“Well?” she asked.
“He’s nice,” I said, not wanting to give her the satisfaction but dying to tell her every detail.
“Aha! You like him. I can tell. But you don’t want to admit I’m the master matchmaker around here,” she boasted, patting herself on the back.
“Okay, smarty pants. But what if I didn’t? You tried to push me off on some strange man! What kind of an Arab are you?” I joked.
“He’s hardly a stranger. He’s been your brother’s best friend since the Battle of Karameh. Majid is the man Yousef saved when he took the bullet in his leg in sixty-eight,” Fatima said.
It surprised me that Majid had ever been involved in fighting. “How did a PLO fighter get a scholarship to study in England?”
“Yousef found out that Majid had been a perfect student in the camps and had tried but failed to get a scholarship to study. So your brother set out to make sure his friend got one. He had connections with UN staff because of his work at the school, and he was able to get Majid’s application to the right people.”
“He didn’t tell me that,” I said.
“I’m sure he will. Just tell me first, who is the master matchmaker around here?”
“My silly sister-in-law.”
“Good to hear you admit it. That look you gave me on your way out was scary,” she laughed.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The Letter
1981
MAJID PERSISTED IN AMAL’S thoughts. He filled her daydreams, where she replayed their time together, searching for hidden meanings to his words. She began to grow agitated when a full week had passed without word from him. And for another two weeks, Amal tossed in the anxiety of waiting for Majid’s next visit to her brother’s home.
She continually surveyed her surroundings for the dented little white Fiat, hoping—no, praying—to find him visiting a patient in the camp or training physicians there. She listened vigilantly for news of his whereabouts, impending house calls, or plans to visit his comrade. Her condition was easily discerned among the women of Shatila, and they whispered in private when they saw the young schoolteacher looking about for—they were sure— signs of el doktor Majid. Though gossip it was, the women did not talk out of malice, but rather, out of habit and nostalgia for their younger days when love had been the grandest of possibilities. It is also true that in a refugee camp, where so many people live in so small a space, not even secrets can find a place to hide.
As was their routine by now, a band of girls caught up to their teacher on her walk to school one morning. “Good morning, Abla Amal!” Amal turned to her students, each in her blue uniform, white hair ribbons, books strapped to her back. Raja, a slight girl with mischievous eyes, came running. “Abla Amal,” she panted, “el doktor Majid is coming to Mirvat’s house tomorrow to check on her father.”
The mere mention of Majid’s name stirred in Amal a thrill she attempted to hide from her students. “That’s good. How is Abu Jalal doing after his surgery?” she inquired with labored casualness.
“El doktor is coming in the evening, abla,” Raja reiterated, ignoring her teacher’s question.
“El abla asked you about Abu Jalal!” another girl growled at Raja, then lowered her voice, adding firmly with a gratuitous light shove, “Not about el doktor!”
“Okay, girls.” Amal gave them a sideways glance, endeavoring to fill the title of “abla” with the authority it merited. “Go on to your classes.”
And along they went, giggling, tickled to have had a part in a subject of gossip overheard from their mothers.
Amal remained late at the school, preparing for the next week’s lessons and passing time until evening’s approach, hoping for an encounter on her way back. Finally she left, walking slowly the long way past Abu Jalal’s house, looking in all the alleyways wide enough to accommodate a parked car, but she saw no white Fiat.
Dejection was on her face when she entered her brother’s house.
“Where were you?” Fatima hurried toward Amal, helping her unload her books.
“I had to prepare some lesson plans for the next three weeks,” Amal answered quietly.
“I sent some kids to fetch you. Majid was here. He left not fifteen minutes ago,” Fatima said. Again, the mention of his name stirred Amal’s depths.
“Salamat yakhti.” Yousef approached his sister with a kiss on her forehead “Majid left this book for you. Said to take good care of it.”
