He said, sharply, “Your tough brother was threatening us, let him run the project!”
The dark skinned man said regretfully. “Our brother Saadu is like your brother Said and that’s why I’m here to beg you people of good will to cooperate with us and unite to save the money and the project. Are you willing to see millions of shekels and months of work go down the drain? Are you willing to go back empty handed and help the Germans instead of helping us? Are you willing to give your expertise to the West and not to us, your people, and all this for what, my brother and your sister! You’re above all that, and God is great.”
Kamal smiled and shook his head, wondering what this young man was up to. Was he trying with a few words to soften his heart and that of his brother and father? Or was he trying to make him forget his defeat and the night he’d spent imprisoned in the abandoned soap factory, his sister’s painful experience, the threats to her legal rights and human rights that they had violated so blatantly, in front of him? The dark skinned man had seen this with his own eyes, and yet he dared ask for his help and support! For whom? For his brothers, one of whom is a gangster and the other a bull. God protect us from them. All this nonsense is happening at his age, to a man in his fifties, it was unbearable. The silence lasted a long time while Kamal stared at the dark skinned man without replying.
Mazen broke into the silence, saying, “I don’t understand, when you returned from Germany you talked for hours about the bitter taste of exile in the West and how you felt like a branch cut from its tree. You talked about your love for your country, you told us that you’d returned in order to sharpen your emotions and your dreams, don’t you remember?”
Kamal didn’t reply, he felt a lump in his throat that spread to his head. Mazen was stirring painful memories and reminding him of his feeling of estrangement as he now came to the realization that his dream was a mirage and that life was, is, and will continue to be tasteless and meaningless, with no aim and without roots. He had dreamed of returning home at this time and this age, to devote himself to a new project, a new passion, something that would make up for the past and for life in a desolate land. In Germany he had felt that he was living a superficial, rootless life, but now, after discovering the state of his homeland, he felt like an orphan, the way he did when, as a child, Nahleh had come out of her mother’s bedroom and exclaimed, “My mother is dying.” He hadn’t cried but had run to his books and his coloring pencils. He remembered that moment as if it had happened today, and he experienced the same feeling.
His father pleaded with him, “May you be blessed, my son, I beg you to reconsider. I’ve waited so long for you to return and stay with me to fulfill a dream of twenty years. Mazen has come back and many other people have as well, things might get better in our country.”
He murmured sadly, “We will never amount to anything.”
Mazen exclaimed, hitting his thigh, “We will amount to something! What if we were defeated a second time, we’re used to defeats, but if we were smart we would stand up after the defeat, and we will do that. We will rise and become a nation. What’s important is to act and not stop at words and pointless conversation. Life is work and commitment.”
Kamal looked at him askance and couldn’t hide his disgust. He wondered what world he was talking about and what commitment? Was it his commitment to his sister Nahleh, to Violet, or to his father’s farm? Was it his commitment to his dream and to his great love, to Salma and to Jubran and all that he left in Lebanon? Life is commitment and it’s work; the revolution gave us nothing but theories and poetry!
“Why are you silent, why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you like what I’m saying?” asked Mazen. But Kamal just asked him to stop talking.
Mazen objected saying, “No, I won’t stop talking. Is it conceivable that because of Nahleh and her well-being you’ve forgotten your country and your project? You’ve exchanged the well-being of the country for that of your sister. You’ve exchanged the good of the people and society for that of one individual! Suppose they stole her rights because they are ignorant and illiterate, isn’t it your role to guide them and stretch a helping hand to them? The aim here is the company, not Nahleh, and regardless of the partners, the project belongs to the country.”
Kamal motioned for him to stop talking and began to unbutton his shirt and feel his neck. He said, “Open a window, give us some air.”
No one reacted, so he got up and opened the window himself; the evening air and the scent of lemon blossom and mint rushed into the room. He felt a new wave of sadness and sorrow, a dejection similar to what he usually experienced at the loss of a lover, a love that ends with separation, tears, and suffering. It was like those stories of the adolescent years, when the heart was still full of tenderness Then the children grew up and those feelings were lost, whenever they went back looking for them, they found nothing but sorrow. Oh Nahleh, Oh Helga, Oh mother, what is this feeling of loneliness, this sorrow, this affliction? He had dreamed of meeting his family, discovering his people’s precious emotions and their concerns He had hoped to find love and sentiments and to recover his ability to feel. His colleague Hayk had told him after a visit to Syria, “People there are better than us, we in the West are mere machines, without the ability to dream and have emotions.”
Where are you, Hayk, to see my condition and share my worries, my sadness, Nahleh’s sadness, and that of all the others? You are like machines and we are individuals and each group turns on its head thinking otherwise. See what Mazen says and what he does, he talks about the individual and the group, but he is the master of lies because he is individualistic, the ultimate individualist.
Mazen asked angrily, “Why are you silent, don’t you like us?”
