The Allspice Bath

by Sonia Saikaley

  Adele turned from Melissa’s downcast face and glanced at her other friends. Tracy and Erin were blonde like Melissa. They were still sitting on the bench, swinging their legs as they too chatted.

  “My father wouldn’t let me go either way,” Adele finally confessed.

  “He’s so old-fashioned,” Melissa groaned.

  “I know,” Adele agreed. “He thinks I’m some village girl.”

  “With the goats and donkeys!” Melissa laughed, then Tracy and Erin joined her.

  Adele smiled weakly but made no comment. She wanted to explain that those animals were a part of her heritage, a part of her parents’ homeland, but she couldn’t find the words to do it. Instead she stared down at the ground and shuffled her feet.

  “Your father is annoying sometimes. I don’t know how you live with him. I would be so embarrassed to have him as a dad,” Melissa said.

  “He doesn’t even look like other dads,” Tracy piped up, “with that big, curling moustache. You should try to get him to shave it off, Adele.”

  Still looking down, Adele lowered her voice again, “I can’t get him to do that.”

  “That’s too bad,” Melissa answered. “If you had parents like mine, you’d be able to go to my party.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Adele said. Her friends knew nothing about her and her culture. Her parents didn’t own expensive cars or have university degrees. They didn’t read or write English. They couldn’t possibly understand the importance of turning thirteen. For them, it was just another number. It didn’t guarantee more freedom. She suddenly felt very sorry for herself. Why didn’t she have parents who could read and write in English? Why was she born to Samira and Youssef and not to parents like Melissa’s? “I’m Lebanese,” Adele said, louder than she had intended. “My parents are the way they are because we’re Lebanese.”

  None of her friends replied for a long, awkward moment. Then Melissa finally laughed, reaching her hand out to Adele and squeezing her arm. “But you’re like us. You were born in Ottawa, right?”

  Adele nodded, sniffling now and wiping her nose with the bottom of her sleeve.

  “Didn’t you learn anything in Mrs. Johnson’s class? That makes you Canadian, not Lebanese.”

  Adele nodded again and when the bell rang, she followed her friends out of the yard, into the school.

  When she walked back home later that day the snow on the crocuses from earlier in the day had melted and the purple flowers were wide open under the sun that now shone, turning the sky a dark shade of orange as dusk began to fall. Adele unzipped her coat, letting her body feel the warmth of the sun. Spring was almost here, she thought, deeply breathing the damp scent that comes when winter melts away and spring arrives again. Kneeling, she touched the purple petals, careful not to break them off the plant and as she rose again, her eyes fell on the layered black hair of a teenaged girl sitting in a red Trans-Am a block away from Adele’s house. Her hair was just like Rima’s. Was it her? Then Adele spotted a boy, leaning into the girl’s face and kissing her. There was no way that Rima could be allowing that, Adele thought, but when the girl turned her face slightly, Adele gasped. It was her sister. She quickly stepped back and hid behind a maple tree, pressing her hands in the rough bark while she peered at her sister and the teenaged boy in the red Trans-Am. From what she could see, he had blond hair and a square-jaw. He definitely wasn’t Lebanese. Without budging from her spot, she prayed Rima would pull herself away from this boy and get out of the automobile before their father saw her. After a few minutes of kissing, Rima finally got out and waved at the boy before he sped down the street. Hurrying, Adele came out from behind the tree and ran up the sidewalk to join her sister. She hooked her arm into Rima’s, chanting, “Rima and blond boy sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”

  Rima jumped. “Shit, you scared me, Adele!” she exclaimed.

  “First comes love, then comes marriage then comes Rima pushing a baby carriage!” Adele teased.

  Rima stopped and pushed Adele away from her. “Shut up! Don’t tell Babba about this.”

  “Who is he? Your boyfriend?” Adele crooned.

  “None of your damn business.”

  “You know Babba won’t let you date him.”

  “I don’t care what he thinks.”

  “Then why didn’t you let him drop you off at home, eh?”

  “Shut up, Adele! You better keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it for you,” Rima said, raising a clenched fist towards Adele’s face.

