“He was a good father,” said Midhat, his voice cracking.
“Yes,” said Musbah, and as he turned from Midhat a beatific expression broke over his features, as if he was remembering something.
Teta slept until sunrise on the third day, and then it was time to leave. In the shadow of the front door, with her children around her legs, Layla squinted as she waved. The taxi rolled off and Midhat awaited the first bitter comment, about Layla, or about the house. To his surprise, Teta didn’t say anything. She stared out the window. It struck Midhat that he had no idea if she had even been to Cairo before.
On the train, Teta alternated between the usual motions of distant prayer and a very close kind of agitation, expressed in the way her hands, held rigidly open, fluttered from side to side, as though playing a tambourine. “What will we do,” she said, with varying degrees of desperation and levels of address; sometimes to herself, sometimes very clearly to Midhat, other times halfway, the chant turning inward as she relapsed into prayer again, her words mixing with the voices of the ticket inspector and the station announcer who called out the names of places like wares for sale. Midhat repeated various empty mantras of comfort. “Everything will be fine,” was one. “I’m with you,” was another.
The train moved up along the Gaza coastline, and the sea sparkled beside them with white shards of sun. For the first time in his life, Midhat wished he were more religious. Of course he prayed, but though that was a private mechanism it sometimes felt like a public act, and the lessons of the Quran were learned by rote, one was steeped in them, hearing them so often. They were the texture of his world, and yet they did not occupy that central, vital part of his mind, the part that was vibrating at this moment, on this train, rattling forward while he struggled to hold all these pieces. As a child he had felt some of the same curiosity he had for the mysteries of other creeds—for Christianity with its holy fire, the Samaritans with their alphabets—but that feeling had dulled while he was still young, when traditional religion began to seem a worldly thing, a realm of morals and laws and the same old stories and holidays. They were acts, not thoughts.
He faced the water now, steadying his gaze on the slow distance, beyond the blur of trees pushing past the tracks, on the desolate fishing boats hobbling over the waves. He sensed himself tracing the lip of something very large, something black and well-like, a vessel which was at the same time an emptiness, and he thought, without thinking precisely, only feeling with the tender edges of his mind, what the Revelation might have been for in its origin. Why it was so important that they could argue to the sword what it meant if God had hands, and whether He had made the universe. Underneath it all was a living urgency, that original issue of magnitude: the way several hundred miles on foot could be nothing to the mind, Nablus to Cairo, a day’s journey by train, but placed vertically that same distance in depth exposed the body’s smallness and suddenly one thought of dying. Did one need to face the earth, nose to soil, to feel that distance towering above? There was something of his own mortality in this. Oh then but why, in a moment of someone else’s death, must he think of his own disappearance?
“What will we do?” said his grandmother, as if she had just thought of it.
“Everything will be fine,” he replied, gritting his teeth.
He had always had a schematic mind. That was the problem. He mapped one thing onto another. The vast barrel of darkness he had sensed was already collapsing under his mental fingers, he could not hold it, only muddy it with poor metaphors that turned it into something else. He tested, abstractly, the afterlife as described in the Holy Book. He could not picture his father in a garden. It was a false image. He did not have it.
“Habibi, don’t cry,” said his grandmother.
“It will be fine.”
He trained his thoughts on Fatima, and mute illustrations of married life. The minutes accomplished the hours, and they were soon in Tulkarem, ready to change for Nablus.
They reached the house midafternoon. No Um Mahmoud was there to greet them. Something came into view on the doorstep: a white envelope. Half in the shadow, the circular stamp of the postal service. The sight of it was dreadful. An envelope had become a painful thing. Teta ignored it completely and wrestled with the lock. As she stepped over the threshold, Midhat picked it up.
18 May 1920
29 Sha‘ban 1338
Dear Midhat,
A thousand congratulations—you must be extremely happy. I hope I will be able to come for the wedding—as you may have heard the French are building up their forces against us—I cannot say much—only that Faisal is nervous and there are demands on all sides. The people here actually think the Palestinians have more freedom than they do—after news of all these demonstrations and so on. We will see.
