21

Talking about pie, and the love of the young for those who are older, and the love of older people for those who are younger, brings me to my uncle Amin and the love of his life. I had chosen his room, the one overlooking the courtyard, to be my room, his books to be my books, and his photos, his memoirs, and his poems as my stock. One day I will sort out those photos and memoirs, and I will print his poems and publish them. I will use my uncle as a window from which to look back at the past, the life that was. I will transform him into a live image, as if he were still alive and with us here.

I am digressing like my neighbor Yasmine—the simple, talkative Yasmine was beginning to rub off on me. She made me digress and gossip. I spent hours thinking about what she said, the things she described, and how she felt, because I was convinced that she knew more about the others and about my house than I did. She looked over the neighbors’ houses, watched them, spied on their lives inside their homes, and stored the images in her elastic memory. All the events and experiences that I missed during my absence and that of my relatives were known to her. She helped me relive them as if I were part of them. Sometimes, with her daring attitude and her knowledge, she made me feel diminished and inadequate—although I did not think highly of the modest level of her education. Here I was digressing, as she did, but I would soon forget her and concentrate on my uncle Amin and his desperate love for a woman older than him—much older. He was enamored of her and desired her, but she was heedless of him.

One Thursday, my uncle told us that he wanted to invite Lisa and a small number of his friends to a kullaj meal. He said that the leader (whose framed picture was under the cupboard) would be in Haifa for a meeting. After the meeting, my uncle, together with Lisa and friends, would come to eat kullaj. My grandmother asked about the leader in a sarcastic tone, “You mean the leader with the beard, below the cupboard?” My uncle frowned, but did not want to upset her because he needed her to be willing to prepare the kullaj. She tried to get out of it because she did not trust my uncle’s friends and hated Lisa. She had her doubts about Lisa’s role in encouraging my uncle to join a group of dubious nonbelievers. She encouraged my mother to use a scarf instead of a ghutwa, and she helped her find a job at the hospital. She also blamed Lisa for my mother’s recalcitrant and rebellious attitude.

My grandmother said that there was no one home to bring the kullaj, but Widad was motivated and said that she would personally bring the kullaj for Lisa’s sake, because—and here she repeated what she always said—Lisa was the one who opened her eyes, made her aware, and helped her to live. Widad bought the kullaj and waited eagerly and enthusiastically to see Lisa. My grandmother was resentful, but I was curious to meet Lisa. I wanted to get to know the woman who was mentioned continuously, as if she were the mufti or Umm Kulthum.

We prepared the kullaj, part of it rolled in the shape of fingers and the rest spread in a tray. My grandmother did her best to prove to the Jerusalem group that the Nablus kullaj was unique and had no equal in the whole world—with even the admission of the Jerusalemites themselves! It would be even more so for Lisa Andrawes, with her Greek roots, her mixed Arabic and English, and her British-looking outfits. She ate with a knife and fork and did not smack her lips while eating.

My grandmother was making those comments for us to hear, and to put a brake on Widad’s enthusiasm and her continued efforts to copy Ms. Lisa. Nevertheless, Widad said that she would welcome Ms. Lisa in a manner worthy of kings, and that she was preparing a wonderful surprise for her in the living room, a surprise she would never forget. When my grandmother inquired about the nature of the surprise, Widad refused to tell her; she only asked her not to interrupt her when she spoke and not to wink and criticize the way she usually did.

Widad thought Lisa would leave the group of men and sit with us in the living room where we usually stay—not the salon, which we kept closed for visitors who were usually men. But Lisa did not come out. She remained with the men in the salon. She inquired specifically about Widad and wondered why she did not join them in the salon to greet her and her friends. My uncle Amin was too embarrassed to explain to Lisa, in front of all the guests, that we do not sit with the men and we usually stay separate. In every gathering, no matter its nature, be it a wedding, a funeral, or even a family visit that includes only brothers and sisters, men sit away from the women, each group in a different room and a different world.

Amin was embarrassed to tell Lisa that his mother and his sister were waiting for her in the sitting room, and that his mother would not join the group of men, while Widad was busy in the kitchen and would not join them in the salon even when the kullaj was ready. He then rushed out and suggested to Widad that she enter the salon to present the kullaj and get a chance to greet Lisa and his companions, because Lisa would not leave the council of men to join the women, as was the tradition.

