The Allspice Bath

by Sonia Saikaley

  She opened the door and walked down the stairs, past the living room and down another flight of steps into the basement. She flipped on the light switch. As a young child, she had been terrified of this basement even though it was fully furnished. This was where she and her sisters played and watched television when Youssef had taken over the family room upstairs, clutching onto the converter and refusing to let the girls watch their shows.

  Walking into the laundry room, she cursed and threw her dirty underwear into the basket with the other clothes, then returned to the TV room and flung herself on the couch. She was no longer afraid of the basement. Years ago, she had thought the devil lived there, something that had entered her mind after having watched The Amityville Horror with her sisters. They warned her to go upstairs when watching the movie, but she wouldn’t listen to them. She was eight years old and she wanted to do what her older sisters were doing. And she had nightmares for weeks afterward and wouldn’t come down to the basement for almost two months. Instead, she had to sit through hours of wrestling with her father. Laughing out loud at that memory, she was unexpectedly comforted by the sound of her own voice. She turned and stared at the bar lined with bottles of red and white wines. There was no devil down here. Just Youssef, sometimes, entertaining his relatives with his dinner parties. Adele turned away from the bar and examined the wood panelling on the walls. The walls were covered with pictures of movie stars, men her sisters had admired. A large painting of a village house and an old woman carrying a bucket of water across a rickety wooden bridge hung on the wall across from her. Her parents bought this work of art because it reminded them of the village they had abandoned for Canada. She knew her parents wanted her to be a young woman carrying water, a village girl. They expected her to be a virgin and stay at home until her future husband came to rescue her. But Adele had lost her virginity to her bike! She laughed again, now that the absurdity of it filled her thoughts. “Jesus Christ,” she said out loud. “I may have broken my hymen, but I’m still a virgin. I haven’t been with a man yet.” She slapped her hand against her forehead and stretched her legs back on the sofa. Closing her eyes, she smiled at herself and let the night enfold her as she drifted off to sleep.

  The following week, after days of rain, the sun made itself visible in the sky. Now the brilliant light filled Adele’s bedroom while she sat on her bed with a sketchpad on her lap. The sunshine warmed her hands. Between her thumb and forefinger, she held a pencil and moved it over the bumpy, mulberry stationery as she glanced up and down from the paper to the weeping willow in the distance; its drooping branches touched the earth as if thanking the soil for allowing its roots to spread. Suddenly, she heard the front door open. The sound of footsteps entered the house and shuffled across the hardwood floor. She raised her head in the direction of the hallway. Within a few minutes, a clamour of voices travelled up the stairs and into her bedroom. Adele immediately recognized her eldest sister’s light-hearted tone, but then she also heard her brother-in-law’s deep Arabic accent, drowning out Rima’s greeting. Adele got up from her bed then went downstairs to greet her sister.

  “Hi, Rima. Welcome back!” she said, jubilantly.

  “Hello, Monkey,” Rima replied softly. They embraced. And behind her sister, Adele saw Ziad, his hand on the small of his wife’s back.

  “Marhaba Ziad. Kif Haalak?” Adele mumbled, freeing herself from Rima’s hold.

  “Good, good,” Ziad answered. The smell of aftershave flooded Adele’s nostrils when she leaned in and gave her brother-in-law two quick kisses on the cheeks. Then Adele looked at his large hand as he squeezed her sister’s arm and guided Rima into the living room. Adele followed behind. Her family, and Ziad’s mother, Mrs. Jaber, were gathered there. Mrs. Jaber was staying with Ziad and Rima and returning to Lebanon in a few days. Adele sat down between Mona and Katrina, but her eyes scrutinized Ziad and the way he took a seat on the sofa as if he owned the place and owned Rima, his broad shoulders pressing into the beige couch, his long legs spreading wide, touching Rima’s, his hand clasped her left thigh. The rich smell of Arabic coffee hovered in the humid July air. After a few seconds, Adele turned and studied Mona and Katrina. They both wore skirts of varying lengths. Mona’s miniskirt fit tightly on her slim body while Katrina’s long flowing skirt made her look bigger than she actually was. Their faces were coated daily with makeup and today was no exception. Foundation covered their skin and pink and purple eye shadow smeared their eyelids. Things were changing. Her sisters were with Lebanese boys and socializing with more Lebanese than English friends.

