The Locust and the Bird (20 page)

Summer arrived. Instead of going to Bhamdoun for the season, we moved the mattresses, sheets and mosquito nets up on to the roof. There we slept in the open, trying as best we could to escape Beirut’s stifling heat. We named our new summer abode Roof Bhamdoun.

The family disaster had its benefits. Everyone, young and old, was preoccupied by our misfortune. This meant they paid less attention to me and I was often free to be with
Muhammad. But with our relationship back as it had been, he started to fuss again. He was always happy to see me and forget his frustrations (a word I’d learned from him), but when the time came to part the grumbling would begin. I was not able to counter his black moods, nor could I defend myself when he blamed me for them. They would flare up for the silliest reasons, such as when we’d see a film with a happy ending. We went to see
Rabihah
, a film about a Bedouin woman who met a man from the city who was taking part in a hunt with a prince and his attendants. The young man’s horse threw him to the ground, but no one else in the hunting party noticed. Rabihah ran to his aid. They fell in love but, when her family discovered he was from the city, the head of the tribe ordered them to be separated and the woman married to a cousin. On her wedding night, Rabihah ran away to the city to be with the young man.

Throughout the film, Muhammad groaned, sighed and wriggled. He whispered in my ear that this film was our guiding light. When he told me there was something he must do and refused to ride on the tram home with me, I thought: He’s finally decided to leave me. I’d guessed correctly: Muhammad didn’t meet me in his room the next day or for days afterwards. Instead he sent me a letter via Maryam. I could tell it was an angry letter from its length and his handwriting: the words seemed rushed and bigger than usual. I raced to Fatme’s house, and when I couldn’t find her I went out into the garden, where a young male cousin of hers sat studying by the fountain, exactly where I had met Muhammad. I stood on the spot where we had been so happy, holding an angry letter from him. Without hesitation I asked the young man to read the letter to me, and was mortified by what I heard:

How I long to be swallowed up by hell and leave this unsettling world. For every beautiful memory, every happy moment I’ve spent with you, there are as many painful memories that erase from my life all that is beautiful. Time and again I’ve thought of leaving you, but I’ve utterly failed. Now I’ve reached the point where I can stand this bitter life no longer. I intend to leave you, whatever the cost. Death seems an easier fate than this torture. So here I am, writing this letter to bid you farewell. Be patient and remember you are not mine; you belong to the owner of that house to deal with as he pleases. You share his food and his life. I can only see myself being kept at a distance, separated from you by any number of impassable barriers. How can you expect me to sleep soundly or lead a happy life? It makes me happy to know you are so near, yet the thought of the future pains me, tortures me, and deprives me of all life’s pleasures, especially the pleasure of having you close by. Love is pointless when I am continually burned by the fires of accursed jealousy. You are the only thing I ever think about; all the time my mind is preoccupied by my love for you. Even worse, I am incapable of escaping from this utterly pointless love …

19
The PPS, founded by Antun Saadeh, which advocated a greater Syrian state, to be known as the Fertile Crescent, encompassing Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine/Israel.

‘Forgive Me’ – ‘God Is the Forgiver
’;
‘Forgive Me’ – ‘I Have Forgiven You’

M
UHAMMAD AVOIDED ME
for an entire ten days. When I lost hope of bumping into him I became determined to find out what was going on, and so I went to his office. When he saw me his jaw dropped and a deep flush stained his cheeks. He asked me if I wanted a drink, as though getting me a drink was more important than talking to me. Then he insisted that I go home, promising to discuss matters with me later. But I wouldn’t budge. A colleague entered the room, and Muhammad, embarrassed, busied himself dealing with his enquiry and ignored me completely. I nearly screamed, ‘Could it be possible that our relationship has come to this?’

Instead I stood up, muttering something like, ‘Oh! Did you really think you were such a big deal!’ and stormed out.

