On the Hills of God (21 page)

He kicked the back of the seat in front of him. “I don’t understand . . .”

“What?”

“One minute you’re telling me to ask for your hand,” he told her, “and the next minute you’re making a case for Adel Farhat.”

“Making a case!!! Is that what you think?” She bit her lip and began to cry.

He hated himself for being so tactless. He turned around and found Huda staring at them. When she stopped looking, he took Salwa in his arms and kissed her eyelids.

“Listen,” he said. “If they ask you to marry him simply say no.”

She pushed him away, her face congested. “And if they don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Throw a tantrum. Rebel. Revolt. Kick and fight. Simply don’t accept.”

She shook her head. “It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“It might be too late. Father might’ve already given his word.”

“Warn him not to.”

“He might not listen. You know how Arab fathers are.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s your decision. It’s your life.”

“Oh, Yousif. I wish it were that easy.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“Because that’s not the way marriages are conducted around here. Wake up. You’re in the Middle East, remember? Girls are rarely asked.”

“Be that rarity. You’re Salwa. Someone special. Put your foot down.”

“And if I don’t succeed? Don’t blame me . . .”

Yousif considered what she just said. Damn it, she was right. Things might not be left up to her. He had better think of something else. Fast.

“Let’s think together for a minute,” he said. “I guess the thing for me to do is to inform my parents of our plan and let them officially ask your parents for your hand.”

Salwa opened her purse to get out a handkerchief. “What if your parents think you’re too young?” she asked, dabbing her eyes.

“I’ll raise all kinds of hell until they see it my way,” he answered. “Meanwhile fight them off as long as you can. And let me know what’s going on. Send me a word. Do you know the blind man Jamal, the basket weaver?”

“The one who plays the violin?”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“No, but I can find out.”

“He’s a good friend of mine. Pretend you want to buy a basket or a tray or something. If things begin to move fast, meet me there. It’ll be safe. And Salwa . . .”

“Yes?”

“Remember that I love you.”

“You think I’d be here if I didn’t know that?”

“Do you love me?”

“You know I do.”

He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her tight. She whispered that she was afraid, and he reassured her with a tender kiss.

“How will I know you’ll be at Jamal’s when I need to see you?” she asked.

“When you go out wear something that will give me a signal,” he answered. “A yellow blouse, or a blue dress. Or put your hair up.”

“What about a red scarf?”

“That’ll be fine.”

“What if Jamal isn’t there when I get there?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll meet in the arcade, under the steps. It’s dark and secluded enough.”

“That’s it then. The red scarf.”

“The red scarf.”

She squeezed his hand and he didn’t want to let go of her. But she begged him with her eyes, then got up and left. He remained in his seat, mystified. Nothing on the screen interested him. Soon the images began to blur.

What if it really happened? What if she married Adel Farhat? She was not eighteen yet—too young to stand up to a domineering father. He himself was only a month older—too young to propose himself. But Salwa had asked him and he couldn’t let her down. Most likely her father would be more receptive if the formality were carried out according to tradition. The problem was, he, Yousif, hadn’t told his parents yet about this turn of events. He needed time to hone all the arguments he would marshall to win their approval.

At a time like this? they would surely ask. Let them ask all they wanted. Imbued with Salwa’s love and desire to marry him, he felt nothing could stand in his way. He would rise to the occasion and answer her challenge for an act of intervention.

He thought of the gold-toothed suitor. Prior to returning to Ardallah two summers ago, Adel Farhat had worked in Jerusalem. Yousif knew of him, particularly for being a splendid soccer player on Jerusalem’s YMCA team. He was almost as good as Rassass, who played on the Greek Orthodox team in Jaffa. These two teams were the finest in Palestine, and Adel was mentioned after every match. Before joining the Al-Andalus Hotel, Adel used to hang around Arif’s bookstore and sometimes at a pool hall playing billiards. A thoroughbred athlete, he attracted many admirers, including Yousif. Sinewy and poised, Adel made the billiards zing in place with the same skill that had made him famous on the football field.