Then he turned to his father and said to incite him, “Hey father! Weren’t you dreaming of our return to unburden you? Didn’t you dream of us growing up and becoming men to help the country rise from its slumber? Didn’t you dream of all that?”
His father didn’t reply but looked across the window, smelled the scent of lemon and felt the cold of the night. The trees outside seemed very dark that night, shapeless and confused. His old dream came back to him from behind the fog, but the fear of another disappointment strangled his wish to live a new dream and experience another disappointment he wouldn’t be able to bear. His body couldn’t take another disappointment. He wondered whether he were losing his role, if he were giving his children a model unworthy of emulating, the model of a broken-down person. He said in a conciliatory tone, “We, son, suffer when we dream and lose the dream. But we suffer more when we grow up and become bitter, don’t become bitter.”
Kamal choked, touched by his father’s words, and said, “And, you father, are you bitter or haven’t you reached that stage yet?”
He didn’t say, “you have become” because the situation didn’t allow it and he didn’t say, “not yet” because he was already bitter. He had an ungrateful daughter, a billy goat of a son, a defeated and haughty son, a genius living in a foreign land, and two sons with no hope of ever entering the country. His farm was wilting before his eyes, while the settlement of Kiryat Raheel established around the valley was closing in on him. He had hoped for things to improve with the Oslo Accords, but nothing had changed, the settlement was still on top of the hill, surrounding the plain and his farm, crawling toward the valley and the neighboring villages. Was this the solution? Were those his children? The good fruit was falling and the rotten fruit was gaining importance, as one brother was betraying the other and taking over a project he had worked hard to establish. Was this what his generation had dreamed of and rushed to fulfill? Was this what Nasser had announced during the days of glory and the “Voice of the Arabs?” Was it, was it?
Mazen said with great energy, “Didn’t you dream of our return in order to live in the country and undertake projects? Didn’t you?”
His father shook his head and mumbled vaguely, “Of course, of course.”
“Did
n’t you dream of seeing your children return to help you?” asked Mazen.
The father said again, “Of course, of course.”
Mazen went on pressing him, “Haven’t you been dreaming of the end of exile, and wished for each one of us to return to his country and bring with him his family, his knowledge and his money? Didn’t you want us to settle down, help improve the homeland and change it to a beautiful paradise in people’s eyes? Weren’t those your dreams?”
His father had tears in his eyes, he repeated in a mournful voice, his head bent and his heart broken, “Of course, of course.”
While Mazen was feeling elated by the sound of his own words that intoxicated him like poetry, Kamal saw tears in his father’s eyes and felt his grief. He rushed to him, kneeled at his feet, hugged him, and placed his head on his lap. He whispered to him, deeply moved, “I feel your pain, by God I do.”
The two burst into bitter tears, to Mazen’s surprise. He stared at them and asked in total disbelief, “Why are they crying? Why are they crying?”
He looked at the Bey who lowered his gaze because his eyes were filled with tears as well. He turned to the dark skinned man, Abu Salem’s son, and found him staring at this deeply touching scene and being totally affected by it. The sound of their crying was rising and breaking the silence of the night, echoing back to him. He suddenly realized how much he had changed and how, since the project of the Art and Culture Center, he had regained his energy and his fighting spirit, his hopes for the future. He had forgotten how a person who didn’t understand the revolution and its theories, a simple man like his father would think, and how a man of science like Kamal, with a precise mathematical mind, thinks, and how a man like the Bey with a history and deep roots, thinks.
Mazen wondered how a young man returning from Budapest with an open mind and heart, and huge hopes for change, would think. In the heat of the battle to spread culture he had forgotten reality and how to sec it through his father’s eyes and farm work. He had forgotten to look at the world through the eyes of a sharp scientist who studied the weather and its implications in his lab. He had forgotten to look at the world through the eyes of the Shayib family, their past glory and their wealth. Was it possible that even a member of the Shayib family would cry like his father? But why not? Wasn’t he a human being like any other, with feelings and pride, with a heritage and interests, how could he have forgotten that? How could he have overlooked the project and Saadu and Said, Nahleh, and her shares? How could he have forgotten Violet and her plans to immigrate? He mumbled in confusion and shock, his eyes moving between the weeping men, “Why are they crying? For what?”
He looked again at the Bey hoping he would come to his rescue, say something that would give his father some hope and consolation, and make Kamal stay. But the Bey was crying because he felt that history was moving ahead leaving people like him and Abu Jaber, the landowner, empty handed. He too was empty handed, but he wasn’t like them because he was moving ahead without questioning life, without direction, like a ship in the sea navigating without a helm, without sails, and without a port.
There was an obvious difference between the attitude of two men facing the same situation and the same scene. Mazen became aware of his contradictions, his mistakes, and his excuses, while the Bey was carried away by the event and cried, moved and saddened. Mazen looked into himself searching for the reasons for his weakness while the Bey went to Violet to forget his sorrow, his fears, and his insecurities. He was hoping to find in her company answers to questions that were disturbing him, questions he had neither the courage nor the strength to probe with depth. He was too old to change, and the situation wasn’t easy. His problem wasn’t the sewage project because that was part of the environment. It wasn’t concern about the situation and these people because people are history and we lost our history forever, and even if it could be restored, it wouldn’t be through our own efforts and for us.
