The Parisian

by Isabella Hammad

  Jamil’s shop was dark with carpets that hung on every wall and in the windows. One step inside and Midhat’s nose was overwhelmed by the animal fibres and the wool dyes cooking together in the darkness. Jamil, dressed in a thin chemise, held a brush and dustpan. A customer was describing a pattern with his hands in the air, and Jamil was nodding. At the sight of Midhat, he raised his index finger.

  “Haj Nimr said yes,” said Midhat, as the customer left. He bit his lower lip and grinned. “I’m going to marry Fatima.”

  “Congratulations.”

  Midhat waited for something more. Then it was he who stretched out to shake his cousin’s hand. He looked into Jamil’s eyes, and saw the smile had not reached them. A weight dropped in his stomach.

  “Hey, Jamil,” said a younger man at the back. “Do you want these or are we throwing them away?” He held up two rags.

  “Well I’ll see you later,” said Midhat. He watched his cousin one more time, and seeing nothing, forced their cheeks together to hide his face. Under his hand, he felt perspiration on Jamil’s neck. He must have his mind on other things.

  As he walked back, however, Midhat wondered whether this final success with Haj Nimr had not unblocked that old spring of jealousy in his cousin. Clearly it was only staunched before, when he confessed his prior failure. Anger flickered. But the thought of his prior failure led again to the thought of his success, which was a thought hot with joy, and a rush of light entered his mind when he touched it. Nothing could overwhelm that now. His self had centred around his resolve, and he had won.

  “Ya mu‘allim.” He waved at the telegraph operator. “I’m sending one to Cairo.”

  The operator passed him a slip from the pile. Midhat wrote: “Haj Nimr has accepted. I will marry Fatima Hammad. The wedding will be after Ramadan. Will you come to Nablus for the official proposal. Salamat. Midhat.”

  He paid, saluted, left. The thought of his father’s praise poured a thrill down his spine, and he charged up the mountain path. The town below, the white buildings, the balconies and minarets.

  He opened the door on women’s voices. Um Taher was in the salon, fully dressed, drinking coffee with a group of friends. He raised his hand in the doorway.

  “Salam.”

  “Join us, teta!” said his grandmother.

  “Mabroo—ook,” sang Um Dawud.

  “Ah, thank you, Khalto. My grandmother told you all?”

  “Why so sad?” shouted Um Taher.

  “Not sad. Just tired. So much excitement! I told Jamil,” he nodded at his aunt.

  “Be happy, God doesn’t always give,” said Um Taher smugly to her companions.

  “Fatima Hammad!” said someone.

  “Beautiful,” said another.

  Teta reached out an arm to welcome him. He sat beside her, sliding a nail under a chocolate wrapper. Um Jamil was in the middle of complaining about the carpet sales, which had been tapering off. Others hummed in agreement. It was not like a textile shop; the coming of Ramadan does nothing for carpets. Ba‘dayn, she said, Jamil is not concentrating properly at the store. He has wandered away “fi aalam liwahdu,” in a world of his own.

  “What do you think?” she asked Midhat.

  “To be honest, I have not seen him much myself. I have been so busy with …” He gestured in the air, as though already preparing for the wedding. “But I don’t know, you may be right. He has seemed not himself. He spends a lot of time with those Murad boys.”

  “Since you two returned from that riot, nothing is the same.”

  “An jad nothing,” said Um Dawud.

  “Maybe Jamil needs to find a girl,” said Teta. “It’s not healthy, you know. You have to let it out.”

  “Teta,” said Midhat.

  “I think it’s a question of age,” said another woman. “Wallah al-azeem my son was grumpy till he was thirty. Wallah al-azeem.”

  “Get him a girl, he’ll be fine,” said Teta.

  “Maybe he doesn’t like the carpets very much,” said Midhat.

  Um Jamil turned her lip out. “You could be right.”

  The news of Midhat’s engagement travelled fast. Over subsequent days old women he didn’t know warbled at the sight of him, and old men chortled: “Dar Hammad! Dar Hammad!” Rumour had it that Abu Omar Jawhari himself would officiate at the signing of the betrothal contract. Haj Abdallah Atwan even gave him a nod one hot evening in the Manshiyah Garden.

