by Malu Halasa
If Laila were to give advice to the bride about her future it wouldn’t be about sex. She would have warned her not to give in to social pressures of starting a family too quickly. With the upheaval of getting to know her husband and moving in with her in-laws, a young bride should at least try to enjoy herself. She adds, “It’s not the first night’s sex that’s hard to endure but the rest of your life with your husband.”
Despite Mother Fadhma and Samira, Laila’s voice is hard and mocking. Quickly diverting attention from herself, she says to Muna, “Your jadda knows many traditional proverbs about marriage.”
Fadhma, in thought, rubs her chin. “These are old sayings, maybe not good advice for such modern girls.”
“Jadda, do tell,” begs Muna.
Her grandmother gives in. “‘An old man takes a young wife, and the young men of the town rejoice.’” The mood at the table has changed and everyone is smiling.
“‘The shorter the woman, the younger she will appear to her betrothed.’ Or how about: ‘Be good to your own wife’”—Fadhma’s small eyes grow wide—“‘and you can have your neighbor’s.’” She warns the girls, “Don’t repeat these in polite company.”
“But we’re not polite,” Samira teases her mother.
Fadhma places a finger to her lips. “There is a proverb for every situation imaginable: ‘If you haven’t seen the face of your intended, examine her little brother’s.’ But let me tell you my favorite: ‘Marriage is like a watermelon; you don’t know what’s inside until—” The words die in her throat.
In the doorway Mansoor and Salem stand covered in dirt. Mansoor’s nose is bleeding and a blue-black bruise is forming on his face. He has been in a fight. Laila stifles a cry and runs to embrace her second son.
“Mummy, five boys attacked us,” he tells her. “They tried to hurt Salem but I wouldn’t let them.”
She hugs him tighter. “You fought for your brother?” She extends an arm toward Salem, who walks solemnly to her.
Fuad has been watching his mother and brothers from his highchair. When he tries climbing out, Samira frees him and keeps hold of him, as Laila informs her mother-in-law, “I knew something like this would happen.”
“That has been my feeling all along, but who could say anything to that brother of mine.”
Laila insists that Hussein must be told right away, after Fadhma thrusts a kitchen towel in her hand and she wipes the faces of her sons. The old mother has started filling a carrier bag with food for the trip to the farm. It is amazing that she knows what Laila needs before she does. Perhaps this is the unbroken connection between women who have fought and lived together for so long.
Half an hour later, Laila and her two boys make the short walk from the house to a nearby square, where belching car exhaust and the oily fumes from fetid open-air barbecues hang in the motionless air. Laila wipes the sweat from her brow and switches the bag of food from one arm to the other. A hawker approaches them: “Lighters? Flashlights? Shoelaces?” Laila dismisses him with a curt shake of her head and directs the boys to where they can catch a taxi.
Inside the cars most of the drivers are lounging, half asleep. The ones awake tend to specialize in long distances and travel all over the country. Unlike the locals who doze away the afternoon, these men are gripped by road fever. They are content only when moving, preferably at high speeds. Earning a living is only an excuse, a means to an end.
An unkempt youth leans out of his car and waves: “Where you off to, lady? I give you a good price.” She ignores him. The farm is in the mountains outside the town. She and the boys could make the hour-long walk, but the road is straight uphill and none of them is in the mood for hiking. Because of the butcher’s van, the family rarely comes to the service square. Laila hopes that the treat of a taxi will cheer up her sons. By now Salem and Mansoor should have been fighting over who gets to pick the best car.
“Which one?” Laila attempts to draw them out, but they, saying nothing, only look at her. So she keeps their usual criteria in mind. In the past they shunned newer vehicles and selected ones that were badly dented, their roadworthiness proven by their battle scars. Some of the cars are unexpectedly luxurious, like a Mercedes-Benz smuggled out of one of the war zones and picked up for a song on the Jordanian-Iraqi border. But not even the best engineering lasts long in the gear-grinding roads of the mountains, and the taxis present a uniformly dilapidated spectacle no matter their age or model.
