True Arab Love

by Issa J. Boullata

  I did not know what to say, but I knew something was wrong between Sam and Mayy.

  He then continued, “And that was not the end of it. She kept accusing me of not being sensitive to what she had gone through. ‘I need to keep my job,’ she said. ‘I will lose it in the end if I become pregnant and have the baby. It was for your sake I decided on abortion as a solution. Do you understand? I would love to have a baby, Sam. How do you think I felt when I went to the toilet and let the blood gush out of me? I saw pieces of my baby being flushed down the toilet ... I still dream of it. I see it now, even as I talk to you. I’ll see it all my life. It’s etched into my memory. It’s on my conscience. Do you understand?’ And she started crying and sobbing wildly. I hugged her tenderly and kissed her. ‘No, no, my love,’ I said, comforting her and caressing her cheeks and wiping away her tears. ‘There are laws protecting the jobs of pregnant women,’ and there are ways to prevent pregnancy. All I say is that we should have discussed the matter and come to an agreement together. Why should you bear the responsibility for this alone? Abortion is a huge step to take and we should have decided together what had to be done.’ ‘What’s done is done,’ she said as though to put an end to the conversation ... And she has begun to drift away from me, day after day. In the end, I can hardly reach her any more. Our love is dying, and making love has been a constant confrontation.”

  Sam ordered his fifth glass of cognac.

  All of a sudden, he stood up. He smiled and looked towards the door of the bar as a gorgeous woman entered. She was a tall woman with blue eyes and wore a white silk blouse with ruffled sleeves, black skin-­tight pants, and high heels. She seemed to be in her forties and looked as though she had seen it all. She walked towards us with a sure step, smiling engagingly.

  Sam held out his hand to her. “You’re right on time,” he said as he shook her hand. “Let me introduce you to my friend Fadil Karam from the good old days in Lebanon. Fadil, this is my friend Mireille Archambault who owns a business in town. Please sit down.”

  As the waiter brought Sam’s fifth glass of cognac, Sam asked, “What would you like to drink, Mireille?”

  “Perrier, please. Thank you.”

  Sam explained, “Mireille runs a menswear boutique on Sherbrooke Street and is in need of a salesman.”

  “Oh! Nice meeting you, Madame,” I said.

  Pretty soon we were all engaged in conversation on a variety of topics. But increasingly I noticed Sam’s searching appraisal of Mireille and was aware of her basking in the warmth of his eyes. There was no doubt she was intelligent, worldly, and powerful; her beauty crowned her other qualities but did not submerge them—in fact it enhanced them. She was well-­read and fully bilingual—her English was as good as her native French when we exchanged ideas in either language, as many Montreal people often do. It was evident that Sam and Mireille were enjoying each other’s company. I was the odd man out in the end, and I excused myself at about 10 p.m., way past Happy Hour, after having finally finished my second glass of red wine.

  I did not see Sam until a week later. He told me he had landed a well-­paid job at Mireille Archambault’s boutique. I congratulated him and offered him my best wishes. He thanked me, but then hesitated for a moment and said, “But, Fadil, I should tell you this: Mayy is filing for divorce.”

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  “She says I neglect her and verbally abuse her. She claims I am stingy and insensitive to her needs. She says I curtail her freedom and choke the development of her personality. She believes I don’t love her any longer, and she wants out.”

  “Sam,” I entreated. “Is there no way to reconciliation? I’ll do my best to bring you together.”

  “No, Fadil,” he said in surrender. “She’s made up her mind as firmly as when she decided on that abortion. ‘It’s a woman’s choice,” she insists. What’s done is done!”

  “That’s sheer stupidity, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “No, Fadil,” Sam said. “It’s the Lebanese uncivil war finally getting to our private life. If there had been no war, and if we had stayed in Lebanon, we would not have had this unfortunate conclusion to our married life. I did my best but I failed. What’s done is done. Mayy is right, after all.”

  THIRD IN COMMAND

  George Sa’di would never have dreamt that, within a year of his arrival in Canada as a landed immigrant, he would become an executive officer of one of the most aggressive small investment and trading firms in the country.

