Adele shook her head and said, “You’re tired, Mama. Let me help while I’m here. Go rest for a bit. I’m okay.”
“Thank you, habibti,” Samira said as she turned and went back down the stairs.
Adele stared at the reflection in the mirror of the shrunken man across from her. His head was bowed, his hands covered his penis. She submerged him into the warm water, the smell of allspice mingling with the steam.
CHAPTER 23
THE STEAM OF THE BATH AND THE SCENT of allspice and jasmine soap rose around them. Adele focused on the tufts of grey at her father’s temple. She didn’t let her gaze fall below his waist. On her knees beside the tub, she ran a cloth along her father’s back until he whispered, “Thank you, Adele.” Sobs escaped his throat. “I know I should be a man and stop crying, but…”
Adele interjected. “It’s all right, Babba.”
He wiped his eyes, then nose. “I feel like a child again.”
Adele bit her lower lip before scooping some water in a plastic container and slowly pouring it over her father’s body.
For the next few weeks, Adele and her father settled in a routine. She’d help her mother by bathing her father, dressing him, and trying to feed him, though his stomach always refused food. Then Adele cleaned the remnants of the meal her mother had carefully prepared from a bucket beside the bed. Oftentimes, she simply sat at his bedside and listened to him tell her stories.
“I felt so disloyal to my heritage for abandoning my birth country, my mother. I should’ve stayed in Lebanon but now it’s too late. I thought the only way I could preserve my culture was through my children. I wanted you to speak Arabic, eat our foods, learn our customs and traditions. I wanted you to embrace it fully—be fully Lebanese, not half. What kind of life did I have here?” He shuddered and sank further under the covers.
She had often wondered what it was like for her parents to have left their homeland for a country so new, so different. Were they as scared as she had been when she left her family? Now she knew. She gave her father a gentle smile and said, “You raised a family here. You did pretty well for someone who didn’t know the language. You should feel proud. It was no small thing to pack up and leave and start fresh in a foreign country. You succeeded, Babba. You should feel proud.”
Youssef frowned. “I was like my father.”
“It’s okay, Babba. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” He shook his head, tears on his face too. “I made you feel less than what you really are—a kind, beautiful person.”
“It’s okay,” she mumbled.
“It’s that easy, Adele? Can you forgive so easily?”
No, she wanted to say, but she didn’t. He was dying.
“You’re an amazing daughter,” he said in a low voice, barely audible.
She laid her head on his flattened belly and began to weep all over again. She felt her father’s hand weakly smoothing her curls.
“Did you know that I had another sister, Adele?” Youssef said to Adele while she changed his socks.
“Besides Aunt Nabiha?”
“Imagine that! My sister Nabiha thinks she’s the one and only sometimes, eh?” Youssef laughed until he began to retch. Adele quickly picked up the bucket beside his bed and held it under her father’s mouth. Afterwards, she walked into the bathroom and emptied the vomit into the toilet then headed into her father’s bedroom again.
They picked up the conversation as if nothing unusual had happened. “Aunt Nabiha means well, I suppose,” Adele said.
“Well, my mother had another daughter before Nabiha was born. Her name was Hanan and she was a beautiful baby. My mother loved her dearly. But one day Hanan just stopped breathing. I remember poking her while she was in the crib and she wouldn’t wake up, so I ran to my mother and when my mother picked her up, Hanan was a lifeless doll in her arms. I will always remember the anguished wails that came out of my Mama’s mouth, such a sad song for my baby sister.”
Adele slumped on the chair across from her father’s bed. “I never heard about this.” She looked down at her hands, rubbed them together, realizing she knew little about her father.
“I didn’t tell anyone but your mother. I pushed it out of my memory but now my thoughts are turning to Hanan, that precious angel baby.”
“Sito must have been devastated.”