A teenager washes one that looks like a patchwork quilt. The doors, spoiler, and hood of different makes and colors give the impression that the car has been glued together. “Is Mikhail around?” Laila inquires.
The youth tosses his rag into a bucket and whistles twice through his fingers. A portly man emerges from a cheap eating establishment, brushing crumbs of food from the corner of his mouth.
“The butcher’s wife,” he says, wiping his hand on his pants before shaking hers. “How often we sing the praises of your husband and his excellent product. Umm Salem”—he notices her sons’ faces—“this looks grave indeed.” As he bends down, the folds of his stomach nearly burst through the straining buttons that hold his shirt together. “Whoever it was, they fought dirty.” He pulls each boy closer to him. “Should we go and find them in the car right now and teach them a lesson?”
Mansoor kicks a pebble into the gutter and says, his voice barely audible, “No, Mr. Mikhail. I will get them myself.”
Mikhail asks Laila, “What happened?”
She tries to appear unconcerned, but she can barely look at her sons and the driver without crying. “I’m not sure, a fight after school.”
Mikhail opens the back door for the butcher’s wife. Before the boys can clamber in after her, the driver directs them to the front seat. “You guys belong with me. My car is yours, but before we leave we must take the necessary precautions,” and he walks to a ragged sumac tree and soft drink stall, where he buys four bottles of lime-green soda from an elderly woman who pours the contents of each bottle into a clear plastic pouch, inserts a straw, and ties the neck shut. Mikhail hands everyone a pouch and then takes his place behind the steering wheel. “Everybody ready?”
Salem and Mansoor nod over their straws.
He starts up the car’s loud engine and they roar off.
Laila, sinking down into the seat, barely touches her drink. It has taken everything out of her to walk through the streets of the town with her battered sons. She is moved by the driver’s kindness and feels anger only with herself, her husband, and the situation.
Mikhail’s taxi seems to be the only one on the road. Even the cries of children playing in the streets sound faint, as though coming from afar. In an hour the entire town, even the service square, will be at a complete standstill as everyone, regardless of age, gender, or religion, retreats inside from the afternoon heat to nap or work after lunch.
In the backseat Laila is alone with her thoughts. She and Hussein will have to decide what to do, and it won’t be easy. The whole family has been involved, and their reward is the wonderful home they live in. She corrects herself—that hasn’t been their reward, but hers. She encouraged Hussein first to build the new house and then to furnish it. The others came along whether they liked it or not.
With clarity, she sees what she has been hiding from herself: she isn’t the easiest person to live with. There is something in her that will not leave her husband alone, and she has tested him at every available opportunity. Who does he love more, his wife or his sister? Who runs the house better, his wife or his stepmother? She has been so intent on her petty struggles that she has failed to notice that her husband no longer cares. All she nags him about is whether he has kept his side of the bargain, which he has adhered to scrupulously. She twists uncomfortably in her seat. She had mistaken that for approval, as if only possessions were enough.
While she was obsessed with buying and ordering, he occupied himself by drinking. During one of the family gatherings to celebrate the new h
ouse, Laila lost her temper and lashed out at Abu Za’atar. He had taken her husband to too many nightclubs and late-night drinking sessions. But the old vulture refused to be intimidated. “Look around,” he said. “You have nothing to complain about. Real luxury requires real sacrifice.”
Soon afterward Laila railed against Mother Fadhma and accused her of raising a drunk. The women did not speak for weeks. Now that events are overtaking her, Laila can no longer overlook her culpability for her husband’s decline. Disgusted by her anger and greed, she makes a fist and raises it to her mouth. They need a plan. The fist becomes tighter. In all matters she endeavors not to be drawn in or compromised. Indifference and resolution have shielded her; her personal defenses are impenetrable, this much she knows. Her only weak spot is her children. There is nothing she would not do for them.