  He had graduated with a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Haifa in Israel, but very few people knew the price in hard work he had had to pay to achieve that as an Arab Israeli. Having left his limited opportunities of employment back at home, he was today third in command at Sleeman & Son in Vancouver.

  He had been insecure and frightened on first arriving in this vast country, knowing virtually no one for the first few days after his arrival. But thanks to a message he had had to deliver to a Mr. Rasheed Sleeman from an old lady in Nazareth, he was now enjoying a coveted and secure position in which he could use his university training as well as his personal potential to the full, putting behind him all the sweat and labour of his early youth, when he often worked carrying bricks, stones, and mortar on construction sites. Canada was indeed a land of opportunity for all those who were ready to work hard—but he could not discount the element of good luck that had led to his present situation.

  Mr. Sleeman was just a name to him. He had been told Mr. Sleeman was the owner and manager of a firm he had established in Canada several years earlier. But George Sa’di had no idea he would become involved in this firm, and could never have anticipated the manner in which it came about.

  On the day when he first met Mr. Sleeman, he went to the address he had found in the telephone directory. It turned out to be one of the high-­rise buildings in downtown Vancouver. He had not made an appointment but boldly walked in, saying he had a personal message from Nazareth for Mr. Sleeman. The secretary showed him into the office of her boss who, contrary to his custom, agreed to see him without prior appointment.

  “Good morning, Mr. Sleeman,” George Sa’di said respectfully, now cowed by the plush office he found himself in, on the twenty-­fifth floor. “I’m grateful you’ve allowed me to see you without an appointment, sir. Knowing how valuable your time is, I’ll come to the point immediately.”

  The telephone bell rang, and George hesitated. Mr. Sleeman motioned him to a leather armchair, then picked up the receiver and listened. Then he said, “Yes, please. Sell the whole oil shipment at once. One million dollars is a sufficient profit by today’s prices. Sell and call me again after that. Thanks.”

  Putting down the telephone receiver, Mr. Sleeman turned to George. “Sorry for the interruption. Yes, you were saying?”

  “Oh, Mr. Sleeman. I was beginning to say, I’m a new immigrant in Canada. I arrived in Vancouver only a couple of days ago from Nazareth. Before leaving Israel, I promised your aunt Olga that I’d see you as soon as I could and that I’d tell you about your sister Stephanie.”

  Mr. Sleeman interrupted. “What aunt Olga and what sister Stephanie are you talking about? What did you say your name was?”

  “Sa’di. George Sa’di, sir.”

  “Well, Mr. Sa’di. I have no aunt Olga and no sister Stephanie.”

  “Yes, you do, Mr. Sleeman. And that’s why I’m here to let you know ...”

  “Please, go on.”

  “I was told it’s a long story that goes back to 1948 in Palestine. It’s a story that is more than fifty years old now. You were just a boy, and you may remember very little of it, if anything at all.”

  Mr. Sleeman began to show some interest. He knew that when he was six, his family lived in Jaffa, Palestine. He still remembered that his father had to run away with him one day in May of 1948 when their home was destroyed by a terrible explosion during the fighting between the Zionists and the Palestinians in the last days of the Br
itish Mandate. He was told that his mother and sister had died at home under the rubble and that he and his father had been spared because they happened to be out shopping. When his father later dared to make his way home to check, despite the ongoing sniping and bombing, and saw his home in a hopeless heap of stones and smouldering debris, he decided in utter despair to take his son Rasheed and flee the city.

  “I’m told,” George continued, “that your sister Stephanie was saved from the rubble of your home in Jaffa six days after it was destroyed by an explosion. The Israelis had occupied Jaffa and were beginning to comb the town and make it secure for their forces. As you may know, the majority of the Palestinian inhabitants of Jaffa had fled, mostly taking to the Mediterranean in boats bound for Beirut and Gaza, but some escaped on foot inland into Palestine, eventually reaching the hills of Ramallah, north of Jerusalem. As the Israeli fighters reached the site of your home in Jaffa, they heard a child’s faint cry coming from underneath the rubble. So their experts began to dig and finally found your three-­year-­old sister.”

