The Parisian

by Isabella Hammad

  The keyhole was not easy to peer through. It had not, as far as he could remember, ever actually been fitted with a key, and it had so clogged up with dust over the years that barely a crack of light came through, and it exuded the cold greenish odour of unpolished metal. He blew at it, to no effect. Above him, Teta produced a napkin from her pocket, twisted a pinch of the fabric between her fingers, sucked on the protrusion, and handed it down. Midhat inserted it into the keyhole and removed it to find the napkin twist grey with dust. He leaned his face against the door. Teta steadied the handle.

  Two women sat on the couch on the far side. A mother and a daughter. The mother’s hair was hennaed red-black, cropped close to her ears, and pinned back in waves like the Europeans. She wore a dark brown dress with a red-and-green bodice, and she had a sharp nose and a large bosom. The daughter was young, maybe seventeen, slight and pale, with dark hair parted in the middle showing a dash of pale scalp. Her eyes sloped down at the outer corners, and this she had accentuated with two lines of black kohl on her upper lids. Her cheekbones were round and prominent and seemed to elevate the edges of her lips, so that despite her sad angled eyes her mouth was taut with expressiveness. Midhat had never seen an unmarried Nabulsiyyeh of his own class without a veil before. He knew only the maids, and the women of his grandmother’s generation. At best, the dancers in Cairo, Layla. This was an extraordinary view. It was like peering down a microscope at the secret structure of a cell. Above him, Teta sighed. The girl in the keyhole looked solemn, hands folded in her lap. The mother fidgeted. That was what they said: if you want to know how will the daughter turn out, look to the mother. In this case, however, the girl must take after her father, because there was no resemblance to the mother at all.

  Again Teta sighed. But just as he was drawing away to ask about the father, the girl in the keyhole laughed. Though muffled by the door it was a deep laugh, and her whole body rocked. She was pointing at something outside the window, raising her arm from the shoulder like a little girl unused to the size of her limbs, and all at once her sad sloping face was changed totally, relieved of gravity by sudden joy. The mother snapped and batted a hand.

  Then something odd happened. For one peculiar second, the girl turned her head and looked directly at Midhat. A straight gaze like an arrow aimed at the keyhole, those two sad eyes very large and very black. Midhat jerked away from the door.

  “Tamam?” Teta whispered.

  He took a moment. He nodded to his feet, rubbing his knees.

  “Yalla, go,” said Teta.

  Tiptoeing into the kitchen he heard his grandmother announce: “I’m sorry I was so long.” The door shut on her voice. “Maids! They drive you crazy, maids.”

  He walked to the bedroom, resumed his position on the bed, and opened his book. The words crawled over the pages. He did not know how much time had passed before Teta entered the room and sat by his feet. She was a little red in the face.

  “So.” She fixed him. “What did you think, habibi?”

  “I think she is beautiful.”

  “Beautiful enough? Um Dawud told me her mother wants her to marry their cousin, Yasser Hammad. It’s not the end, they aren’t engaged. We can still do something. I have a few ideas.”

  “Who is her father?”

  “Haj Nimr. A scholar, and the mayor last year. They have land in Zawata. He is one of the hospital founders, like your father. And she is beautiful. Very beautiful. Queen of Nablus, they call her. They say she is a little proud, but … I think she is an excellent match. I think her mother is … ya‘ni, it’s a good family. But, you know, I can’t do this to every Nabulsiyyeh, invite her mother for coffee and put you by the keyhole. Habibi don’t look so sour.”

  “You really think I can marry into the Hammad family?”

  “Kamal is a good family, Midhat.”

  “Teta …”

  “Your father’s trade is doing well. I don’t see why you can’t marry who you like, you are a rich trader—or you will be. We can do it. You want us to try? You want to marry this one?”

  “Teta.”

  “I’m just trying to make the best choice for you. This Fatima is very beautiful, and she plays the oud very well.”

  “But how do I … I can’t marry someone I don’t know.”

  “How would you know a woman before you married her? Ya sitti, you marry, then you get to know the girl. Hala’ just think about it. If you want to marry her, we’ll try to make arrangements.”

