My First and Only Love, page 12
No one replied, but I saw everybody looking at her, though she did not look at anyone. She looked straight before her and suddenly our eyes met, or so it seemed to me. She had a faint smile on her face. I felt that she could see me and see my mother through the crack of the door. I was observing her as if I were looking at an unusual picture in a strange book. My mother whispered over my head, “Well done, Hasna! You are outstanding!” My grandmother shook her head in a way that suggested she wished she were in Hasna’s place. Al-Zaybaq nudged my uncle’s shoulder and told him, smiling, “Bravo for this woman! Not the Jews nor the British nor the Germans can match her! Okay, Qahtan, let’s see what we can do!”
20
It would have been wonderful had we remained friends.
It would have been wonderful had we remained pure.
I was awakened by the undulating voice rising up the poppy and jasmine trees. It reminded me that my appointment with the electronics salesperson was today. I will have a big radio with a recorder and a CD player that will play songs and music all day. I will listen to music that makes me happy as I read my uncle’s poems and books. I will detach myself from the past and the present and dedicate my time to painting new pictures with flowers, birds, and butterflies in the colors of the rainbow. I will paint happy, beautiful women with green and chestnut eyes. I will live for my art and my emotions, as I have dreamed of doing all my life.
I opened my eyes during my dream and found myself in my uncle’s room. The walls were clean and newly painted, the bookshelves smelled of fresh paint, sandpapered wood, and pastes, and the morning dew mixed with the jasmine and the poppy. It was amazing and mindboggling. My uncle’s record player was still here, decorating the room like an antique. There were records by Abdel-Wahhab, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz, and Abdel-Halim Hafez. We lived that time without premonitions. We experienced a strange harmony and extreme self-confidence, as if we were half the universe and the best that lived. We believed that those who did not hear Abdel-Wahhab and Umm Kulthum sing missed out on the world and half their lives. We could not fathom that there would be anyone in the world who had not heard of Abdel-Wahhab and Umm Kulthum.
Strangely enough, our self-confidence, the importance of our past and our present, our music and our songs, the Mahjar poets—Elia Abu Madi and Gibran Khalil Gibran, and their contemporaries, such as Ahmad Shawqi—all the arts and the dreams of the Baath Party, made us feel that the world belonged to us, while all the other creatures were colorless, tasteless, without shadows or importance. We felt self-sufficient in everything—in economics, politics, science, art, and singing—and even though our teenagers were listening to Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, their excuse was their young age and lack of maturity. We believed that when they reached the age of maturity, they would listen to our music and songs, think the way we did, and dream like us, of free and united countries, from the ocean to the gulf. They would sing with us our inspiring, invigorating song: “From the roaring ocean to the rising gulf, here we are, Abdel-Nasser, here we are, Abdel-Nasser.”
I confess, with deep sadness and a broken heart, that we did have great leaders in the past—leaders we loved and raised to the status of sainthood. Those were Abdel-Nasser, Abdel-Qader, Abu Kamal, Saadeh, and more martyrs than we can count. There were also less important leaders, much less important, similar to the Russian Matryoshka dolls, which start with a big doll and descend through smaller and smaller dolls, like a cocoon without a butterfly. My educated uncle adopted all of those, tested them and moved with them. He listened to them, was mesmerized by them, and finally he chose one—he chose the photo of a leader with thick hair, and a motto on top of it in the shape of a wheel with embossed nooks that changed into a glider as it rotated in circles. When my grandmother saw the photo for the first time, she asked my uncle what it was. He told her, with extreme confidence, that it was the storm. Then she asked, making a sarcastic joke, if it were a storm in a teacup. He explained to her, in a very serious manner and without smiling, that it was the wind blowing through a half-dead tree. The storm uprooted the tree, cleaned it, purified it, and returned it to the plowed land after its fertilization. This wheel was used for the fertilization after the storms and the cyclones—did she understand now? She sucked her lips and left, mumbling, “It is a wheel, then a palm tree, then a hammer, and then a scythe. Today it is a small bird.” She shouted from her room, “May God forgive Lisa!” He replied, “What is wrong with Lisa? She opened my eyes and helped me live.”
