Maria woke up ill, and Marouf called in the doctor. “Heal my wife, surgeon,” he said. “I beg of you. Make her well.” The doctor examined Maria and said, “The change in climate is not doing her good. Take her to Deir ash-Shakeef, and have her rest for three months. I cannot identify the symptoms, but a three-month rest should cure whatever ails her.”
Marouf took his wife, accompanied by one squadron, and sought the healing air of Deir ash-Shakeef. Within a few weeks, she began to feel better, if slightly heavier. “My husband,” she said. “I am not ill, unless being with child is a disease.” Marouf jumped with joy.
Some while later, Arbusto paid a visit to Marouf in Deir ash-Shakeef. The villain presented himself as a rich merchant and offered Marouf a number of opulent textiles for his wife. “A glorious gift, honest merchant,” said Marouf, “but what have I done to deserve such generosity?” Arbusto said he only wished for one thing, a letter from the chief of forts and battlements authorizing the bearer to travel the lands without interference. “Your reputation for honesty and valor is well known,” Arbusto said. “If I have such a letter, no one will dare accost me.” Marouf obliged.
Arbusto slept the night outside Deir ash-Shakeef. In the morning, he tore his garments, washed his hair with sand, and hit his face with rocks. He called on Marouf, who exclaimed in shock, “What has become of you, honest merchant?” Arbusto said, “Twenty leagues north of town, I was waylaid by a band of ruffians. I showed them your letter, and they spat on it. ‘The chief of forts and battlements is a limp braggart and a toothless house-cat that professes to be a lion,’ the scofflaws said. They overwhelmed me and stole all my belongings.”
The hero stood up and yelled at the ceiling, “I, a house-cat?” He stormed off to retrieve his sword. “Stay here,” he told the merchant. “I will return with your valuables and the valueless heads of your attackers.” He and his men headed north, leaving his wife with two guards.
Arbusto paced before the soldiers, pretending to be anxious. He removed bonbons from his left pocket and stuffed them in his mouth. One of the guards asked what he was eating. “Date bonbons,” Arbusto replied. “Would you like some?” Out of his right pocket, he retrieved a bunch and gave them to the guards. Within a half hour, the sedative had coursed through their veins and the guards lay unconscious. Arbusto broke into the princess’s chambers, covered dormant Maria in a large burlap bag, and bore her away.
Beirut Airport’s arrival lounge seemed fuzzy, like the imprecision of settings in dreams. The space itself hadn’t changed, but the air was off-kilter, reeking of camphor, cigarettes, and humanity. Dust motes scurried across the stone floor, terrified of being stepped on. The ubiquitous posters of the unsmiling Syrian president forced me to stare ahead. His secret-service men, in polyester civilian, were only slightly less numerous than his pictures.
I negotiated the fare with the taxi driver, a man as old as my father. He asked for an exorbitant sum. His Mercedes was restored and revamped. Look. See? Not a scratch, not one bullet hole. “Look at me,” I said. “Do I look like a guy who cares what kind of car I get in?” He came down twenty. I went up two. He said our village was far, at least forty minutes. I said I could find another taxi.
Banks of ominous slate clouds hovered as we drove along the mountain road. Trees seemed sparser. “Kindling,” the driver explained. The car spasmed with every pothole. “At least this area is safe for now,” the driver said. “For your people at least. You’re Druze, right?”
“Half,” I said.
He turned to me questioningly, as if the concept was utterly foreign. He waited for me to elaborate, and I didn’t. “Why did you come back? People don’t return anymore.”
“Wedding.”
“And you’re arriving empty-handed?”
“My bag will be here tomorrow.”
“It used to be that emigrants returned with sacks and sacks of beautiful things, money and jewelry. They struck gold abroad and returned home to be men. Everyone leaves now, but no one returns. If I were you, I wouldn’t have come back, not even for a wedding.”
“I’ve only been gone a few months.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “It sure looks like you’ve been away longer.”
I wanted to look in a mirror, examine my face. Did I look like a foreigner?