She took the book slowly. Majid’s prized copy of Al-Sufi’s Suwarul Kawakib. She looked up at her brother, inspecting his eyes for remnants of a conversation with Majid. Surely Yousef would not have taken the book without questions, nor would Majid have given it without explanation. An exchange between them would not occur with deception or hidden liberties. Honesty is a matter of honor. And honor is paramount.
Still, Yousef said no more and his face betrayed no useful hints. Amal found nothing in her brother’s expression but an annoying artlessness.
Yousef yawned. He stretched his bulky limbs, rolled his head toward his wife. “Fatooma, habibti”—as he addressed Fatima when he wanted something—“I’m going to bed early, are you?”
“Your brother is wearing me out,” Fatima whispered happily in Amal’s ear.
“Agh”—the sister covered her ears—“I don’t want to hear about my brother in that way.”
Fatima kissed Amal’s cheek, laughed her way into the sleeping room, and closed the door behind her. Amal walked out into the courtyard, the old book secure in her grip. She brought it close to her nose and fancied that she could sense Majid’s cologne mixed with the antiquity of the leather book cover. She opened it, staleness coming off the parchment pages. Inside, tucked in between the cover and the first page, lay a small white envelope: To Amal.
She took it. Yousef knows. Majid would not have made him an unwitting messenger. Fatima knows, too. Going to sleep early was part of their conspiracy.
Now, Amal would also know.
Bismillah Arrahman Arraheem
Dearest Amal,
I am not sure how to start this letter, except to tell you that since that day I picked you up from the airport, I have thought of little else but you. And since that evening on the beach, you have been in my dreams. I have avoided coming to Shatila with the hope of making sense of what I feel. But every thought comes to this: I am in love with you.
I have given my life to the resistance and sworn many an oath to the struggle. I thought my heart was too full with pledges and responsibilities to make another promise. But you have touched my heart in places I had not known were there. And I am compelled to one more promise, and it is this: If you will have me, I will love you and protect you for all my days.
Yours, Majid
Amal read it again. And again. Ba-boom, ba-boom. Her heart beat as vigorously with love as it once had beaten with fear.
“I wish I could see the look on her face when she reads it,” Fatima said to Yousef, annoyed that he would not reveal to her the contents of the letter, which Majid had been obliged to share with Yousef.
Fatima pouted, playfully vexed to be the last to know. She narrowed her eyes to focus a thought. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to join Amal in the courtyard,” she warned her husband, unable to contain a smile despite her best effort to give a serious ultimatum.
“Habibti, please stay with me,” Yousef whined like a little boy, lying on their bed with Falasteen asleep in his arms.
She kept her eyes narrowed and crinkled her nose, and Yousef delighted to watch her face surrender to a willing smile. In a last attempt to hold her ground, she bit her lip, and the sight of her thus was more beauty than Yousef could bear.
“I suppose I can wait until morning,” she said, turning to retrieve her nightshirt from a drawer.
The baby had put extra flesh on Fatima’s body and stretched her belly, and now she hid herself self-consciously behind the dresser to change her clothes.
“Go back with the baby,” she
ordered Yousef when he rose toward her.
“Why? Falasteen is sleeping.”
“Well, I’m just changing. Go back.” She held her nightgown to hide her body. The light switch was out of reach. Yousef understood and lowered himself before her.
“Let me see,” he whispered at her knees. She stopped, trembling as if he would see her, touch her for the first time. As she loosened her hold on the gown, her husband rested his head against her waist. He kissed the body that had borne his child, moving along her curves, swallowing life from the marks of motherhood on this woman who held his heart, dreams, and aches inside of her. The gown fell completely and love rose from them over their small dwelling in the Shatila refugee camp. From a man making love to his wife and from his sister in the courtyard, reading and rereading a promise of love.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Yes”
1981
WE MET IN SECRET two days later. Majid wanted my answer in private, away from voices and expectations. So it was, at our favorite spot just outside the quaint seaside village of Tabarja, that Majid and I held each other for the first time. The blue Mediterranean lapped at our bare feet and stretched at its far edges into a cloudless sky. You could not discern where the ocean ended or the sky began, and somewhere in all that blue the startling enchantment of love found me.