She attempts to follow the conversation in the front seat. Salem’s delicate laughter rings out at one of Mikhail’s jokes. They look normal enough, two schoolboys—one of them worse for wear—on a special outing. Laila tugs gently at Mansoor’s ear and asks, “Feeling better?”
He turns around, his expression mischievous. “Oh, Mummy, if we meet those boys now, Mr. Mikhail and I would show them a thing or two!”
Laila forces a smile. Mikhail, watching through his rearview mirror, adds soothingly, “They’re fine, Umm Salem, don’t worry about them.”
She leans back and gazes through the window. The passing scenery is like a narcotic. As the car climbs higher she can see out across the desert, where every now and then water unexpectedly nourishes the sand and a patch of green intrudes. The car stops to let a herd of sheep cross the road.
“Why are sheep the dumbest creatures on earth?” the driver asks the boys. It is his turn to laugh out loud when Salem replies, “Because their parents eat grass.”
The shepherds come into view in their distinctive rural clothing. A little boy wears a knitted cap and a girl, slightly older, has kohl circles drawn around her big, dark eyes and tiny, delicately hennaed hands. Salem and Mansoor wave to the shy children on the roadside close to the herd, their family’s only means of support.
“Let’s hear a song!”
Mikhail slips a cassette into a battered player in the dashboard and the car fills with Lebanese folk music: “Salaam alaikum, salaam alaikum, bahi salaam, mini alaikum…”
He raises his voice over the music: “If we weren’t driving, we’d be dancing the dabke. Tonight we’ll dance at the wedding feast.”
He gets the boys to sing along, their high, soft voices out of key. Laila joins in but can’t follow the simple words. They have almost reached the turnoff for the farm.
“Mikhail, if it’s not too much trouble, could we stop and admire the view?” She needs a few minutes to gather her thoughts. The taxi pulls into a convenient clearing near the path that leads to Ayun Musa.
Everyone gets out. While Salem and Mansoor practice dancing with the taxi driver to the music, Laila leans against the side of the car and surveys the scene below: the houses and the buildings of the town in miniature surrounded by dry brown fields and steppe, the peaks in the distance falling off into a violent cleft in the landscape and a secretive river glinting like a mirror, revealing itself only here or there. On the other side rise the green hills of the West Bank. With the air smelling of animals and crushed earth, it is so tranquil. She can almost be lulled into believing that everything is all right. Then disgusted, she berates herself. If she can lie so duplicitously to herself she should expect no mercy from others. Done with self-delusion, she gets back into the taxi and waits for the others.
15
Heavy wooden doors open and a stooped figure in a scarf enters the church. At the front, by an altar, an Orthodox priest swings a heavy censer and the air fills with dense, sweet-smelling clouds of frankincense. As the smoke dims the chandeliers and swirls into fantastic shapes in the thick bars of afternoon light, his voice praying for “plentiful solicitude and tenderness” interlocks with that of a chanter singing “Lord have mercy” forty times.
Mother Fadhma has arrived early. Usually she meticulously times her arrival in the dazzling Church of the Mosaic minutes after the Ninth Hour service has finished and evening vespers have begun, so those in attendance will have already settled in their seats. All her life she has prayed in this church that is more than a second home; it is where she is incapable of lying to herself or to others. This is why she is so unwilling to meet her fellow worshippers. God is a minor consideration compared to the town’s elderly women. But the attack on her grandsons demands a change in schedule, and it is not only worship that has brought her here.
In pews, those who are hard of hearing lean forward to catch the elusive prayers of the priest. “Thy people despair. O Forbearing One, allow Thy Mother, Theotokos, to intercede for us, and save the unfortunate and undeserving…” One or two members of the aged congregation have given up the struggle, and their heads are bowed in sleep rather than devotion. Others are lost in profane thoughts. In years gone by, these same women once met at the cistern. Even though they no longer carry water to their families, now in church, every day, they hope to bring back something precious. Many of the women are distantly related and the majority are over seventy. The basis of their fellowship is the shared experience of poverty. In times of want, they pooled everything they owned, and the destitute village eventually flourished and grew into a town. Now all their collective efforts have been overlooked, and they represent the vestiges of a disappearing culture. More out of necessity than spite, they cultivate their memories as stubbornly as their husband-farmers once tended the fields.
