The Inheritance

by Sahar Khalifeh

  He stood up and turned around himself, raised his arms in the direction of the hills and the length of the horizon all the way to Jaffa, and said, “Do you mean to say that America is more beautiful than here? More beautiful than our mountains and lands?”

  I kept silent. What could I say? Of course America is more beautiful. America is a continent, it has all the colors of nature. In spring it becomes a paradise, cherry blossoms in Washington, lilac blossoms in Virginia and the Carolinas, the daffodils, azaleas, magnolias, and dogwoods. In the fall the leaves turn orange and yellow, leaves as light as feathers and soft to walk on. One never gets tired of looking at the colors. In winter there’s the snow, snowflakes, and snowstorms. The houses exude tender warmth around the fireplace and the burning wood. Where was America? I was getting homesick.

  Mazen said, boasting of the beauty of the country and the scents in the air, “Smell, smell the scent of the homeland. It’s better than musk and amber.”

  Violet remained silent, and he went on, “I would defend the smallest of its weeds with my life. Look at the greenery and the beauty. Smell the scent.”

  She mocked him, purposely making light of his words, “Haven’t you traveled to other countries and seen real green? Do you call this cream color and this brown, green?”

  He faced her and said defiantly, “What’s wrong with you? Now America is above everything and we’re garbage? Let’s see what you get from America. We know what those who went before you got.”

  Then he turned to me and said, “Look at Zayna. She has everything but she discovered that without her people she isn’t worth anything.”

  Violet shook her head with bitterness but didn’t argue with him. She would have told him: you are one of those people and so is the Bey and Abu Salem’s daughter, bigmouthed and creating scandals. Before her there was Nahleh, the whole neighborhood, and the whole valley, this disgusting and destitute valley. Here even breath is repugnant. One does not breathe. One suffocates and dies, thanks to the people of Wadi al-Rihan. As if it weren’t enough to put up with the Israelis, one has to put up with one’s own people too!

  He said proudly, “Whoever treats people with haughtiness isn’t one of them.”

  She stared at him despite herself because she couldn’t believe that he, of all people, would say those words. He was the one who continuously criticized Wadi al-Rihan. He swore at the people when he was drunk, when he was sober, and when he was depressed. He was the one who treated his family haughtily. He despised the farm and work and went from place to place sipping coffee and tea. He was the one who treated her and all the women he met with arrogance and justified his conduct by saying that he could not find the woman of his dreams. How often had she been fooled in the past by his logic she a hairdresser and he a revolutionary! She adorned the brides set the hair dyed it and cut it while all he did was recite poetry She spoke a simple language and he used complex terms He spoke about liberation and his country’s problems She turned on the television to see Sharihan and Ramadan riddles whereas he flipped channels to watch the news from Jordan Israel and Syria. And then there was the satellite dish. Her mother had said then grumbling, “If he likes the dish let him buy one as if we don’t have enough trouble.”

  But he never bought one and I’m Grace continued to complain.

  Futna said, “People, I’ve heard some news but I’m afraid to tell you.”

  My uncle stared at her from under his glasses and said with controlled irony, “Arc you referring to Abu Salem’s return?”

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  Umm Grace sighed, I was shocked, and Mazen didn’t say a word.

  Violet commented, sad and fearful, “Things will soon heat up.”

  Mazen asked her, still watching her every move and word, “What do you mean when you say that things will heat up soon, with whom?”

  She turned her head sideways and said, retreating, “I didn’t mean anything, the expression just popped out of my mouth.”

  He said, defiantly, “No, you meant it, we want to understand what you intended by it.”

  She replied whispering, “No, I didn’t mean anything. It’s over, forget it.”

  He said provocatively, “You meant it and we want to understand what you meant.”

  She stood, suddenly fed up, and said, “Yes I did mean it and what is it to you? Leave me alone. Why are you on my case? You make an issue out of every word I say. I don’t want you to understand and I don’t want to understand. Leave me alone.”

  He said, stubbornly, “No, I won’t leave you alone.”

  She stared at him with deep hatred, he seemed to enjoy making light of her anger. She had had some feeling for him up to yesterday evening, but now, after what had happened, he was nothing, simply nothing.

  He continued, stubbornly, “We want to understand.”

  She jumped nervously out of her chair, slamming into the table, walking like a crazy woman.

  He couldn’t go to sleep and decided to wait for Kamal’s return. Violet’s antagonistic attitude had affected him deeply, her shouting at him in public had given him the impression that she truly didn’t want him and that even she hated him. The fact that she had avoided him for days and her attitude today’ made him wonder whether their relationship had really come to an end, that it could not be salvaged. She had been preparing for her trip for weeks, holding farewell parties and attending some, but he thought that those had been mere games. As soon as he raised his finger and told her kindly, “forget it,” she would forget America and remain here in this country and abandon the idea of immigration. Leaving one’s country is no joke. It’s even a crime and a sin, We struggle for the return and they leave? Kamal comes back from exile and Violet wants to immigrate, while he watches them both and does nothing! He decided to discuss the subject with both of them and to adopt a firmer position. He would tell them in no uncertain terms that leaving a weak homeland means abandoning one’s duty and identity and hopes for the future.