  “What about her mother?” Mr. Sleeman asked, beginning to think there might be some truth in what George was relating.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sleeman. I was told your mother had died, and that it was her arched body under a steel beam that had saved Stephanie. The child was rushed to hospital in Tel Aviv. She was dehydrated and needed immediate medical care. She stayed in hospital for a month, then she was released to social workers in the Israeli Department of Social Welfare.”

  George paused. Mr. Sleeman looked at him intently, then asked, “And what happened to Stephanie?”

  “Well, sir, I’m told it took the social welfare workers about two years to locate your aunt Olga in Nazareth, and she agreed to take care of your sister. She is not really your aunt but rather a distant relative of your father. She was the nearest relative they could find in Israel after long investigation, all other relatives having died or fled to safe refuge elsewhere. She is about eighty years old now. But I promised her I’d tell you.”

  “And Stephanie would now be in her mid-­fifties,” Mr. Sleeman suggested.

  “Yes, sir. And she lives in Amman with her husband and three children.”

  Mr. Sleeman became pensive. “What a small world!” he thought to himself. “And what a miserable life the Palestinians lead in their diaspora and in their homeland!”

  He remembered how, as a child of six, he had had to walk and walk with his father for hours on end, away from Jaffa, avoiding the main roads and taking the rough and rocky paths in the countryside, stopping only for brief rests, before joining other groups of Palestinian refugees from various coastal towns and villages—men, women, and children trekking eastward with the belongings they could carry. They reached the hills of Ramallah the next day, and local inhabitants gave them food and shelter until the International Red Cross, the Red Crescent and, later, the UNRWA offered them help in an organized way.

  The telephone rang again. Mr. Sleeman picked up the receiver and listened. Then he said, “Sell all my Nortel holdings. Do you hear me, ALL my Nortel shares.” He listened for a moment then said, “I don’t care what the Finance Minister says. He has his government finances and the Canadian economy to take care of, and I have my business. Nortel shares have reached their highest price and, actually, they are now overvalued. They are bound to have a big fall soon. Please sell high. Now.” Then he added after a pause, “With the proceeds, you now have the cash to buy one million barrels of oil from the Emirates for Turkey, to honour the agreement I signed yesterday with the Turkish Minister of Energy for the delivery of six oil shipments.”

  Turning to George and continuing the conversation as though there had been no interruption, he asked, “And how did the lady you call my aunt Olga know I am here?”

  “Only by coincidence, sir. A graduate of the University of British Columbia returned home recently to Nazareth from Vancouver and spoke highly of you. And when she heard your name, she immediately knew you must be Stephanie’s brother.”

  “You see, Mr. Sa’di,” Mr. Sleeman began, I don’t know this lady. However, I do remember my sister Stephanie, but I had long given her up for dead. I grew up in Ramallah and was educated at the Friends Boys’ School. My father took good care of me. When the rump Palestinian territory, called ‘the West Bank,’ was annexed and ruled by Jordan, he worked as a policeman in Jordan’s police force until he died twelve years ago, God bless his soul. After graduating from school, I went to the United Arab Emirates to work. That’s where I got married and divorced, made a fortune, and established good business contacts that are of great help to me now.”

  There was a knock at the door, and a handsome, smartly-­dressed young man in his mid-­twenties entered.

  “This is my son, Kamal,” said Mr. Sleeman. “Kamal, this is Mr. George Sa’di who has recently arrived from the old country.”

  Shaking hands with George, Kamal said cheerfully, “Oh, you’re from Palestine? Glad to meet you, George.”

  “Er, from Israel, from Nazareth. Glad to meet you too.”

  George, who was about the same age as Kamal, liked the young man’s spontaneity, but felt he was inexperienced and rather naive.

  After receiving ten $100 bills from his father, Kamal excused himself and left the office. Mr. Sleeman turned to George and asked, “Have you found a job, Mr. Sa’di?”