This same Adel was now Yousif’s opponent. But marrying Salwa was not a soccer game. A lifetime of happiness would depend on the outcome. At seventeen, Yousif did not want to be a loser.

On his way home, Yousif felt deep apprehension. Salwa had asked him to intervene and he mustn’t fail her. He had better act fast.

But marriages were arranged by families, not by individuals. He would have to speak to his parents. They might think the whole idea absurd and refuse to help. Then what? Basim was out of the question: either he couldn’t be reached or he would be angry at the timing. We are at war, Basim would say, and pound the table. But to Yousif, the two fights went hand in hand: each was about protecting one’s own. He would fight for Salwa as he would for Palestine. The idea of losing either one outraged him.

That night his parents were jolted by his announcement. They listened to him in the living room like two judges presiding at a murder trial.

“I knew you cared for Salwa,” his father said, loosening his belt and unbuttoning the top button of his pants, “but I had no idea you were that serious. You’re only seventeen.”

“I’ll be eighteen in April.”

“That’s too young for marriage. Especially for a man.”

Yasmin pursed her lips and rested her cheek on her hand. She seemed anxious.

“Under different circumstances Salwa would be ideal,” she said, thinking.

Yousif re-crossed his legs to stop them from jerking. “Time is running out.”

The doctor poked his pipe with his tamper and emptied the ashes. “I think,” he said, “the sooner you get her out of your mind the better.”

Yousif stomped his foot. “Never.”

His parents stared at him, incredulous.

“All I’m asking you to do is talk to her father,” Yousif pleaded.

“And tell him what?” his father asked, dejected.

“That I want to marry his daughter,” Yousif said.

“I don’t relish getting turned down?” the doctor said, puffing on his pipe. “I know exactly what he would say. And he’s right.”

“Right about what?”

“Your age.”

“Is age everything in a marriage? What about my other assets? I come from a good family. A comfortable . . . decent family with whom they’ve been friends for years. Also, I’m a good student with a bright future—even if I have to say so myself. Above all, Salwa and I are in love.”

His father raised his eyebrows. “That love bit could be a liability.”

Yousif ignored the remark. “Don’t all these qualities count?”

Fatima walked in with a tray of coffee and rice pudding covered with cinnamon and ground nuts. She pushed aside a large onyx ashtray on an end table to make room for what she was carrying. The doctor reached for a small bowl and a teaspoon and began to eat.

“You’re still too young,” the doctor said, enjoying the pudding.

“Salwa doesn’t think so. She told me that herself.”

His mother looked surprised, then reached for the brass coffee pot.
“She
did?”

“Yes. Only three hours ago.”

“Where did she tell you that?” his mother inquired.

Up till now Yousif had not told them the whole story. He only said that he had heard that Adel Farhat was getting ready to ask for Salwa’s hand, without mentioning the source. But now, with his two parents grilling him with their eyes, he had no choice but to tell them all he knew.

The doctor looked at his wife. “What do you make of a girl—especially one about to get married—who meets a boy behind her father’s back?” he asked.

Yousif resented the insinuation and said so. But the doctor kept his eyes on his wife.

“Any other girl might be doubted,” she said. “Not Salwa. She’s a wonderful girl.”

The doctor finished eating, placed the bowl on the tray, leaned back, and unbuttoned one more button in his pants.

Yousif clasped both hands between his knees. “You don’t think love is a crime, do you?”

His father shook his head, biting on the stem of his pipe. “In my day a girl wouldn’t dare . . .”

His wife poured the coffee, seemingly vexed by her husband. “What’s the matter with you? You know better than to malign Salwa. My God, Jamil. Times have changed. This is 1948.”

“I know,” her husband lamented, reaching for the demitasse cup she was handing him. “The year of the disaster.”

“Not on our account,” Yousif bristled, refusing the rice pudding and the coffee his mother was offering him. “If you’re talking about Palestine and her troubles, you certainly can’t say it’s our generation’s fault. If anyone is to blame . . . well, it’s not us.”

