The Parisian

by Isabella Hammad

  “No, you won’t. You’ll see the Ebal Girls at the hospital. I don’t trust those clinics.”

  “Oh, Monsieur.” She raised an eyebrow.

  Um Taher did not ask her grandson to examine her again. Nor, however, did she go to the hospital; nor to the clinic as she had threatened. It was not that she was afraid, exactly. Only, she could count the times she had met a doctor with two fingers and a thumb, and that was including the birth of Taher.

  A few days later, she found Midhat standing by the kitchen window staring at the wall between the cupboard and a rack of grimy spice bottles. When he was a child he had often walked in his sleep, and as she used to then at the sight of that small boy ghostly in the hall, Um Taher now made a hushing sound to soften her approach, feeling the familiar pang of terror that the grandson before her was not himself. His eyes met hers, red and tired, and as his lips trembled he pursed them stiffly.

  “Teta I don’t think I can do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Marry.”

  She clicked her teeth. “Everyone can marry. When I was a young girl, I was in love with a man who—”

  “I know, Teta, I know this story.”

  “Sitti—yalla sit. Listen to me.”

  “I don’t want to hear the story, I know.”

  “I’m not telling you the story. I’m telling you, you cannot see the length of your life. You only see these little things in front of you—I know you. Trust me. I am not choosing someone who will not be good for you.”

  “I—”

  “Stenna, just listen instead of talking. Do you know how upset I was when I met my fiancé?”

  He looked up. His eyes were watery. He shook his head.

  “I screamed.” Her hand swept the air. “Wallahi my mother was ashamed. But, sitti, believe, how quickly I loved him. Really. He was good with me. I was happy. My mother and father chose him well—”

  Suddenly Midhat was on his feet. He bolted to the door.

  “Where are you—what are you doing?”

  He grabbed an ornamental copper pitcher from the sideboard and thrust it at the wall with both hands. It clanged off, crashed twice, and skidded across the floor.

  “Stop!”

  He leaned against the wall, his mouth opening like a baby’s, trailing threads of saliva. Um Taher heaved down to pick up the pitcher; there was a dent in the belly.

  “You’ve ruined my pot! Do you understand how lucky you are? Do you understand how people in this town are jealous of you?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Why do I care! Majnun you are, are you trying to kill me? I will hit you.”

  “I can’t do this, I can’t … I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying you can’t.”

  “I can’t, I need freedom.”

  That was too much. Um Taher slammed the unlucky pitcher down onto the table. “Freedom from what?”

  He put his fingertips at his mouth and flung them forward.

  “Teta help me, you have to help me. I’m so tired—I just want to stay on my own, I just—Teta, help me, I don’t want some girl I don’t know.”

  “As I explained to you—”

  “Don’t you see? I love someone else.”

  “You are the same as everyone, habibi,” said Um Taher forcefully. “You have to forget. That is done now.”

  Midhat shot her a startled look. “What do you mean?”

  “You are here now. You are making yourself sick from thinking—I see you thinking, it’s not good for you.”

  Deep in her lungs Um Taher sensed the storm-crackle of an oncoming cough.

  “I’ll find you a beautiful woman, I promise. A beautiful, intelligent woman. You will live on your own with her, you will be independent. I promise you won’t live with me—”

  “Teta—”

  “I’m not going to be here forever, and then who will look after you? Who will make sure your house is clean, feed you, help when you are sick? You think a ghost makes your bed? You think a ghost makes sure your clothes are clean?”

  His chin was pitting; she changed course.

  “Yalla habibi when we find you a wife your father will be very proud, very very proud—and then, habibi, you can do whatever you want. Go to Cairo, work with Baba, travel—whatever. And you will have this beautiful, lovely girl with you. And you will have children—as many children as you want.”

  She inhaled to continue. The cough shot up and rattled out of her mouth.

  “Teta you have to go to the hospital.”

  “No,” she managed to say, feeling his hand on her back. She took a breath, wheezed, hacked again.

  “You know more about marriage, but I know medicine.”

  “Water.”