  “I will think about it.”

  “Baba says you will marry this year. It’s this girl, or we pick someone else for you. There are plenty of Kamal girls of marrying age. And you, you are very, ya‘ni, very desirable. You are a doctor, you are handsome, you are rich. I think we can be ambitious.”

  Midhat had been in Nablus for three weeks now. At night he had at first tried to will himself into unconsciousness, before he realised that whole hours could pass while he was still locked in the tedious purgatory between sleep and waking. Sometimes he lit a paraffin lamp, opened a book, and muttered French verses to himself like incantations. And there were other tricks, such as pretending to himself he was only temporarily shutting his eyes and would continue reading shortly, and at times this worked and he duped his mind into sleep with the pages of his book resting on each cheek, and when he woke found the leaves sadly crumpled and the gas lamp flame guttering beside him. But more often, even if his brain slipped into the first zone of unconsciousness, that soft membrane in which sounds were muffled and his breathing slowed—some rogue thought could easily drift into his ear and set his heart going again, and all at once he would be drearily awake. A thought of Jeannette reading his letter; an imagined expression of sorrow, or regret. At these times he yearned for a whisky. He might rise from the mattress and walk around the room, and if the sky was clear, observe the pockmarked face of the moon between the thick walls of his window. Sometimes he caught dawn blanching the peak of Jabal al-Sheikh, or in rare cases of bliss would lie back and fall asleep without knowing, without dreaming, and open his eyes to find the light had started without him.

  His brain, deprived at night, was too elastic in the daytime, and interactions that should have been ordinary became incoherent. As he sat in the market and checked the accounting book, he seemed to be looking at the gridded page from underwater, and the inked digits stirred as if rippled by a breeze. But when evening fell, the exhaustion always pushed through to a new plane of being, and the lamps stayed on in his mind and would not let him rest.

  That night he lay back and fixed his mind on the Hammad girl, her sad eyes surrounded by the remnants of keyhole dust. He twisted in the covers. His stomach was disturbed and an odd tightness in his intestines articulated itself every so often into flatulence. The previous night, or was it the night before, he had been woken by painful hiccoughs, and after reaching the toilet in time to vomit returned and lay back on the mattress with a mouth full of acid. Tonight the cramp was further down. It occurred to him that he might have to see a physician if all this persisted. Fatima Hammad. Fatima Hammad would hardly marry such a weakling.

  And yet, by some miracle, that night he did not even need to think of sleep. Sleep stole upon him while his thoughts were elsewhere, blending images, blurring the shapes of women into categories of pain. Those he had harmed: Jeannette, his mother. Those who had harmed him: Layla, Jeannette. And now, Fatima Hammad, her minuscule features perfectly focused by the keyhole lens. When the muezzin called, Midhat shifted on his pillow in the cold light, bewildered at how the night had passed. He crawled out of bed severely nauseated and prostrated himself in the direction of Mecca.

  “In the mornings we check the register,” said Hisham.

  The air was mild for November, and the market was alive with dust and a jangle of glass and rocks under wheels, and voices calling out numbers and the names of objects. Bohemian crystalware shone between glass nargila pipes, and with every drive of wind the German violins swayed and twisted from the wires
attached to their tuning pegs. In the display at the front of the Kamal store the embroidered jackets also rotated, blocking and unblocking the columns of light that fell from the apertures in the khan roof as they turned their shoulders and backs. The rear of the shop, where Midhat sat with Hisham, was icy with shade.

  “It is not so difficult. But sometimes we leave notes in the evening for things that must be written up the next day, so you must check, here, and see if the accounts are correct … heyk … and yes, we see the account was one digit off. That is the type of thing we check for. Next we check the orders that are in process, make sure the tailor is here, as-salamu alaykum ya mu‘allim, ya‘tik al-afieh, fine, Butrus is here. Now, the orders in process are listed on this side of the page … Midhat? Are you awake?”

  “Na‘am, Hisham. Sorry. You were saying. The tailor is here.”