I caught myself going back to the memories of the past, thus breaking my promise to live without memories and without sorrow. Hadn’t we agreed to forget what we are today, what we were yesterday, and live solely for the sake of art? Hadn’t we agreed that I must live for my emotions and paint fantastic, brightly colored scenes and green and chestnut eyes? Green eyes? How could I ever forget the spring of the heart and my Rabie, my spring? The memories collapsed like Lego pieces, like huge buildings that had no foundations. The ringing of the bell stopped the flow of memories and brought me back to reality. It might be the salesperson bringing his merchandise: the record player, the light fixtures, a washing machine, a refrigerator, and a gas stove. I rushed to the door to celebrate the arrival of the merchandise that would make me feel that I lived on earth and dealt with earthly matters.
I opened the door and was surprised to see Yasmine carrying two plates, one filled with stuffed vine leaves and the other holding a piece of cake. What was the meaning of all this? Why in the morning? Hadn’t we agreed on lunch? She had promised me a feast, that she would cook stuffed vine leaves, stuffed zucchini, and a Nablus cheese pie with walnuts. She told me that her mother was eagerly waiting for my visit in order to tell me about my mother, my grandmother, my uncle, and my second uncle—to recall memories from the past and enjoy a tasty meal that would remind me of bygone days. I had accepted the invitation and we had fixed the time for noon today. But what was the purpose of the stuffed vine leaves and the piece of cake? Was this instead of lunch? A delicious spread, the Nablus cheese and walnut pie?
She took my arm and whispered, “I will tell you a secret, but promise not to repeat it to anyone. Swear to God that you won’t tell.” I swore, and I waited for her to tell me, but she pulled my arm and said as she looked carefully around, “Come, let’s sit under the poppy, away from the neighbors’ windows and their eyes, because the story is long and detailed and could have consequences.”
I opened my eyes and ears wide to listen to the story that had a tail. She looked around again and placed the two plates on the edge of the flower bed, then whispered, “First, swear that you won’t tell anyone because the story is very dangerous.” Once more I gave my word, and she narrated the story as follows.
“One Sunday during the closure, while the neighborhood was being checked, a young man who was about seventeen years old entered our house and said to my mother, ‘Hajjeh, hide me, for God’s sake!’ I was standing close to the bathroom door and I saw the boy kneeling before my mother, kissing her hand and saying, ‘Hajjeh, hide me!’ My mother, as you know, is an older woman. She cries easily and has a soft heart. She told him, ‘My son, the house is yours; our strength is in our youth. You are our hope and our future. I hope to God that you stay in charge, because without you we are worth nothing.’ He said to her, ‘Hajjeh, it is only a matter of two to three hours until they leave and the control in the neighborhood is over.’ My mother called me and asked me to find a solution for the young man. My heart was beating fast, and I was shaking. I said to myself that we had nothing to do with the young people, the shooting and the clashes, the pursuits, the demolitions, the prisons, and the markaba. I had told you, neighbor, how the markaba is higher than the mosque and the house. I looked from the window and saw the markaba in the neighborhood, and a soldier standing in the open section. He was at my level near the window. I said to myself, ‘What a catastrophe! We are lost! They will demolish the house!’ I closed the windows and pulled the curtains shut. The house was as dark as indelible ink. I started thinking that if I hid him and the Jews found him they would demolish the house, and if I did not hide him, the youth of the intifada would attack us. What to do? If you had been in my place, Ms. Nidal, what would you have done?”
I replied without hesitation, “Of course I would have hidden him.”
“You wouldn’t be scared?”
“I would be scared, but I couldn’t leave him at the mercy of the soldiers, who might crush his head. They would beat him or arrest him without judicial proceedings or an investigation. They might even shoot him before your very eyes.”
“What about me? I was alone, and I had no relatives. My mother was an old woman and we had no male relatives. If they found the boy in our house, they would demolish it, with all the furniture and our belongings, our clothes and the washing machine—a new machine we had bought only two weeks earlier. A washing machine still in its wrapping, that we had only used twice.”