King Saleh breathed the ill winds of infirmity. The doctors advised a month’s rest in a moderate climate. The king and his courtiers moved to al-Mansoura, where the fresh breezes had healed many a disorder. He regained his health and returned to Cairo, only to relapse. He heard the knells.
“Bring me my son,” the king said. Baybars rushed to his king’s bedside. “You built a neighborhood for me once, my son,” the king whispered. “Give me a mosque that will bear my name for eternity.”
Baybars called on the architects, builders, and artisans. “I will not know sleep and neither will you until this stately mosque stands in honor of our sultan. Begin.” A mosque of unequaled grandeur was erected in one month. On the Friday after it was finished, the king visited the mosque, helped by his attendants. “I am a happy man,” he said. He returned to the diwan and tried to sit, but was unable. He was carried to his bed. “Turn me toward the Qibla,” the king said. “We belong to God, and to Him we return.” He lay facing east. “I witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Prophet of God.” The king died.
Our village sparkled at sunset. A guard in a dark suit and frayed white shirt, with a machine gun hanging on his shoulder, stopped the taxi at the gate to my father’s house. He bent his head to peer through the driver’s window. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“Who’re you?” I replied.
He cracked up. “Who’re you? You’re not dressed for a wedding.” Another machine-gun-toting, cheap-suited man joined him and bent to check me out. He grinned, obviously having begun his libations early.
“If the groom was worthy,” I said, “I’d have dressed better, but since he’s no more than a silly communist betraying the great cause, I can’t be bothered.”
Both men broke into tipsy laughing fits. The second man exclaimed, “I know you.”
I tried to sound grave. “Go tell your leader that such frivolities are beneath him. I’m here to give him a tongue-lashing.”
“Spare the poor man,” joked the first. “He doesn’t know the trouble he’s getting into.”
More men gathered around. The floodlit house was about twenty yards from the gate, and the entire front garden was overfilled with fighters desperately trying to pass for wedding guests. The bey’s guards alone numbered more than thirty. Ever since the civil war started, he’d begun to pick up protection the way a stray bitch in heat picked up studs.
“I know you,” the second guard repeated. “We met a year ago. You’re not here.”
“I certainly am not. I’m a figment of everyone’s imagination. Now, make way. Don’t make me get out of the car.”
The men guffawed. One shouted, “The brother of the bride is here.” Another corrected, “The brother of the new boss has arrived.” A machine gun was fired into the air, momentarily shocking any merriment out of my system. It was followed by another and another. A few yards away, the bey’s guards followed suit, joining Elie’s militia in an ecstatic firing orgasm.
After the machine guns stilled, the diesel generator took over, an old one that sounded like the chugalug of a steam train. The electricity in the village was off. My father had built this house as a summer home, but the fighting had forced the family to move into it temporarily. Though it was comfortable enough as a vacation house, it was neither spacious nor adequate for full-time family living. It was definitely not grand enough for a wedding.
My father came out of the house when he heard the machine-gun welcome. Guests hadn’t begun to arrive yet. When he saw me emerge from the taxi, he looked as if someone were speaking to him in a language he couldn’t grasp. The expression on his face was worth all the trouble I had gone to. I could see him wan
ting to move toward me. I imagined the muscles beneath his suit tensing, waiting for a release that had been long in coming. I climbed the five steps toward him. His eyes wore a moist film of my face. As soon as my lips kissed his cheeks, his arms engulfed me. I allowed myself to melt in his arms.
Another round of machine-gun fire shocked us apart. The men, touched by the unfolding scene before them, father and son brought together again, expressed their appreciation by firing at the sky.
My father led me into the house. A cursory glance showed the family and close friends getting set for the arrival of guests, a raucous flurry of activity. My cousin Hafez was the first to notice me, from across the hall. He was sipping a scotch as he pushed a table to one side with his thigh. Shock bloomed on his face, then a smile. He mouthed, “What, my brother?” I smiled back.