  Kamal returned in the evening with another man from Germany, his colleague Hayk, who worked with another company helping the Authority and developing the country. Hayk talked with great enthusiasm about his projects, development, and the power of construction. He explained how Germany came back to life after a true death because of the war, and in a few years it became a great power controlling the market, the price of gold and cars, rubbing everybody’s nose in the mud. Where does the Ford stand in relation to the Mercedes, the dollar to the strong mark? Strength isn’t only planes and rockets and propellers. Strength isn’t only military bases, colonies, and fleets. It’s the stock market, it’s a market for one’s products, it’s Toyota and Mercedes. Had strength been only that, America would be the master of the world, but the dollar without the mark and the yen is nothing. Both currencies back the dollar. It isn’t possible to explain the meaning of modern strength with an old concept.

  Mazen stood behind the counter looking at Hayk as he carried on his discussions with the people, moving among the visitors, speaking French and English, playing the guitar and the piano, and trying to learn to play the drums. He advised his father about the use of some organic pesticides, free of poison and gentle to the environment. He explained that killing the insects doesn’t require the use of chemicals but only raising a kind of insect that eats the harmful ones. He explained how to raise cattle and livestock without grains and how to plant zucchini and strawberries without soil.

  Violet said, as they sat in the cafeteria drinking tea and coffee, “I’m very happy, very happy.”

  Mazen looked her in the eye but she shifted her gaze away from him, as if to discard the ghost of the past, and the remains of yesterday. He had a funny feeling, and for the first time he felt the humiliation of love. All women, including Violet, had given themselves to him totally and he had never felt threatened. Now, however, as she placed him face to face with a choice with which he could not compete, he felt the humiliation of loss. Where did his youth go, his attractiv
eness, his charm, and the power of his gaze? In the past, Mazen had only to ask and women would acquiesce to his demands, but now he tries in vain. I le speaks no French, English, German, or Spanish; he doesn’t play the piano or sing; he doesn’t talk about the environment. He says nothing and docs nothing and there is nothing left for him but what has been said before and proved useless. In the sixties Guevara was the man of his time, it was the time of progress and modernization, the time of excess and change, but now, what does he have? Only useless old words, a name that died with yesterday’s dawn. Guevara died, Castro is aging, and Moscow is disintegrating from the inside and will soon collapse. The revolution defeated him inside and out and he has grown old like secondhand goods in a market full of new items. At that moment he wished that Violet and Kamal would leave as quickly as possible, without returning and without regret.

  Part Three

  And Then,

  The Inheritance

  Weeks passed and the news of the sewage project spread, amid opposition and disapproval. People went to the municipality, to the mayors, to the governor, and the notables to complain, but the mayors said “Amen” and the notables washed their hands of it, leaving everything in God’s hands. They left the meetings and the deals and went east, seeking open spaces and the oil fields. It’s true that oil fields have a smell that can cause headaches, but they’re bearable headaches compared to the ones they faced in Wadi al-Rihan and its municipality. The headache caused by the oil fields is at least beneficial and doesn’t impact the environment and the nostrils the way sewage does. It doesn’t stink like sewage, which attracts rats and wasps. Then there was the lassitude that spread in the region like a summer cloud and fell over people’s heads, sparing no one from the bites of mosquitoes, bugs, and fleas.

  My uncle like many others rushed to complain about the impact of the sewage factory when kamal told him that he was no longer involved in the project, and that it was now Said and Abu Salem’s sons’ responsibility. Abu Salem had returned to Wadi al-Rihan a few weeks ago, despite the threats. His return had given Kamal some hope and could have convinced him to run the project, but he had been quickly disillusioned by Abu Salem’s poor management and the pressure exerted by his sons. They convinced their father that Said would cost them less to run the project, that Said would be better than his pretentious brother, a philosopher who thought he understood the work he was doing. They told him that he was a German, an immigrant who had lived most of his life abroad, far from their world, and that he’d better get rid of him for his peace of mind.

  The project failed, and the stench filled the air and people’s nostrils, reaching the inhabitants of the neighboring villages and the wheat fields. The area was covered with rats, frogs, blue flies, and snakes. A sense of desolation and disgust spread among the people, who fell silent, discouraged after their numerous complaints and sit-ins in the halls of the municipality and in front of the police stations and the security forces. A journalist who wrote that there were cases of plague was arrested on the pretext that he was spreading rumors and causing unrest. People learned of the matter and said that what the journalist had written was true, citing the names of the numerous plague victims. Then they went back to whispering, complaining, and pleading with the notables and the relatives, including Abu Jaber, the closest to them and the first witness to the project.

  I rode in the station wagon with my uncle to visit the sewage station. It was my uncle’s first visit to a sewage station, but I had seen some in the United States and in Europe, and they were truly wonderful, with public parks, fertilizer factories, and water purification centers. But this one was ugly and disgusting, a real catastrophe.