Dar Hammad is an excellent family—well done—I look forward to celebrating.
Your brother,
Hani
13
The official executor of Haj Taher’s will was a lawyer from the Sinai who used to help him in the textile business. The unofficial executor, whose jurisdiction was wider in effect than the official one, was Layla. Layla had always been astute about money matters, and the occasion of her husband’s death was no different. Within a week of arriving back in Nablus, Midhat received his allotted inheritance by wire. Layla had already repaid Haj Taher’s debts, and divided the remainder between herself, Midhat, and the other male children, with smaller portions for Dunya and Inshirah. Midhat used his share to pay the mahr for Fatima, and he also purchased a house on the southwest outskirts of town, in which they would live after the wedding.
The house was a single storey, and the elderly man who lived there before had taken his furnishings with him. The new household effects were financed by Haj Nimr, selected by Widad; since Um Taher was still grieving, Widad also took over the wedding preparations. The celebration, coming nigh after the fast ended, would consummate the Eid al-Fitr festivities with a three-day party, about which much bragging was perpetrated by those lucky enough to receive an invitation. The Samaritan tailors also profited from the occasion, and ran a brisk trade in garments for the bridal guests.
Hani could not come, after all. Their forces in Damascus had been routed by the French, and he and Emir Faisal were in exile: he sent a telegram from Amman to apologise. The wedding was marked in advance by the absences, and every joy in Midhat’s head echoed with a hum of sorrow.
Eli the Samaritan helped choose Midhat’s clothes: a tarbush of especial tallness, a foulard tie, his softest mouchoir for his pocket, and his shiniest, pointiest Italian boots, with a brown foot and black toe and a double zigzag stitch adjoining them. Fatima wore a white European-style dress with satin bows at the shoulders and elbows, and a dropped waist with a wide sash. Her sister had waxed her eyebrows with a paste of flour and molten sugar, and her hair was curled and stiffened around her face, the length braided and set into a chignon; at her crown her mother pinned a veil of rough netting. White silk stockings wrinkled around her ankles. She left her parents’ house with her hennaed hands full of tokens: a fragment of wood, a mirror, a pair of scissors, a cube of sugar.
The night of the zaffeh procession was windy, and the candles kept blowing out. After the ritual washing in the hammam, and the dances at which the women tapped their mouths and fluttered their tongues like calling birds, and after the reading of the Fatiha and the blessings on the steps of the Hammad house, the young couple walked at the head of the parade, serenaded by the fife and tambourine, lit only by the harlequin glow of Venetian lamps, to the new house in the southwest, where the procession unfolded before the door singing songs and crying out their wishes for “green feet.” Midhat and Fatima crossed the threshold, and, closing the door on the revellers, listened in silence as the party billowed back to town. They smiled, politely. She was wearing thick lines of kohl around her eyes, and her face was caked with powder.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello.”
&nbs
p; A large outdoor lantern stood on the floor; in a false show of certainty, Midhat crouched and opened the little glass hatch, and lit the wick with a match from his pocket. Then he picked up the handle and beckoned her to follow. And this was how, on an impulse, Midhat and Fatima spent the first part of their wedding night investigating their new garden.
The entire plot of land was situated on a slope, and the back garden flowed down a series of four narrow terraces. The first and widest held a wrought-iron table and three chairs. On the second and third, the arrangements of square beds suggested a former presence of flowers and vegetables, now berserk with weeds that violated the path. On the fourth and narrowest shelf, beside the tangles of a rosebush stripped of roses, stood a large cage with a cracked cement roof. Midhat raised the lamp and they peered inside. No birds. Only some ancient white scars on the ground. He circled back, and the swinging lamp sent a shuddering light over the low back gate and stretched a barred shadow on the lane behind. The silk on Fatima’s dress shone. She started back up the garden steps, and Midhat hurried to guide her feet with the lamp.