My mother emerged from the corridor that led to the bedrooms. Whenever she felt pressured, whenever she felt she was fighting alone against the world, the first thing she did was make sure she looked her best. Even had I not known much about the reasons for this wedding, I would have guessed she didn’t approve, because she looked striking. Farah Diba would have killed the shah to look like her. My mother wore a high chignon, pinned randomly with a number of single cream pearls. The front of her black hair was pulled tight, with a part in the middle. Her ears wore four pearls each, a black surrounded by two creams and a large teardrop cream dropping below the others. Her strapless dress was cream-colored as well, fitted and tight, studded randomly with the same pearls. “Tell the idiots to stop shooting,” she snapped at my father. “It’s a wedding, not a bacchanal.” She stopped, stared at me, aghast. I smiled. Her hand covered her mouth. She shivered, swayed, and dropped to one knee. I heard the faint rip of material. My father rushed to her. Soon practically everyone in the house surrounded her.
“Make room,” yelled Aunt Wasila, rudely pushing people aside. “Don’t crowd her. She needs to breathe.” The bey, who was bending to help my mother, was unceremoniously shoved aside with the others. “Clear out. Guests will be arriving soon.”
“I thought he was a ghost,” my mother told my father.
“He’s not, my dear. He’s all real.” His concern made his smile seem wistful. “Are you all right?” He helped her stand.
“She’ll be fine. Just give her a few minutes.” Aunt Wasila took my mother by the hand and led her back toward the corridor. “You,” she called to me, “come in and speak to your mother while she recovers.” On the floor, a fallen pearl gleamed in her wake.
Maria awoke in dimness. She felt woozy and disoriented until she realized that the bed was swaying gently. She asked, “Where am I?” and Arbusto, covered in darkness, said, “At sea. Toward Genoa.” Maria tried to guess at what had happened. She considered what had befallen her, such humiliation after such glory. She wept in silence and surrendered her fate to God. For three days and three nights, tears were her lovers, her intimates. And on the third day, a storm erupted.
The sky unleashed its waters, filling the sea beyond its brim. The only light to lead the way was lightning, and thunder called the boat in every direction. A fateful gale broke the mast. Storms and squalls battered the lonely ship for days and weeks and months and months. Sailors lost their sanity, and their captain lost control of his vessel. On the day the storms abated, Arbusto climbed to the deck of the ship, which was moored on the shallow shores of an island.
“Where are we?” Arbusto asked the captain, who replied that the island was called Tabish. A neglected monastery peeked above the woods blanketing the island. The captain sent the passengers ashore with his men, who had to cut wood to repair the ship’s battered ribs of oak.
Upon the deserted island, Maria felt even weaker, and labor overwhelmed her. “I must relieve myself,” she informed her kidnapper, and walked into the woods. Arbusto did not object, nor did he accompany her, for he knew the island presented no possible escape. Into the forest she marched and marched, concentrated on one step followed by another, did not dwell on her hopelessness. She reached the monastery and climbed upon the abandoned altar, where she delivered a baby boy as beautiful as the new moon. Maria covered her son in her robe, kissed him, and said, “Your fate, food to hungry fish, is certain if you accompany me. I leave you in God’s house, to His mercy.” She closed her wet eyes, knelt on her weary knees, and prayed. “Promise me, O servant of this holy site, in the name of God and all His illustrious prophets. Guard this boy, and protect him from any evil that may prey upon his soul.”
She left her boy and returned to the ship. A week later, she was brought before her father in Genoa. Arbusto realized that, if he could pass as a king’s judge, why not as a priest. He donned the apparel of a man of God and led Maria to an audience with the king, who asked his daughter, “Have you abandoned your faith?”
“I have abandoned more than that.”
“You must be punished for marrying a Muslim,” her father said. “You will be a prisoner in your quarters for the rest of time.” And a weeping Maria spent her days gazing out her window, waiting for God’s redemption.
The tear was on the left hip of my mother’s dress, minor but conspicuous. Aunt Wasila knelt and examined it. My mother swiveled sideways before the full-length mirror, her hand smoothing the rent fabric. “Let’s try to tape it from the back,” she said.
I wondered why Aunt Wasila was being so helpful. She had always kept her distance from the family, and all the more since Uncle Wajih had passed away four years earlier.
