Papa Sartre: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)

by Ali Bader

  Nadia changed as she made the transition from childhood to adolescence. Her expressions revealed a maturing young woman quite different from the capricious child she has been. She became kind and rather timid. In summer she slept until noon, and then went down to the garden, where her friends would join her. Sometimes she would ride in her father’s car across the endless barley and lettuce fields. In winter she’d usually choose to stay home, near the fire, and feed it continuously. Occasionally she would visit Mayer’s office, whose influence over her father was growing. He usually drove her back home or, with her father’s approval, took her to the Plazia Restaurant for dinner. He had a permanent office room in the Khaddouri family business.

  Nadia tried to emulate her father’s goodheartedness and her mother’s kindness and compassion. She wasn’t gifted, but she was sensitive. She likely inherited her sensitivity from her father, and it is probably the only virtue she never lost.

  Every day Nadia went to her father’s company accompanied by the driver or Mayer ben Nassim. She often persuaded her father to have dinner with her at the Plazia Restaurant. Nadia usually chose a table near a window that looked out onto the street and would watch the passersby. She tried to be witty and entertaining, and when she grew tired of laughing she’d get up. Her father and Mayer would follow.

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  One day Nadia didn’t get up at her usual time. Her father tried to get her out of bed, but she was feverish and didn’t leave her room for two days. From that day on she never went back to her father’s office, nor could she look Mayer in the face. Obviously disgusted, she was avoiding him. A year later Mayer left Baghdad for good, but Nadia was indelibly marked by her experience with that man.

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  After Mayer’s departure Nadia began to lead a different kind of life. She was growing up and had matured considerably, especially after the Tigris River flooded. She devoted all her time to helping the victims. She and the maid would leave her house in the morning carrying a big pot of milk to distribute to the unfortunate people living in tents close to her house. She showed a great deal of compassion and was pained by their condition, the dangers that threatened them, and the poor conditions for the children in particular. This experience with the flood victims and her volunteer activities taught her the importance of work and the benefit of giving to others. A month later she told her parents that she wanted to look for a job outside the family business.

  Surprised, her father asked, “Why do you want to work? Do you need money? You can have all the money you want.”

  But Nadia insisted, “No, no, I want to go out and be with people, I want to rely on myself.”

  Her mother had another explanation, “You must have been influenced by some silly notions.” Nadia insisted, and three days later she found a job in the Mackenzie bookshop, where eventually she met the philosopher, who was on a family visit from Paris.

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  Nadia filled the house with joy whenever she came home for lunch. She ate with her father and took in the superb view of the greenery through the dining room window. Sometimes, even in the rain or wind, she would walk the dog on the grounds. She liked the sound of the wind and she loved the sight and smell of the orange blossoms.

  She was not exactly happy, but at times she appeared to be exhilarated and at other times depressed—even on a beautiful day. She spent her weekends in the house relaxing in her favorite armchair, reading in the library, or simply staring into the flames in the fireplace.

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  The philosopher’s relationship with Nadia lasted six months, from midsummer to midwinter. He was in Baghdad on a summer vacation after he had lost all hope of ever establishing a relationship with the waitress at the Café de Flore. He wanted to try his luck with Arab women, and to this end he frequented places where women usually gathered in large numbers. The moment he saw a woman he would begin fantasizing about her and imagine her naked in bed. This is how he’d assess her suitability. He’d imagine her fixing breakfast, putting on her house clothes, dressing up in eveningwear, then he’d decide on the degree of her appropriateness—in other words, whether she deserved the title of ‘philosopher’s wife.’

  Abd al-Rahman enjoyed people’s attention and their interest in him, a pleasure which clearly revealed the contradictions of his personality. There were times when he wanted to escape from himself and his loneliness and be with other people. And then there were times when he wanted, in compliance with his philosophical orientation, to show indifference and disinterest in others. But everything in the world worked against him.