  “The Parisian,” he called. “I heard the news.”

  “Thank you,” said Midhat, with practised grace.

  Abdallah laughed, one loud report of air, and the seams on either side of his mouth deepened. Midhat realised he had pre-empted Abdallah with thanks before any word of congratulation.

  Presently Abdallah said, “Yes, well done. There is rarely happy news in Nablus these days. People love a wedding.”

  The other word on everyone’s lips was the official beginning of the British Mandate over Palestine. Midhat frequently returned after work to hear women’s voices asking questions such as: “Do you know what is the difference between the British and the French?” Leaflets from the Colonial Office fluttered through the streets declaring in both Arabic and Hebrew that the European mandates were confirmed by the League of Nations. France was to rule over Syria and Lebanon, and Britain over Palestine. No one was being given independence. The mandates were a temporary measure en route to self-government, a period of supervision “until such time as they are able to stand alone.”

  A telegram arrived from Midhat’s father within days: a financial problem with the business, soon to be solved, required his continued presence in Cairo. As a result, he could not come for the official proposal to the Hammads. “I will be there for the ceremony in July,” said the telegram, “and I will wire the money in a few days for the mahr and the wedding preparations. I am proud.”

  Midhat felt a cramp of longing. Only those words at the end conveyed any feeling: “I am proud.” He folded the telegram in half. He walked into his father’s darkened bedroom and with a deep breath continued into his father’s office. He sat down at the desk.

  The room was much smaller than Taher’s office in Cairo. It contained merely this desk and chair, that cabinet by the door, and a small shelf of books beside a window facing the slope, where a bird was jumping between the branches of a hawthorn tree in the dusk. There was no lamp. Midhat opened a desk drawer and a pen rattled; he took it out and pulled a sheet from the stack of paper beside it, knocking the drawer closed with his foot. The ink had filled the cap; he looked at the blank page, rotating the pen by its barrel. Smudges bloomed on his fingers and thumb as he wrote the words: “My dear father.” It was hard to see them in the darkness. He reached for a fresh sheet.

  Cher Hani,

  I am getting married to Fatima Hammad, daughter of Haj Nimr Hammad. I understand the situation is terrible in Damascus. We are all upset about recent events. But I hope you will be able to attend the ceremony—it will be around the third day after Eid al-Fitr. I hope you are safe. I miss you. I am happy about the marriage, but of course the mood in Nablus in general is not happy. We are worried about our fates. Wishing you all the blessings of the holy month of Ramadan. God be with you.

  Yours,

  Midhat

  In the absence of Haj Taher, Teta insisted on attending the proposal. Quite possibly she would have insisted anyway. But on the morning of, she spent so long deciding what to wear—a blue gown and silver earrings—that she and Midhat arrived at the Hammad house to find the other Kamal men already waiting outside. Jamil leaned against the wall. His father, Abu Jamil, waved as they approached. Wasfi was there too, with both his brothers.

  “Here’s Tahsin,” said Jamil, pointing over Midhat’s shoulder at a skinny figure speeding down the hill.

  “Don’t run!” shouted Abu Jamil. “He’ll ruin his shoes.”

  Midhat laughed nervously as Abu Jamil pressed the doorbell. The doorman appeared and they filed in, a nodding line of suits and t
arabish. Um Taher brought up the rear with Midhat. He had forgotten how large the main hall was. It was like a church. The Hammads were more numerous than the Kamals, but at first sight, beneath that vast barrelled ceiling, they appeared a small group. Haj Hassan was at the back, there was Haj Tawfiq, a few other elderly men, several younger ones. Haj Nimr stood to the side with hands clasped. The Hammads were considerably whiter in beard than the Kamals, of whom Abu Jamil was the eldest. One by one, Kamals shook the hands of Hammads, nodding as-salamu alaykum, as-salamu alaykum, wa alaykum as-salam, as-salamu alaykum, wa alaykum as-salam.