  “Yes, and then we check the orders, we ask him how they are progressing. We’ll do that in a moment. We have … not very many orders at present. But when Eid comes people always buy, it doesn’t matter how hard the time is. And if there’s a wedding, as you know. Hala’ every transaction is recorded, and we mark here if they have paid or not. And the date, always put the date. Hala’ on this page are the debts. And the interest is there … heyk, we calculate by how many days we’ve had the debt. See? Now, you do this calculation, I will ask how the order is going.”

  Jamil had been right to say Midhat would have a good view. The Kamal store was at the widest point of the thoroughfare and at the far Western end, making it easy to catch any Britishers peering into the marketplace, especially when they loitered by the shopkeepers near the exit, which they apparently loved to do, as though only with an escape route in sight would they actually take pains to address someone. Even from the rear of the store Midhat could look up and see quite a cross section of the khan, lit like a cinema screen by the sunlight. The soldiers were always writing in notebooks, and Midhat began to recognise their faces. There was one whose small chin retracted into folds like an accordion camera when he looked down at his notepad, and as he squinted up at his surroundings his mouth fell open. From afar one saw the glassy blue of his eyes.

  Occasionally an English wife would appear and fondle items for sale. Such a woman was obvious a mile away, usually wearing some sort of veil over her hair and a grin of trepidation. Townswomen were not so common but there were usually at least a few, servants or the daughters of farmers buying for their families—not counting, of course, the rural fellaha women selling vegetables who did not wear the black veil. Peculiarly, or at least it now seemed peculiar to Midhat, the standard garments of the Nabulsiyyat could on occasion make it difficult to distinguish between a middle-aged woman, an old woman, and a young girl. A Nabulsiyyeh always wore a cloak, and above that her veil, and then a shawl. Midhat’s eye was drawn to them, rare, dark figures in a crowd. From afar he would guess the age by size and gait, since a short one was a young girl, and a very large one had probably given birth many times but not yet reached the late female meridian of brittle bones and appetite loss, and then if the figure drew near he confirmed his guess or revised it according to what the eyes revealed in the gap between veil and shawl. On one occasion when a Nabulsiyyeh actually approached the Kamal stall he found he had guessed totally wrong, imagining her far older than she was, and when she spoke from the other side of that black fabric in the voice of a young girl, he realised with a blast that this person was only just now learning to perform from under her shroud, and that the delicacy of her footstep was not frailty but uncertainty.

  “How are we getting on?” Hisham stooped under the lintel from the tailor’s room.

  “I … oh, I’m sorry Hisham. I was distracted.”

  “Ma‘lish amo. We’ll do it now, no matter. The date there … it has been another week. Which brings the Abd al-Wahhab debt to five pounds.”

  Midhat wrote a five in the debt column.

  “What happens if they never pay?” he said.

  “If they never pay?” Hisham hesitated. “First of all,” he said finally, “we stop lending. And second … there are other things the merchants do. Sometimes there is … a coordination with the tax farmers, but you know your father is not so bad. Remember, it’s a kindness to give credit. And sometimes these credit and debt habits go back, ya‘ni, to our grandfathers.”

  Midhat had stopped listening, because a dark veiled figure was walking directly towards the store. Forceful strides. Her robe voluminous with air. She stepped from the light into the shadow, and then Midhat saw her strong brown eyes and caught a familiar homely whiff from her body.

  “Teta! What are you doing here?”

  “Ahlan teta,” said his grandmother. “Habibi listen. We are going to see the Samaritans. Are you ready? Yalla, imshi.”

  “What?”

  “Hisham, I am sorry we are leaving. This is very important. His father has asked.”

  “Of course, Um Taher. God keep you.”

  “Yalla Midhat. Get to your feet.”

  Midhat slipped off the stool. “But Teta, I’m doing the accounts.”

  Already she had turned and was out on the street again. He jogged to catch up. At the limit of the khan the sun warmed his face, dust rose at his feet, and Teta’s dress ballooned out from under her shawl. He reached a level with her as they stepped through the arch.

  “What has my father asked for? Why are we rushing?”

  “As-Samariyin. It is something he would want, if he was here.”

  “The Samaritans?”

  He hesitated. She swung down an alley.

  “Te—ta,” he called, following.

