The Inheritance

by Sahar Khalifeh

  That was how Kamal joined the Bey and the notables’ table. Minutes later Futna came to invite Mazen and me to join Kamal because her cousin, the eldest of the family, wanted to know the Hamdan family. I apologized in order to stay with Nahleh out of consideration for her. Mazen accepted the invitation concerned by Kamal’s behavior under the influence of alcohol.

  When Mazen arrived at the Bey’s table, Kamal was talking about his project while the guests were listening to him with little attention, saying politely, “A sewage and garbage project, a nice idea.”

  Their haughtiness and pretentious attitude upset Mazen who was already infuriated by Violet’s disregard of him. Under the effect of alcohol, he said sharply, “We need at least ten similar projects to cleanse ourselves.”

  Futna’s cousin shook his head approvingly, and said, “By God, that’s true, other people are improving their conditions, whereas we’re regressing daily. There is no concern for social origin and respectable people are not to be found anywhere. This Intifada is killing us and now the Authority is adding to our worries!”

  One of them said, in agreement, “Yes, it is the Authority, its true, you’re right. . . .”

  He wanted to take back what he had said, but he kept quiet and so did the others. Mazen noticed the calm that had fallen on the place, and looking behind him he saw the guests move toward a huge buffet, attended by waiters and maîîtres d’hĥĥtcl. One of them was standing behind the barbecue table serving grilled meat from the skewer. Futna came over breathless, and invited them, with insistence, “Please help yourselves, we’re among friends here.”

  The Bey raised his waxy white hand, and said, “As far as I’m concerned, one apple would suffice.”

  She rebuked him, gently, asking, “Is this possible?”

  She then turned toward Mazen and Kamal, saying, “By God, tell me, is it acceptable to diet in such a party?”

  The Bey said playfully, “Instead of treating us to food and fat, why don’t you treat us to a beautiful girl?”

  Everybody around the table laughed, the brunettes whispered to each other, their earrings shook and the eyes of the males twinkled. Then Futna said, generously, “Your wishes are my commands, whom do you like?”

  The Bey’s eyes languished and he said maliciously, “You know.”

  Futna replied loudly, “You mean Violet!”

  She immediately realized that Mazen and Kamal were present. She tried to recover and explain herself, saying, “It seems that he likes her voice, he finds it intoxicating. He thinks she’s a true artist.”

  One of the notables whispered audibly, “She is like a smack of fresh cream!”

  His comment annoyed one of the women, who said, “And you do nothing but smack your lips.”

  He stared at her and raised his eyebrows, saying maliciously, “I am with you rill the morning.”

  Everyone laughed, Kamal roared and clapped his hands like a happy child, but Mazen kicked him in disgust and said, miffed, “Let’s eat, come on, let’s get some food.”

  Mazen stood up but Kamal did not because the Bey had asked him a new question, “Where in Frankfurt do you live? I stayed in Frankfurt for five months before I went to Washington. Frankfurt is a beautiful city, better than Berlin and Bonn, but the Germans are not likeable, although they are hard workers. They built their country after the war in a few years and their economy was second to Japan. They understand the meaning of life, unlike us. We have no people, no taste, no understanding, and no leadership. How are the elections proceeding? Who among you is running?”

  Looking at Mazen, he asked him, to test him, “Will you run?”

  Mazen answered gloomily, still standing behind Kamal, “No, I’m not running.”

  Futna’s cousin shook his head in a way that expressed understanding, as if he were agreeing with Mazen on his position vis-à-vis the elections. He returned to the same topic to learn more about it, and said, “I agree with you and I understand you, but it’s not conceivable either that we leave the country to the mercenaries. If every honest, clean, and respectable person from a notable family turns his back on the country, who will rule it? The riffraff and the swindlers? God protect us from their tyranny, even the Israelis have more mercy, mark my words.”

  One of the members of the group asked, “Do you think that it hasn’t happened already?”

