Everything in Midhat’s body rose to protest. He gaped, mute. Silenced by dread of his father—and also by a new and imprecise sense of shame and failure that was now rising and heating his ears.
Haj Taher stood up. Midhat, standing also, saw his grandmother in the corner of his eye. Taher left the room and Teta strode over, pulled Midhat back down beside her on the couch, and wrapped her arms around him. She smelled of olive soap.
“Everything forbidden is desired, ya sitti.”
“I don’t understand, Teta.”
“He thinks you had too much freedom. But what can we do, there was a war.”
“I don’t understand. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You are tired. Sleep and bathe. Um Jamil is looking forward to seeing you. She will come up in a few hours, after you’ve had a rest.”
Midhat pushed his way out of his grandmother’s arms, though she was not resisting, and entering his old bedroom lay down immediately on the bed. He felt nothing at all, being in this room. At the sight of that old window, where he used to sit as a child: nothing. All his reactions were spent, darkened by his father’s voice, which echoed in his mind, cutting him. What a fantasy to have expected any warmth, any show of pride, of care. Doors were slamming that he had not known were open; he knew not what lay beyond them, that he might have seen. Uncontrollable sense-memories of Montpellier started to fill his mind, seeping out of corners. A treacherous yearning uncoiled, it broke loose from Faruq’s lessons in romantic narrative; it was ugly and incoherent, and it hurt. His head burned. He squeezed his wet eyes shut and thought of that house, every inch of it intimate; he thought of his first walk in the gardens with Laurent. How absurd it was that a single afternoon in which very little occurred should feel more vital to him now even than his homecoming, to the family not seen in five years, to the bed he slept in as a boy. How senseless, what a strain to his rational mind, to long this badly for a time that had in the end been so poor in pleasure, and so rich in pain.
4
“So, who will it be?” said Jamil.
“Who will what be,” said Midhat.
Someone was having an argument outside the khan. Midhat craned his neck to peer between the hanging bolts of fabric but saw only the backs of people’s heads.
“Your wife,” said Jamil. “Who will she be? I mean, do you know yet.”
“Oh. No idea. What’s going on out there?”
“It’s always like that. You’ll probably have quite a good view working here every day.”
Midhat stepped over the threshold of the Kamal store. On the edge of the square by al-Manara clock tower, a British soldier was gesticulating at the driver of a vegetable cart, encircled by a crowd of spectators. Midhat could only see the soldier’s back: he wore a domed hat and a sand-coloured uniform with short trousers cut off at the knee. His lower legs were wrapped with a kind of bandage, a rifle was strapped over one arm, and he was waving a book in the air. The face of the driver, being elevated, was on display, and conducting the reactions of the crowd: irritation, amusement, exasperation. A third man spoke, another Nabulsi, standing on the far side of the cart.
“Bas ehkeelu,” he shouted to the driver. “The tomatoes. Adaysh andak?”
“I didn’t count the tomatoes. Why would I count the tomatoes? Hemar.”
“Why is he not cooperating?”
“He … says … he did not count the tomatoes.”
“God in heaven. Can you ask about the aubergines.”
“What is aubergine?”
“This, that one.”
“Adaysh andak betinjan, ya mu‘allim.”
“Adaysh andi betinjan? Hemar. B‘arifish.”
“He says he doesn’t know.”
“Fuck’s sake. Wilson! Can you come here please, they’re driving me up the wall.”
“Yes sir, how can I help.”
“Any luck with the others?”
“Got a list here.”
“Good. Having trouble with this one—no, I’m not finished with you yet! Do not leave. Tell him not to leave please, we haven’t finished with him.”
“He says he needs to go the mosque now, sir.”
“I don’t care, we’ve not finished with him.”
“Sir,” said Wilson. “Sir it might be best to leave it now. They like to cause a ruckus. I’ve seen that one before.”
The cart driver widened his eyes at the crowd and made a long face. It struck Midhat that perhaps he was only pretending not to understand English.