  I stood with my uncle on top of the hill looking from a distance, saddened and grieving. The cinchona trees and the beautiful oleander flowers projected an air of refinement, reminding us of Kamal’s taste and delicate touch. He had done a lot to transform the sewage project into a garden like those in Frankfurt and Berlin. He had planted shrubs and white poplars, cinchona trees, oleander, mallow, and petunias. After he left the project, the wild weeds grew tall between the trees and the mallow flowers wilted from neglect. Most of the delicate petunias died, leaving nothing in their place but long stems with thorns and wild flowers. The wind blew from the west, carrying droplets of sewage and bacteria raised higher by huge fans turning over the surface of the ponds. As for the ponds, what a mess! What a crime! Something one never could have dreamed of even in their worst nightmares, they were filled with a liquid similar to molasses, but as hard as cement and as black as mud.

  My uncle sighed deeply at the sight and had an asthma attack, while I jumped a few meters into the air when I saw a large rat as big as a wild rabbit looking at me defiantly from among the weeds and the petunias. We quickly got into the car and drove away to escape the bug bites and a flock of wasps. My uncle said breathlessly, “What a catastrophe! What a sewage station! I wish it had collapsed before it was completed.”

  The people were divided into two and even three groups, one saying that the project had become a curse, a detested environmental catastrophe. The second group said that the project was a great achievement because it protected the environment, purified it, and provided it with water and manure. The third group was torn between the two sides seeing the project as a huge blessing when considered from the angle of knowledge and history. This group was represented by Mazen Hamdan Guevara whose knowledge of the street, of the milieu, and the action, his life in Beirut, in Tunis, in Moscow, and finally here in Wadi al-Rihan had given him an edge. He knew himself, the others, the past, and the future. He was convinced that it was impossible to do any better in a Third World country and providing cheap labor. He believed that the political, economic, and social conditions had led to an imbalance in jobs, in the ranks of the leaders, and in the results; in other words, he knew that the situation was not healthy.

  Mazen wondered how we were expected to produce a civilized project in a poor environment, one lacking the basics for development and change. We were in Wadi al-Rihan and not in Frankfurt or Berlin. Here we copy them, we imitate them, and the dilemma lay in the concept of imitation. The imitator is not an innovator, no matter how much he tries, he cannot reproduce the original. He isn’t gifted and he suffers from complexes. The imitator’s hand, his mind, his character, and his feeling that he is responsible for himself or for others according to obscure universal measures that he doesn’t comprehend, constitute a handicap in his life. Take Said, for example—was he qualified to run the project? Abu Salem said that with God’s will Said was qualified because his sons told him so. They disliked Kamal who didn’t say yes and amen to Abu Salem and the rest of the shareholders who were, naturally, Abu Salem’s sons.

  Mazen’s father said, “I don’t understand, you used to say that the project without Kamal wouldn’t take, because he was the specialist and the origintator of the idea. You also used to say that the project couldn’t be run by a bull. Now you tell me that the project is working well and the odor isn’t too strong and doesn’t affect the people! I don’t understand you!”

  Mazen remained silent and motionless, but Kamal sighed and said, disgusted, “Change the subject, please. We’re here to eat; shall we Nahleh?”

  “Whatever you say,” replied Nahleh. She got up to help her stepmother in the kitchen. Violet and her mother left and only Futna stayed.

  My uncle said, quite insistent, “Do you really not smell the odor or are you telling us stories?”

  Mazen remembered the discussions he had engaged in, in the past about the organization and its composition, and wondered whether there could be an organization without order, and order without administration, and administration without qualifications and capability. The revolution started and people followed, the educated and the crooks, the successful and the failures. It led people to this stage. Before that it guided them and squeezed out the best of them. It created an unqualified and lazy generation that slept till noon and stayed up till
the morning, meeting on planes and in airports. That generation was living in a dream that had lost its luster and its myth. It had returned to the same thing it had once opposed and has become a tribe that split into many tribes. The head of the tribe has become the center of power. When we sifted the tribes we were left with one head, one leader, while the rest became a herd, a herd of heads and heads in a herd. Can an organization be built with the heads of a herd? Can a company or a factory be established that way? In this case in particular, who is the head, Kamal, the engineer, or Salem, who provided the capital, or Said, the technician with a queue of heirs standing behind him?

  Mazen said to his father categorically, “This project needs time. Give it time and it will succeed.”

  My uncle turned to Kamal and asked him, “And you intend to leave?”

  Kamal replied calmly, while continuing to eat, “I’m leaving and so is Hayk, and Violet will follow suit. Would you like to come with us?”

  My uncle was silent and ate his food mechanically while looking at his two sons, the freedom fighter who had changed so much, and the genius he couldn’t keep. He was wondering about his farm and who would inherit it. He had pawned his house, his car, and Umm Jaber’s jewelry and had never sold a parcel. Here are his sons each in a different place. None of them was interested in the farm or aspired to own it. They didn’t even have plans to build a little cottage on it to spend their summer vacations there. He wondered who would inherit it! He said, bent over his plate, “This year the season is very good and the land was very giving. Tomorrow we’ll pick the mulberry before it rots on the branches.”

  No one replied, and he raised his voice and said firmly, “On Friday we’ll all go to the farm and eat the mulberry from the tree.”

  Kamal apologized, saying, “No father, I’m leaving on Friday morning.”