His eyes opened in astonishment; he was taken aback. As though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, he stared at Adele.
She braided her fingers with his, raised his hand up and shook it, breaking the stillness they had shared a brief moment ago. “Elias, did you hear me?”
He silently stared at her face.
Lowering her eyes, she let go of his hand and whispered, “Don’t look at me like that.”
He gave a nervous laugh then said in a low voice, “You must go. Why would you want to stay? You’ve told me everything about your father, your lack of freedom, the way you feel you’re living only half a life. This is your opportunity to break free and now you’re scared! Why are you so afraid?”
His comments hurt her because they were so honest. And she remembered how Rima had tried to escape years ago too but had returned because she was too afraid to disobey their father and bring shame to the family. Now Elias forced her to realize that she, too, was a terrified girl, like Rima had been, who said things but when it came to action, she couldn’t follow through. She whispered resentfully, “No, no. I’m not afraid.”
Elias said softly, “My words have angered you.”
She took a deep breath. “No. You’re right. I’m scared. I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive on my own. I’ve never done it before and, well, I’m scared shitless.”
“What’s this? Sheetless?”
“No, no,” Adele laughed in spite of herself. “Shit, not sheet.”
“Oh. You mean feces.” He patted her leg and assured her with a warm grin, “You’ll be fine.”
“How about yourself?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll manage somehow, especially now that I’ve left behind the gossip and pity. Pity is a terrible feeling.”
“What do you mean?”
“Pity is also contempt. I know people pity me and I hate it. So I can’t have an erection. It’s not the end of the world.”
She lowered her gaze so he wouldn’t detect signs of sympathy in them. Silence prevailed for a few moments then she said, “Where will you go?”
“England. I always wanted to see the Queen.”
She smiled. “Are you serious?”
“Not really. But I got you to smile.” He playfully nudged his shoulders with hers.
A few minutes later, a voice on the intercom announced Adele’s flight. She rose from her seat, her heart pounding. Elias got up too. She pressed her hand into his cheek. The prospect of never seeing him again saddened her more than she expected. She embraced him so tightly that it was almost painful. Her breasts were crushed against him for a long moment, but then seemed to ache for him when he pulled away. “Thank you, Elias,” she said, almost crying. “You’ll never know how much you’ve given me.”
He smiled shyly, stepped back, and waved goodbye.
When she handed her ticket to the clerk, Adele glanced at Elias now standing alone, leaning against the railing, his head bowed and his hands clasped together as if in prayer. She turned and faced the clerk again.
And when she boarded the airplane, her earlier fear evaporated and she experienced a feeling of great excitement.
It was a little after midnight when she arrived back to Ottawa. She emerged from the taxi and walked up the steps of her parents’ house. As she fumbled to put the key in the lock, she started to sweat. Had she really left Lebanon, her family? When she pushed open the door, the darkness enveloped her. There were no shouting voices, no heated arguments, no sobs, no scents of her mother’s cooking. Just silence. It was as if her family had never existed in this two-storey house. Nothing was visible except the moonlight that slipped through the lace curtains of the living room. Flipping on the light switch, she brought the house back to life. Her eyes glanced at the mahogany coffee table at the centre of the room, photographs decorating it. She crept across the hardwood floor to the table, knelt down and picked up one of the framed photographs, her fingers tracing the faces under the glass. The Azar sisters stood on the Fosters’ driveway in front of the green wooden fence that separated their father’s grocery store from the old white house. Now she looked at another photo of herself and her sisters. The young girls in knitted ponchos with wide grins on their faces. They were surrounded by piles of autumn leaves. In this photograph, she saw the young child she had once been. She wore the yellow and white poncho her Sito had knitted for her before she had returned to Lebanon, hating the winters in Canada and missing her bachelor shepherd son. Inhaling deeply, Adele remembered the smell of rosewater embedded in the yarn and how it floated up her small nose, making her reach up and pull at the collar, the tiny strings with balls at the ends hitting her chest. She couldn’t remember her grandmother. But she had heard the story of when she had stayed in Canada, how she had fed and bathed Adele because her mother was too ill to do so after her hysterectomy, and how she had cried at the airport when her grandmother had decided to return to Lebanon. According to Samira, weeks after her grandmother’s departure, Adele had been inconsolable. But Adele regretfully couldn’t remember crying out ‘Mama!’ to her grandmother as she boarded a plane back to Lebanon.
Now, in the softly-lit room, she remembered the scent of the handmade poncho. Her grandmother had died when Adele was in grade ten so she never had the opportunity to meet her again but Adele’s Sito still lived in her memories and in the ring she wore, one given to her by her grandmother. Adele looked at it on her finger now. Three tiny ruby stones ran along the raised top that also had a sketch of lines engraved on the sides. It had an antique appeal, not trendy like the more common silver stone rings. It was as if the soul of her grandmother shone in the rubies. After a while, she raised her head, rose from her knees and headed upstairs.
