“I’m not into studying like you. I want to have children. I want to be a mother and a wife.”
“A slave is more like it.”
“Shut up, Adele. Why can’t you be happy for me? At least I’ll get out of here, away from Babba.”
“You think?” Adele said. “Escaping from one hell hole to climb into another.”
“Ziad’s not like Babba,” Rima repeated. “He’s gentler, more loving.”
Adele sighed. “I hope you’re right.”
“I’m right. Believe me. I know Ziad and he wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she said, smiling at Adele again. “Be happy for me. I’m getting married tomorrow. I’m leaving this ‘hell hole’ as you put it.” She nudged Adele’s shoulders with her own. “Don’t worry about me, Monkey. I’ll be all right.”
Adele lifted her eyebrows. Rima smiled at her.
CHAPTER 7
ADELE’S JOB WAS TO ANSWER THE FRONT DOOR. “Marhaba. Hello,” Adele said, greeting the guests with a kiss on each cheek and then guiding them into the living room. There the guests admired the large cherry oak table visible in the dining room that was covered with a gold, hand-embroidered cloth. Several dishes were spread out on the table—garlicky hummus garnished with paprika, oil, and parsley; taboulleh atop fresh lettuce leaves; fattoush filled with bite-size pieces of pita bread; and fatayers of meat, potato, and spinach, and triangular pieces of cheese bread. Her mother’s allspice dreams. The strong herbal aroma of Lebanon’s rich foods filled the entire house. Decorated china and silverware sparkled under the chandelier of the dining room. On a smaller table in the corner of the room, bottles of soft drinks, uncorked red and white wines, and licorice-flavoured clear arak were lined up between glasses and napkins.
In the kitchen, crowded with Adele’s older female relatives, Adele watched her mother glide from plate to plate, making last-minute adjustments, and her hands sprinkling various dishes with chopped parsley. Adele stood by the doorway, watching her mother orchestrate the chick pea or eggplant dishes as if she were a conductor and the musicians were plates heaped with lemon juice, garlic cloves, and crushed dry mint. “Habibti, come here for a second,” Samira said, looking away from the plate of baba ghanouj sitting on the oak counter. Pushing through the crowd in the kitchen, Adele brushed against the older women with their perfume-scented bodies. Now standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by the women of her culture, the kind of women she was supposed to emulate, Adele suddenly blushed, her cheeks getting warmer as she listened to the haunting voice of Fairuz, one of Lebanon’s famous female singers, floating out of the tape deck. Adele looked at her shoes. The patent leather was still shiny and new, and the shoes glistened against the grey-greenish colour of the floor. As Adele stood beside her mother, she looked at the women around her, women with sturdy bodies and faces, lathered nightly with Oil of Olay. Their colourful dresses fit snugly, hugging their large bellies and breasts, bodies that had been vessels for the children they had brought into the world. These women were proud of their professions as child bearers, mothers, wives, cooks, cleaners, seamstresses, and so on. They lived for their children and husbands, Adele thought, gazing at their weary faces covered with foundation and eye shadow. Like Rima’s makeup, she thought. Adele fidgeted uncomfortably in the dress her mother had bought her, pulling the collar of the dress so it rested more evenly on her upper body. Unlike her sisters, she had never been comfortable in dresses and skirts. She preferred wearing trousers to skirts any day. And she had begged her mother to buy her a pair of dress pants and shirt to wear to the party. But Samira had insisted that a young woman should dress like a young woman in a pretty, flowery dress and patent leather pumps, and wear makeup too. Being the youngest in her family, Adele had become the queen of hand-me downs. And because her sisters loved girly things, she ended up having to wear skirts she hated, lacy or frilly blouses, and form-fitting Capri pants with flowers embroidered at the bottom. Every now and then, she would use her Christmas or birthday money to buy T-shirts, lumberjack shirts, blue jeans, and khaki pants. But Samira would only let her wear these items occasionally, insisting she put on her sisters’ used but more appropriate clothing. Adele looked across at her mother. Adele’s cheeks were still flushed when her mother rested her hand against her face. “Are you feeling okay?” Samira asked, looking concerned.
Adele nodded without opening her mouth. She thought she was going to throw up any minute. She always felt ill at these family gatherings, too many people, too much talking and criticizing. She would have preferred to be on one of her solitary walks when she stayed outside for as long as possible.