“Okay, Yasmine, and what about the boy!”
“Well, my dear, the boy, the boy, the boy . . . he was kneeling at my mother’s feet, kissing her hands, telling her, ‘Hajjeh, hide me!’”
“And then?”
“And then, neighbor, I thought to myself, if they see the boy. . . .”
“So what happened next?”
“I closed the windows and pulled the curtains shut and the house became dark. I thought and weighed up the situation and said to myself. . . .”
“Tell me, Yasmine. You’re scaring me. What happened next?”
“Be patient. Let me talk and get the story off my chest. You should have seen us. My mother’s face turned the color of turmeric. My heart stopped beating, and I wanted to die. When the boy saw us in this condition, he was embarrassed. He got up and said to my mother, ‘Okay, I apologize.’ He opened the door of the house while I was standing there like a block of ice. My brain felt frozen, as did my heart, my legs, and all my joints because, dear neighbor, the house was cold. I had forgotten that the western window of the kitchen was open. The wind was blowing, and the house felt cold as if we were in winter. I remembered the window and said to myself, the kitchen and the bathroom windows, and went to close them.”
“What about the boy? He left?”
“No, my dear, he hadn’t left. He was still kneeling at my mother’s feet.”
“You said that he opened the door and left the house.”
“Did I say he left the house? When did I say he left the house?”
“What happened, then?”
“After I closed the kitchen and the bathroom windows, I returned to the living room and found the boy still kneeling at my mother’s feet, talking with her, telling her, ‘Hajjeh, I am in the last year of high school. I am diligent and always the first in my class. When I returned from school, I found the boys forming a chain because the soldiers had entered the alley and had begun the search. I waited behind the chain-link fence because the alley where our house is located is behind the link. I waited and saw the soldiers leave the mosque. There were about two hundred of them, maybe more. The children started throwing stones at them, and some used their slingshots. The soldiers began shooting at them. I ran away and jumped over your garden wall and entered your house.’ My mother asked him, ‘Is that all?’ He said that it was all. My mother told me, ‘Yasmine, see what you can do for this boy.’ When he saw me standing frozen in place, like a block of glass, and my mother’s face as yellow as turmeric, he stood up and said, ‘People, forgive me.’ Then he opened the door and went down the stairs.”
“Did he really leave while you stood there and did nothing?”
“No, my dear. Do you think I would let him go without doing something? I said to myself that if they arrested him on our doorstep and I saw him get in the jeep with his hands cuffed and a bag over his head, I would lose my mind. If they shot him in front of me, I might die. I stood at the entrance of the house and told him, ‘Young man, come back, come back. Come, do not let anyone see you.’ The boy, I mean the young man, I mean the boy, came in again. His mustache was like a duvet and his cheeks were soft like a girl’s. He had green eyes—may God protect him—his eyes were so beautiful. He was tall, and his hair! The way he looked! His eyes were green like the heart of a pistachio and his clothes were clean. In short, he was not the type of person who throws stones or sets barricades. My heart fell for him. I imagined him as an actor in a movie or on TV. He could have been seventeen, or eighteen, or nineteen at the most. Boys at that age are always scared because, if you only knew, neighbor, they hunt them like birds. And this boy . . .”
“Okay, and then, tell me.”
“Okay, okay, be patient. I am telling you that this boy was diligent and wise and had a good brain. If you could hear his words or see him—his eyes, his appearance, his conversation skills, his intelligence. Had I been younger or he older, I would have adored him. Between us, when I was young, there was someone in our neighborhood exactly like him—I mean in Damascus, before my engagement and marriage. He used to stand by our gate on my way to school and upon my return. He would wait for me and walk behind me until I reached my school. Once he said good morning to me. But I did not reply. He walked twenty feet before me and again he said, in my ear, ‘Good morning.’ I looked at him—you should have seen his eyes, neighbor, they were also the color of the heart of a pistachio, of tender cilantro, emerald, and green sapphire. My heart fell for him. I spent the whole day thinking, if I had answered this young man and said ‘Good morning,’ what would have happened? Would the world have vanished?”