  One more turn and she brought him to the outskirts of the Samaritan quarter, ducking into a clammy, narrowing passage of whitewashed rock. She tapped on a short wooden door to their right and rattled the handle. As she listened for footsteps she looked Midhat in the eyes, and then peered through the darkened window.

  “I think we should talk about it.” He could not keep his voice from rising. “I think you’re being hasty.”

  A woman appeared from the alley behind them, dressed in pantaloons and unveiled but for a scarf over her hair. At the sight of Um Taher and Midhat, she started.

  “Salam,” said Teta. “Can you tell us where the priest is?”

  Midhat squeezed the bridge of his noise. A headache was coming on.

  “Yitzhak!” the woman shouted down the passage. There was no response; she sighed and considered Um Taher, then gestured for them to follow. Midhat dropped behind with his eyes to the ground, still squeezing his nose. They arrived at an uncovered stone stairway.

  Teta thanked the woman and said to Midhat: “Yalla. Up.”

  The steps were slippery with wear, and far greater in height than in breadth. At the top, Teta put her hands on her hips and breathed heavily. Ahead was an empty, open courtyard. “I am old,” she muttered.

  Midhat’s laugh echoed and reported back sounding far jollier than he felt. It was warm up here; the sun had heated the stone. The domed roofs of the town were visible on three sides over the low walls, and beyond them, the green mountains. Street noises were muffled by the elevation. The third, largest wall of the courtyard was the front of a building: the Samaritan synagogue.

  “Why are we here?” said Midhat.

  It was not really a question. There were three reasons why a Muslim Nabulsiyyeh would be meeting the Samaritan high priest, and Teta was not enough of a jealous type to set the evil eye on someone, and she could prophesy perfectly fine herself. Which left only one reason. She grasped his shoulder with one hand and with the other reached for her lifted foot.

  “I don’t want the magic,” he said.

  She met his eye with a shoe in her hand. “You don’t want it?”

  “No.”

  “But, habibi, you know it won’t harm her.”

  “Bihimish, it’s not the point. I don’t want to do magic. Khalas. I haven’t even … decided if I want …”

  “Well we are here
now, aren’t we? Let us go inside and meet him. Then you can, whatever, it’s up to you. But I’m telling you I am helping. I am on your side. It’s up to you, but if I were you I would do it.”

  “I don’t want it, Teta.”

  “I heard you. We are here now, we will meet him.”

  She removed the other shoe and groaned as she placed them both under the lemon tree. Midhat slotted a forefinger under his own shoelaces, slipped off the heels, and followed her inside.

  He may have visited the courtyard before but he was now certain he had never entered the synagogue. Above him a vaulted ceiling; ahead, unadorned walls buttressed by pointed arches, which carved the space into rooms. Damp had left spots at the ceiling joints, and some of the paint was beginning to shred and fall. A large wooden timepiece like a severed grandfather clock was suspended near the high priest’s chair. The minute hand jerked counterclockwise. Silently, barefoot, Teta led him under one of the arches, and stopped.

  The high priest was sitting on another chair in an alcove, white-haired, black-browed, in a blue robe and turban. He was not alone. Beside him, on a carpet on the floor, a second man was kneeling. The kneeling man wore a grey smock coat buttoned up to his neck, the hem dirt-brown where his shoes poked out. Though his skull was totally bald, a copious wiry beard shot out from his chin like a hog-hair broom. He was staring at something on the carpet before him: a document with curling corners, a scroll perhaps, discoloured and covered in very fine calligraphy. The document lay in an open casing of red satin.

  Moments passed. The kneeling man lifted the scroll from its edges and slid it away from him, revealing another page beneath. This one looked even more discoloured. The thick black brow of the priest twitched like a dog’s with his shifting gaze. Finally, he lifted his eyes in the direction of Midhat and Teta.

  “As-salamu alaykum.”

  “Wa alaykum as-salam,” said Teta. “Abu Salama, keefak. Ana Um Taher. I’rifet hafidi? Midhat, ismu.”

  Midhat bowed at the high priest, and the priest rose slowly from his chair and bowed back.