  The Bey shook his head, as a sign of despair and regret. What could he say? What’s the use of words? What is the use of action? He looked at Mazen and remembered what he had heard about his glorious past. He thought that, despite the difference in their directions, Mazen in this present situation was a partner and an ally and maybe more. Wasn’t he from the same social class? From the same category? That of the devoted who gave a lot to the homeland only to be pushed aside by different circumstances and difficult times? They were placed on the shelf, collecting dust and relegated to history books. Is this what happens to families in the North of the country, in the middle, and the South? Even if they were farmers, property owners, and though they don’t have good manners and education, they are nevertheless honorable people, with dignity, valor, and respectability, they would kill to protect their honor. As for the riffraff and the gangs, those who come from slums, are those revolutionaries? What a shame!

  Kamal asked him, in all sincerity, “Are you running in the elections?”

  “Me?” asked the Bey.

  Then he stood up, pointed at himself with great pride and fear, and said, “Me, run? That’s not possible.”

  Mazen asked him, maliciously, “Why won’t you run, pray tell us?”

  The Bey answered with regretful nobility, “Me, run? That’s not possible.”

  Both men stared each other in the eye, examining one another with great curiosity and suspicion. As far as the Bey was concerned, this question raised old emotions that time and Abd al-Nasser, may his soul rest in peace, buried. He was great despite his fall, but when he fell he took us with him. There were nationalizations, insurances, then feudalism and the peasants, the factory workers, the factories that produced tin instead of steel. There were the farms of zucchini, the farms of fava beans, and mulukhiya instead of farms of cotton. What nonsense, what childish plans. No one but the revolution ruined us. Then he repeated painfully and regretfully, “May God forgive you, do you want me to run and spoil myself?”

  Mazen turned his face away from him, looking toward the horizon and Jerusalem’s night. The Western part of the city was shining in the night and lit the borders of the old wall, the dry valley, and the Jewish cemetery. He whispered to himself, “Who soiled it, and messed it up, who polluted its cleanliness? You’re crying over its destruction now? We were young when you became important, and we followed you. Who bur you, children of misfortune, destroyed it?” Then he tapped his brother on the back and told him to join him to get food.

  Kamal was happy in this elegant ambiance filled with women’s perfume and beautiful, slim women whose eyes twinkled in the night. He was drunk and happy and the Bey was nice to him, as he was planning secretly to form partnerships with him in the future. This was a time of projects, like the sewage and garbage project, a new and magnificent idea that might bring in millions. If it didn’t bring in millions, it would bring renown, and renown brings followers, and this means power, authority, and the government. Kamal thus became the center of the Bey’s attention and kindness, from questions to answers, to stories and commentaries until it became clear that the mutual admiration would end inevitably in friendship. Mazen found himself forced to accept an invitation to tour Jerusalem. He had tried to get out of it with various excuses, but the Bey had told him what amounted to these words: “Jerusalem belongs to us, and he who doesn’t know it can’t claim it; do you know it?”

  Mazen had stared at him for a few seconds and said, defeated, “Alright,” and accepted the invitation.

  The realtor had drunk too much beer, and his bladder was about to explode. He was too embarrassed to admit it, however, for fear of be
ing seen as a hillbilly, unaccustomed to parties and to the company of notables He tried to control and distract himself by drinking more beer and touching Nahleh’s thigh under the table, and moving constantly on his chair. Soon, he couldn’t hold it any longer and nothing helped, neither the movement on his chair, nor caressing Nahleh’s thigh, he felt instead like pinching and tearing something. He tried to blow and lean on one side then the other, driving Nahleh crazy. She wanted to cry but controlled herself and turned to me with a tortured look that reflected her endurance and confusion. She wondered what had happened to him, and whether drinking did this to people’s brains, making them waver and quiver. Do drunks become sullen and violent, with an inclination to pinch and rip? Even his face was frightening, his sleepy eyes had grown bigger and more bulging, their color had turned into a strange turbid red, burning with an odd shine.

  Though the realtor’s eyes were filled with desire as well, caused by a lack of control and disregard for decency, Nahleh’s inexperience made her see in his behavior a lurking danger menacing both of them. She knew that alcohol was a sin and would remain so, she used to hear about it and see it at the movies and on Television, but she had never seen it personally or had been present at a drinking party. Alcohol had never found its way into Abu Jaber’s house and she had never learned its rituals, its secrets. This was true of the realtor as well, since he was from a milieu that considered alcohol a sin, a forbidden drink in Islam. This was a first for him, and her brother Kamal was to blame; had it not been for his encouragement and challenge, Abu Salem wouldn’t have done it and wouldn’t have lost his self-control the way he was now, shaking like a sieve with eyes that looked like those of a hyena. How would she react if he were to begin to shout sing, and dance like her brother?