  The philosopher was well aware of the presence of two distinct worlds in his life—the deep internal world, where philosophy reigned, and the external world of easy, practical matters. Finding a compromise between the two and bridging their differences was no small feat. Here arose the ambiguity of marrying an Arab woman: How could one marry a woman who was neither an existentialist nor versed in any philosophy at all?

  Abd al-Rahman’s imagination responded to his dilemma during the first month of his visit to Iraq. He would sit in the living room of his parents’ house, stare into the dense gardens, and imagine himself invisible, strongly convinced that somewhere there was a women for him, a woman capable of understanding his philosophy, of understanding him, and singling him out from a sea of philosophers. The man he saw in his mind would have a tired-looking face, thoughtful eyes, calm hand movements, and a certain dreaminess born of the misery and nihilism of existence.

  Sometimes he considered this issue childish and even stupid, especially when he began visiting his relatives and observed the behavior of the young women. They would sit up straight with legs crossed and heads bowed, looking at the floor as a sign of subservience. He despised this attitude, all the foolishness of courting, the love notes, the successes and failures. He considered them a waste of a philosopher’s time and a distraction from his meditation. One day, before he had decided when he would return to Paris, he went to the Mackenzie bookshop.

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  Nadia attracted the philosopher’s attention. He noticed her among the other shy, sad-looking women. She stood out in her print dress, a flower in her hair, her soft, calm voice and Christian accent. She was different from the other girls he knew, who idly stayed home and quietly worked on their embroidery. Abd al-Rahman felt that she would be able to share his experience, since when he said Sartre, she responded, “I know him. I know his book, La nausée. It costs 200 fils. We have it in the store.” He mentioned Camus, and she responded right away, “I know him; he wrote a novel entitled L’etranger. It costs either 150 or 200 fils. I can’t remember.”

  So she knew them all, Suhail Idris, Aida Matraji Idris, Dar al-Adab, and Simone de Beauvoir. Even if she only knew the price of their books, that counted for something. This was not an easy matter. No one among the existentialists of the world would know the price of books on existentialism. She’d be an asset for his philosophy. She’d be able to provide the price of philosophy and its cost overseas. Another woman would have asked stupidly, “Sartre? Who is this Sartre?” Whenever he went into the bookstore and looked at the books on the shelves, tired of his nausea, he would see her, as part of the colored book covers; he would visualize her live image and Sartre’s picture on the same cover. This image swelled his affection for her. She was, in his mind, a part of the books on the shelves. His presence and mood always affected her deeply as well. His power undermined her self-control, and she had to rein in her emotions. Nonetheless, she always conducted herself properly.

  He would often spend a couple of hours in the bookstore, checking over the books, reading, and looking for a title he wanted. There were moments when their eyes would meet and she felt drawn to him. Her emotions imparted a certain feminine charm to her face that strongly attracted him. Whenever she asked him, “You read a lot, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he’d respond. “I’m a philosopher.”

  This marked the beginning of the philosopher’s affair with Nadia Khaddo
uri, and the end of Edmond al-Qushli’s connection with existentialism and his shift toward Trotskyism.

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  Edmond loved Nadia deeply. Whenever he visited her he would wait a few minutes before going into the house. As soon as he saw her, he would freeze until she took his hand and tugged him gently inside the house. He was a tall man, and his head reached the crystal chandelier in the living room. A picture of the Virgin Mary hung over the fireplace near a display of silver rosaries. An icon of Christ and an incense burner were on a table. On a mahogany shelf a New Testament was left open to the page where Nadia had been reading.

  On one of his visits to Nadia’s house, looking at the open Bible, he asked, without looking at her, “Do you read the New Testament?”

  “Every day,” she replied. Her long chestnut hair fell over her shoulders, and her naked arms were as white as cotton.

  That day Nadia was wearing a tight skirt that revealed her shapely legs. Her face was beautiful, pure, and pleasing as she looked into her cousin’s eyes. He berated her strongly, “You’re a Christian, and you love a Muslim!” She said nothing, but she wasn’t embarrassed and looked away as if thinking of something else. He pressed on: “You’re in love, aren’t you?”

  “I thought you didn’t differentiate between Christians and Muslims,” she retorted.