The next morning, she woke up late, alone. Usually she rose early but last night she couldn’t sleep, jolting awake every few hours from the settling of the house. She dreamt her father had found out about her running away and had burned all her belongings starting with the paintings she had created in her high school art classes. Her hand went to her mouth as she stood watching the flames engulf the oil and watercolour paintings, shrivelling the self-portraits she had spent countless hours sketching, then painting for her final year project. Afterwards, he threw in her clothes. She glanced across at her father; his face was rigid while he discarded every item that bespoke her history. He was erasing her existence, leaving no trace of her. Burying her face in her hands, she wept until the orange-red flames swallowed her too.
Now rubbing her weary eyes, she got out of bed, brushed her teeth and showered. She felt lonely suddenly standing in the bathtub with warm water falling on her head. She began to cry as the realization of what she had done pounded her in the gut. Wasn’t this what she always wanted? Why was she crying? For a while, she let the fear inside her come out in the weakness that surged in her shivering legs, but the soothing warmth from the water released the anxiety in her skin. A few minutes later, she turned off the shower, wiped her face with her towel, and quickly dried her body. She had a lot to do. Numbers to call, arrangements to make. She was free now and freedom required action.
CHAPTER 16
SHE HURRIED DOWN THE STREET towards a local printing shop. The fluorescent sign of the store flashed in the overcast morning. The air had the damp quality of condensation as if raindrops were hovering in the grey clouds, ready to fall to the earth and splatter passersby without mercy. No one had rain gear: umbrellas or hooded coats. These people would be drenched like Adele. Her thick hair would become fuzzy, forcing her to pat it down. But she reached the shop before the sky opened and spewed out a morning summer shower.
From her knapsack, she took out a brown envelope that contained her résumé. “Good morning,” Adele said, smiling at the clerk who looked no older than Adele. Her blonde hair was pulled back with a wide headband and the mascara on her short lashes was thick. When she blinked, a few lashes
stuck together and she had to blink in a fast succession to loosen them from the over-applied make-up.
“Hello,” she answered, neither friendly nor unkind. “How may I help you?”
“Can I get twenty copies of this please?” Adele handed the woman her sheet.
“Sure. It’ll be about ten minutes.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Adele turned around and looked out the large window. The rain now came down hard, pelting the asphalt and cars. Windshield wipers flapped ferociously while pedestrians sought shelter in doorways; their clothes sticking to their skin as if they were another layer of epidermis. Adele sighed, glad she was inside. Her thoughts suddenly turned to her family in Lebanon. Were they arguing over her, frantically calling other relatives and maybe even the local police to find out where she and Elias had vanished? She also thought of Elias, how he unselfishly helped her in spite of the consequences he’d have to face when his parents realized his place in this escape. What on earth were you thinking helping this crazy girl? she imagined Elias’s parents yelling. But deep inside, she knew leaving her family was the bravest thing she had ever done. It broke all cultural laws but how liberating it felt to gaze out this large window knowing her eyes would not fall upon her father’s stern look of disappointment and shame.
So enthralled in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the photocopier stop or the clerk’s voice saying “Excuse me, miss. Your copies are done,” until the clerk raised her adolescent pitch and repeated herself.
Adele swiftly turned and apologized.
“No problem,” the clerk said as Adele paid her, then stuffed the envelope back into her bag and headed outside, the rain spiralling down her curly hair.
When she walked inside the house, her hair and cheeks were wet. Fortunately, her knapsack had protected her résumés. She quickly pulled them out and laid them on the dining room table, her experiences open to whoever happened to walk in, but the house was quiet. She glanced at the papers, dark ink on a white background, words she had carefully chosen to display her work ethic, strong and bold: well-organized, punctual, hardworking and she couldn’t believe she was finally taking some steps to leave her parents’ home. But when she moved out of the eating area and stood in the hall, a sadness gripped her. She was struck by a family portrait hanging on the wall, one taken before her birth. Her sisters sat on a long brown couch between their parents. They were wearing party dresses and white knee socks, their hair pulled back with barrettes. Youssef wore a grey suit and necktie, while Samira’s dress, a pretty pastel colour, was carefully draped just over her knees. Faint smiles appeared on her sisters’ small faces. Adele stared at the picture for a long time and worried this would be one of the last times she’d gaze at this family portrait, the last time she’d stand in this hallway. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was a little after eleven in the morning. Her body began to shake and her breathing became rapid. Even in her father’s absence, this house made her feel weak and small.
The phone began to ring all of the sudden. Adele walked towards it and before picking up the receiver, she took a deep breath. “Hello?” she said.
“You bint a kalb!” Youssef shouted.