  Adele stepped back. “I’m only teasing.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’ll break every bone in your body if you open your big mouth, understand?” she said fiercely.

  Adele noticed the tension around her sister’s mouth and realized she wasn’t kidding. “I’m sorry,” she finally answered. “I won’t say anything to Babba.”

  “You better not.” She then grabbed Adele’s face and squeezed it between her palms. “I’m sorry, too, Monkey but you have to understand that Babba won’t like Mitchell.”

  “Because he’s white?”

  “Because he’s not Lebanese.” She dropped her hands and walked ahead of Adele in the direction of the store.

  Adele silently followed her sister inside. Youssef was behind the counter as usual. He looked at them and smiled. “Marhaba, my girls. How was school?”

  “Good,” the sisters replied simultaneously before heading up the stairs to the house.

  The next evening, the front door slammed so loudly that Adele dropped the sketchpad on her lap to the floor. She leapt off her bed and ran towards the hallway. She peered over the banister to see her father stomping up the stairs as if the house were on fire and he was trying to save her and her sisters from the raging blaze. But there was no fire. The only thing blazing was his face; his nostrils were wide with each breath he took as he ascended the staircase.

  Adele quickly retreated back to her room, where she picked up the pad and pretended to draw. She didn’t notice her father’s glare as he walked past her room and headed into Rima’s bedroom, where she was listening to her Rex Smith album, the blond heartthrob’s sexy voice crooning under the crack of the closed door. In a matter of minutes, his voice was shattered when Youssef dragged the needle across the record.

  “What are you doing?” Rima shouted.

  “Don’t raise your voice to me, you sharmouta!” Adele heard her father yell. She then walked out into the hallway and watched her father push Rima back on the bed, where she held her knees to her chest.

  “My friend Joseph saw you last night with some blond boy at the theatres. I thought you were going to the movies with a friend.”

  “I was,” Rima answered quietly.

  “A boyfriend?”

  “No, he’s just a friend.”

  “Friends don’t kiss. Joseph said you were kissing that boy as if he were your husband.”

  “I wasn’t kissing him. We were only watching the movie together, nothing else.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Rima. I swear if you lie to me again I’ll slap you so hard that you’ll never disobey me.”

  Rima didn’t move. But Adele did, making the floorboards creak. Youssef turned around and glared at her before turning to face Rima again. “How could you disgrace me like that, Rima? How could you? The whole Lebanese community is talking about you, saying bidt Youssef is a whore.”

  “I love Mitchell. He’s good to me.”

  Youssef raised his hand and slapped Rima across the face; her head snapped back. He clutched Rima by the shoulders but Adele lunged at him and pulled his arms away from her. He grunted and pushed Adele backwards, so that she fell hard on the floor. She got up quickly, rubbing her buttocks.

  “You’re forbidden to see this enklese boy again, understand?” Youssef didn’t wait for a reply and stormed out of Rima’s room and down the stairs.

  “
No, I don’t understand,” Rima said, rubbing her red cheek. Adele stood in front of the record player, lifting the needle and dropping it on the vinyl until she found a salvageable song; Rex Smith lamented his heartbreak out of the speakers into Rima’s small room.

  Adele didn’t hear about Mitchell again until a few weeks later. “I don’t care what Babba thinks. I love him and I don’t care what he says,” Rima shouted, running down the stairs with Katrina following behind. Rima was now eighteen and her parents were pressuring her to date a Lebanese man named Ziad. Adele sat on Rima’s bed and listened to the rising voices of her two older sisters.

  “You knew you were going to get caught eventually,” Katrina said from the bottom of the stairs. “Anyway, it’s better to marry a Lebanese man….”

  “So Babba feels better? What about me?” Rima said, her voice cracking.

  Adele felt her eyes tear up. But she wiped them quickly when she noticed Mona staring at her. Mona leaned in close and put her arm around Adele. “Don’t cry, Monkey.”