Majid turned to me, his penetrating eyes black in the blue light.
“I talked to your brother. You know I had to do that first . . . ,” he said, breaking into the tension. “Will you marry me, Amal?” he asked in sincere, committed blue, the ocean and the sky his comrades and conspirators in the question.
I had been waiting to answer. I had practiced in the mirror saying “Yes.” A surprised, happy “Yes.” A matter-of-fact “Yes, of course, I will.” So much preparation just to utter that little word.
But all I could do was nod my head in assent, and my body took him in its arms, absorbed the lovely blue crackling with love.
He brushed his lips against mine, pulled me closer, and I felt as if I had lived all my life for that kiss.
“I love you,” he said.
The most perfect words.
Whatever you feel, keep it inside. Mama was wrong. “I love you, too,” I whispered at his ear, willingly falling into my words.
I listened to the breath entering and leaving me in Majid’s arms. Never had I been so aware of life or so grateful to live. To have a sense of blue.
We returned together, to give the news. Some of my students caught up to us as we walked through the alleyways. They greeted us, giggled, ran away and returned, blurted out “el doktor Majid and Abla Amal are going to get maaarrriieeed,” then ran away again.
The span of Majid’s shoulders moving next to me, the music of his steps, the clearing of this throat provoked a dream that rearranged my life, putting him at its center forevermore.
TWENTY-NINE
Love
1981
THEY MET DAILY DURING their monthlong engagement. Majid came in the very early morning that had been so magical in Amal’s childhood. She waited eagerly each time, her heart suspended in the mist of daybreak, until she heard his steps approaching. He walked briskly, impatient to see passion expand her bottomless black eyes when they set upon him. Though when they beheld each other, their desire to hold and feel one another was tempered by rectitude, by loyalty and respect for Yousef ’s and Fatima’s good names, and by their approaching wedding.
They talked, less for meaning than to hear the other’s voice. Majid learned the nuances of an earnest love, the lines it drew from the eyes of the woman who loved him truly, the fullness of his own breath in her presence, the way time passed too quickly when they were together and too slowly when they were apart.
Their affection seemed to take on a life of its own during these times together, such that Majid and Amal had a sense that words were intruders. So they spoke in whispers. Time thus passed over these soft exchanges, the occasional laugh or smile offering each something upon which to hang his and her heart, until the sun started its ascent, and they prayed together the first salat.
Low to the earth, the sun found the two praying and cast long shadows that stretched their forms far behind them. Then they left one another, contented.
“Are you coming after work?” she inquired each time.
His answer was always the same. “Inshalla,” God willing.
* * *
The evenings were lovely, always seeming full, hopeful, and clear when Majid was near. I can see them now as if I were an outsider looking through someone’s window. The five of us, Fatima, Yousef, Majid, baby Falasteen, and I, sit around the plates of fried tomatoes, hummus, fuul, olives, zaatar, eggs, yogurt, and cucumber. A starry black sky is our roof in the courtyard where we all talk and laugh, as if we had been together all our lives. Falasteen plunges her hand into the hummus and Fatima licks it off her baby’s fingers. The baby loves this and continues to stretch her little fingers to her mother’s mouth. I feel then that I can’t wait to have a baby of my own.
Some nights Majid brought his telescope and taught me secrets of the night’s sky. Once, on a Thursday at the beach nearing sunset, Majid saw my maimed belly. He put his hand there, untroubled by the rutted skin. His hand moved lovingly over my abdomen and he kissed its waves of scar tissue. He gave my body the acceptance I had been unable to give it myself. It was an act so tender that it banished the shame. A scar of hatred soothed by Majid’s kiss.