I was beginning to lose patience because I wanted to know what happened to the boy, the seventeen-year-old young man with green, pistachio-colored eyes. I pressed her impatiently, “What then, Yasmine?”
She turned to me with a wondering, surprised smile on her face and said, “Why are you raising your voice, neighbor?”
“Dear Yasmine, get to the point! Before I lose interest in the boy’s fate, tell me what happened to him.”
“Of course, Ms. Nidal, I hid him. Is it conceivable that I would have let him become a victim of the Jewish dogs? Their dogs are as huge as donkeys, believe me; their canines shine like rasps. Each rasp is an inch long, and their saliva drips, and they sniff around them as if they are mad. They are certainly mad.”
“How did you see them while the windows and the curtains were closed, and the house was dark?”
“When I went out to call the boy, I took a look at the neighbor’s house and saw the dogs and the soldiers standing by the door.”
“Did they see you?”
“No, they were on the first floor, below our house. I saw them from high above, and I saw their dogs, but they did not see me. I let the boy in and asked my mother, ‘Where can I hide him?’ My mother said, ‘How would I know where to hide him? Yasmine, you know better.’
“You are aware of the fact, Ms. Nidal, that my mother is an old woman. She has been sitting on the sofa for many years because she is ill, and she moves very little. She can hardly make it to the toilet. I am responsible for all the household chores, for the cooking, for washing the clothes and sweeping the floor. My mother knows nothing and does nothing. She has been like this for many years. How can we know what will happen to us when we grow old? At least my mother has a daughter, but I do not have children or support. I have neither a Fatmeh nor a Muhammad.”
“Are we back to Fatmeh and Muhammad? Tell me what happened. Where did you hide him?”
“I concealed him in the cupboard, my mother’s cupboard. Then I remembered that my cupboard has a hiding place between the back of the cupboard and an opening in the wall. I hid him there. Half an hour passed while we waited for them to leave. Another hour passed, then two, and maybe more. I was concerned about the boy and said to myself that he might suffocate from the lack of air. He might want to go to the toilet, or he might be hungry and thirsty. I asked him, ‘Young man, what is your name?’ He said from behind the cupboard, ‘My name is Saad.’ I asked him, ‘How are you, Saad?’ He replied, ‘I am fine.’ I asked him if he was comfortable behind the cupboard, and he told me he was. I asked him, ‘Are you hungry?’ I was embarrassed to ask him if he wanted to pee! So I only asked him if he was hungry, and he said, ‘A little.’ I asked him if he was thirsty, and he said, ‘A little.’ I asked him what kind of food he would like to eat, and he replied, gasping and out of breath because of the heat and the lack of air, ‘Auntie, this is not the time to remind me of food and drink. Let’s first get through this situation and then we can think about the food.’ I told him, ‘Okay, because you are a good boy, and because you are the first in your class, I will cook a dish you like.’ He replied, ‘Auntie, this is not the time for such talk. First tell me where they are.’
“I went to see where they were and saw them standing in front of the neighbor’s gate, which faced ours. The bastards were still there, and their dogs as well, panting. One of them saw me as the dog barked. He got hold of the rifle and aimed it, while shouting like crazy.”
“You mean the dog?”
“No, the soldier! How could a dog get hold of a rifle and aim it at someone?”
“Okay, then what happened to the boy?”
“I went back and called him: ‘Saad, Saad!’ He said, ‘Yes. Any news?’ I told him that the soldiers were standing in front of the neighbor’s door. He said, ‘Okay, my fate is in God’s hands.’
“I felt sorry for him and, just between us, I wished he were a little older.”
“Just a little older?”
“Much older. Oh neighbor, my God, he reminded me of my youth.”
“You are still young.”
“Young! You should have seen me when I was young, the way I looked. I had long hair, fair skin, pink cheeks, and my figure was like Yusra’s.”