  The faucet hissed. “U ba‘dayn,” he called, “isn’t the hospital owned by Dar Hammad?”

  She made a scuffing noise of distaste. “Hammad family. Snobs, they are. Total snobs.”

  Everyone knew Haj Tawfiq Hammad founded the municipal hospital in a rage after an English missionary doctor tried to convert his sister. With the aid of other wealthy denizens—including Haj Taher Kamal—Tawfiq and his nephew Nimr renovated an old palace at the foot of Ebal, knocking through the walls to make four long wards, employing the French Sisters of St. Joseph, who did not evangelise, to be the staff.

  Even though her son was one of the hospital founders, Um Taher preferred not to enter the strange building that smelled of death and surgical spirit. When she inhaled she continued to hear the sound of wheels being dragged over rocks but she stifled it and did not complain. If she coughed in company, she blamed the lack of rainfall, and the accumulation of dust.

  Of late the rains had ceased entirely. The terraced fields on the mountains were turning grey, and when the trees thrashed, their fingers snapped quickly and fell. But while the imams were out praying for one final rain before the snow, the word among the ladies was that Madame Atwan would be hosting her istiqbal in the courtyard of her palace, safe in the dry evening. Um Taher was not in the mood for a party. But it was necessary she attend, since the task was upon her to find Midhat a wife before Taher returned in the spring.

  Despite the winter sting in the air, the plants around the courtyard walls conjured an illusion of springtime. The wind quickened the leaves, which displayed their veiny undersides one by one. The servants filed out of the house bearing trays of coffee cups. The black contents shook and flashed.

  At one end of the courtyard, women lined up to inspect a camera positioned on a tripod. In pairs they ran their fingers over the leather bellows, tested the black enamel around the lens with their fingernails, avoiding the glass as instructed. In turns they disappeared under the black fabric and cooed through the viewfinder. The owner of the contraption was an Armenian woman from Nazareth named Elmas, who stood guard to point at the various elements and announce their official names. She repeated the word “Kodak” several times.

  From the other side of the courtyard, Madame Atwan observed the progress of the night’s first spectacle. Or the second, since she herself was the first: hand still extended for the lips of the next arriving guest, moving it lower and lower as the hour advanced, so that the tardiest guests must practically kneel. The bracelets on her forearms slid floorward, the ones above the elbow indenting the flesh. The silk of her gown capped her bare shoulders, and her shoes, curved in the heel, alternately poked out from under her skirt as she shifted her weight between them.

  She must be very cold, was Um Taher’s first thought when she arrived and kissed the fingers. Coughing, she joined Um Jamil in the camera queue.

  “Your health,” said Um Jamil.

  “The dust.”

  “Bitjannin!” cried the ladies around the camera. “Bitjannin!”

  “My lungs have started to sing. Listen.”

  “It’s hard to hear, Khalto,” said Um Jamil.

  “Bitjannin!”

  “But you should see the Girls of the Mountain, if you’re in pain.”

&nbs
p; “I don’t like hospitals.”

  “Did you ask Midhat?”

  “I did, he doesn’t have the equipment, he said go to the Ebal Girls. I don’t want to go to the Girls, shu bitsawi.”

  “How is he?”

  “Wallah he needs a wife. Boys their age, this energy they have, they don’t know what to do with it.”

  “Jamil is the same. He can be very moody.”

  They had reached the front of the line. Um Jamil approached the camera and Um Taher took a cup of coffee from a passing tray. It was already cold, and very sweet. She took one sip, coughed, and pressed her lips together. Water sprang to her eyes, and in a bid to conceal it she stepped forward to join Um Jamil by the lens.

  “Yalla, go under, Khalto,” said Um Jamil, lifting the black cloth.

  Um Taher held Um Jamil’s arm for balance, accepted the darkness, and positioned herself in front of the viewfinder. She gasped. Before her was a bright pane of glass. On top of the glass, on top or else somehow inside, the scene of the party floated upside down and reversed. She teetered, grasping Um Jamil’s arm, and the image moved. It was a vision of phantoms: the women were walking suspended from their shoes, tapping up where their heads should be. Their heads hung below like black medallions around the fountain, which was itself hanging from the floor like a huge stone chandelier.

