn’t he dare? I can’t picture you closing your eyes in shyness or ecstasy when you’re in bed with him. I know how you’re always full of thoughts and feelings, and I’m sure you’ve never abandoned yourself in his arms.

I didn’t know why Juhayna was showing me these bruises or how to respond. Then, suddenly angry at myself for this uncertainty, I was you in a flash, answering her with practiced hypocrisy, “You’re young. He’s old enough to be your grandfather. Don’t bother about whether he lives or dies. Think of your own situation. You’re the important one.”

“I love him. You won’t believe it but I do. He’s like a little boy. He’s no older than me. He’s not like my grandfather. I love him with all my heart.”

I let my eyes rest on her for a while, on her hair streaked with gold, and wondered why she wanted him. Why she was planning to become mistress of this house and these fields, allow an old man’s hands and false teeth to roam over her body, let his rough vests and underpants rub against her. Or were mine the feelings of people with possessions, while those who had none went through their lives like thirsty travelers blind to everything but the trickle of water they had glimpsed in the distance? What did she expect when she showed me her bruises and talked to me like this? That I would arrange their marriage? She had stuck to me like a shadow before finally telling me her secret. She wanted me to be a witness to her love and give it my blessing. She must have told him that I’d guessed what was between them and yet had done nothing to break it up, and that my failure to
say anything meant that they had my agreement. And here she was waiting for a sign from me so that she could tell him that his family had no objection, as if she assumed that you and I were the same person.

I knew she distracted him, a little at least, from brooding about the land. She involved him in all her gossip and this became their own private world, their source of entertainment—how Zemzem looked at her, what you said and whether you were aware of their relationship or not—and in the end this world also became a protective armor for her when she had to confront people’s criticism.

I started pretending to be asleep whenever Juhayna came into my room at night and saying I was tired if she came to see me in the day. I refused to go out with her, talk to her, or even look her in the face. She must have begun to feel that the dreams she had woven when you and I were far away, and believed that she could realize with patience and guile, had collapsed as soon as we returned to the village.

She talked to me about it one more time. I looked straight at her and chose the words you would have used, saying that I loved her and that was why it hurt me to see her having a relationship with my grandfather. She shouldn’t destroy her future, he was close to death and she was in the prime of her youth.

She shouted back that we were heartless, leaving my grandfather to suffer as his lands were occupied under his nose, while we stayed happily in Beirut, and that we should be grateful to her for preventing him from landing in trouble with the occupiers.

It didn’t end there. It seemed more as if this fired her up;
I heard her arguing with Zemzem, and my grandfather, and stamping her feet in anger. Then she came back into my room, even though I was pretending to be asleep, and wouldn’t go away until I opened my eyes and listened to her. She said accusingly that everyone had changed towards her, that she had done nothing wrong and hated all this spite and ill humor. I saw her as a burden, like the occupiers, and couldn’t feel any pity for her even when I saw she was crying. Instead I reflected that things had really changed in the course of the war, and I must get her out of the house. I thought of a cat being dumped in the wilds and making it back home in time to greet its owner, meowing loudly, as if to ask what had kept him. How could I prise my grandfather out of her claws if I didn’t find a substitute? In the evenings the girls walked around singly or in groups, chatting and laughing together in front of the fighters, whose eyes were fastened on their hips. The fruit in my grandfather’s orchards was no longer picked by girls breathless with the heat of the sun and their longing for men, marriage, and motherhood. Where were they, these girls who used to descend on the fields after the harvest to gather the fallen grain in their bags? I remember asking you what they did with it. “Grind it and eat it with sugar,” you said.

Especially on Easter Sunday at the beginning of spring after February had passed, lashing the trees and sky with its fierce winds, I used to go with them to look for wildflowers.

We looked for balsam flowers to make our faces whiter and our eyes larger. Zemzem put all the flowers we had picked in a pot on the porch. Early next morning Yamama and Khadija slipped in and woke me quietly, and we washed
our eyes with the liquid from the flowers steeped in water overnight and mixed with dew, until one day an adder got there before us.

Juhayna started disappearing, but not completely, like a beautiful bird vanishing into a cranny in a building and leaving the tip of its tail visible, until one night, bird and tail disappeared altogether. My grandfather waited for her, sipping chamomile, coffee, tea, with noisy slurps and belches, smoking, throwing stones at the invaders’ tents. He laughed wildly. “I should have learned to play cards and drink forbidden liquor, instead of being obsessed with the land and female flesh. I wasted my time hunting, or falling for brown or blue eyes. But now the land’s gone and all I’ve got left is that brat, and she’s disappeared. I wish I was dead!”

He was not the only one waiting for her. We all were, especially Zemzem, who was convinced she was planning her revenge on us. She began looking for someone to go with her to visit Our Lady Zaynab’s tomb so that she could pray to her to protect us from harm. My grandmother accused her of inventing these fantasies because she wanted to go to Syria and buy gold cloth, eat Syrian pastries, and bring back some mastic.

My mother used to make vows to Our Lady Zaynab, the gold earrings and liras which she intended for the offertory box held firmly in her hand as she prayed and pleaded. She would back away from the tomb, whispering, “Our Lady Zaynab, you understand how great my need is. I want to wear these earrings for a bit and you have such a lot, bless you. Let me owe you this vow, and next time I promise you I’ll make it two.”

My grandfather had become like an addict needing his fix, or a prisoner pacing his cell waiting to hear his sentence, when Juhayna reappeared, taking her time, her hair down and the gold belt in place around her waist, the top button of her blouse undone, and an air of affected simplicity. “I’ve been busy,” she remarked casually.

My grandfather tried to be sarcastic, but his sarcasm turned to anger, and then when he was angry, his words sounded pitiful because he was so full of reproach, and swore that he would not let her out of the house. Their voices grew louder and louder. They were standing on the porch and he was shouting and swearing at her, forbidding her to go. He sounded like old men do when they’ve completely lost their memories and he certainly seemed to have forgotten our existence, even yours: you had been publicly humiliated and I felt scared for you and for what you were thinking. It must have hurt you to be in a weak position in front of the other women in your own house. We took refuge in our rooms like bees who had discovered that the meadow air was polluted. Juhayna’s voice filled the porch. “Go on, ask your granddaughter. She wants to see me well and truly screwed. What are you going to do? I need to know where I stand. What are you going to do? I want action, not talk.”

Perhaps this was a storm which had to happen before calm could be restored. It was replaced by one of another kind: a whirlwind of perpetual motion. My grandfather, the child, began to refuse his food or to criticize it: he would have liked to stop eating altogether but his love of food wouldn’t allow him to. The air was filled with his shouting when he went into the kitchen, stirred whatever was on the
stove, tasted the broth, and burned his tongue. He slaughtered a chicken even though there was already food cooking and came in with it dripping blood everywhere. He began yelling threats at the occupiers all the time instead of just when Juhayna wasn’t around, and prayed to be made blind and deaf so he wouldn’t have to see or hear the trucks transporting hashish. I persuaded him to come with me to visit Ruhiyya. “Give us a bit of a song,” he said to her. “But not about death, for God’s sake, or Husayn’s martyrdom, or your cousin, or how God made you a widow.”