“Would you like anything to eat?”
“No.”
He considered saying: “Are you tired?” or “Ought we to go to bed?” Each phrase flipped over had a lewd underside, and he opted instead for silence.
In the hall he exchanged the lantern for an indoor lamp, and led the way down three shallow steps to the bedroom. The room was cold, half-sunk in the earth. The stone bricks of the walls were unpainted, and the only window was small and high and shuttered against the night. A cream silk coverlet adorned the bed, and on the opposite wall, between two green upholstered chairs, a mother-of-pearl inlaid cupboard stood on tall, bracketed legs. By the door hung a mirror in a curlicued frame. He watched Fatima absorb everything. The furnishings were not to his taste, being old-fashioned and feminine, but that was beside the point, since they were a gift from mother to daughter. Her hands were still covered in henna and he could see there were circles under her eyes. She was heavily perfumed. Midhat set the lamp on the bedside table, and whispered “Habibti,” reaching for one embroidered palm.
Her lips parted on the teeth of a terrified smile. He stepped towards her and managed to kiss her forehead just as it was drawing away. Slowly, he took hold of her evasive chin, put his lips to one tired eye, then to the other. His left hand on his waistband, he tipped the top button of his trousers to the side, and released it from the hole.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Undressing.”
He leaned down for her lips. Hands met his chest.
“Habibti.”
The elbows softened, and she allowed him to kiss her on the mouth, though her hands remained on his shirt. But the second button of his trousers made an even louder pop, and the arms straightened again. He took hold of them.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Her wrists slithered from his grip. Her smile was gone. With a quaver of indecision she took a false step and stumbled on the edge of the bed, falling into a sitting position with a loud snap. She lifted her skirt to reveal a heel had broken from one of her shoes.
“Let me help.”
She was too fast. She had a musician’s fingers; they unlaced the first shoe like a pianist rushing a toccata, and suddenly both were off her feet and she was bending down to slot them beneath the bed. Raised, her face was scarlet. Midhat had still only taken one step towards her, half-undone.
“It will be easier without the light.” He stretched to twist off the flame. In the instant of darkness she gasped. He sat on the bed.
“Don’t come near me.”
To his bafflement, her voice came from several feet away.
“I will scream.”
A weedy ray from the gap around the shutter, from the moon or some other remote source, was the only light available. It outlined Fatima’s body but blotted her face. He saw her elbows bend, her fingers relaxed but ready. The silence tightened.
“You are my wife.”
She drew a long, deep breath. In that moment, Midhat felt justified: she was steadying herself. Then the ten fingers tensed into a backward curve, and though he had not, indeed, come any nearer to her, Fatima wrenched from her lungs the scream she had just vowed to deliver. It tore through the air at whistling pitch and entered his ear like a needle.
“Oh God, no, please don’t do that.”
She did not deviate from that single, terrible note. One inhalation and she continued, though losing volume as she backed further away, another breathy cessation, and now that she was level with the window he could make out her face. Her eyes were wide and her chest was rising and falling.
“I won’t come near you. I’m not doing anything to you, please just stop. Please.”
She did not scream again, though he remained braced for the sound; adjusting now to the semi-dark, he watched her sit on the chair near the window. She lifted her feet onto the seat as if to hug her knees but instead stood up, holding the cupboard beside her for balance—or so it seemed at first, for a moment later, with a creak of woodwork, he watched the farthest cupboard legs lift off the floor as with one foot on the chair arm she pulled herself onto the top of it. The four legs wobbled, her dress rustled, she came to rest, pale hands gripping the finials.
“Now you cannot come near me.”
He searched for her eyes, but saw only her hands.
“That is true,” he said.
He looked at the empty chair and briefly imagined standing upon it to bring her down. His hands rested on his hips. A laugh escaped him; it sounded cruel. The bed nudged his shin and he sat on it.
“Allahu akbar,” he said, to himself.