“What’s his name,” said the first soldier to the dragoman. “I’m writing it down.”
“His name?”
“Yes, what is the name.”
“His name is …”
“What is the name. Come on.”
“Al-Harami!” shouted someone from the crowd.
“His name is al-Harami.”
There was general laughter. The soldiers turned and marched out of the square, passing by the Kamal store where Midhat was standing. They both held notebooks, and the first soldier, whose badges suggested a higher rank, had a thick black moustache and spectacles. His cheeks were so highly coloured he appeared to be sunburnt.
“Who was that?” asked Midhat, as the crowd disintegrated.
“The driver? Abu Amin. Hilarious.”
“No, the British.”
“Oh, they’re always making an inventory of things. They can’t handle the Jews, so they handle the vegetables instead. Hang on, you haven’t finished telling me about the French woman.”
“You mean Jeannette? Well, to be honest with you, I really wanted to marry her. But I was young, I didn’t know what I was doing.” He fell silent.
“In the end, family is everything,” said Jamil, with some unexpected tenderness. “We all owe our parents. You’ve really become a majnun though, haven’t you ya zalameh, since you left?”
Midhat laughed. “Ya Allah I hope not. Tell me, what’s the situation with the army?”
“Not good. Though, recently—look, do you have to stay here? Could we go to Sheikh Qassem?”
“Wait. Hisham?”
From the back of the stall, Hisham emerged with his arms extended, stretching between them a length of red fabric fringed with tassels.
“Yes, Midhat Bey?”
Midhat hesitated. “We are going to the café, Hisham.”
Hisham blinked, eyed Jamil, and released a formless noise from his lips.
“I will not be too long, I promise.”
“Inshallah. Inshallah.” Hisham bowed, the tassels shook.
Café Sheikh Qassem was the most popular café in Nablus and could be relied upon for company at all hours. Against the high, pale green walls a skyline of masculine heads was always visible, wafting clouds of nargila smoke into the air, frantic with the commerce of voices. As Midhat followed Jamil over the threshold, a babble of voices reached their ears beneath the theme of a single baritone, and in a moment they saw some thirty or forty men, young and old, clustered around a table at the back. In the light of the nearby windows a newspaper was being read aloud.
“Thousands upon thousands have been demonstrating in the centre of Damascus, crying out slogans for war against the French. Rumours are already circulating that the Emir Faisal has struck a deal with Clemenceau …”
A young man, leaning over the back of a chair and tapping his toe on the floor behind him, caught sight of them and stood straight.
“Midhat Kamal!” It was Tahsin Kamal, one of Midhat’s cousins. He pulled Midhat into an embrace. Behind him, another cousin, Wasfi, who had been at university in England; and Qais Karak and Adel Jawhari, famous best friends who had developed beards and broad chests since he saw them last; and there was young Burhan Hammad, youngest son of Haj Nimr, who couldn’t be older than fourteen or fifteen but was already the tallest of the group, with a long neck and narrow face. And on the far side, lining up to greet him were two brothers from the Murad family, second or third cousins of Hani’s: Basil and Munir.
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Midhat’s name spread through the crowd, and more faces turned, more people stood up to see him.
“Habibi Midhat, Midhat Bey.”
In the light from the window, the baritone reader of the newspaper also rose to his feet. It took a moment for Midhat to recognise him, for he had also changed a great deal. It was Haj Abdallah Atwan, a lesser patriarch of the Atwan family, and owner of the Atwan soap factory.
There were several ways to map the social fabric of Nablus. Some described the city in terms of East and West, as two separate worlds that only ever met in the arcade of the textile market during popular festivals, when the young men of the opposing sides would stage play-fights, and draw off the tensions that had built up during the season. Some ascribed this rivalry to the ancient opposition of the Qaysi and Yemeni clans, dating from the early Islamic settlement of the land of Can’aan. That ancient opposition centred now on the specific rivalries between the Atwan, Omar, and Murad families, which had reached their apex during the civil war of the last century. Others would shrug and say it was a natural division of geography, the East stays with the East, and the West with the West; yet others would say the two sides possessed two different cultures, and that was the root of the division. For example, the people of the East ate their kunafe in a sandwich for breakfast, between two slices of bread, whereas the people of the West ate their kunafe as a dessert after lunch. Thus, the East-West rivalry was simply a natural polarity of appetite and custom.
