I, The Divine

by Rabih Alameddine

  Most of the letters are simply ramblings. It would have been clear to anyone who read them that they were the product of a disturbed mind. Unfortunately, no one read them until it was too late, and then we did not dare show them to anyone else. Only my sister Amal, my stepmother, and I read them. Their presence was kept a secret among the three of us. We never told my father.

  My sister was what we Druze call a “talker.” It is a difficult word to translate. A talker is one able to say things as a child that related to her past life. Those who follow the Druze faith believe in reincarnation. “Talkers” were not rare among us. She began getting into trouble at the age of three. When she was given a sandwich for dinner, she refused it, saying she would only eat if the dinner table was set, she was too good to be given sandwiches. She told everybody that when she lived in Jabal al-Druze, in Syria, she always had lavish feasts for dinner. She stomped her feet when she was asked to bathe. She wanted her old bathtub, the one with intricate turquoise-colored designs on the side. She asked to be taken back to her husband and children. Usually such behavior is taken with a degree of acceptance among Druze families, allowing the child some leeway until she adjusts to her new life. It is considered normal. Unfortunately, Lamia was insulting the family so she was made to shut up. She was forced to eat sandwiches, use cutlery not made of silver, and bathe in a regular porcelain bathtub. It was at that time that she began to withdraw.

  When my grandfather began investigating her previous life—one goes to the area where the “talker” was supposed to have come from and asks around to see who died at the time of the “talker’s” birth—he discovered that what Lamia was saying was true. She had come from a rich, landowning family and had three kids of her own. Apparently she had lived a normal life, married to an ostentatious man who constantly berated her for not being perfect. On the day she died, she took a saber to her husband’s throat, slashed it, and killed herself, leaving her children orphaned. Those in the village from which she came warned my grandfather that if her soul was back, our family should be wary. We were not. My grandfather told my father who told my stepmother who told me. It became a tale, an interesting family story. No one mentioned anything to Lamia. In her letters, though, it was obvious that she knew the exact details of her life in Jabal al-Druze.

  I had always thought I was the one who took after my mother. After all, I inherited her exotic looks, her artistic tendencies, her mood swings, her Americanness. I was the one who was perpetually lost, always trying to find myself in the rubble. But in the end, I realized it was my sister Lamia who took after my mother. She inherited her insanity.

  It is quite possible that I am not the best person to describe my sister or to speak for her. I am biased and cannot write objectively about her. I will let her speak for herself:

  Dear Mother,

  My husband is very strange again because about five weeks ago, he bringed a mannequin home for what reason he will not say but I don’t know how to say mannequin in english but you know what I mean like the big doll. The children have liked it in the beginning and they called it Madonna but not too long and they don’t like it anymore, why I don’t know, and I wanted to throw her out but my husband he said we might use her some day but I did not like her naked all the time so I dressed her and put a wig on her hair and The children liked her now so I put her in the salon room in one of the couches. Well I liked the way she is looking now and I start to dressing her in different every two or three or four days and I put makeup on her face and I gave her some new looks wonderful and it was fun and so the children talk to her as if she was someone human being. But my motherinlaw thinks its realy crazy but I said to her maybe she better talk her son because he says he want her in the house at the beginning so she said I should not be dressed her but I told her Madonna only wear things I dont’d wear because I don’t have a body like her and she is very thin, don’t you think and I can’t get far away with what she puts on. Why is she blaming me all the time?