  He moved along the line and saw Fatima standing behind them, by the far couch, close to her mother. Her hair was parted down the centre and tied low on her neck, and she wore a thin white veil over her nose and mouth. A cream dress, a long necklace of pearls. Eyes heavily outlined. He smiled. She looked at him but did not smile back. Her shoes: aqua blue. With a force that did not belong to him, Midhat broke from the hand-shaking line and strode up to her. From his jacket pocket he pulled a poppy, which he had picked from the mountainside. The bright crêpe head lolled on the weakened stalk. Fatima reached out, and he was touched by the sight of her round fingers, broad at the hilt, tapering to the nail. A little laugh broke from her veiled mouth as she met his eyes. Everyone was watching: Haj Nimr, Widad, Fatima’s sister, her little brother. Teta beamed.

  A maid entered with the first tray of coffee, and the men shuffled into two orderly rows. Widad disappeared and reappeared with the second tray, and carried them between the rows so everyone could take a cup. Then Abu Jamil cleared his throat, and addressed Haj Nimr.

  “Our son Midhat Kamal, son of Haj Taher Kamal, would like to ask for your daughter, Fatima Hammad, to be his wife.”

  The pause. Haj Nimr nodded at his family members, and they all tipped their cups to their mouths at the same time. They reached for the tray to release their hands for clapping and a few people whistled. Um Taher stepped forward to embrace Widad. Abu Jamil kissed Midhat on the cheek.

  Midhat could not take his eyes off Fatima. She kept looking at the floor, but there was definitely a smile on her lips. He would have to survive off this for the whole of Ramadan.

  After the proposal, Midhat only really saw Jamil across the dinner table on those evenings when he and Teta went downstairs after sunset. He whiled away most of the early Ramadan afternoons with Adel Jawhari and Qais Karak, amusing their minds while their bodies became accustomed to the fast. Following the iftar meal, the three of them would visit the midnight courtyards to see a karakozati pulling the strings of his marionette, or skirt the delta of an overpacked café where a rawi stood on his chair telling stories with an eye on the upturned tarbush that clinked through the crowd.

  Adel and Qais were excellent company. They loved each other without envy, and accepted Midhat without question. Qais had an earnest, almost naïve air, coupled with the mannerisms of an older man; large hands, abundant stubble, and a tendency when laughing to frown slightly, as though he found everything a little preposterous. Having written four literary reviews for a newspaper in Jerusalem, he spoke of moving down there to develop a career in the field—though such a defection from the family trade of soap manufacturing would not be popular among his father and uncles.

  Adel was wittier than Qais, but with a moral sense that weighed down many of his opinions. He had returned from university in Beirut a year prior, and in search of a purpose, alighted on the local branch of the Muslim-Christian Society. He was one of the society’s youngest members, and half the time lectured Qais and Midhat about politics, having just signed the petition against the impending Mandate.

  On the ninth day of Ramadan, the three of them left the mosque after evening prayers, and walked to Adel’s house for iftar.

  “I was going to ask you,” said Qais, “are you still going to be a doctor?”

  “A doctor, no,” said Midhat. “Why? I gave up on that long ago.”

  “Politics, then.”

  “No. Not for me. I’ll stay in the textile trade. Probably we’ll live in Cairo, like my father.”

  “Even with your experience, ya‘ni. Just the family business.”

  “Don’t go to Cairo,” said Adel.

  “Why not?” said Qais.

  “We need Midhat here, people like Midhat.”

  “Ya al-Barisi …” Qais half sang.

  “We need the good characters,” said Adel.

  “Well, you know, I actually realised something,” said Midhat. “Which is that it’s not just about the family business. It’s about something more, ya‘ni, something … I haven’t worked it out exactly. But if Cairo is the way the business is going, then we live in Cairo,” he concluded. “That’s simple.”

  “I understand,” said Qais. “It’s hard to be free here.”

  “No no, that’s not what I meant. It’s not about freedom. It’s about … belonging.”

  “You know what they say about Nabulsi women,” said Qais. “You take them out of Nablus, they become very willing. If you know what I mean.”