Another week passed and I avoided everyone, unable even to face myself in the mirror because I felt so humiliated. Then, quite by chance, Muhammad saw me in the street with one of my daughters and gave me a look that meant he wanted to meet again. When we did meet, he told me he’d decided to take things into his own hands. He’d been to see my father in the south, and my brother Hasan, and had asked for their help in getting my husband to agree to a divorce. Although I had been terrified of a divorce and the scandal it would involve, in the end I was relieved that he had finally talked
to them on my behalf. Unbeknown to me, Hasan – rather than discussing things with my husband – came straight to the house and took Ibrahim aside. When Ibrahim heard the news, he fainted.

As if the last pieces of a complicated jigsaw had been fitted into place, everything afterwards seemed to happen easily. In no time I found myself sitting with Abu-Hussein before a sheikh in the shariah court. I renounced any claims I might have had to my daughters and made the traditional request for my husband’s forgiveness: ‘Forgive me.’

He replied, with tears in his eyes, ‘God is the forgiver.’

He then asked me to forgive him, and with tears in my eyes I pronounced the traditional phrase, ‘I have forgiven you.’

Could it really be true that I was sitting in front of a sheikh as he signed our divorce papers?

Afterwards, Father arrived and took me away to the south. I wondered whether Muhammad had promised my father cash, like Abu-Hussein, who had once paid my father gold coins to force me into marrying him.

As I climbed aboard the bus headed for the south, I burst into tears. It was taking me far away from my neighbourhood and my two daughters, Mother and Maryam, Khadija, my nephews and nieces, the neighbours. I remembered the day Mother and I arrived in Beirut, completely empty-handed. Now here I was with a small suitcase on my lap containing all my clothes. But the further we moved from Beirut, the less sad and the more relaxed I began to feel.

We didn’t go back to Nabatiyeh itself, but to the region of al-Qulayeh, where Father leased fig trees during the summer. I helped Father and his wife and my half-brother to keep the birds off the figs until they had ripened and could be laid out in the sun to dry.

After a few days, Hasan’s wife arrived with my daughters.
I’d been dying to see them. I’d been reassured to know they were being cared for by Maryam, Mother, Khadija and their father, but I felt even happier to have them at my side.

On our first evening together, the girls announced they’d take turns dancing. Fatima was the first to get to her feet; she danced while my half-brother blew on a flute. We circled about her, clapping our hands – me, Father and his wife. Then it was Hanan’s turn. She danced and danced before going back to sit beside her sister. I began to sing, expressing the most heartfelt desire to live like this for the rest of my life, in a cabin amid the fig trees, grape vines and bees, far from the hubbub of Beirut and our crowded house. I raised a call for freedom, just like Layla in the film
Daughter of the Desert
. Now I could sleep between my two daughters as my own mother had. The beautiful colour of the flesh of the fig entered my daughters’ cheeks as the mountain air made them bloom with health.

After another two weeks, Muhammad arrived in a smart suit. Seeing him from afar, my heart left my body and rushed towards him. My daughter Fatima was delighted, but Hanan hung back shyly. After a few awkward moments, a small fly went up his nose. As he bent over, trying to eject it, it seemed the fly had arrived at just the right moment to break the tension.

Two days later, Hasan’s wife returned to take my daughters back to their father in Beirut. I told myself that I’d be seeing them again in a couple of weeks, as soon as I’d returned to the city, when at least we’d be living in the same neighbourhood. Yet my heart sank as I watched them taking my sister-in-law by the hand. Both girls turned to look back at me, as if seeking confirmation that I really was prepared to let them go. I stood rooted to the spot. The bus halted
and they climbed aboard. Their little eyes watched me as the bus pulled away, as if warning me this was my last chance if I wanted us to stay together. The din of the bus penetrated my ears. I bit my finger. For the first time I realised exactly what I’d done.

The Persian Carpet

A
S MUHAMMAD AND
I got out of the car that brought us back to Beirut from the south, I could hardly believe we were together and that I’d become his wife so soon after my divorce. When Father tried to insist we should wait for the three-month canonical menstruation period before I remarried, Muhammad took his revolver out of his holster and pointed it at Father’s head. Now, here I was entering my old howdah with pride, instead of sneaking in like a thief. I felt like passing on the good news to the cupboard, the mirror, the bed, the table and the chair: We’re married and things have changed! For the very first time we could open the door leading out to a bench overlooking the small garden. But, though we didn’t double-lock ourselves inside any longer, it was hard to stop acting like a criminal. I soon discovered my divorce was the neighbourhood scandal and that Muhammad’s family accepted my presence only very reluctantly. Because I was the one who’d divorced my husband, the blame lay with me. And I’d abandoned my daughters, the elder aged ten and the younger seven, all because I didn’t dare to fight for them. I’d known when I sought a divorce that the sheikh wouldn’t consider me a good mother, since I had committed adultery.