  I argued another time with my father because he still has the same temper. He got upset with me because I gave Ashraf some Cypro and hee said only doctors are suppose to proscribe strong antibiotics and he was so holyer than thee but He agreed with me that all the symptoms of Ashraf’s were a bacterial infection, but he thinks I should have talked to a doctor but I think he just hates me. Amal selfproscribes valuums and Majida takes Prozac whenever she has depressions like candy and bonbon but if I give my son antibiotic, I did the wrong thing, don’t you know? You know of course that Ashraf was better and it was the right thing to do of course but my father didn’t said to me that I gave him the wrong medicine but only that I need to talk to a doctor. He went on and on and on like running water all the time about the danger of all medicines are over the counter in this country and as if that had anything to do with me so I said to him what can I do about that but he didn’t tell me so he treats me like a little girl who doesn’t know right from wrong. And my husband doesn’t do anything because the fat thing only sit there and let my father shout at me and I keep thinking that one day, he shall’ll stand up for me and tell my father stop but he doesn’t know whats going on so I told him a couple of time that if my dad shouts at me it means he’s insulting him since he was the man of the house and not my father who isnt the man of the house at all, don’t you think? He doesn’t understand it and I dont depend on him for anything because its all up to me and I am the rock of Gibraltar and My husband is a weakthing and he can’t even answer up to his own mother, so how can he answer up any one personne like my father. People will always run all over him and ride him and wipe there feet on him like a outdoor carpet and he lets them because he’s been passed over for better job at work over many hundred times. I swear on you, if he didn’t married me, he would’n’t have gotten anywhere in this life but being with his mother at home all day crying over spoiled milk. Do you watch ER? I watch every show even though the children try to harass me during the show but I like it because it shows how much better American hospitals are than Lebanese hospitals and much better hospitals and all the nurses and doctors are pretty and they have all the best machines and none of the patients are as demanding as the patients are demanding in Beirut. My father still doesn’t give me enough appreciate me and I have to say to him all the time that I am a nurse and I am a good nurse too But he doesn’t see that, does he, but I’am just happy that we don’t work on the same department because I swear on you, he treat the philipino nurses better he treat me. Because at one time when we were over at his home to have dinner, he start talking about a procedure he did on that day and then he looked at me with a bad smile and asked me what uterus was in Arabic because he was just making a joke of me because I study nursing in Cairo and start to learn anatomy in Arabic as if that make my nursing degree bad, Can you believe that? If I had graduated from the American University of Beirut, then I was a real nurse and as if it was my fault that we had a war and I go to Cairo to make sure my family is safety and you know, at the least I have a degree, don’t you think? I’am the first woman in the family to come out a degree. Sarah says she graduates from Barnard, but I know she is lying, she is, and she does’nt have a single picture in a hat and graduation dress and she says she didn’t go to the graduation celebration because she thinks graduation celebrations are for children and the only reason she thinks its for children is because she couldn’t go and I’am sure she did’nt have a graduate. I told her one every time to show me her degree and she asked me in a realy angry way, Why? You want to hire me? Because If she realy come out a degree, wouldn’t she show a degree papers to me, don’t you think? but my father loves her and always Sarah this and Sarah that thing and she is graduate from Barnard and shes the smart one and she is the joy of his heart and she is the apple of his eye and she is the flower of every four seasons. They can all go to hell on a quick basket.

  I shouldn’t talk about my father because I know it makes you upset and I promise not to do it again ever but you realy should stop up
setting over it and I say this with the kind heart, the whitest heart like yassmine flower because it pain my nerves when you are upset. Don’t let him make you angry like that because he’s not worth much and hes an unhappy man and he will always be an unhappy and he is sad and he does nothing with his life because he hass very little work no more and all the new doctors are much better than he and he should retire a long time ago but he goes to the hospital every morning and does nothing al the time. Then he comes home and all he does is make his wife sad and angry and she deserves it, but realy, what kind of life is that, don’t you think? You shouldn’t get upsetting when I talk about him because he’s a nobody and he’s a loser and he is a painful neck but I hope you can see that.

  I made another doily for you, better than last two because the last two have faded and gone bad and faded and you will see because I sawed flowers on it with gold thread because you’ll realy like it for sure. And as I’am writing this, one Israelien plane just shaken my windows and I can tell you how much I hate that. Your so lucky you left before the Israelien planes start to fly over Beirut all the time and you never know when they are going to bomb but realy worse, because they fly always near the ground and break the sound boom and the boom shatter many windows all over and its very bad all the time and they do it on purpose just because it pains my nerves.

  I better leave now because I have shaked too much to write and I have a pain corn on my left foot and I dont understand why because I had been wearing the same shoe pair as if my left foot is growing because I am growing up. Okay, I willl stop writing now.