“You don’t look good,” Samira said, staring into her daughter’s bloodshot eyes. She rubbed Adele’s forehead, felt for a fever. “You don’t look good,” she repeated.
Thanks for the compliment, Adele wanted to say, but she didn’t. Gently pushing her mother’s hand from her face, Adele said, “No, I’m fine, Mama.”
“Maybe you’re coming down with something. Your eyes are as red as tomatoes.”
“Maybe I’m becoming one,” Adele suddenly laughed while she raised her left eyebrow. “Maybe under this flesh, I’m really a juicy tomato. Care to sprinkle some salt on me?”
Adele’s aunt turned away from her task and stared across at her niece. Aunt Nabiha squinted her mouth into a tight line. “You silly,” she said in her accented English. “You talk dumb. You a tomato!” She shook her head disapprovingly.
Samira whipped around to face her sister-in-law. “She’s not dumb,” she said in Arabic, glaring at Nabiha. “Adele’s very smart. One day she’ll become something. You wait and see.”
Aunt Nabiha waved her hands in the air, the gold bangles clattering against one another. “We’ll see what becomes of your daughter, Samira,” she sneered. “Youssef tells me she talks back all the time. She’s not like my daughters, Odette and Josephine. They’re good girls. Very outgoing and smart. They help their father in the restaurant all of the time. They’re only sixteen and eighteen and already know what hard work is. Youssef tells me that Adele’s scared of working in the store. She’s like a mouse, all shy and stupid, and speaks in a quiet voice when serving customers.”
Adele tightened her fists, let them hang close to her sides. She wasn’t scared of working in the store. She had done her share of packing shelves, serving customers, and delivering groceries. But when she had the chance, she wandered around the neighbourhood or rode her bike along the pathway of the Rideau Canal. She didn’t want to end up a shopkeeper like her father. She had other dreams.
“That’s not true,” Samira said, defending her youngest daughter. “She works in the store.”
“Not the way Youssef would like her to,” Nabiha barked back. The other women briefly eyed the bickering women then continued with their tasks.
Rather than continue this fight, Samira quickly pushed the dish of baba ghanouj into Adele’s hands. “Habibti, take this into the dining room. Place it next to the hummus, okay?”
Adele nodded and walked out of the kitchen. She looked down at the mashed pulp of eggplant, welcoming the scent of garlic and lemon that drifted into her nostrils. She placed the plate in the right spot then turned and looked in the direction of the kitchen once more. Her mother was staring out at her, a shadow of darkness in her beautiful eyes. She quickly wiped them with her apron, then continued preparing more food. Adele pressed her hands onto the dining room table letting her eyes run across the various dishes that had been arranged on the table.
When some guests made their way into the dining area, she looked up. The doorbell rang again and she quietly moved past the guests sitting in the living room, her shoulders hunched, the dress slightly falling off them. She straightened the collar, cleared her throat and greeted the new guests with the traditional kiss on each cheek and a forced “Marhaba.” In the living room, she found a spot in the corner and sat down on one of the foldout chairs her father ha
d bought for the party. She held her hands in her lap and let her eyes wander over the people who sat around her. They all had dark hair and accents. And they bellowed over the music that played out of the stereo system. They spoke of their families, bragged about their kids, reminisced about the old country. Adele listened to the bits of conversation and tried to piece them together. “My daughter Anessy is getting married in a few months but the hafli before the wedding day won’t be crowded and tight like this one. My house is very big. We have a living room that’s three times this size.”
“Did you hear about Tony’s daughter? She got herself pregnant and that’s why she’s getting married so quickly. Imagine that! A Lebanese girl having sex before marriage. If that were my daughter, I would’ve taken the strap to her. Ayb! Well, at least Kasim’s son is marrying her. She should’ve resisted him. She should’ve remained clean until the wedding night.”
“I just renovated my family home in Lebanon. It’s like a castle now. No old stone house for my family. They live like kings. We’ve got indoor plumbing, a garage for our Mercedes, a large grove in the front yard with fig trees. Mmm, I love those figs! Canada knows nothing about good food. The figs here aren’t as good as the ones back home and especially the ones on my property.”