  Adele glanced at her own body. Her developing chest was small and her appearance was tomboyish. She sported jeans and a red polo shirt, falling over the waistband of her trousers. Her face was free from makeup. She was still always arguing with her father. She was still the defiant daughter.

  Adele focused her gaze on Ziad’s mother, a woman whose face was as rigid as steel and just as cold, Adele presumed. The woman’s eyebrows furrowed on her round face. Mrs. Jaber stared hard at Rima, who smiled too easily and too frequently. Mrs. Jaber sat upright on the sofa and tucked the loose strands of silver hair that had escaped from the tight silk scarf wrapped around her head behind her ears. The grey dress Samira had given her fit snugly around her belly and the seams looked as if they were about to come undone. Snug as a bug, Adele rhymed in her mind, but she looks more like a scorpion! Adele knew Mrs. Jaber had preferred her son to marry a Lebanese-born woman rather than a Canadian one just by the disapproving frown on her face.

  Youssef’s voice startled them all. “How was your honeymoon in Niagara Falls?” he asked in booming Arabic.

  “Beautiful,” Ziad replied.

  “It rained here the entire week while you were away,” Adele interjected, as if suggesting the sombre weather had something to do with her sister’s union to Ziad.

  “Well, it was absolutely gorgeous where we were,” he said firmly.

  Adele glanced from her father to her brother-in-law. Youssef was short and Ziad was tall. Youssef was pale and Ziad was dark. Youssef was balding and Ziad had thick hair. But their voices both sounded harsh. Youssef butted in, “I remember taking the girls there when they were young. It was nice, although the drive was hard because the girls ended up getting sick. We had to stop at so many gas stations to use the washroom.”

  “Perhaps they needed to freshen up their makeup or fix their hair all under the disguise of illness,” Ziad sneered. “You know how women are.”

  Youssef grinned and nodded his head with agreement.

  Samira said nothing, sitting quietly next to him.

  “I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me.” Youssef lifted his hands in the air and waved them around. “I’m surrounded by females. I have my own little harem!” He threw his head back and laughed, then continued. “But they were really ill. And at that time they didn’t wear makeup.”

  “On our drive there, Rima made me stop at every exit so she could freshen up,” Ziad said, pretending to flip back his short-cropped hair.

  Rima playfully hit her husband’s shoulder. “That’s not true.”

  Adele watched the way Mrs. Jaber stared at Rima without cracking a smile, even though Rima looked directly at her and gave her a warm smile.

  “You can’t travel with girls without them always wanting to take ‘beauty breaks,’” Ziad continued, raising his fingers in quotation marks.

  “Nothing’s wrong with a little refreshing. Beauty is important,” Mona said seriously.

  “Looks are everything to you, aren’t they, Mona?” Adele asked, turning away from Mrs. Jaber’s glower.

  “What else is there? The first thing people see is your face.”

  “I have to agree with Mona,” Ziad said. There was a slight leer on his face. Adele knew he loved being encircled by women even if they were only his sisters-in-law. With his right hand, he subtly groped his crotch. Adele looked i
n disgust as his cigarette-stained fingers rubbed the material of his trousers. Then, he brought his hand up and stroked the gold chain around his neck; his open-collared shirt exposed soft curls of chest hair.

  He thinks he’s so hot, Adele thought before speaking. “You would. But what about one’s mind, one’s compassion?”

  “Not as important,” he replied. “First impressions aren’t formed by one’s mind. The face, as Mona said, is everything and….” He rested his elbows on his knees and bent forward. He whispered, sneaking a quick look at Youssef and his mother, making sure they couldn’t hear him, “it certainly helps if that pretty face is on top of a gorgeous body.” He sat back on the sofa and winked at Adele.

  Adele snapped, “You’re such a chauvinist.”

  “And what are you? Don’t tell me.” He gave an audible sigh. “A feminist.”