  Love,

  Your lovely daughter Lamia

  I only wanted to tell you that Sarah is in Beirut and I went to see her yesterday but Shes still the same and still arrogant and all about her and nose in the air like someone who smell kaka all the time and she believes the world should pay her a living and I don’t know what makes her think she is someone. Only to make her nose break a little I said to her in front of her old husband that I saw her first boyfriend, Fadi but realy I said I saw one of her boyfriends and Omar wanted to know who he was this Fadi so you see, good Sarah, smart Sarah, wonderful Sarah, never said to her husband about her boyfriend so okay, they are no married more but she never said to him about her affairs about her love about her sex before she met him her husband. The stupid fool thinks she was a maybe virgin when he first went to bed on her but she’s a sexmachine and that how she fished her men in the sea. But I told her Fadi he looked terribile because he had one eye and walked with a cover eye like Moshe Dayan, don’t you think? But she knew anything about that, Can you believe that? Because She loves this man at one time but then when she fished a more important fish like Omar she no longer cared with Fadi and she never cared to know out what happened to him her boyfriend because she doesn’t care and she all the time is insensitive. Only to make her feel bad I told her that at the beginning the early days of the war, he didn’t fight but he was a member of the communist party but he never fights so he was took by the Syrians and beat so hard he lost one eye and he can no more think right because he has no more shorterm memories and he forgets what he only said to you right away but he remembers what happened to him twenty years ago as if it was now happening and of course, he wasn’t to get married after that and he can’t have a job and he lived with his parents. He cannot understand a lot but he’s still in love with Sarah and he remembers her like she was all the time back then so I did say to him to forget her and I said to him she married twice and has many boyfriends but you see, he can’t remember no more now and all he knows is what happened then and his what happened that was my cruel sister.

  She changes men like magic and I don’t know how she did it but I think I know how because she opens her legs to any man who will make her rich and better. I’am sorry to mean this about your daughter, but its the truth I swear on you and I know you saw her now and you know her and you know she is that way, don’t you think? Everybody here know about her sexmachine and thats how she fished herself with Omar but I don’t know why she let him leave and go without her and leave but he maybe found her with another man but if she worked hard she could have made him to forgive her because He was so in love with her. But he is better off now with better wife who take care of him all the time not like Sarah she swallows life out of her men. look at poor Fadi.

  This is very depressive but I’am happy I can talk to you about this things because I dont talk to anybody and when I try to talk to Amal she attacks me because she thinks everybody is a good personne, and you know it is not true all the time at all but she likes Omar and I can know why because he is inviting her and her children all the time up to his chalet to ski and last year it was four times with him but he never invited me or my children, don’t you think my kids good enough?

  I opened another bottle of wine and it was rance like sour vinaigre also like yesterday and why this is happening to me. Can I ask you a question which is do you still have the green woolend dress I always like and I know there is about thirty years but it was a nice dress and I thought you maybe still had it maybe I doubt you still wear it but maybe you saved it because a penny saved is a penny saved. If you did, can you save it for me? Don’t leave it to any of the other girls because I don’t think they loved it as much as I did and they don’t appreciate beautiful things, dont like pretty things, don’t know nice things, they don’t do they?

  Love,

  Your good daughter Lamia

  Dear Mommy,

  I’de been thinking a lot about you this days and Sorry because I did not write to you but busy all the time because Ashraf my oldest boy been sick and got the grippe last month but he is over her now. You will be very proud of him if you saw him because he looks like you and your eyes but his father says his eyes not your eyes but are like him but you know my husband he is not intelligent and very fat also and he never met a food he does not say hello to all the time.

  I took a long car to Suida because I was wanting to go there for a long long time like from here to eternity and I drive there at last and all by myself and it was so good and you will be proud of me. I woken up at four in the morning and took my car but I did not tell you I had a new car because Saniya bought a car only for me for my birthday and she thinks she can buy my love don’t you think. She thinks she is better than me because she has money and she buyed the car and gave it to me because she sknows I dont know how to say no because my old car was dying all the time slowly. But she picks the car and not me and she made the color choice and I hate that but it is a good car and I like it all the time and now I can go to Suida all the way.