“Yes, she couldn’t even attend Hanan’s funeral. I had to carry her tiny body into the crypt. My aunts had wrapped Hanan in a white cloth as if she were being baptized. I had to carry her into the burial place because neither one of them would do it. I was afraid and I didn’t want to do it either, but they said, Youssef, you must be a man and carry your little sister to her final resting place. Don’t look at the other bodies, just place her in an empty spot and come back out, okay? I didn’t want to but I had no choice. The crypt was so small and smelled of rot like the way vegetables do when you let them get too old. There was so much dust too. I thought I was going to be blinded by the haze, but I couldn’t rub my eyes because I had Hanan in my arms. And as quickly as I entered, I found a place and left her next to a body that must have been there for several years because spiders were crawling on the old yellowed cloth. When I emerged outside, my aunts ran to me and hugged me tightly while kissing my cheeks. They kept telling me that I was a brave boy but I wasn’t so brave, I had wet my pants. When my father saw the stain, he pulled me out of my aunts’ embraces and slapped me across the face. You’re nothing but a kalb. Worse than a dog, because even a kalb knows how to raise his leg without pissing himself. I remember running away to the river where I cleaned myself and wished it had been me that had died and not my sister Hanan.”
Adele got up and stood in front of her father. “I’m sorry, Babba.”
“Don’t be, babba. We all have our hardships. These times make us stronger, don’t they?”
“Do you really believe that?” Adele asked, her voice rising.
“I have to. How else can I explain why I treated you so badly?”
Breathing deeply, Adele left the room and headed downstairs; she needed a break.
Two days later, Adele sat on the edge of her father’s bed and held a glass of water against his dry lips. He hadn’t eaten much in several days but on this day, he requested a small glass of water. He took slow, forced sips, most of the water slipping down his chin. Adele’s long fingers wiped his chin with efficiency. She had learned over the past weeks about the work of a nurse or caregiver. By the end of each day, she was exhausted and saddened. She’d crawl into her bed and fall into a deep sleep. Each morning she mustered the strength to get out of bed, shower, dress, eat breakfast, and begin the whole process of taking care of her ailing father once more. Where she found the courage, she didn’t know, but every day she felt more determined to help her father die in a peaceful and dignified way.
She smiled as she held the glass against her father’s thin, chapped lips and remembered all the times he had done so for her when she was too young to hold a glass by herself. There were good memories; they were just buried deeper in her mind, hidden by the negativity that sat at the top. Slowly, every day, the daily routine she had developed with her father helped each beautiful memory to ripen like the grapes on the vines of the homemade trellis her father had built years ago in their front yard for Samira’s grape leaves.
Adele placed the glass on the bedside table then wiped the leftover drops of saliva and water around her father’s mouth. His frail fingers reached up and encircled her wrist. “Thank you,” he said in a hoarse voice. When he dropped his hand, Adele got up and sat on the chair across from his bed. With a sinking heart, she contemplated her father’s gaunt body. She used to tease him about the roundness of his belly by saying, “so when is the baby due?” She touched her wrist and felt the coldness his flesh had left on her skin. His ankles were now as thin as her wrists, she realized, staring at the shape of
his legs under the blanket. She watched the rapid rise of his chest. Each breath was a struggle. Suddenly Youssef closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillow. She moved closer and gently stroked his face. Youssef opened his eyes again and smiled weakly.
Adele finally spoke the words she had always wanted to say but hadn’t known how to, ashamed to show to this man who had hurt her in so many ways, how much she needed him. “I love you, Babba.”
Youssef smiled again, his eyes shiny and wet. His breathing became shallow and his eyes opened and closed as if fighting an oncoming, urgent sleep. “I love you too. Remember that. Remember how much I love you. Take care of your mother.” He paused, licked his lips.
Adele called out, turning her head in the direction of the hallway, “Mama! Hurry! Come quick!”
Youssef smiled again. “You’re a good daughter. Promise me you’ll remember me. Promise me … remember me.”