Adele listened and smiled to herself. These were her people, she thought, the people she loved and loathed. They all spoke at once, clamouring to be heard. The house pulsated with Arabic music and the language Adele struggled with every day. She glanced over at one of her young cousins, talking busily across from her with some of her uncles. Jamil was only eight but he spoke Arabic as if he had just come to Canada, which wasn’t the case. Like Adele, he had been born in Ottawa. But the Arabic words rolled off his tongue easily. Outside the window, the streetlights had turned the maple trees into shadowy figures. She could see more people making their way up the front steps. She got up quickly and pulled open the door before the doorbell rang, kissing the new visitors before ushering them inside. From the corner of her eye, she saw her father making his way down the staircase. She turned around and looked up at him dressed in his best suit, the navy one that hugged his round belly. It was out of style. His salt and pepper hair was slicked away from his wide forehead. She felt sorry for him in his old-fashioned suit. Adele smiled up at him; a sudden surge of love for Youssef went through her. “You look good, Babba,” she said, smiling. He slowly, self-consciously raised his hand. For one moment, she thought he was going to touch her face, but instead his eyes met hers briefly, then moved past her. He smiled at all the guests, his hand already stretching out to the visitors. She stepped back and stood in the frame of the doorway.
CHAPTER 8
“HEY, YOUSSEF, MR. BIG SHOT!” Uncle Fadi shouted from one of the sofas, his dark face clean-shaven. Deep dimples were engraved in his robust cheeks. Bushy eyebrows covered large brown eyes that seemed to illuminate when he spoke, no matter whether the topic was sombre or light. He was a tall, burly man who laughed easily and often. He wasn’t really Adele’s uncle but she had called him that since she was a little girl. She addressed most of the older guests in the room as “uncle” or “aunt” as a sign of respect. She smiled when she heard Fadi’s voice again, teasing her father. Youssef grinned back and slapped his hand into Fadi’s. Why can’t Babba look at me that way? she wondered.
Leaning against the wall, she let her hands rest behind her back while she watched her uncle’s face transform the way she wished her father’s face would when he looked at her. “Hey, big shot!” Fadi owned a sports bar where her father sometimes took Adele and her sisters for lunch. There, she liked to sit at one of the booths and sip on a vanilla milkshake, studying all the football paraphernalia her uncle had collected over the years. Helmets and jerseys of NFL teams were hammered above the bar and adjacent walls. A TV set always played the football games. Adele had listened to the men at the other tables, and the cooks who filtered in and out of the kitchen to watch the game, shout over the fumbling of the ball or a failed touchdown. She and her sisters ate their grilled cheese sandwiches and sipped their milkshakes surrounded by men. They were often the only females in the restaurant.
Now she stared at her uncle and wished her father could be more like him. Uncle Fadi always called her “honey,” not habibti. She knew he said this to her sisters, too, but she didn’t care; it still made her feel special. He caught her staring at him now and, winked. Adele grinned back. The next thing she knew, Fadi grabbed onto her hand and her father’s, linking them together. Adele stood between the two men while they formed a line that other guests began to join. Someone turned the music up. Fadi took the position of leader and twirled a string of worry beads, masbaha, while the rest of the dancers kept up the slow, then fast rhythm of moving around the living room in a circle. Adele looked down at her father’s feet stomping on the hardwood floor. Then there was jumping and everyone lifted their left leg in perfect unison and kicked into the air; they shouted too. She remembered her father explaining the meaning of this traditional folk dance of community often performed at weddings and other joyous occasions such as this one—Rima’s hafli. Youssef had said that dabke meant the “stomping of the feet.” The dabke leader was like a tree, with arms in the air, as Fadi continued to dance, proud and upright like a trunk. The dancers’ feet pounded the ground—in this case the Azar household’s hardwood—to show their connection to the land. Beads of sweat slid down Fadi’s face and over his dimples. Adele followed her father’s feet, trying to keep up with the quickening rhythm. Someone turned up the music and the crowd went around in a circle faster and faster, kicking their feet in the air, shouting and cheering at the same time. Adele smiled weakly as her uncle pulled her along the line. But she wasn’t very fast or good at the dabke.
“Yallah,” Youssef said, perspiration gathering at his temples. “Keep up with the pace,” he mumbled.
Frowning, Adele struggled to keep up. The people around her flipped their heads back and shouted out in Arabic while they jumped up and down, following Fadi’s lead, the string of beads flying above his head as if a lasso. Adele’s palms became slick between her uncle’s and father’s grips. She lost the rhythm half way through the song. Her patent leather shoes slid on the floor as she tapped them and lifted her left leg. Fadi tightly held onto her hand and tried to guide her but he was so involved in the music that he hurried his pace, making her run beside him rather than stomp. Tripping over her feet, she looked up at the people at the other end of the line. Their faces glistened with sweat as they laughed out loud and stomped their feet.