The Bey knocked at the door and the mother welcomed him politely and kindly. She explained that Violet had gone to the salon to show it to prospective buyers and that she would return in a few minutes. She asked whether he would like to eat some tabbouleh, which she had just finished preparing, assuring him that he had not tasted anything better in all his life. His smile indicated that he would not object to eating some tabbouleh and cucumber. When she brought the dish she-asked him if he would like a glass of wine from a bottle she had brought back with her the last time she visited the Latrun monastery. He smiled again and began to relax after his tense encounter with the Hamdan family and the emotional experience he’d had there.
The mother recollected stones from the past and some from the present, then mentioned America and what was waiting for them there. She explained that the trip was still far in the future because neither the shop nor the house had vet been sold. Violet was dragging her feet, giving flimsy excuses and knowing very well though that nothing could be expected from Mazen.
Then she turned to the Bey and asked inquisitively, “And you, what do you think, is there any hope for this country to improve?”
He averted his face to avoid her question and hide the emotions and the humiliations it might provoke. What could they do? The others encircled the valley, climbed the mountains and took positions on the elevations as they had around the hills of Jerusalem. They encircled the city strangling and swallowing it. End of story. They had done the same with the mountains of the West Bank, the plains of Gaza, and those of Jericho. They are everywhere, and they take positions anywhere they want, expanding in all directions. And where is the Authority? Any authority? Can there be a country without authority?
She asked again, insistently, “Do you think that conditions will improve and that we’ll be able to live a normal life, like the rest of the world?”
He shook his head and said to her, “Ya Umm Grace, what’s the point of raising this painful subject. Let’s stay with the wine, the tabbouleh, beautiful America, and Miami. You told me that Grace lives in Miami? It’s a pretty city, paradise on earth. I spent five years in Boston.”
He began telling her about his life in America, his memories there and how he had lived his life to the fullest. He had traveled from east to west in the U.S. and visited Canada and Mexico. He’d seen the Indian reservations, the Chinatowns, the Blacks, the Arabs, and the Jews, with their various traditions, each living as they wanted, without interfering in one another’s lives and without spying on one another.
Umm Grace took a deep breath and said, “Alas! Here one hardly says a word before it spreads throughout the country.”
He heeded her words well, measuring the consequences of his visit and the comments it might cause. He reaffirmed his decision to make all his visits under the cover of night, hiding them from everybody except Violet and her mother. What would people say if their story became known? They would say the old man goes out with a hairdresser, the honorable old man who inherited a name and the key of the Aqsa Mosque goes out with a Christian woman. They might say he goes out with a woman younger than his daughter. Nothing would be said, however. It would remain a secret.
Violet entered and was surprised to see him. She couldn’t hide her displeasure at the sight of him, but out of courtesy and respect for his age she welcomed him and said flatly, looking away, “I can’t wait to get rid of the salon, this country, and its calamities.”
Her words didn’t disturb him because he didn’t believe he was included in them. Musions in such situations are useless because the moment he began following his feelings, he left behind the acuity needed to understand them! When his instincts kicked in, they slowed down his logical thinking and possibly stopped it altogether. His feeling of relaxation might have reduced his alertness despite his intelligence, making it easy for him to start joking and talking about himself, bragging shamelessly.
The mother got up to prepare dinner because it was the suitable thing to do for a visitor at this hour. She had gotten used to friends’ visits and to generously
offering them food and drink, and she didn’t find the Bey’s visit out of place.
When the Bey found himself alone with Violet he went straight to the point, “I want my visits to remain a secret, people don’t need to find out about us.”
Violet felt a deep sense of revulsion and felt like vomiting, but she remained silent because she had lost the spark of fife. She took a quick look at him, then turned her face away, muttering, “Oh merciful God.”
Noticing that she was grave-faced, he tried to win her over by asking about her situation, the date of her departure, the sale of the salon and the house. He volunteered to find serious buyers for her, buyers who would pay a good price that would please her.
She mumbled a few harsh words, explaining that the market was at a standstill and people didn’t want to invest their money in real estate because the situation was unstable, uncertain, and unpromising.
But he told her with determination that he would find a suitable buyer.
She asked, despondently, “A buyer from where, from here?”
He remembered that he didn’t know anyone in Wadi al-Rihan apart from the Hamdan family, but who among them would want a salon and a house like this one? It was a charming house despite its small size, and it might find a modest buyer among those returning with the Authority, but who would buy the salon? He nevertheless assured, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the salon.”
She gave him a meaningful look to let him know that she understood him and his game. She said again, somewhat shaken, “A buyer from where, from here?”
The Inheritance Page 23