When my grandmother heard those words, she announced her absolute rejection of the idea of mixed company. Widad, who had already achieved some progress in her rebellion and rejection, announced clearly that she would take the kullaj to the council of men because her work at the hospital did not differentiate between males and females. Most of the doctors, nurses, and patients were men, and those men were like these men. My grandmother did not say a word as she faced my mother’s enthusiasm and my uncle’s encouragements, but she stood firm in my case, and said sternly, “Do whatever you want, Widad, but Nidal stays with me.” We accepted her condition in order to have some peace, and my uncle and Widad carried the two trays, the cheese kullaj and the walnut kullaj, to the salon, while I snuck along behind them to listen and see from the crack beside the door who this Lisa was.

I saw two women. One was older than the other, with gray hair that was not dyed or hennaed, wearing dark clothes, like a widow or the mother of a martyr. The other woman, who I guessed was Lisa, was close to her forties. She was beautiful, but not in the traditional definition of beauty. In other words, she was not light-skinned, blond, and plump. She was tall and thin, with a slender waist and chestnut or gray eyes—it was difficult to see clearly from a distance. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were thick. Her hair was not covered, and she wore simple clothes. She was the total opposite of my mother, who was wearing a flowery dress and a vest, and covered her hair with a thick scarf.

So, this was Miss Lisa! She was not like the mufti or Umm Kulthum. She did not open her mouth except to say “Thank you” and “Don’t mention it.” Every now and then, she would look at Widad, smile, and pat her hand as if Widad were the student and she, Lisa, the teacher. This confirmed to me my grandmother’s biased assumption that, had it not been for Lisa, Widad would have remained a decent human being without an attitude.

The older woman was making brief comments on the Haifa meeting. She spoke with a Lebanese accent and said that the leader was interested in the events taking place in Palestine because Palestine was the beating heart of the nation and of the Fertile Crescent. He feared a collapse caused by rifts and dispersions and the thinking of the Palestinian left, which was opposed to nationalism and contained defeatist elements, unable to oppose a racist movement with ideas that superseded nationalism.

One of the guests objected to this concept and started arguing with obvious derision, claiming that the ideas of the leader were closer to Nazism. While all those present remained silent, he went on, saying that opposing one wrong with another was a flawed approach and must be rejected. The solution was the unity of the workers from both sides because nationalism was a mirage, exactly like religion, and the ideology of the leader and his followers did not differ from the ideologies of Nazism and Zionism. Nazism boasted about the Aryan race and its superiority above all other races, while Zionism celebrated the Jewish race and considered it the chosen race, above all other races. The Syrian nationalists pretended that we in the Fertile Crescent were superior to all other Arabs and Muslims, and possibly the whole world. It was obvious that the meeting would have turned into a battle of words if Lisa hadn’t raised her hand and said in a soft voice, “Is this a gathering for kullaj or for political discussions? Those who want kullaj, please raise your hand.”

They all raised their hands, laughing, including the man who had been talking in such a confrontational, scornful manner. Widad did not raise her hand, however, and went on staring at the guests, somewhat confused.

The confrontational man said, “Ms. Widad wants a political gathering.”

Smiling as if she were talking to her daughter or one of her students, Lisa turned to Widad and asked, “A kullaj meeting or a political meeting?”

My uncle said, as if defending his sister, “Kullaj, kullaj, say kullaj.”

Lisa turned to him, still smiling, and repeated his words with astonishment and sarcasm. “Say kullaj, say kullaj? This is coercion!”

I saw him blush, then look at her as if rebuking her or, possibly, trying desperately to tell her that she did not understand what he meant. After a long, clouded, and sad look, he shook his head a few times, and remained silent for the rest of the meeting.

They ate the kullaj, praising it, and praising the architecture of the house, its history, and its value because, as they said, it was historical and was connected to a time period, now past, when people like the Qahtans lived like walis and sultans. We have here a descendant of those walis, who is adopting the cause of the underprivileged. He is either a hypocritic in his support for the downtrodden or a traitor to the landowners.

Widad rushed to say, with enthusiasm and emotion, “Amin, a hypocrite? He is the best member of the Qahtan family.”