  “What about you,” he asked. “Don’t you draw a difference?”

  “When I am in love, I don’t differentiate,” she said, “Love does not differentiate.”

  He continued talking, his eyes moist, “I usually don’t discriminate, but when I fall in love I do.” He looked around the room and examined its contents, then got up and left, fighting back tears. Nadia was silent. She was sad, and as soon as the front door closed behind Edmond, she heard him break down. Moved, she sat on the chair where he had sat and she cried too.

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  Abd al-Rahman was mesmerized by Nadia when he saw her for the first time. Though she didn’t wear glasses, as he liked women to do, he couldn’t take his eyes off the snug clothes that molded her body and the distinctive paleness of her face, which was free of any haughtiness or oppression. He liked her calm self-confidence as well as her constant efforts to inveigle and impress him.

  He didn’t mind her occasionally abrasive reactions, jokes, and allusions or her cool, reserved mien. On the contrary, these characteristics of hers piqued his interest, though they didn’t add to her sexual attraction for him. She was a little stiff and determined, firm even—qualities he liked because they set her apart from the prostitutes he had known in Paris. In a sense, she presented him with a field for discovery, a venue for adventure, a gamble, or an object to be captured and possessed. But he wanted to reach an objective opinion, one grounded in philosophical wisdom and logic without losing himself.

  One day, sipping orange juice and laughing, Nadia winked at him as he was considering his options with her. She was trying to lick a drop of juice from her lower lip. He loved the way she pulled back her lips and closed her mouth without causing a stir.

  Nadia perplexed him from the moment he first saw her. He couldn’t resist being attracted to her, but it wasn’t easy for him to engage her. She exhausted him with her affected reserve. Whenever he let himself go, she’d crush him with her charm, the same charm that had defeated Edmond before him. He was sapped by her naive sweetness. She provoked strange reactions in him. He was ready to believe anything she said and felt that she was scheming to control his heart.

  He explained to her the importance of philosophy and insisted that he was not so naive as to believe that God had created the nose as a perch for glasses or that the feet were meant only for socks, or even that human beings were merely bait for Death. He told her about the theory of cause and effect, citing the example of a sailor who loses his teeth as a result of scurvy.

  Abd al-Rahman was unable to hide his love for her, and with his love came jealousy. He adored her and, utterly helpless, surrendered to her every wish. He was convinced that he had to marry her because, simply put, she understood his philosophy and his wisdom; in other words, there was total harmony between him and her wisdom, her nature, and her ability to understand philosophy and put up with him. Based on his conviction that God created everything to serve him, he believed that she was the creature that God had intended for him. This thinking reflected his belief that he was the center of the universe.

  The philosopher was well aware that love affairs do not end peacefully—or at least not the way he wanted them to end, simply and happily. He had to be extremely careful in setting out on this adventure and was even considering taking special precautions to end the affair at precisely the right time. Otherwise, what would differentiate him from ordinary people? He’d have to review the lives of all famous people, from Sartre to the hero of Brand Brooks adventure stories.

  He needed love, and this time things were going well. His conscience bothered him only slightly. He was enjoying himself a great deal, free of the pain he had suffered in his pursuit of the Café de Flore waitress. His enjoyment possibly even exceeded the limited pleasures provided by Paris prostitutes. This love didn’t make him anxious but proceeded smoothly, like crossing a bridge, and was fired by the occasional nod or a smile when he left the bookshop.

  The first time they went out, Abd al-Rahman took Nadia on a circuit of Baghdad. They went to the cinema and the Orient Express café and ended the tour in a well-known restaurant. She didn’t say a word the whole time and was somewhat moody. He didn’t appreciate her attitude and was about to lose his temper, having chatted the whole time about philosophy. He wanted her to know that there was a philosophy based on talk and that talking was a kind of purging that brings a perfect happiness. It was an art, the art of chatting with a beautiful young woman like her.