The dial of the lamp was stiff with rust and hurt his fingers as he worked it. The glow opened the room: there she was, cross-legged on the cupboard. He put one foot on the other knee. The heel of his right shoe gave quickly; the left required both hands, and his throat gave a little “phut” of exertion. He loosened his tie with a forefinger.
“Are you going to stay up there all night?”
He meant this to sound knowing, even haughty. But alas the question sounded plaintive and at once gave Fatima the power. She was silent. He, pulling off his jacket and then his shirt, uttered a series of dignified sighs, and so meticulously avoided looking at her that as he at last lay down in his underclothes it was his turn to flinch. Naturally, she had been staring at him the whole time.
“Do you need help getting down from there?”
“No.”
“Shall I leave the lamp on?”
She did not answer. A draught entered from somewhere, and the flame, cavorting from side to side, blackened the glass where it narrowed into the flute. He reached out for the dial to lower the wick, which was easier on the way down. The darkness uncorked his fatigue, which had been suppressed for days, and engulfed him within moments.
The dreamless night lasted an instant. He woke on his back as he had fallen asleep. The ceiling above was so dim that at first he could believe only a few hours had passed—but sitting up he perceived the cold light of morning in the shutter crack. Fatima was asleep on the chair, curled so her wedding dress gathered around her thighs, her two hennaed feet pursed over each other like a pair of hands in prayer. He got out of bed, the better to observe her. Her mouth was open, and the hair at the back of her head bunched up unevenly out of her plait. Under his shadow a tremor passed through her eyelids and her mouth twitched. He turned on his heel. He would leave her to dress on her own, explore the house on her own, habituate herself to it, without him.
In the hall his trunk stood on end. He tipped it gently. This had been his sole companion on his travels, he thought ruefully; it still bore the bruises and scratches from the pitch of ships and luggage boys. Inside the top lay a pair of linen trousers. He put them on in the salon, a bright, narrow room that took all the light from the garden. Pulling on his coat, he set out for Mount Gerizim.
The plan was to sell the family house.
Um Taher would move downstairs with Um Jamil, and the proceeds from the sale of the top floor would make up her living allowance. Although this was not due to occur until after the wedding, Um Taher was already spending most of her time downstairs. Midhat found her now in Um Jamil’s kitchen, stirring honey into a cup of tea with her finger.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “Where is your wife?”
He heaved himself into a chair, and, with a sigh, confided to her the events of his wedding night. Teta listened patiently. Then she began to laugh.
“What did you do to her?”
“What do you mean what did I do?”
“Ya‘ni, she was frightened. You have to go slowly, habibi. Um Jamil,” she called suddenly, “Ta‘ali.”
Midhat assumed she wanted to ask his aunt something unrelated; to his dismay, Teta proceeded to recount to Um Jamil exactly what he had just told her. He tried to stop her with, “Do you have to,” but she only picked up speed, dropping a gasp and pause in the right places. Um Jamil looked between Midhat and Um Taher with wide eyes, her birdlike head nodding, and as though she knew what was coming, her lips threatened to smile.
“So I told him,” concluded Um Taher, “You have to go slowly, ya‘ni, poor girl she was frightened. Saheeh wila la?”
“Have you tried caresses?”
“Oh Lord,” said Midhat, “I can’t do this.”
“Lazim, you have to,” said Um Jamil. “Ya‘ni, kisses, ya‘ni, very important.”
“No that’s not …” He groaned. “I’m going back. This was a mistake.”
He hurried out. It was too soon to return to the new house, where Fatima awaited him. Or dreaded him. He took his old route down into town and walked through the khan.
There was no chair in the entrance, but from the outside the Kamal store looked empty. Inside, voices came from the tailor’s room. Butrus was at his work desk, three other men standing around. They looked up as Midhat entered, and separated to greet him. His old friends, the Samaritan tailors. They smiled and Eli stepped forward to say congratulations, they had thoroughly enjoyed the wedding.
The Parisian Page 38