  I drive all the way to the Syrian border and the Syrians give to me a lot of trouble there and they ask me again and again why I was going to do in Suida. How can I tell them don’t you know? I’am not stupid. I couldn’t say to them I was going to find my children and say I’am sorry for killing there father because they would have put me in jail for sure right away don’t you think? I say to them I want to meet family in Suida and They asked me what was there name was and I said to them and they asked me how they were family and that is maybe how I got in trouble at the first because nor the family of my husband nor my family are family to my old family you see. So all the time at the end I said to the guy who was asking the questions to me that all Druze families are one family don’t you know? He at last believed me and let me go to Suida but I should said to him I was only a tourist in Syria and that is no problem but who goes tourist to Syria I don’t realy know and I know what you a’re thinking because I know you and I should had said to the man I was shopping but I thought about that only after they let me go and don’t you hate this when you think of something that would only have been perfect to say but it was only after it was time to say it like at the lip of your tongue because I always do that. Dommage realy.

  it drive me a long long time to reach Suida because the roads are terribile and everything is so primitife and the village was just like I remembered déjà vu and nothi
ng changes because it was old and dirty and very old at the same time but not dirty like dirty but there were cans of garbage all the time but no one had picked them up in long long time. Suida has many ajaweed and everyone wearing black and covered there heads with white with a silly hat or a foulard and it was like the fourteenth century but when I was there there was no electricity in the village but now here it is. Everyone I saw stared at me very much because I’am an outsider but I wasn’t of course but how do you tell that to stupid people don’t you know? I drove all the way up to my home and nothing changes there only for the terrace in the front and now it had pots of flowers, most of all hydreyngeas and some pensees but it was still the stone house and shutters of the wood was not changed also. The paint had gone bad and the color of green of the shutters was not there anymore at all almost because I was the last one to paint green paint on them there is fifty years ago. It did no longer look special like fifty years ago and not the best house in the village any more and look very smaller. I want to see under the pot of flowers next to the door to see my key but I don’t do that because it was long ago I left it there.

  So an old woman come to the door and answer and she is also one of the ajaweeds and her mandeel cover her hair and she bites on one side to cover her mouth but she let go when she see its only me at the door and say hello to her so she smiled. She told me come in without realy asking who I am or what I want from her at all and she walk first to her salon room and I second and the salon was the same one because furnitire has no changes only they put better material on top of the chairs you see. I told her my name and said I had drive from Beirut a long way here and I ask her who she was and she was surprised because she was askin how I could come see her if I do not know who she was but I told her I lived here in the house a long long time there is many years back. Her eyes knew me and I should understand who she was but I did not think and it is not my fault all the time but only when I looked at her after she knew me I think I know who she is my own daughter you see. You see funny because I want to see my girl like when I left her not like she is now because when I left her she is only twelve but now she is older than me my own daughter but it is funny so I did not know in the beginning but now I knew that. You know she ask me for coffee and she is a good hostess because she ask me to take lunch with her because her husband is away for after lunch and she is not lettting me go away with no lunch. She walk first in the kitchen and me second after but the kitchen was old but had new cooker and fridgerator but not very new but new more than other things in the kitchen. She cook lunch and say to me she knew I will come one day soon but this surprised me because I ask her why she thinks I will remember and she says when she is sixteen reddy for marriage my grandfather came to Suida and asked all for me all the time. The bastard never say anything to me. You know, he was an evil man, a horribile human being and very stupid and I said to my daughter that and she said the same back because she did not like him at all when he came up all important and asked things like everyone was his servant. The bastard known about me and did’n’t say anything because he knew He knew I was always saying the truth yet always he said I was lyer. I hate this son of a bitch. So my daughter said she knew when he came up all the way to Suida I must remembered and she hope I come up to village also all the way and I told her I want to come there is many years but it was hard because we had war there for many years and she say she all the time prayed for me.