Frustrated by the whole thing, Adele dropped her father’s hand then pulled herself free from Fadi’s. “Hey, honey,” Fadi said, now slowing his pace, “Where are you going? Don’t stop dancing. Come on. You’ll get back on track, there’s nothing to it.”
Adele shook her head and withdrew from the crowd. She stood by the entrance towards the store, almost tempted to sneak down the stairs into the quiet solitude of the storage room. But she stood there and stared at everyone as they danced, their hands clasped together, their bodies jumping as they moved around in the circle, smiling across at each other.
Rima came pounding down the stairs, interrupting Adele’s thoughts. Her wavy black hair was held in place with hairspray and its scent travelled down the staircase with her. Before the crowd could spot her, she grabbed onto Adele’s shoulders and hid behind her. “Hey, Monkey! They didn’t see me running down the stairs,” she said, looking past Adele’s body at the dancing crowd. “Next thing you know, they’ll be forcing me to belly dance!” Rima grinned widely at her sister, no longer upset about the argument they’d had earlier. That was Rima, not one to hold grudges.
“You know you’re going to have to belly dance,” Adele said, smiling. “It’s tradition.” Like her sister, she knew belly-dancing was as much a part of a traditional Lebanese wedding as the exchange of vows and the wearing of gold crowns in the church service if you were Orthodox.
“And what are you so afraid of? You’re a great belly dancer.”
“Yeah, but I’m nervous as hell,” she said, holding out her right hand in front of Adele’s face. “I’m already shaking so much. I might end up jiggling one of my boobs right out of my jumpsuit!”
Adele laughed. “What an embarrassment!” She deepened her voice, mimicking her father. “Ayb!” She then spoke in her regular tone. “Babba will have a heart attack right on the spot!”
“You think?” Rima asked, raising her left eyebrow and laughing. Suddenly, Fadi stopped swinging the beads and interrupted the dancing, having noticed Rima standing by the doorway with Adele. In his loud, bellowing voice, he shouted, “Rima, honey, come and dance with us.” He waved his large hands in the air for her to join the crowd but she hesitated and stood behind Adele’s small body. She held onto her shoulders so tightly that the already large flower-print dress slid off Adele even more.
Adele whispered to her sister. “If you keep pulling on my dress, my boobs, not yours, will pop out for everyone to see.”
“Who are you kidding, Monkey? You’re flat as a board!”
Rima and Adele laughed. By this time, the crowd was staring at the two sisters, the oldest and youngest of Youssef Azar’s daughters. Youssef suddenly turned around and also studied his two daughters. “Yallah. Hurry up,” he hissed in a low voice to Rima. And at the look of disgust in his eyes, the two sisters stepped apart, Rima joining the crowd while the other stepped back into the doorway again.
Now Fadi picked up the handheld drum and began to pound it slowly. The men in the crowd walked over to Rima and lifted her into the air, placing her on their shoulders. They walked around the room with her as if she were an Arabian princess. And in a way, she was. Virginal and pure. Adele watched the way the men bounced Rima on their shoulders in rhythm to the music. She clung onto their shoulders, her long fingers gripping their dress shirts. Fadi hit the instrument harder and faster while the music from the stereo continued to play. At this point, Ziad joined in. The crowd shouted and cheered for the groom, who smiled. He was dressed in a silk burgundy shirt with a black tie Rima had bought for him and dark dress pants. The men let Rima slide down, placing her beside her future husband. Ziad leaned into her body and planted a quick kiss on her mouth. The crowd clapped their hands at this public display of affection. Rima blushed as much as Ziad, who looked nervous. Then the women in the crowd touched Rima on the shoulders, pushing her to start belly dancing in front of Ziad. She hesitated until Aunt Nabiha took her arm and led her into the centre of the living room where the older woman began to shake her hips in rhythm to the Middle Eastern music that now played loudly on the stereo. Imitating Aunt Nabiha, Rima timidly moved her curvaceous hips while Ziad’s wide eyes followed. Her entire belly jiggled as well as her curved thighs. Rima lifted her arms up to the ceiling and moved her body in rhythm to her aunt’s. When she moved forward, Aunt Nabiha arched her body back and vice versa. People gathered around the two women, clapping their hands in tune to the music. Except for Adele. She remained by the doorway, her hands pressing into her hips.
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