The day quickly approached, and never had I been at the center of so much joy and attention. The zaghareet of women resound in my memories of that time. Fatima’s friends, who were now my friends as well, waxed and plucked my skin and rubbed oils and balms all over my body. They burned frankincense to perfume my hair and blessed me with their murmured prayers and incantations. One woman, bless her, gravely took Fatima aside to ask if she had instructed me on what to expect and do on my wedding night.
THIRTY
A Story of Forever
1981–1982
A DORNED IN GOLDEN JEWELRY far more humble than her mother’s had been, Amal delighted in her wedding. She wore a virgin’s white silk and danced with the women of Shatila, who charged the air with their songs and thrilled the evening with their dancing bodies. In their secret world apart from men, the women removed their hijab. Heads of dark and henna-dyed hair unraveled beneath, and each tied her scarf around the arches of her womanhood. They moved their hips, tracing curves of Middle Eastern rhythms, seduction and feminine pride. They danced to honor the bride and bless her marriage with their joy, celebrating centuries of Arab women who have danced together in a private world to which no man is privy.
“Aaaaaahh eeee aaaaaahh,” one elderly matriarch began at the top of her voice, and the crowd fell silent. “May Allah touch this bride’s womb with fertility.”
Amal’s elder female relatives should have been the ones to hurl those ancient calls for blessings. But Fatima was her only female kin in Lebanon, and she was not yet old enough.
“Aaaaaahh eeee aaaaaahh,” the old woman continued, heaving prayers into the air. At the end, excitement erupted in the women’s zaghareet, ululations pulled from their Arab foremothers to shake merriment from the air.
The spectacle reminded Amal of a time at the Warda house when the girls had played aroosa, one pretending to be the bride and the others wrapping their scarves around the bones that would someday flare into hips. They acted out wedding scenes and tried to oscillate their tongues rapidly to produce zaghareet. Only Huda, shyly at first, knew how to make that thrilling sound. From then on, she was their designated “zaghareet coach,” and Amal had secretly asked her not to teach Lamya, since Lamya could already do a somersault.
If only Huda were here now. Amal silently longed for her best friend at her wedding. And that wish led her to others. To her mother, the beautiful iron-willed Dalia. To all the girls of the Warda house, and to Muna Jalayta and the Colombian Sisters. To the dawn and her father’s soothing vo
ice. To the calls and responses of her country and days of el ghurba. She smiled throughout her wedding without once tightening her jaws. Watching the celebration, Amal wandered nostalgically in and out of her memories.
As the hours passed, the women replaced their scarves and veils to join the men, merging the two celebrations into one. Someone then placed Amal’s hand into Majid’s. The groom was dressed in white, a sword belt around his waist, the hems of his kaffiyeh threaded with silken red. Amal turned to face her husband, the coin-studded veil framing her vision, and the wedding party danced, arms linked in a circle around the couple.
A gale of love brewed in them both. A want so heavy it made their knees weak and their palms sweaty inside the grip of their hands. They turned to smile at the crowd, for the sake of what’s proper, the way newlyweds should conduct themselves at their wedding. But Majid never let go of her hand. From the moment he felt his bride’s small fingers slip into his, he did not release them until he carried Amal to his Fiat, and they rode away into marriage.
Majid carried his wife again to their apartment in the al-Tamaria building in Beirut. In time, the sword belt fell and the silk pushed against their skin, until flesh found flesh. He rose over her, drinking her nakedness. He had had many women during his ghurba days in England, but no body had enchanted him with such love. It was the body of Amal, long vowel, his yearnings and hopes. He leaned into her, kissed her lips, closing his eyes to take in their softness. She felt his breath fall softly on her face and opened her legs, like wings, taking her lover, her husband, into her body. There, they surrendered to a tempest that tore into the best-hidden parts of their hearts and Amal awoke the next day to a dream floating low on a landscape of love.
At last, fate had surprised her with a dream of her own. A dream of love, family, children. Not of country, justice, or education. Amal would have gone anywhere, as long as Majid was by her side. He became her roots, her country.
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