  “No, not yet, sir,” he said, and proceeded to give an oral resumé of his business qualifications without being asked.

  Mr. Sleeman listened, nodding in apparent appreciation, then he said, “Would you like to work for me?”

  “Yes, indeed, Mr. Sleeman,” George answered with visible enthusiasm. “I would do any job you want me to.”

  “Fine. I’ll pay you $4,000 a month. You’ll work from 9 to 5, five days a week except for official holidays, and you’ll have a paid two-­week leave per year and the usual Canadian social benefits.”

  George Sa’di was elated and could not believe his ears.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “And what are my duties?”

  “Well, you’ll begin tomorrow and I’ll have you do office work, so that you can learn the ropes. You will also do an additional specific duty for the next four months. You may find you’ll have to work after hours or at the weekend at times, but you’re not obliged to and it’s up to you. After this period, I’ll give you other duties and I’ll consider you for a raise, depending on results.”

  “But what’s the additional specific duty besides office work that you want me to do in the next four months, Mr. Sleeman?”

  “Train my son, Kamal. Teach him to be like you: forthcoming, outgoing, imaginative, ready to take the initiative, to be of service to others. Teach him to be wise about the ways of this world. You see, he’s about your age. But he dropped out of university before completing his first year. I’ve employed him in my office, but he has learned nothing. I’ve recently made him a partner in my firm but all he does is claim one thousand dollars per week, on account. I want him to be responsible, responsive, but none of my clerks can help him. I suppose it is my fault in the first place. After my divorce, I took custody of him, but I think I was too busy making my fortune in the Emirates during his formative years. I hope it’s not too late now. When I pressed him lately to come up with a business project to work on, he suggested buying a Ferrari and participating in the Montreal Grand Prix next May. Totally unrealistic and unacceptable. He is crazy about fast cars. He has a Jaguar and spurns my Rolls Royce. I think I am a good judge of character, Mr. Sa’di, and I believe you can help. What I want you to do is to make him see the real world. That’s your additional specific duty, George. May I call you George?”

  “Yes, indeed, Mr. Sleeman. And I’ll do my best.”

  In the following four months, George Sa’di managed to become a close friend of Kamal. From books, magazines, and newspapers, he learned all about racing cars and speedways and racing series in order to win over the young man’s attention in conv
ersation. He even accompanied him to car races and winners’ parties. Gently and calculatingly, he helped him compare the physical and financial risks of car racing with other means of enjoying life’s excitements. He finally got him to let go of his obsession with cars and appreciate the excitement of work in the investment market. Together, they built up a successful investment project and a promising portfolio that pleased Mr. Sleeman.

  One day, Kamal said to George as they sat down over a cup of coffee, “You’ve changed my life, George, and you’re now my best friend. But there’s something I’d like to say to you in full confidence. May I? Perhaps you can help me.”

  “Of course, my friend.”

  “You know how much I love and respect my father. But I’d like to tell you that, in the last five years, he has stolen almost every single girlfriend I’ve dated. I do love my girlfriends even if I have no intention of getting married yet. I’m still young and I like to have fun with them. It’s exhilarating. I turned to the thrill of racing cars only after my father’s continual poaching on my relationships. I can’t compete with him, especially given his power to attract women with lavish gifts and his social status in high-­class circles. It’s rather he who is the playboy—and an experienced, rich one at that. Can you help me keep his hands off my girlfriends?”

  George felt he was in a dilemma; he had never thought he would be asked to intervene in matters of the heart. But he said he would think about it.

  He did not sleep well that night, thinking.

  The following day, Mr. Sleeman called George to his office and informed him that he had finally established communications with his sister and her family in Amman, and had sent them air tickets to come to Canada for a visit. He then thanked him profusely for what he had done for Kamal over the past four months. He also expressed his appreciation of George’s proficiency in office work and his growing expertise in handling investments, and said he was giving him a raise of $2,000 a month and greater responsibility for the technology sector of the business.