Yousif couldn’t figure his father out. The doctor seemed indifferent, sarcastic, cantankerous. The kindest of all men, normally he would never criticize anyone. Nor would he cast a shadow of doubt on the character of someone who was beyond reproach like Salwa. Why was he being so old-fashioned, so unresponsive? It was certainly the wrong night to talk to him about marriage, Yousif thought. But what other option was there? Hadn’t Adel Farhat fallen in their midst out of the blue? Hadn’t Salwa asked him to make a counter proposal? He would move heaven and earth to prevent losing her.

“How did you two get married?” Yousif asked, his fingertips touching. “Were you in love? Was there a go-between?”

Yousif could tell that the wheels in his parents’ heads were turning. There was a shine in their eyes.

“When your father started visiting us in Jerusalem,” Yasmin remembered, smiling, “he was always accompanied by my brother Boulus—who was already living in Ardallah.”

“Why?” Yousif asked. “Couldn’t he have come alone?”

“I could’ve,” the doctor said, “but I needed moral support. I had already ingratiated myself to Boulus—so why not take him along?”

Yasmin’s expression grew soft. “I’ll never forget how my girlfriends called him Dr. Pipe,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “Every time they saw him he’d have a pipe in his mouth. Every time I saw him or smelled his aromatic tobacco, I’d run and hide.”

“Don’t listen to her,” the doctor said, pulling smugly on his pipe. “She was smitten from the first day.”

Yousif was curious. “When and where was that?”

The doctor eyed his son suspiciously. “You’ve heard it a hundred—”

“In bits and pieces,” Yousif agreed. “But not from start to finish.” He wanted to hear the whole story one more time, hoping to unearth anything that might strengthen his bid for Salwa.

The doctor looked at his wife, who shrugged her shoulder. He then turned the radio off, sipped on his coffee, pulled out his tobacco pouch, and began refilling his pipe.

“That was back in 1925,” the doctor recalled, leaning on his elbow. “I happened to be standing on the balcony of my brand new clinic. Suddenly I saw a gorgeous girl crossing the street below. I felt a rush in my blood—even though I had never seen her before. So I ran inside and told the nurse to follow her and find out who she was. Ten minutes later I knew her name and that she was from Jerusalem visiting her brother—a grain merchant down the street from me.”

“That was all he needed to know,” Yasmin said, amused.

“From then on,” the doctor continued, “I made it a point to befriend her brother—Uncle Boulus. It was easy. He was about my age and luckily we hit it off. A few of his friends would come to his store to play backgammon. On sunny days they’d sit on the sidewalk just outside the door. So I learned the game and joined the group whenever I could. It was a lot of fun. Sometimes we’d have a dozen spectators hovering over us—some of whom were taking bets. Little by little Boulus and I became close. But all the while, mind you, I didn’t lose sight of my mission: to give a good impression of myself and to learn all I could about his sister. A couple of times she came to see him, and that was a big bonus.”

Yasmin smiled and looked younger, prettier. “Don’t let his reserved ways fool you,” she told her son. “In his youth your father was a romantic schemer. When he found out that I worked in my father’s souvenir shop in old Jerusalem, he started coming every week.”

“Why not?” the doctor asked, lighting his pipe, “especially when I heard you weren’t engaged or spoken for?”

Yasmin touched her son’s knee, her eyes twinkling. “He bought enough mother-of-pearl crosses and Last Supper pieces to make one think he was holy.”

Yousif chewed on his lower lip. “How old were you?”

“I was nineteen and he was thirty-one,” his mother told him.

The parallel between them and Salwa and Adel Farhat was disturbing.

“Why weren’t you engaged?” Yousif probed. “You were beautiful. And old enough.”

“Not for a lack of suitors, let me assure you,” she boasted. “But no one was good enough for me or my parents.”

“I suppose,” Yousif said, his smile twisted, “you were holding out for the highest bidder.”

His mother’s eyes widened. “If you mean in terms of family, education, money, looks—yes.”

“But not love?” Yousif accused.