  “Oh la la,” she whispered.

  Madame Atwan’s voice rang out.

  “Widad Hammad!”

  The hanging faces turned. Blood rushed to Um Taher’s cheeks and she was grateful for the privacy of the curtain. Into the upside-down scene walked Widad Hammad, smiling and holding out her arms to the hostess. Two girls followed. Fatima was the taller, or rather the longer, of the two, and God knew even capsized she was beautiful. It was enough to make Um Taher dizzy; she reached for Um Jamil, who pulled the cloth off her head, and she came up for air.

  There, across the courtyard, the real Hammad women stood the right way up. Fatima wore a black velvet dress and a collar of pearls. The second daughter was plainer, her eyes closer together; what was ripe about Fatima’s mouth appeared too large on this one.

  The arrival of the Hammads might have been a signal to the servant girls, because the moment Um Jamil stepped away from the camera two of them each lifted a leg of the tripod and carried it into an alcove where a third girl was ready with another, larger black cloth to cover it with. Disappointment passed over the faces of the women who had been waiting, but they soon dispersed into the circles that were breeding around the courtyard as coffee cups disappeared from the trays.

  “His wife is beautiful. And the dress was very valuable ba‘dayn,” said a lady on one of the stools, adjusting an arm to keep her coffee level. “The collar. Like a half-moon. Silver. Kteer helu.”

  “Where did he get all the money from?”

  Um Taher put a hand on her chest, and Um Jamil squeezed her arm.

  “You want my scarf?”

  She shook her head.

  “She’s very beautiful,” said Um Jamil, pointing at a girl with curly hair. “Who is her mother?”

  “I don’t know.” Um Taher was still watching the Hammads and Madame Atwan. Widad Hammad was wearing an embroidered jacket, gold with red piping across the back, unusually close around the waist. Without warning, Widad swivelled round and saw her.

  “Um Taher!”

  “Marhaba,” said Um Taher, majestically. “Aash min shafek.” She commenced her slow approach.

  Widad covered the remaining ground with an expensive clop of heels. “How are you.” She kissed Um Taher three times. “What’s your news?”

  “Hamdulillah, and you, how are you.”

  “Hamdulillah, Nuzha, Fatima, say hello to Madame Kamal.”

  “As-salamu alaykum,” said the girls.

  “Mashallah,” said Um Taher. “What beautiful girls you have.” She shut her eyes to smile. She could not face Midhat’s failure, she could not face it.

  “We were discussing the French priest,” said Madame Atwan, stepping from an adjacent circle and joining them. “Have you met him?”

  “I have not,” said Um Taher.

  “What does he look like?” said Widad.

  “Beard,” said a lady in a draped green tunic, shaping a beard on her own chin. “Long gown. And asking questions,” she scribbled in the air.

  “Yes, he asks questions,” said Madame. “They all ask questions. They all want to know how we live.”

  “I know him,” said Um Taher suddenly.

  Widad looked at her.

  “Did you see him at the hospital?” said Madame Atwan.

  “No, I saw him at the—” She turned her gaze to a window above the courtyard, where a light had come on. “I can’t remember.”

  “Why are people interested, anyway,” said the woman in the green tunic. “We have enough to think about. I am fed up with Europeans. I hate them, no one is more perfidious, I’ll tell you that. At least an Arab lies to your face.”

  Widad was just parting her lips to speak when Madame Atwan cried: “We are going to take a picture now!”

  Um Taher and Widad shared a startled look. They saw the direction of Madame Atwan’s eyes: upward. The sky was molten dark. It was going to rain.

  “Are we ready for the picture!” A tremor of panic, the herd of women shuffling. The camera was pulled out, its glass eye glittered aloft as two girls each held one of the tripod legs, and a third ran behind carrying the black cloth, which had slipped off.

  “Elmas! Elmas?”

  “I’m here, Madame. Who would you like me to photograph?”