Mother Fadhma proceeds along the north aisle. She would like to kneel at the statue of Theotokos, the Birth Giver of God the Creator and Christ, His Son, but the pain in her legs prevents her. Woodenly she clings on to a convenient railing. Unlike the icon on the templon showing the Annunciation, the first meeting between a willowy young Mary and an archangel, this figure of Christ’s mother is in the prime of womanhood. With arms outstretched in benediction, her painted face exudes sober serenity. However great Fadhma’s own distress may be, it can never match the suffering of the cherished Birth Giver who witnessed the crucifixion and resurrection. Fadhma crosses herself and prays, “Oh, Mother, how I need you.”
The adjacent candle stand is nearly full. The town’s elderly have their own burdens to bear. Fadhma takes candles from a nearby box and lights one against another’s flame before scraping its waxen stem and securing it in a metal holder. Every important event in her life has been illuminated by light. Candles were exchanged at the baptisms of all her children; now they are prayed over to comfort the torments of old age.
Fadhma meditates on a troubled household: brave little Mansoor who saved his brother, and Salem, who will feel the pressure of being the eldest in years to come. How will these children survive? Her instincts say they will. Fadhma includes a third candle for Fuad. The children are the easiest ones. It is more difficult to pray for family members who are sinners like herself.
That afternoon the usual worries multiplied with the arrival of Hussein and the sad soldier. Once Abu Za’atar snuck into their house like a cuckoo, her maternal reflexes took over. She wasn’t going to allow those she loved to be abused and turned into another of her brother’s victims.
But she hasn’t come to Theotokos to only complain. “I want to thank you for my granddaughter Muna.”
She is grateful that the girl arrived safely, but she and Samira share too many private jokes. Try as she might, Fadhma cannot think of her daughter without a growing uneasiness. If she doesn’t trust Samira, “who will, dear Mother of Christ, God and all of creation?” She stares at the statue. Compassion like a worried mother’s love shines out of its eyes, as the priest’s singing—“Oh, Divine, Great One, do not forsake us entirely…”—envelops them.
Fadhma completes the Orthodox sign of the cross and thinks of her daughter-in-law. She would have preferred a quiet word with Laila
, to compare impressions as it were, but Laila is too controlling for her own good. She can handle work, even an unsatisfactory marriage—Fadhma is not blind—but the boys’ fight unnerved her. Most days in church Fadhma would revisit the long-standing enmity between the two women, which started with her daughter-in-law, in a fit of rage and insecurity, screaming, “This is my house. I’m in charge!” and pushing Fadhma out the front door. Now, as the old woman lights another candle, she prays for the courage to put their antipathies aside. Only combined determination will protect the family.
Undoubtedly the person who has suffered the most is the one closest to her heart. Fadhma handles a seventh candle with the utmost care. Today she saw Hussein challenge her brother. It is a good sign, and she looks to the statue for confirmation, but its expression, leaden and unperturbed, leaves Fadhma alone with her tribulations. The old woman feels determination ebbing away. Where is the Blessed Mother’s mercy? Fadhma, conscious of her own frailty, grips the railing before lighting a last candle for her husband. Only his belief in God and the family will strengthen her weakening resolve. Surely his example will illuminate a way.
As the singing for the Ninth Hour Mass continues, she turns away from the statue. Instead of gravitating toward her usual hiding place at the back of the church, for her grandchildren’s sake Fadhma is drawn to a central wooden pew. In times of real need she requires the fortitude of her neighbors, and against her better judgment she takes great pains to appeal to every one of them: some she stares at, others she makes a real place in her heart. Their reactions, ranging from patently ignoring her to bestowing a half wink or crinkled smile, make her feel begrudgingly welcomed. Satisfied, she slides into the pew that she and her husband occupied when they pondered the mysteries of the icons together.