  “Yeah, I believe in equal rights.” She turned her head and stared at her father. He gave her a disapproving look, then she stared at her mother. Adele wished Samira would somehow agree with her or at least think it was all right that one of her daughters was non-traditional. But how could Samira possibly understand feminism? “If that makes me a feminist, well, then I’m a feminist.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Mrs. Jaber sit up straight at the mention of this word. A term, Adele guessed, she had heard in Beirut when visiting some relatives. A feminist, a woman who demanded equal rights, who expected her husband to share in the household chores and the care of children. A feminist had no place in Mrs. Jaber’s family, Adele thought.

  The old woman squinted at her daughter-in-law and asked in Arabic, “Are you such a woman?”

  “No, no,” Rima answered quickly. “I’m very traditional.”

  “Good.”

  “Yes, Mama. Rima’s not like that. She knows her place,” Ziad replied.

  Rima cleared her throat. “Ziad is right. I’m not a feminist and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t get the whole feminist thing. I’m a woman and I was raised to take care of my husband, my family. I see nothing wrong with this. Lebanese women know the true meaning of home and family. Don’t worry, Mother-in-law,” Rima said, speaking in Arabic. “I’ll be a good wife.”

  Mrs. Jaber pursed her lips. “Enshallah.” God willing.

  Adele was unable to speak. She couldn’t believe the words coming out of Rima’s mouth. She glanced across at Mona and Katrina but they ignored her and looked blankly at Ziad’s mother.

  Ziad declared, “I wouldn’t marry a feminist. Feminists don’t like men. Aren’t they all lesbians?” he laughed out loud.

  Adele shook her head with annoyance. “That’s bullshit,” she mumbled.

  “What did you say?” Youssef said, glaring at her.

  Bullshit, Adele mouthed. Youssef clenched his jaw. But Adele knew her father better than he thought she knew him. There was no way in hell he’d raise his voice or hurl words of insult in the presence of a guest. So she silently pronounced the word again until her father sat on his hands, his feet slowly tapping the floor. She watched the way his tongue clucked against the inside of his cheek as if he were willing it to calm down before he let it loose in a room with a very traditional Lebanese woman, who would report such an outburst upon her arrival back to the village.

  Mrs. Jaber turned to Youssef and asked, “What’s a lesbian?”

  Youssef stopped shaking and uncovered his hands, resting them on his knees.

  Before he could reply, Adele smirked, “I think Ziad should answer that question, not Babba.” Youssef shot her a scornful look. And at the same time, Ziad shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.

  Blinking in confusion, Mrs. Jaber pushed the question. “What’s a lesbian?”

  “A woman who likes another woman as if she were a man,” Youssef explained.

  She looked down at her hands and folded them on her lap. “Ayb.”

  “Exactly, Mama, that’s ayb,” Ziad agreed.

  Youssef asked, “Why are we talking about this?”

  “Ziad brought it up,” Adele replied. Ziad glared across at her. “Maybe he should explain his obsession with lesbians. Is it one of his fantasies?”

  “Be quiet, Adele,” Rima said, immediately coming to her husband’s defence.

  Adele was silent for a moment then lifting her hands, she went on. “Whatever. He’s the one who started it.”

  Then, changing the topic completely Mrs. Jaber suddenly asked in Arabic, “Did you use the sheet as I instructed?”

  Adele looked at her sisters with surprise at the mention of the dreaded wedding sheet, the virgin detector. But they avoided her probing gaze, lowering their eyes. Did Rima actually use one on her wedding night? Getting up from the sofa, Ziad walked into the other room where their suitcases were situated. Everyone was silent; the sound of the suitcase zipper was like a roar. Adele looked at Rima whose cheeks began to turn a sallow shade; it looked as if she were about to vomit. Adele slightly rose from the sofa, wanting to sit next to her eldest sister but at that moment, Ziad stepped back into the living room, holding the white linen in his hands. She sat back down and watched Ziad grasp the edges of the blanket and throw it in the air so as to spread it out. Seizing it between his fingers, he let his mother examine it. Mrs. Jaber tightly clutched the sheet, pulled it close to her face and traced the dried stains as if making sure they were droplets of blood and not cranberry sauce or paint. She moved closer to the cloth and Adele thought she might lick the spots. Adele gaped at the white sheet with her sister’s blood on it.