  Madame Atwan hesitated. “Me. And then the others. Where shall I sit.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she trotted across the tiles to select an unoccupied cushion, and placed it towards the centre of the courtyard as the guests fanned backward. She sat on the floor and arranged herself over the cushion, leaning sideways like a Roman.

  “Keef,” she said to someone. She felt for her earring, and turned it round to show the engraving. She doubled her chin to check her necklaces.

  “Heyk, Khalto,” said a young wife crouching to arrange Madame’s skirt.

  Elmas the photographer was ready with the camera. The ladies nearby observed as she adjusted the aperture and then ran the camera’s head back and forth along its short jetty. “All right Mama,” she called. “Move your head a little to the side.”

  She whispered to one of the servant girls, who ran indoors and returned with a device like an abbreviated dustpan with a wooden handle, and a small box. Elmas opened the box. In the manner of a performing magician or scientist she picked out two pots from inside, and held them up to show the labels: one said MAGNESIUM, the other B. N.

  “Five spoons of this,” she said loudly, measuring into the metal trough, “and six of this … five, six. One match, please.”

  The tiny match sizzled with a tang of sulphur. Elmas stepped forward, one hand on the buttoned end of a wire attached to the camera, the other holding her pan of powder aloft. On the cushion, Madame cleared her throat and lifted a stray hair from her forehead with one finger. Elmas dipped the trough to receive the match, and before they knew what was happening there was a bright flash of light. Just as quickly, darkness returned. The courtyard, cloudy, erupted with applause and whistles. Madame Atwan was getting to her feet with a smile and several women ran forward to help her, shouting, “Be careful!” Elmas gave an embarrassed half bow, pan aloft.

  The light had left an impression on Um Taher’s eyes. Over everything around her, over the women clapping and talking to one another, over the bodies of the young girls and the glittering jewellery, she saw her own capillaries magnified and white, like bolts of lightning.

  “How are you Um Taher?”

  Um Jamil was by her side.

  “Tamam, tamam.”

  “Next, all the ladies!”

  The rain commenced, little droplets. Around the courtyard, leaves began to twitch.

  Um Taher was pull
ed into the second row beside Um Jamil. She glanced at the assemblage of unsmiling faces, then stared straight ahead as Elmas prepared a second flash mixture. A bang of light, and a loud shivering sound like breaking glass as the rain struck up in earnest. “Oh Mama!” Um Jamil said, and valiantly cast her shawl over Um Taher’s head, as the three lines of ladies disintegrated. But although it was a disruption, everyone applauded the thunder just as they would another spectacle of the night, and whistled at the water rushing down while they ran for shelter by the doors, and the servants helped Elmas to protect the camera, calling: “Ya salam!”

  Under the rain all formality dissolved. The laughing horde reassembled in the salon, shaking off clothes and drowning out the storm with their voices. A short woman with a veil entered through an internal door, strode to the centre of the room, bowed at Madame Atwan, faced the rest of the company and sang at the pace of a dirge: “Ishma‘na – ya – nokh.” A pause, and she completed the phrase: “Al-kukay—a—a—ayn – kokh.”

  The women applauded and whistled.

  Ishma‘na ya nokh al-kukay-ayn kokh

  da akul al-mokh halakna

  amilu ala ghee—eerna.

  “Um Jamil,” said Um Taher.

  “Yes habibti.”

  “I want to ask you. Did you hear anything about Midhat, recently?”

  Um Jamil tilted her head.

  “I mean, has there been any, ya‘ni—”

  “Ah. No, no, I didn’t hear anything. What are you worried about?”

  She waved her hand, as though dispersing a smell.

  “I did hear about Haj Hassan,” said Um Jamil. “Did you?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “Lost all his land in the valley. Sold very cheaply to the Jews.”

  “Why?”

  “I heard three versions. One, he is worried about his wife, because she has gone insane. Two, the land was not producing enough and he needed the money. Three, he gambles. I don’t know which is true.”

  In the middle of this speech, Um Taher noticed Widad and Fatima Hammad standing together a few feet along. Fatima was looking at the floor, but Widad was staring at them. Her face had gone grey.