There was brief moment of silence before Adele replied. “That’s nice! Calling me a daughter of a dog. May I ask you a question, Babba?” She didn’t bother to wait for him to reply. “Are you the dog or Mama?” She wanted to laugh at her clever comeback but she didn’t.
“Shut up and listen! You’ve disgraced me yet again. When will you learn that what you do affects your entire family? People don’t think of you as an individual. They think of you as bint Youssef. Bint Youssef! Now who looks bad? Me. How dare you drag my good name through the mud! You didn’t think we’d find out that you ran away. You didn’t think Elias would come back home and let everyone know what you did. How stupid can you be? Did you really think that Elias would leave Lebanon? The boy doesn’t have a penny to his name. Of course, he was going to return home to his parents. Everyone is talking and calling you a sharmouta, a stupid for giving up her chance to be married to a Lebanese man … everyone in the community knows you’re defective, a half fucking woman who will never be able to give a son to her husband or even a girl. Useless. You should’ve died six months ago because when the doctors took out your womb, they took out your brain too!”
Adele swallowed hard. “Are you finished, Babba?” she asked weakly.
“We’ll talk some more when we get home. We should be back on Thursday,” he said. “Don’t you dare think of leaving, Adele. You have no money. How are you going to survive on your own? We’ll talk about this more when we return home.”
Adele detected a crack in his voice but it could have been the static of long-distance lines. Just as she was about to hang up, she heard her father say, “Your sisters want to say hello,” but the receiver was already back in the cradle.
In three days, she’d be shackled again, persecuted and crucified. She wondered whether she’d be resurrected. Whether she’d wander the earth for forty days in splendour and glory, knowing her spirit would live for an eternity even though her body was dead. Or would her body live and her spirit die? She knew if she stayed under her father’s roof this would be her fate.
By the afternoon the skies decided to stop their melancholic downpour. Adele took this opportunity to head out again and this time she wore dress pants and a tailored shirt, hoping to impress a potential employer. She wished she had the nerve to head to Toronto directly from Beirut, but she had no contacts in Toronto nor a firm plan of going to university there. She also had no money as her father had stated, so first thing she needed to do was find a job and save for her escape to Toronto.
Now she marched down the street. The pavement glistened with stray raindrops. She made her way from one place of business to another with the usual, “We’re not hiring at this time, but we’ll take your résumé and keep it on file.” When she heard this, she smiled politely but couldn’t stop her eyes from staring at their wastepaper basket.
When she felt her shoulders droop and her legs weaken, she headed toward a bench and sat down. She looked around, hoping a sign would appear to her. She believed in fate, destiny. Maybe something would tell her what to do. The street was wide open, not one car drove by. Across the way was a tiny red-brick building that housed a small bookstore and what looked like an apartment above it. Adele hadn’t noticed this shop before. She got up from the bench and walked across the street. There were several books in the showcase window and a few posters advertising local writers’ events. As soon as she walked inside the shop, the smell of lavender enveloped her yet it wasn’t overwhelming; it reminded her of the lilacs along the Rideau Canal.
A middle-aged woman with red hair greeted her. “Hello.”
“Hello,” Adele answered. Her eyes scanned the store, which was quaint with some potted plants interspersed between books neatly displayed on a round table and the wooden shelves. The faint scent of old wood combined with the lavender. The sound of a stream, its current softly flowing, poured through speakers situated atop one of the bookshelves. Adele felt as if she were standing in the middle of a forest and the woman behind the counter appeared to fit in perfectly with her red hair dropping past her shoulders, her loose-fitting blouse and beaded belt dangling around her waist. Adele asked, “Are you hiring?”
“Do you have a résumé, my dear?”
These last two words brought Adele back to her childhood and to Mrs. Foster. It was moments like these that made her long to hear her friend and neighbour’s voice one more time and see her bright face. Her friendship had awakened the possibility of more for Adele, that she could become the one thing she truly wanted most in life—to be an artist. With this simple term of endearment, this middle-aged woman reminded her of that hope again.
“Yes.” Adele handed her a copy of her experience.
The woman looked down at it, then cursed, “Damn…”
> Adele was surprised. She knew she didn’t have a lot of experience but she didn’t think her résumé would elicit such a reaction.
The woman placed the sheet down on the counter, then reached under it and pulled out a small brown case. “I keep forgetting that I need these things now,” she said, laughing. “The progress of age, my dear.” Adjusting the tortoise glasses on her narrow nose, she held up Adele’s résumé and smiled. “I see you have some retail experience. Youssef’s Grocery. Isn’t that that wonderful little yellow store?”
Adele nodded.
“The owner is quite a character, always joking and smiling.”
“That’s my father,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Hmm … interesting.” There was a moment of silence as the woman read the résumé. She looked up and asked, “Are you a reader, Adele?”
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