  Adele turned and stared blankly at the wall. She could no longer hear her sisters’ bickering. Dark clouds had turned the bedroom walls into shadow puppets of Adele’s and Mona’s figures. When a gust of wind blew, the maple tree outside Rima’s bedroom window hit the pane. It was a cool night in May. Light rain wept on the roof. Adele sat on the bed and hugged her knees to her chest. She stared out the window at the swaying branches, then suddenly heard the heavy footsteps of someone running up the stairs. She turned her head and spotted Rima walking down the hallway again, gripping onto a small suitcase. Shortly after, Katrina followed her down the hall, her breathing rapid and her face flushed. Adele watched Rima throw the bag on the mattress of her bed. Quickly, she unzipped it while Katrina sat next to Mona and Adele on the bed, staring at Rima’s small hands as they pulled clothing out of the drawers and then stuffed it into the bag, making the bed shake. Adele sat quietly, watching her sister sway to and fro from suitcase to drawers, her hips swinging back and forth. Rima was a great belly dancer with her beautiful hips and small belly. The way her wavy hair tumbled past her shoulders, but not too far down her back, made Adele think of all the times she watched her sister dance at a hafli at the church hall. Always smiling.

  But Rima didn’t smile now. Face strained with worry, she continued to fill the small suitcase with her clothes. Rima suddenly stopped packing, and frowning, put her hands on her hips. Adele saw Rima looking across at her reflection, lifting her hands to her cheeks as if feeling the heat coming off of them. Rima’s face was flushed and hot. Adele imagined Rima’s palms were damp, too, as she pulled her fingers through her dishevelled hair. Rima blinked a few times, holding back the tears that Adele could see were pricking at her eyelids, then she stared down at the carpeted floor.

  “What are you doing, Rima?” Adele suddenly asked, something she knew by the way Mona and Katrina stared back at her, their eyebrows arched in question, that her sisters were yearning to ask too. Rima didn’t answer. She shook her head and grabbed a handful of underwear from the open drawer and shoved them on top of the other clothes in the suitcase. Adele realized that Rima was hurrying because her mother had whispered to her a few hours ago, “I have to go, habibti. Your father and I are visiting Aunt Nabiha in the east end. But we won’t be too long.” Samira had reached out and patted Adele’s arm then left. Adele sat on the edge of the bed, not believing what she was seeing. Her sister was actually leaving.

  “What are you doing, Rima?” Adele repeated, straightening her back. The mattress shifted under her weight.

  “I don’t know. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Adele,” Rima said, sighing once more. She pulled at the hair near her temples. “Oh, shit,” she said, “What the hell am I doing? The only thing I know is that I love Mitchell and I want to be with him, not Ziad.”

  “Tell Babba that then.”

  “Yeah, right. Have you forgotten who our father is, Adele?”

  “Stand up to him for once in your life,” Adele said suddenly.

  “Like you always do. Where does that get you? In your bedroom crying like a suck. You don’t understand anything. You’re just a kid.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m almost a teenager,” Adele protested, crossing her arms over her chest and remembering Melissa’s declaration about turning thirteen.

  “Well, you don’t know shit,” Rima said, sitting on the bed now. She squeezed her body next to her sisters then lay down with her hands behind her head, her short legs barely touching the footboard. Adele looked at her sisters, their shoulders slightly hunched and furrows forming along their foreheads, covered by the loose strands of dark hair that fell into their eyes, forcing them to push the strands back behind their ears.

  “Where are you going?” Katrina finally said, her voice barely audible. She was the soft-spoken one in the family, the one who never argued back. Her manners matched her physical features. Gentle face, kind eyes, bony shoulders, a frame so tiny that Adele’s own pubescent body was already larger than hers. Katrina stared into Rima’s eyes.

  But Rima looked away. Adele realized her sister knew that her choice to leave would affect not only herself but her sisters, too. They would have to deal with Youssef’s wrath. Adele knew it too. Rima got up from the bed and began to pace back and forth, the floorboards creaking. “I don’t know where I’m going, Katrina. Somewhere. Anywhere but here. I want to be with Mitchell.”