  Adel sucked his teeth. “Shu hada? He’s about to get married.”

  Adel lived with his mother and father and siblings in the centre of town—though he maintained it was in the west—on the ground floor of a house built recently but in the old style, with a small internal patio and a pond for catching rainwater. They sat at a table outside, joined by Adel’s two younger brothers and then by his father. The buildings around them were dark but the sky held onto an uncanny pale glow. Lucid in the cool, Midhat embarked on a story.

  “One time, I was on a train in France.”

  “A what?” said Adel’s father, who was hard of hearing.

  “He said a train,” said Adel.

  “I was on this train, and I saw a man, sitting, over there.”

  He gestured at Qais, two chairs down. Qais’s eyes encouraged him, wide in the candlelight.

  “He was ikteer mratab,” said Midhat. “Very chic. Suit, tie.” He did the motions on his own body and sat up straight. “Moustache, very thin. Blond, cap. And we looked at each other, heyk,” he closed his eyes and gave a half bow of formal greeting.

  Consenting to take the role of the blond Frenchman, Qais did likewise and laughed.

  “And after that, the train goes—”

  “Where were you going?” said Adel.

  “Oh, er … Lyon.”

  “Why?”

  “This is another story,” said Midhat, dusting the air with his fingers. “So the man gets up, alights. I have one more stop. I notice, as the train leaves the station, that he has left something on the seat. Small, leather, heyk. It is a wallet. I pick it up—ah, Monsieur, Monsieur! I wave through the window—khalas, he has already gone. Shu sar? I sit down with the wallet—I don’t want anybody to steal it—”

  “Was there money inside?” said Qais.

  “A lot of money. Ten, fifteen hundred francs. Shu sar? I cannot take this money, that would be very dishonourable. So I look in the wallet, I see an address. A little card like this. Name, and address.”

  “What was his name?” said Adel.

  “Laurent,” said Midhat.

  The moment he said it, a flush rose from within Midhat’s abdomen and coursed up to his face. His scalp was on fire. Laurent. Dear Laurent. It was the first name that came into his head.

  “Yalla,” said Adel’s father gently.

  “So,” he said, in quieter voice, bending his gaze up to the livid pallor of the sky, and exhaling slowly. “The address is such and such a place in … kaza mahal near Lyon. I get off the train, I cross the platform, ya‘ni there is a little bridge over the tracks. I wait for the next train, it takes fifteen minutes, something like that. Then I stop at the station where the blond man got off. I take a taxi—there are many, many taxis in France—and I tell the driver, please take me to this place. Driver says—oh, you want to go to this place? I say yes, I want to go to this one. Tayyeb, it’s a short trip, we arrive, what is it? It’s a cas
tle. A real castle, wallah al-azeem. Bisamuha chateau, bil faransawi. Long path like this, trees, and as I come up the path, I see horses running through the fields.”

  In a dark courtyard, the whites of the eyes will betray the direction of a person’s gaze. As Midhat said the line about the horses, he caught Qais’s doubting gaze sliding over to Adel. Adel made no attempt to stifle a convulsion of his chest. A modest shudder, it could have been a burst of air from his dinner; nonetheless, it hurried Midhat to the point.

  “So I knock on the door, I ask for this Monsieur—Laurent. They tell me, but he is not a Monsieur! He is a Duke! It’s not a lie, I swear to God—I see the blond man, coming through the far doors,” he pointed at a window across the patio, drawn by a lamp glimmering there, “he comes out and embraces me, all the servants shake my hands … it became a great friendship. He was so grateful. He said he was sure all the money would have been taken. I stayed there three nights. Then I went back to Paris.”

  “Mish ma‘ool,” said Adel’s youngest brother. “That’s amazing.”

  Adel locked eyes with Midhat and started to laugh. Still stinging with the accident of Laurent’s name, Midhat wondered, thus weakened, if Adel would challenge the veracity of his tale and embarrass him. Then something shifted; the muscles in his own stomach unfastened and he laughed, and Adel, set free, rocked backward and slapped his knee.