I begged Muhammad to let my girls know I was back in town. We laughed when he returned, saying he’d asked his go-between, the boy at the grocer’s, to tell them. Terrified that my daughters wouldn’t be allowed to see me, I started
pacing the room like a caged beast. When the doorbell rang I rushed to open it. There they stood! I gave them a big hug and showered them with a million kisses before asking if anyone at home knew they were here. I looked at their plaits, which I was so used to braiding myself, and just managed to hold back the tears.

Then Hanan spied the Persian carpet I’d laid down.

‘Hey,’ she yelled, ‘there’s the stolen carpet!’

I winked at Fatima, as she’d been the one who’d helped me sneak it over to Muhammad’s. It was the smallest of our carpets, and at the beginning of each summer the Haji would take them to the roof, lay them out, brush them down, then leave them for one day under the sun before brushing them once again. Then he’d roll them up with mothballs and place them on top of the cupboard until the beginning of winter. When he found only two carpets up there he went insane, accusing everyone of stealing. In spite of all the commotion and fuss, Fatima had proved to be a rock and never revealed the secret to a soul. But Hanan soon ensured that everyone in the house and neighbourhood knew where the stolen carpet had been discovered. Furious, my ex-husband and his son, Hussein the Ideologue, tried to ban my daughters from visiting me. Yet the girls still managed to sneak out when they were supposed to be playing. I visited the female principal of their school, explaining about my divorce and asking her permission to see them there. She congratulated me for what I’d done and said I was very courageous.

That word she used, ‘courageous’, became a source of great pleasure to me. It was better than ‘selfish’ and ‘frivolous’, the two epithets most regularly used to describe me before I divorced Abu-Hussein and married Muhammad. My ex-husband had gone as far as calling me ‘tarred’ (as in ‘tarred and feathered’). The school principal, who wore sleeveless blouses, gold sandals and dyed her hair, laughed as she told
me she was the daughter of a renowned religious Imam. She was a graduate of the American University, yet this had not stopped her brother from tracking her from one beach to the next, to check whether she was wearing the bathing suit she kept hidden inside a towel. She managed to maintain her deception, claiming she only wore the bathing suit when she was in the bath. When her mother confronted her over traces of sand found inside it, she’d shrugged her shoulders and said she’d brought the sand home on purpose to add to her bath, so she could feel she was really swimming in the sea. ‘A pinch of salt as well,’ she’d added defiantly, ‘and just a sprig of seaweed to go with it!’

That word ‘courageous’ was an ointment to salve my wounds. Muhammad and I had both been ‘brazen’; we’d challenged society. Everyone was whispering about our scandal and my divorce, though no one had stopped for a second to consider the scandal of forcing a fourteen-year-old girl to marry her widowed brother-in-law. On the contrary, practically the entire family sided with my husband and felt sorry for my two daughters. I was ostracised. No one contacted me, except for my brother Hasan, his wife, and Kamil, who was now happily married. Mother loathed Muhammad, the cause of my divorce. Maryam had to stay inside the house, terrified that Abu-Hussein and Ibrahim would accuse her of collusion.

My coffee-morning friends cut me dead, as did the neighbours. I fought back with the only weapon I had: my love for Muhammad. I thought about the sheer misery of those women I’d once known so well, women who, unlike me, had never tasted the sweet pleasures of love and passion. Their spouses never watched films the way Muhammad and I did; they didn’t understand songs or fall under their spell; they never recorded their thoughts, wrote down proverbs, memorised poetry and recited it by heart. I decided
Muhammad was enough for me and rejected the rest of them as they had rejected me. I pictured myself floating in a river, passing trees and rocks, leaving them behind. But I still couldn’t forget them.