In fact the city had not always been divided thus. But as wealth developed in Nablus at the turn of the century, and trade routes strengthened between Egypt, Damascus, and Beirut, the major families were bloated into different factions, and a variety of alliances were formed. These alignments were most often built on inherited stories of infighting, which, if they were recent, were claimed to be ancient, and used to buttress a current action. And if an Omar wished to do wrong by an Atwan and found no pretext at hand, he could always reach back to the campfire of his Yemeni ancestors and pull up some ancient tale.
And as the city developed its industries of soap and textiles, this became a common occurrence: the leisure time of the new capitalists expanded as their working hours decreased, and gossip started its ruinous motor into the salons of the wealthy. With such wealth came unhappiness, and with unhappiness intrigue, and the circulation of bitter jokes, and the women who had been free to cut wheat in the fields and carry olives in their aprons were locked at last in their homes, to grow fat among cushions and divert their vigour into childbirth and playing music, and siphon what remained into promulgating rumours about their rivals.
Abdallah Atwan was a pale-skinned man with thin hair and thick grooves either side of his mouth that made him seem older than his years, which could not number more than forty-five. He was renowned for his fondness for recalling the civil war between the Atwans and the Omrs, and for reciting the litany of names of those who had committed crimes, and the names of their victims.
One tier below the landowning families were the ulema, scholarly families like the Hammads, who had begun to dominate politics as well. And below them were the newly rich mercantile families, who encroached now on the hard-won territory of those political ulema. There were mixed feelings towards this new set, the Kamal family among them, who were in the ascendant, attending the same parties, participating in the same conferences, and marrying their women.
A man might, of course, form a friendship in defiance of history. A man might lay history aside when kneeling on the floor of the Green Mosque. But Abdallah Atwan was not such a man. As he now put down his newspaper, less on account of Midhat than the disruption his entrance had caused to his rapt audience, Abdallah Atwan’s demeanour, reaching across to shake Midhat’s hand, was full of the ancient intersections of society and their forefathers.
“Hamdillah as-salameh,” he said.
“Allah yisalmak,” said Midhat.
“Your father’s business is doing well,” said Abdallah.
“You are a European,” said Burhan Hammad. “Look at you.”
It was true that without thinking much of it, that morning Midhat had pulled on his pinstriped suit from the Rue Royale, and walked into town with his steel-topped cane. He looked over at the local suits of the rest of the company, their ties sewn by the village women. He produced a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and offered one to Burhan. Though young, Burhan already flaunted a fashionable waxed moustache. He examined Midhat’s suit admiringly.
“Yalla Midhat!” shouted Qais Karak. “All the characters are home at last.”
“Keef I am European?” asked Midhat, once both cigarettes were lit.
“The way you hold yourself.” Burhan laughed out his smoke.
Midhat sat at a table in the centre of the atrium, and a new circle formed around him as Jamil ordered coffee, and the young boys prodded Midhat for stories.
“What can I tell you?” said Midhat.
“Tell us about the women,” said Tahsin.
All these men and boys, five years grown, had an alternative narrative of Midhat. Even from these few minutes’ intercourse, they surely saw aspects of him invisible to those he had met in France. At the sense of exposure Midhat grew hot. He could not conceal, nor even detect, the survival of his child-self in his mannerisms, or traces of his characteristics as they had been popularly understood. A childish predilection for certain sweets, or certain games—the kinds of facts that were enlarged as personalities in Nablus were distilled into characters painted simply, so they could be picked out from a rooftop and fitted into stories. Midhat wished he could isolate those traces and remove them. Not because they were defects, but because they pinned him down.