  Kamal was used to this kind of life, and frankly, he looked charming dancing in the middle of the terrace. As for the realtor, at his age with his suit and matching vest, and his dyed, lanky hair, what if he danced, or held her hand over the table when everyone was looking? What would her brothers do? What would Futna say, and the other people? Futna hadn’t forgotten Nahleh’s biting words when she announced her pregnancy during the mourning period. She didn’t spare her in front of people, in the diwan gatherings and during the readings of the Qur’an. Would Futna spare her in turn, at this party? There was broken-hearted Violet as well, the woman she had criticized and gossiped about, the one she had called an idol worshipper, a piglet eater, and a consumer of forbidden drinks among other things. She had also said that a girl like her wouldn’t be fit to be a daughter-in-law for the Hamdans even if she were covered with gold from head to toe. There was Umm Grace, whom she hadn’t spared when the subject of a second wife was brought up. She had told her that if Christians didn’t take a second wife, it was not out of decency or good manners but because their religion was too strict to allow them that. However, whenever they understood its rigidity, they changed their religion, converting to a more forgiving and flexible one the way so and so did. Nahleh had also said that being in a polygamous marriage was better than being a widow or an old maid referring both to Umm Grace and her daughter, who was over thirty and still unmarried—in other words she wasn’t marketable! What upset Nahleh that day was the reluctance of Umm Grace and Violet to explain the meaning of the look they had exchanged followed by a burst of laughter that had lasted almost an hour. There she was, facing her fate and possible dishonor, giving Futna and Umm Grace an opportunity of a lifetime to avenge themselves!

  Nahleh felt a new pinch in her thigh and almost fainted. On the verge of tears, she looked at me and said, disconcertedly, “Tell me what to do with him, look what drinking has done to him.”

  I couldn’t help smiling, but she started crying and was scared, not knowing what to do. She pleaded again for help, “What shall I do, cousin? I fear a public scandal! Look at him, poor man, his eyes are as red as smoldering embers and he seems unable to keep still.”

  I whispered in her ear, laughing, “Take him to the bathroom.”

  She sighed and the white of her eyes changed color thinking that I was making fun of her. She said in a moaning tone, “Please, cousin, for God’s sake, this is no time for joking and criticism, he’s about to do something scandalous.”

  I controlled myself and said, seriously, “Take him to the bathroom to avoid a scandal.”

  She was still bewildered, not knowing whether I was serious or joking. She looked around her to see if anyone had noticed the realtor’s shaking and his odd comportment, but felt better when she saw people’s preoccupation with the buffet and the conversation. She turned to me and said, “You too, cousin, are like them?”

  I whispered, sincerely, “This is the effect of beer, take him to the bathroom, he’ll feel better.”

  “How can I take him to the bathroom?” she wondered, “If Mazen sees me he would kill me, come with us, for God’s sake.”

  We both walked with Abu Salem between the rows of people till we reached the bathroom. I stood watch at the door while they went in.

  Mazen passed by, accompanied by Kamal. They were standing in line for the buffet and I did the same, disappearing in the midst of the guests. I saw Futna and Violet, then Umm Grace and the organ player, whose mother and father she knew. She also knew my father when she was young, studying at the nuns’ school. He then left and so did Grace. Now it’s the turn of her other children to go, Michel and Fouad, and she’ll follow them. God Almighty, America is attracting everybody, they would all go if they could, and they wouldn’t return. It’s rather strange that I, unlike all those people, am coming from America and not going there!