“You’re my father. How can I ever forget you? We still have time. Don’t close your eyes, Babba. Stay awake,” she said, stroking his forehead, then resting her head on his chest. She listened to his rapid heartbeat. “We still have so much to say, so much … stay,” she pleaded.
Youssef grew silent. He closed his eyes, a small smile lifted his mouth.
Adele buried her face in his chest. She didn’t hear her mother’s quickening footsteps, only Samira’s wailing.
CHAPTER 24
IN THE YEAR THAT HER FATHER DIED, Adele took a sabbatical from her studies and returned home to settle the paperwork and sale of the store her father had owned and operated for thirty years. She hadn’t expected the property to sell so quickly, but a local developer had plans to convert the corner store and house she had grown up in into condominiums.
Adele stood outside and shuffled her boots through a pile of leaves that had blown in front of the yellow grocery store. Leaning against the exterior of the shop, dried bits of stucco sticking to her palms, she watched the movers take down the Coca-Cola sign with her father’s name plastered in green letters. Its rusted hinges creaked in the cool autumn breeze. Shivering as the wind blew through her trench coat, she pulled the collar close to her neck. The men teetered on the steel ladders placed on each side of the rod that had supported her father’s sign for the thirty years it had swayed in rainstorms, or stood perfectly still on humid summer days. Now it was as dead as the shopkeeper whose name was peeling and fading from its metal surface. Adele jumped when one of the worker’s pliers fell from his grip and came crashing down on the asphalt. She picked up the tool and handed it back to the man.
She let herself sink onto the cement stoop beside the store. Her father was gone. His store was gone. The life she had known with him was gone. Shortly after his death, the initial shock and disbelief had transformed into the cold reality that he was really gone. She had slept restlessly for weeks after his death and it was only now that she could sleep through the night, rising only with the sun and not a full moon. The coldness of the stoop filtered through her trousers forcing her to get up and pace, listening to the opening and closing of the toolbox, the jangle of tool belts. She turned around in time to spot the sign being swallowed between the folds of a blue moving blanket, then buried in the mover’s truck. Adele had arranged to store what was left of her childhood home in the basements of her sisters’ houses.
After the moving truck left, Adele walked inside the house. She glanced at the naked walls, stripped of all the photographs and paintings. There was nothing left that spoke of her family’s history. How could an entire lifetime be erased with the removal of a collection of artefacts? She thought of the many voices that used to blow through the hallways like a gentle breeze and sometimes a hurricane. She recalled the many times she had run up the stairs she was staring at this moment. She wondered whether her fingerprints would still be on the banister, whether her footprints were imprinted in the steps. Suddenly, she heard the floorboards in the hallway leading away from the kitchen heave. She looked across at her mother. Samira had lost several pounds since Youssef’s death. Her dress hung off her body, which now seemed stooped and shrunken; the weight loss had made all her clothes ill-fitting, but Adele knew her mother couldn’t bring herself to buy new ones.
“So everything is gone?” Samira asked, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Yes, Mama,” Adele replied, noting the resigned, sad look on her mother’s face.
“Will you change your mind?” Samira asked, mustering a smile. There was a strained hopefulness in her voice, a yearning for Adele to conform at last to the Lebanese way, to move back home with her, take care of her Mama.
Adele sadly shook her head. “I can’t. I need to get back to Toronto. I have a life waiting for me there.”
“You can have a life here again, habibti.”
“No, that’s not possible. I’m sorry, Mama,” Adele said, her voice cracking.
“Anything is possible.”
“Not that, Mama. I can’t do it.”
“You don’t want to do it,” Samira sighed. She sat down on the stairs. “You have always wanted to do things your own way. Why couldn’t you be more like your sisters? They followed tradition. They listened to all I had to say. But you,” she threw her hands up in the air again, letting them fall hard on her lap. “God rest his soul, but your Babba always said you were a little different. I tried to teach you all that I had been taught but you always struggled against everything I knew.” She looked out the window next to the front door. Several leaves had blown up the steps, scraping against the concrete as if begging to come inside. Then a gush of wind scattered the leaves down the small street Adele had grown up on. Samira began to cry, her shoulders rising up and down until she bent forward. Kneeling in front of her mother, Adele stroked her head, smoothed the unruly greying curls.