Already it was clear from their amused expressions that the men around Midhat found him strange. And perhaps they had reason: to Midhat, this taste of coffee recalled the Seine, the bright window recalled chandeliers and women’s faces.
“Midhat was just telling me about a love affair he had in Paris,” said Jamil.
Midhat stared at his cousin. Jamil smiled back.
“It was not in Paris, Jamil.”
“You said it was in Paris.”
“No … I … in Paris there was …”
“Tell us, Midhat!” said Tahsin.
Midhat began to fabricate a composite woman made up of the features of a few he had regularly slept with. Maria with the canvas spats, Nicole with the red hair—he erased the odours of their bodies and sprayed them with violet, mixed their narratives with the plots of certain famous ballads, until someone cried out:
“I don’t believe you.”
Midhat chuckled, and they all slapped their knees. “Ça y est!” he said. Jamil watched with silent laughter. It struck Midhat that he should ask Jamil about his own adventures in Constantinople. His cousin had grown into a handsome man, with the regular features of a figurine—two straight dashes for eyebrows, a curl to his lip, an aquiline nose—and his chest was as broad as an officer’s, his shoulders peaked with ganglions of bone as though his suit were sewn with the epaulettes of battle. Such a bella figura, he must have a score of conquests.
“Will you get involved in politics, Midhat?” asked Wasfi Kamal.
“I am already involved,” said Midhat.
“Really?” said Jamil, knocking him on the shoulder with the back of his hand.
“In Paris, of course, there were a number of political activities. Discussions, conferences. Many people there in exile. Al-Fatat—”
“You’re a member of Al-Fatat?” said Wasfi.
“No I wasn’t a member. But my good friend Hani Murad was one of the original founders, ya’ni, and he writes to me sometimes. He is the emir’s secretary at the Conference.”
“Oh, very nice. Very impressive,” said Wasfi.
At that piece of news, Abdallah Atwan spoke up for the first time since the group had relocated to their new table.
“And what is the news, then, if you are so well connected? Has Faisal made a de
al with the French or not? Will Syria be independent? I should think Hani Murad has told you the latest, unless you are exaggerating your friendship.”
“Calm down Amo, give him a chance,” said Qais Karak.
“It’s fine,” said Midhat. “Well, the general picture from Hani’s letter—”
“So there’s only one letter.”
“—was that the French and the British have already made their deals. That’s what the British man Lawrence has been saying. So it was either … well, he had to make a deal with the French, or suffer their armies.”
“I knew it,” said Munir Murad.
“He’s already made a deal?” said Wasfi. “Ya Allah, this is precisely the worst that could have happened.”
Bodies bent away from the table at the impact, but Munir Murad bent even further towards Midhat.
“And Palestine? Did he say anything about Faisal’s position on Zionism? The newspapers say nothing, only ‘rumours are circulating,’ blah blah blah.”
Abdallah knocked his head back in displeasure and crackled the broadsheet in half, as though he were not only a subscriber to the paper but had written it himself.
“No,” said Midhat, “he didn’t say. My feeling is that Palestine should be part of Syria, because unity is stronger than independence.”
This was not what he had consistently argued in Paris. But the tenor of the questioning suggested that it would be an opinion favourable to Nabulsi ears. And the refrain, “unity is stronger than independence,” had been sounded out frequently in Faruq’s apartment and was easy to parrot.
“Habibi, of course we should be part of Syria,” said Munir Murad. “Remember you’re in Nablus. That’s not a feeling, that’s a fact. All the oldies in Jerusalem who say otherwise, they’re only worried about their tarabish. Pathetic. Who is more likely to knock off your tarbush, Emir Faisal or Lloyd George?”
“And what about you,” said Midhat. “Are you all involved in politics?”
Munir and Basil Murad exchanged glances. Munir cocked his head.
The Parisian Page 22