  “Just tell Mama and Babba this,” Katrina said, “tell them you love Mitchell.” She hesitated as if their father were in the room with them, staring disapprovingly at her for speaking up. It didn’t matter that Youssef wasn’t there. “Speak with Mama and Babba before you run off.”

  “What good will that do? You heard Babba. He said he’d kill me if he saw me with that ‘white’ boy again. He won’t listen,” Rima said, slumping back down on the bed again. Adele was still sitting quietly on the edge of the mattress, dangling her thin legs over the edge.

  “Big fucking deal if you can’t see Mitchell again,” Mona bellowed even though she was a few feet away from Rima. “So, you can’t date him anymore. You’ll find another boyfriend and this time a Lebanese one. You can always date Ziad like Babba wants. He’s an okay guy. Who cares if he’s not the greatest looking guy in the world? He’s a few years older, big deal. You can learn to love him. Anyway, you can’t just run away,” Mona said, brushing her fingers through her long hair while staring at her reflection in the mirror. Adele smirked at her sister’s vanity. Even in times of crisis, her appearance was everything to her. Mona puckered her lips as if kissing an imaginary person; herself, Adele thought.

  Adele laughed out loud. “You’re gorgeous, Mona!”

  Mona glared back at her. She reached over and poked Adele. “I know. You don’t have to tell me.” Then she flipped her straight hair back over her shoulders in an exaggerated way.

  Rima broke in. “I love Mitchell! I don’t want to date anyone else. Ziad is thirty years old anyway. An old man for god’s sake!” She glared fiercely at Mona, her heart-shaped face tightening. “A few years older, my ass! More than a decade!”

  “Don’t get all pissed off with me, Rima,” Mona barked back. “I’m only trying to help. Why are you in love with a white man anyway? There are plenty of good Lebanese men.”

  “Fuck you, Mona. You don’t understand shit,” Rima said, still pacing. Suddenly there was a loud creaking in the house. “Oh shit, they’re back! Christ, Babba and Mama are back!” Rima lifted the bag by the handle and was ready to make a quick dash when she realized no one else was in the house; it was just settling. The sisters remained still. Adele only heard silence.

  “False alarm,” Adele said, sighing. “They’re not home, yet.”

  Rima took a long breath and let go of the suitcase, falling back onto the mattress. “I don’t have any other choice but to leave. I can’t stop dating Mitchell…I don’
t want to…” she paused then leaning forward, placed her head in her hands and began to sob.

  Katrina reached over, tears brimming in her eyes too, and patted Rima’s back.

  “You’ll find someone else to love. It’s not the end of the world if you can’t see Mitchell anymore,” Mona insisted.

  “Like Ziad, right?”

  “Yeah, he has money. He can buy you whatever you want. He’s not that bad,” Mona said.

  Rima wiped the tears from her face and turned to Mona. She hissed, “Money’s not everything.” She pushed Katrina’s warm hand away. Katrina looked down at the floor, and brought her hands back on her lap, clasping them together. “You don’t know anything about love. I’m in love with Mitchell, not Ziad. He’s so hairy and rough. Imagine kissing and fucking…”

  Katrina’s pale face pinched up and she frowned at her sister’s language. But Adele noticed that she didn’t lecture Rima this time. Katrina stared down at her hands, the bones protruding under the thin skin. Adele had expected Katrina to start her usual lecture of how foul language had no place in a Lebanese girl’s vocabulary. But she said nothing.

  Adele suddenly teased, “Hey, you’re in the presence of a minor, remember, Rima? No mention of S-E-X.”

  “Oh, wow, she’s not only cute but she can spell, too!” Rima said, smiling. The tensions slightly shifted and Adele turned to Katrina again who was now grinning.

  “You could always put a bag over his head when you’re in bed together,” Mona said, fingering her hair. She looped a long strand in her right hand and looked down; not one split end was visible.

  “You mean a body bag?” Rima laughed.

  “Well,” Mona paused, letting go of her hair. “One with an opening right here.” She pointed to her crotch and formed her hands in a large circle, the tips of her long fingers barely touching.