“Tape is tacky,” Aunt Wasila said. “It’s a small tear. Where’s your sewing kit?”
“You look great,” I murmured.
“You don’t,” my mother said. “Go change.”
I explained that my bag hadn’t arrived yet. She asked if I was having any problems in Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with my simple no, she asked about school. Aunt Wasila pulled a long thread through the rip.
“I thought you’d need me,” I said.
My mother relaxed visibly. “That’s sweet. Now, comb your hair. You’re wearing jeans to your sister’s wedding. What’s this world coming to?”
My cousin Mona knocked and entered, paying Aunt Wasila no mind. “Lina wants to know why her brother hasn’t gone in to see her,” Mona said, and laughed. “Although she didn’t exactly call him her brother.”
Lina kicked out all our girl cousins when I entered her room. “They fuss so much that I end up trying to soothe their nerves instead of the other way round.” She sat on a taboret, gazing at her reflection in the mirror. Her makeup was done, and she already had on her wedding dress. All that was left was pinning the veil. “Are you trying to steal my thunder?” she asked.
“When have I ever been able to do that?” I sat down on the bed. My feet hurt. “How can I compete when you look so grand?”
“You’re being so nice. How come? Are you sober?”
I stretched out on her bed, sank my head into her pillow, breathed in her perfumes. I fervently wished that we could lie there and listen to David Bowie or be howled and moaned at by Led Zeppelin, the two of us. She stood up, and I tried to see if she’d gained weight. She stood taller than anyone in the family. My mother was tall as well, but she was thin and bony. Lina wasn’t fat, but she could fill a dress, which made it difficult to gauge her weight. She sat on the bed, leaned back on her arms. “I wish I could lie down, but my hair would be a disaster if I did.”
I got on my knees, crushed two pillows together, and placed them at the foot of the bed. “Lie this way,” I said. “Trust me.”
She lay back gently, her neck held up by the pillows, and her hair floating in air. She patted the bottom half of her dress, which seemed to rise like a soufflé once she was prone. “Take my shoes off. Ah, that’s much better.”
I lay back down and had a close encounter with her white-stockinged feet. I scrunched my nose. She wiggled her toes. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “And I’m so happy that you’re not asking me stupid questions.”
“There are too many. I didn’t know where to begin. Where are you going to live?”
“Don’t start,” she said.
“I’m not asking why, I’m just being practical. I’m not asking if you love him or anything like that. Where are you going to live? You can’t go to the barracks, or wherever he’s holed up these days. He certainly can’t live here with you as long as he’s fighting.”
“We’ll buy a place when the war is over. Until then, we’ll keep going like this. It won’t be for long. We’ll make do.”
“How will he support you? You quit school. Why? You’re the smartest person I know.”
“I’ll finish later. Look, I’ll make it work. Shut up. I’m resting.”
Marouf and his men could not find any bandits or brigands. He inquired at every village along the way whether anyone knew of a band of scoundrels who had waylaid an innocent merchant. Soon he began to guess at the merchant’s mendacity. Marouf returned to Deir ash-Shakeef to discover his wife gone. “I am a vain and daft man,” he declared.
He sent out parties to search for the deceitful villain. One party followed Arbusto’s trail to the city of Jaffa, where it was discovered that he had sailed on a ship bound for Genoa. Marouf called his men. “I will set sail and retrieve my wife and butcher everyone involved in this perfidy. Return to the Fort of Marqab, and perform my duties until I return.”
In Genoa, Marouf set forth toward the king’s palace. He unsheathed his sword and prepared to attack the gate, but a fork-tailed swallow circled his weapon twice and flew before him. Marouf followed the swallow’s flight and reached one of the palace’s towers, which was covered with a blooming canary vine. He heard faint weeping, which pinched his heart, for he recognized the sounds of his beloved. “I hear you,” he called.
He climbed the vine, clinging to nooks and fissures in the stones, until he reached the topmost window. Inside, he saw his wife sitting before a still loom.
The Hakawati Page 42