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  Nadia and her mother Helen were invited to Mrs. Adileh’s, in the Hasan Pasha district, to celebrate Easter. The young women of the house received them warmly, but Edmond was not there. Grandma Adileh’s living room displayed signs of her faith, such as the image of the Virgin Mary on the wall and the cross above the door. Samaan, Edmond’s uncle, was praying and sprinkling the house with holy water he had brought from the church. The smell of incense filled the house.

  Umm Butrus was cleaning the windows, and her daughter was moving among the guests with a tray of sweets and nuts. The chatter of the young women, their soft laughter, and their high voices echoed throughout the house. The guests included many relatives—Aida and Georgette, Samaan’s daughters; Edmond’s cousin Nadia; Helen, Nadia’s uncle’s wife; and Anisa and Salwa, the daughters of Hanna Qushli. Friends and neighbors were there too: Marroki’s wife Suzan, also Jenna, Fladya, Amira, and others. Even their Muslim and Jewish neighbors were invited: Rahmeh; Hamdiya; Suad, the daughter of the former chief of police; Miyya, daughter of Abd al-Qader al-Mumayyez; Rafla al-Dawdi; and Karna Ajas, the pharmacist’s daughter. Their jewelry twinkled in the candlelight.

  Suddenly Edmond entered. He immediately noticed Nadia, who was radiant with her beautiful skin, her fine figure, and her delicate fingers illuminated by the lights. He greeted each young woman with an affected smile, but when he stood before Nadia he felt his heart was about to break. Nadia had lowered her head to look at a book, and her eyelashes cast a slight shadow onto her cheeks. He greeted her with a reproach: “Hello Nadia, it has been a long time since you last visited Grandma Adileh!” Nadia did not reply.

  Her transparent skin, well-drawn nose, and the twinkle in her almond-shaped eyes disturbed Edmond. Standing before her, he didn’t know what to do with himself. After a few seconds of hesitation he grabbed a plate of sweets and offered her some. She took a piece, opened her mouth wide to avoid smearing her lipstick, and then dipped her fingers into a glass filled with rosewater. He handed her his white handkerchief to dry her fingers, took it back when she was finished, and went to his room. There he sat facing Trotsky’s photograph and broke into tears. He was devastated to see Sartre triumph over Trot
sky and could not bear the idea of Abd al-Rahman sauntering about the streets of Baghdad with Nadia, spending time with her in restaurants, enjoying her company.

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  Abd al-Rahman started going to the Mackenzie bookshop every day and watched Nadia from behind the glass while smoking his pipe. Nadia often put pink ribbons in her hair and wore a print dress with small flowers. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He scrutinized her every move and wanted to hold her very tight, as if he would never see her again. They used to meet every day after work at the Orient Express café near Maude Bridge, drink coffee, and talk for a couple hours. Edmond was aware of Abd al-Rahman’s daily visits to the Mackenzie bookshop. He couldn’t stand the thought of their daily encounters and growing intimacy. He would have loved to be the one watching Nadia from behind the glass, basking in her beauty.

  On their third outing Abd al-Rahman tried to kiss her, but she refused. He pulled her to him, but she was trembling and had tears in her eyes. Her heart was beating fast and she put him off, saying in a hoarse voice, “No, no—I can’t.” He asked her for an explanation while still trying to touch her soft thigh under the table. She pushed him away. “I don’t know why, but things like that are repulsive to me. There was an incident . . . .”

  “What sort of incident?!” exclaimed Abd al-Rahman.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t,” she said, and fled the table.

  He stood facing her. She was surprised and agitated, convinced that he had spoiled their relationship by dredging up a painful memory and doubting her. He left the café and walked beside her quietly down al-Rashid Street. They talked and slowly regained their usual familiarity, walking so close that their bodies almost touched. He liked to impress Nadia with talk about existentialism, nausea, estrangement, nihilism, and the absurd. For her part, she liked this abstractness that kept their focus distracted from physical matters. She liked this philosopher’s inclination toward delusive imagination, a yearning for the forbidden, and the ability to create great works in the air. Abd al-Rahman liked to walk in front of her and look at her as he continued talking nonstop, while she chimed, “A great philosopher.”