“Love he says,” Yasmin retorted. “It was taboo. Still is. No, I didn’t love him. Not at first. But within a few months after marriage I gave him the kind of love he gave me: the kind built on trust and respect and admiration. The kind that grows and deepens and matures with the years.”

Yousif was still sifting, weighing, trying to gauge his own chances.

“If you weren’t interested in him,” he went on, “what changed your mind?”

“They talked me into it,” Yasmin admitted. “Boulus thought I’d be a fool to turn him down. Father said I’d be the envy of all the girls my age. Mother said I should thank my lucky stars he asked for my hand.”

“And they all said the truth and nothing but the truth,” the doctor bragged, puffing on his pipe and ready to change the subject.

Chafing, Yousif recrossed his legs. “Well,” he blurted, “those days are gone. Our generation believes in love. No one is going to talk Salwa or me into marrying someone neither of us wants.”

The legacy they had just handed him was something he could do without. There was a long pause. The mood became charged.

“Let’s suppose,” the doctor mused, his chin wrinkled, “that Anton Taweel has for some time been negotiating marriage between his daughter and Adel Farhat. Suppose they have already agreed and only the formalities are left. Do you think he’d go back on his word? Not even if you were an Arabian prince with an oil well in your backyard.”

Yousif thought of flattering his father. “I’m a lot better than that. I’m the son of Dr. and Mrs. Jamil Safi.”

The doctor smiled. “I’m impressed—but will it impress others?”

Yousif shifted in his seat and looked at his mother for help. “Maybe things haven’t progressed too far. Why are you throwing blocks in my way?”

“Because come to think of it, Anton Taweel and Adel Farhat are always seen together,” the doctor remembered. “Probably what they’re doing now is tying the final knot. Believe me, Anton will not change his mind.”

“He’s got to,” Yousif insisted. “I don’t know Adel Farhat and I certainly mean him no harm. But he happened to choose the wrong girl. My girl.”

“But you’re not ready to get married,” his father argued. “You have years of schooling ahead of you. Don’t you want to go to Columbia University? Salwa is a modern girl. She wouldn’t let you marry her and leave her with us until you’ve finished and come back.”

“Then I’ll take her with me.”

“Be serious. You can’t afford it.”

“You can. And I’m your only son.”

“You are and I’m proud of it. If you were ready . . . and if we weren’t going into war . . . it’d be different. I don’t know what’s going to happen. No one does. Anything can go wrong. What if something should happen to me? If I go, my income goes. Then what? What would you and your mother and your wife live on? It doesn’t make sense. Traveling overseas, living abroad, university tuition—it all costs money.”

“Then I won’t go. I’ll stay here and work.”

“And blow away your future?”

“I don’t want a future without her. I’ll do anything not to lose her.”

“Then I feel sorry for you.”

“All I’m asking you to do is ask them.”

“There’s no sense asking for something I don’t approve of myself. Don’t you understand? We shouldn’t even be discussing this. It’s way too soon.”

The rapid exchange stopped. The doctor lit his pipe, without taking his eyes off his son. The three sat subdued. And for the next hour, the doctor wouldn’t budge.

Two days later, the red scarf around Salwa’s neck loomed as a summons to judgement. Ever since the meeting at Cinema Firyal, Yousif had roamed Ardallah hoping to see her or hear from her. She had not been going to school and that worried him. Now he was dreading what she might tell him.

On that day, Wednesday, he had cut school himself and spent the morning at Arif’s bookstore: alternating between standing inside around the portable heater and shivering in the cold just outside the door. Then she appeared across the street, walking with her father—and wearing the red scarf with her green coat. The minute she stepped out of Kilani’s Novelty Shop, her eyes searched for him. Their eyes locked and he saw her head bend in an imperceptible nod. He responded in kind, feeling his body temperature rising.

He watched her and her father walk past a dry cleaner and a beauty salon, tall and erect and in step. But there was no sense standing there, he thought. He needed to find Jamal and arrange for a three o’clock meeting at his place.