One of those present asked her in a malicious tone, seemingly curious, but heavily loaded with sarcasm, “Is he better than Sheikh Wahid al-Qahtan?”

Widad did not reply but she blushed. I knew she blushed because she was weary of her religiously inclined brother. She had a long history of confrontations with and defiance of him. She remained silent, but she was upset. It was Amin who came to his brother’s defense, saying, “You have your religion and we have ours. He is free to believe in whatever he wants. Aren’t we promoting freedom?”

Lisa approved, then said in an encouraging tone, “Bravo, bravo! This is democracy.”

The older Lebanese woman, clearly distraught, made a comment that sounded like a follow up to a previous discussion, “You say democracy? It seems rather like a multicolored collage. It is truly a kullaj, to eat and digest easily. Had the leader heard you, he would have been upset with you.”

I saw Lisa’s gaze wander far away, a sad, hesitant smile on her face. It was a look that reminded me of my uncle’s, except that hers moved past him and beyond him. She was probably ignoring him on purpose. She shook her head a few times, the way he did, and remained silent.

Her look reminded me of Rabie’s look when he was standing behind the gray mare and getting ready to bid me goodbye and leave me. My uncle, too, reminded me of my own despair as I looked at Rabie, as if begging him and imploring him, while he was oblivious of me, or pretending to be. Lisa was treating my uncle the way I was treated, or at least that was how it seemed to me, because I was still suffering, I felt that everybody was like me, and I saw them through my own pain and my broken heart. I saw the pain that resulted from a wounded heart and I believed that my uncle was like me—hurt and in love, a man in a crisis, a victim— while Lisa was the perpetrator. She could be in love with another man, or she was playing with his emotions, or she could be in love with him but playing hard to get, telling him, as Rabie had told me, “You are young, and I am older.” Didn’t Rabie say that I am young but also old? Wasn’t this the situation, or was I imagining things?

I was not imagining things, because when I entered the salon to collect the plates and the cups after the guests had departed, I saw Amin sitting in the same place he had occupied during the meeting, staring motionless at the chair where she had been sitting, as if he could not feel and could not breathe. When I entered the salon, he did not pay attention to me and remained in his place, in the same position—sullen, sad, absentminded, unaware of my presence or his own. It was as if he were detached from this world, attracted beyond the limits of this room and the limits of the universe.

I called, “Uncle!” but he did not hear me, and remained plunged in his world as if he had lost the ability to feel. His pain shifted to me and caused my wound to open, reminding me of the last two encounters, when he stood behind the gray mare and as he sat on the rock.

I sat at his feet and placed my head on his knees. He did not move, and I felt that my emotions were transmitted to him, as if he were my other self, a reflection of myself. My sensitive uncle, the poet, in the same position as me, his wounds bleeding like mine.

I said, in an effort to comfort him, “Why do we love those who hurt us?”

He reached out and caressed my hair, but did not say a word. I said again as I was drying my tears with my sleeve, “Is this love?”

He patted my head and said with a lump in his throat, “You are still young. Get up, get up.”

I did not listen to him, and I wrapped my arms around his legs and started crying with all my heart, as Rabie’s image took shape before me, mingling with my uncle’s. First, it was my uncle and Rabie, then my uncle and Lisa, then Rabie and Lisa, and finally, me and my uncle and the tortured, hopeless love. The love who was closer to me than my uncle, who opened my eyes, who deepened my worldly feelings and made me older than my age. I said with a lump in my throat, “I am grown, I understand, and I feel.”

He raised my head, saw the tears in my eyes, and said sadly, “You, old? You will soon find out what it means to be old!”

Widad entered and saw us. She scolded me and told me to get up, but she had to repeat her words a few times before I did so, reluctantly.

We collected the cups and the saucers. I was still drying my tears on my sleeve, my mother hardly paying any attention to me because she was worried about her brother. Every now and then she would look at him, but wouldn’t question him or make any comment. As we were leaving the salon, all she said was, “Your uncle is to be pitied. He is tired.”

I asked again, curious, just to be sure, “Is he to be pitied because of Lisa?”

She did not reply, but I understood. All she did was repeat Lisa’s name: “Lisa. Lisa.”

I dried my tears again, as I looked back at the salon where we left him and where he stayed for the whole night.

I said, sadly, “I know, I understand. I am grown now.”