  Finally letting go of the cloth, Mrs. Jaber looked across at Rima and for the first time, a large smile spread on her round face. She got up from the sofa, then cupped Rima’s head in her hands and kissed her on the cheeks before pulling her into her arms and embracing her. “You good girl,” she said. “You good girl.” Adele’s eyes opened wide in disbelief at the woman’s sudden warm reception.

  Rima patted her mother-in-law’s heavy back and fixed her eyes on Adele, but then turned away and looked at her parents. Youssef and Samira sat there with enormous grins on their proud faces. Adele didn’t look at them. She knew if she did, she would lose her temper. Flushed with embarrassment, Adele stared past her feet and watched a tiny black ant disappear between the cracks of the hardwood floor.

  The next day, a calm smile lifted Samira’s mouth as she carefully folded Rima’s wedding sheet by halves, patting the creases from the friction of the newlyweds’ lovemaking. Wide-eyed, Adele watched the way her mother’s hands glided over the cloth, slow and gentle. Samira’s fingers were long and her knuckles were big. Adele’s own hands were lighter, less work-worn, but they were Samira’s hands, prominent bones, smooth skin.

  The crimson smears on the white cloth made Adele cringe. She hated this old world tradition, this “virgin detector,” hated the fact that her sister Rima had allowed her husband to place the sheet on the hotel bed while he made love to her for the first time. And now, in this quiet room, safe, she thought of her bicycle accident. Yesterday, with Ziad and her family, she hadn’t let the bloodstained sheet bring back the excruciating memory of her hymen being torn from her fall on her bicycle. What would she do if she married a Lebanese man, lay in bed with a sheet under her body and not one drop of blood into it? She closed her eyes, wishing she could erase the bike accident from her memory forever and heal her broken hymen. She wanted to be clean again. But it was too late to mend damage already done. As a Lebanese girl, she had failed in one of the most important lessons her parents had drilled into her and her sisters’ brains—protect your virginity at all costs.

  Adele remembered a time when her sister Katrina had been shaking after coming out of the examination room at their family doctor’s office. Katrina had sat on the empty chair between Mona and Adele. Mona had leaned close to Katrina’s pale face and had whispered, “What’s wrong?” Adele had quietly sat in the waiting room, too, for her yearly check-up.

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sp; Katrina had spoken in a low voice. “She had to examine me down there.” She pointed to her crotch.

  Mona’s face had whitened, then she had exclaimed, “You let her examine you.”

  “No, no,” she had answered quickly. “Not like that. She only looked at the outside part. Remember the burning I was telling you about?”

  Mona had nodded her head.

  “Well, it’s nothing. Just a yeast infection.”

  “Good thing you didn’t let her inside. Babba would’ve skinned you alive if you let her do that.”

  “I know, Mona. I’m not stupid,” Katrina had murmured. Adele had silently flipped through a magazine, patiently waiting for her turn.

  Adele heard her father’s voice: When you visit the doctor, don’t ever let her touch you down there. Even if she was going to the doctor for an earache, he cautioned this at every appointment.

  Samira finished folding the white sheet into a tidy square, then placed it in a plastic bag.

  “Rima’s a good girl,” Samira said, smiling widely, before walking out the room, leaving Adele with the feeling that she would never say that about her. Adele quietly sat on the bed and listened to the hinges of the linen closet door squeak loudly, then the soft steps of her mother approaching her bedroom once more. Samira leaned against the door and smiled at Adele. She began to sing an old Arabic lullaby, one she had sung to Adele when she was a baby. “My habibti, drift to sleep. I will give you doves if you sleep. My pretty one, drift to sleep. I will give you the world in your dreams. My habibti, close your eyes and sleep.” Samira came in and sat next to Adele.

  “Mama,” Adele whispered. “Why are you keeping Rima’s soiled sheet?”

  “Habibti, it’s not a soiled sheet. It’s so much more important, sacred. A part of our culture,” Samira explained, her hands playing with Adele’s ringlets. She spoke in Arabic.