Samira looked up at her, her eyes glassy and red. “I failed you as a mother.”
Adele shook her head. “No you didn’t, Mama. I just wanted my own life, not yours.”
Samira took Adele’s face in her hands and stroked it gently. She held her like that for a moment, before she finally let go, rose from the steps, and said, “Well, I don’t want to live with your sisters and I can’t live alone in this country. I should’ve learned the language but that’s too late.”
Adele stood up too and said, “No, it’s not late. I can sign you up for ESL classes. I’ll find you a nice apartment.”
Samira shook her head. “Too late for that. This isn’t my home anymore. It never was. I was always an outsider.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, I guessed you wouldn’t stay with me, so I made a few plans of my own with the help of your Aunt Nabiha. Before you go back to Toronto, will you do something for me?”
She nodded, leaned in close to her mother. Her throat tightened as she listened carefully to her mother’s words.
They ate in silence that night on the living room floor. Adele had laid an old bed sheet in the middle of the room and placed the take-out Chinese food she had ordered for her and her mother on it. After a few bites, Adele pushed away her plate. She glanced across at Samira, lifting a sweet and sour chicken ball to her mouth, the red plum sauce sliding around the corners of her full lips. “Are you sure you want to do this, Mama?” Adele asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Samira stopped chewing, put her fork down. “This isn’t home to me, Adele. Like Ottawa isn’t your home anymore. Your sisters have their own families. They don’t need me. Anyway, I can’t live here without your father. He did everything for me.”
Samira blinked rapidly but tears slipped out anyway. Adele tried not to blame her father for her mother’s lack of the English language, her lack of sophistication when it came to functioning in this city. She pressed her teeth together and tried to stop the pressure she felt rising in her stomach, chest, and throat. He was dead. And it was too late for her mother to return to th
e first few months in Canada before she had met Youssef. Adele remembered how her mother had spoken fondly of the few ESL classes she had taken upon her arrival in Canada. Then she met Youssef and she relinquished her desire to learn English to babies, cooking, and housekeeping.
Samira quickly wiped her eyes then folded her hands on her lap. The wind thrashed the branches of the trees against the brick exterior of the house, making Adele look out the window. She watched autumn’s urgent push for change. The empty room they sat in, feasting on their last dinner of egg rolls and chop suey in this abandoned house, was a sign of an ending and a beginning. Adele lifted her head and took a deep breath. The room smelled of Asian spices and dampness. She reached across and placed her hand on top of her mother’s.
CHAPTER 25
WHEN THEY ARRIVED IN KFARMICHKI a couple of days later, Adele rested her hand on her mother’s arm, squeezing it gently. Samira put her hand on hers and smiled. “It’s good to be home. It’s so good to be home.” She knelt on the ground, clasped a handful of dry earth, rose and opened her clenched fist; the pebbles fell through her fingers, the wind picking them up and swirling them towards the low mountains bordering the village.
It had been years since anyone had inhabited the old stone house across the mountains. It had belonged to Samira’s parents, both long dead now. Since her siblings had built their own homes in the village, the dwelling had been empty for a long time. But the red brick shingles of the roof still stood bright against the immense blue sky of the Bekaa Valley. The day before, Adele and Samira had removed the wooden planks from the windows and now golden rays entered the small house, awakening it after a slumber. They scrubbed the walls, floors, cupboards, tub and sinks; they made the old home liveable again. This was the second time Adele had visited her parents’ homeland, but this trip didn’t have the strain and deception of the first one. There was no secret betrothal for her. No extended family. Just her and Samira in an old, deserted house that now gleamed though it smelled of cleaning detergents from the ferocious scrub-down it had endured.
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