  He came out of the bathroom relieved and relaxed, feeling like a new person, young and filled with an overwhelming love for life. He will go out to the party now and enjoy it to the fullest in Abu Jaber’s daughter’s company, the woman with legs as white as milk pudding and a nape the color of butter. He will help himself from the buffet, then return to his table with a plate full of strange dishes, some of which he had never thought were edible. He had heard Nahleh tell Zayna the names of the dishes with which she was familiar. She knew their names and had their recipes copied in a notebook. She had collected them throughout the years, continually adding new recipes that she liked. He was staring at her, surprised and ecstatic as she mentioned the jams she liked and ate with butter, while looking at him to remind him that butter was the password between them. He smiled to her in his new state of relaxation, having emptied his bladder when it felt like a waterskin. For the time being he was very happy, looking at his reflection in the mirror, his new face, and smelling his first class cologne bought at the barber’s shop near the Mosque.

  The barber had told him, “Rejoice ya hajj, this cologne came directly from Rome, it arrived only two weeks ago. Smell it, smell it, God is great, it’s made of a mixture of orange and European jasmine blossom, quite different from our jasmine blossom, it’s smaller in size and its leaf is as hard as wax. But hajj, God is great, the cologne smells like lemon blossom and even better. May God protect you, look how young you look after the coloring, what do you want me to say, people in civilized countries live to be ninety, and you being only seventy, you have twenty years and maybe more ahead of you, you must live them fully. You have money, you’re prosperous and healthy, you’re youthful, even younger looking than your children, excuse me for saying so. I wonder why nowadays, young people aren’t so young looking and lack energy, brains, and stature. They look like worms and mice, though they eat like ogres.

  “In our time food was scarce, we had neither cake nor steak, we had no mangos and guavas, but we used to dip a loaf of bread in a plate of olive oil, and felt as energetic as giants. I’m telling you, Abu Salem, olive oil is the medication of choice for all illnesses—for a stomachache, for a sore throat, drink oil. If your ear hurts, heat oil and pour it in; even skin, dandruff, sun spots, baldness, and asthma can be treated with olive oil. Today, however, they give you treatments that are very costly and inefficient: cr
eams, ointments, and pills to swallow, some before the meals and others after the meals, and you keep paying money to no avail. It’s all nonsense, trickery, and charlatanry just to get your money. Believe me, nothing is better than olive oil, it helps one regain energy and relaxes muscles. The human body needs oil to lubricate it like a car, it smoothes and softens the bones, the skin and the joints. Listen to me, every day, drink a cup of olive oil on an empty stomach and see how you will improve.”

  From that day on, Abu Salem never missed a day without drinking olive oil before taking his coffee and dipped bread in oil and za‘tar. He stopped eating butter and sheep milk because fat was not healthy and could cause blood clots and blockage of the veins.

  Abu Salem opened the door of the bathroom where Nahleh was standing in front of a large mirror. Perfume bottles, small bars of soap like pieces of Turkish delight, and a basket full of small elegant towels were displayed on a marble table in front of her. He didn’t know why they were there or even how they were made, but Nahleh knew. There she was, standing before him, applying perfume and removing her scarf, revealing her hair rolled like spirals over her shoulders. When she ran the comb through her hair, this black waterfall, and shook her head in an elegant manner akin to a gazelle or a mare, he lost his mind and rushed toward her with a force acquired from years of drinking olive oil and the recent impact of beer, He dived into her nape while she struggled like a fish to free herself. Suddenly, the door leading to the hallway opened and Mazen saw the scene. Without thinking or assessing the consequence of his action, he grabbed the realtor and pulled him away from his sister. In a professional move he grabbed him, hit him, then threw him like a ball in the middle of the terrace where he landed in front of all the guests.

  We were unable to sleep and dawn found us tossing in our beds like people overcome by fever. Our public scandal surpassed all other tragedies we had endured so far. The fact that it had happened in Jerusalem, among people we didn’t know and we didn’t expect to see on a daily basis or ever again in our lifetime, didn’t help. We were sure that the story would reach Wadi al-Rihan by way of Futna, Umm Grace, and even Violet. It might be transmitted through other guests who would share the story with their relatives. Their relatives would tell other relatives and the story would reach the neighbors, the collective taxi drivers and the bus drivers traveling between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and those traveling between Ramallah Nablus and Wadi al-Rihan. It would then journey through the bridge to Amman Lebanon and all the way to Frankfurt.