June Rain (38 page)

The third man had a large folder tucked under his armpit; it was brimming with papers he kept reorganising to prevent them from spilling out. He wore thick glasses and smiled right and left for no reason as if smiling was his constant expression. People said he was the committee’s lawyer. I didn’t understand at the time why the committee needed to appoint a lawyer.

So here was the committee. Maybe they’d come to make sure the money was distributed properly. Word went around in whispers that the family
zaeems
would be arriving soon. The three members of the committee entered the main barracks building. The lawyer took a look at the long line as he went up the stairs leading to the door. Perhaps he thought there were more people in line than were entitled to receive compensation according to what was recorded in those papers of his that threatened to strew themselves on the ground.

A little later some journalists arrived; they must have heard about the committee’s arrival. As they proceeded to the military building where the committee had entered, they went around taking pictures of us. They too were fascinated by the long line. When one of the photographers aimed his camera in the direction of the area I was standing in, I turned instinctively and once again tried to hide behind the fat lady. But the flash went off quickly, right in my face. The next day I saw another picture of me in the newspaper, on the front page. The newspaper seller with the limp was very happy. He took a big stack of papers and circulated through all the town’s neighbourhoods. He even went down narrow alleys he’d never gone down before, crying, as was his custom to try to sell papers, ‘News about the people of Barqa, today! Read all about it!’

In the picture, I appeared to be smiling, even though I hadn’t been in the best mood standing there in the long line with the fat lady in front of me, her hand over her mouth as she let out a long ululation. I hadn’t even noticed that the photographer had aimed his camera at us again to take that picture because I was preoccupied, like everyone else, with the arrival of the Rami family
zaeem
.

He got out of his car quickly, possibly worried he was late for the meeting with the committee. Two of his bodyguards rushed up ahead of him as well. Some people in the front of the line clapped somewhat cautiously, maybe to avoid angering the soldiers in charge of supervising them. But all of a sudden the fat lady let out a loud ululation, which made me realise she was one of them. I might have guessed that, since I didn’t know her. If she were one of us I would have seen her in the neighbourhood at least once. She let out a never-ending ululation, like the ones they do at weddings, and another woman tried to imitate her but didn’t fare so well in the length department, her voice cracking quickly.

The
Ghandour
also appeared in the picture in the newspaper, leaning on my shoulder. They had been trying to get a picture of the woman who was ululating for her family
zaeem
and the
Ghandour
and I ended up in the picture, too. I think he might have been cursing the Rami family the very moment the picture was taken. I remember when the fat lady had started to ululate he said horrible things, starting with an attack on her dead relatives and all her ancestors before turning on her mother and sister and even her daughter, calling them a bunch of whores who’d inherited the profession from their elders.

My brother didn’t appear in the photo and neither did my uncle’s wife. The journalists wrote things in the paper about us that we in the Lower Quarter didn’t like. They said, ‘From the early hours of morning . . .’ I didn’t like that expression ‘From the early hours of morning’, as if to imply we were eager to get our money. And also, how would they know we’d been there since early in the morning? The reporters didn’t come until after the committee arrived. And the paper also described how the families of the victims who died in the events of 1957 and 1958 crowded into the North Lebanon military intelligence office. It went on to say, ‘These citizens, a crowd of simple folk, were preparing to enter the office of the committee to receive compensation for the bloodshed . . .’ Who told whoever wrote the article we were ‘simple folk’?

Ghaleb al-Semaani sat outside his cousin’s store on a low wicker stool reading the article out loud. He liked to hear his own voice as he read to the usual crowd of listeners. That happened whenever the newspaper seller passed by and the shopkeeper would open up his register and buy a newspaper from him that lasted all day long, getting passed along from one pair of hands to another. When Ghaleb reached the part about ‘this crowd of simple folk’, he stopped reading and pointed with his middle finger at the article, indicating exactly where on the page that expression appeared. ‘Simple folk?’ he retorted. ‘We’re simple folk, you son of a you know what?’

We in the Lower Quarter didn’t like being insulted. The next time the newspaper vendor came around he was going to get an earful of harsh words.

After the Rami family
zaeem
arrived, all the other cards starting falling into place. All of the town’s dignitaries began descending upon the barracks one by one. They would walk past us, look us over, greet some of us here and there, and then enter the barracks building. The head of the municipality came, too. Our family headman passed through. His right eye was red and swollen, perhaps remnants of a sty. He waved to us. A woman at the end of the line ululated for him; no other woman imitated her. It seemed like she was doing it to antagonise the fat lady standing in front of me. They applauded for him, too. We were on our way into the small building to receive cheques and they were on their way into the big building to hold a meeting. We were headed to the military intelligence office, they to the office of the military commander of the north district. The newspaper published two pictures: one of the fat lady ululating with me smiling behind her and the
Ghandour
whispering curses into my ear, and the other of them holding their meeting – the
zaeems
and the committee seated in a circle around a desk behind which a high-ranking officer wearing black glasses was seated. They were smiling, and one of them, the Rami family
zaeem
, was sipping a cup of coffee.

We moved forward in line until we got close to the building. When we went by them, the door to the office of the military district commander was open and the men gathered inside were laughing out loud, exchanging pleasantries and possibly some jokes.

One of the men in attendance at the meeting from beginning to end later told us all the details. How they came in and shook hands and hugged each other – except for the Rami family headman who said he had a bad cold and didn’t want anyone to catch it so he declined hugs and restricted himself to handshakes. And someone had brought a bottle of champagne that two men raced to open. In all their excitement, the cork popped off and hit the director of the northern branch of the military intelligence service right in the ear as he was turned talking to the lawyer. The bottle bubbled over and they rushed to fill their glasses and drink a toast to Lebanon first. They were all standing as Henry Beyk made the toast. Then they drank a toast to the new President of the Republic, the former chief of staff of the army. Our headman suggested they drink a toast to Barqa and everyone enthusiastically agreed.

When it was almost my turn in line and there was no one but the fat lady ahead of me, I offered the
Ghandour
to go ahead of me and he accepted. The soldier behind the desk didn’t ask the fat lady for her ID. She gave him her name and he found it on the list. He told her to sign and she said she didn’t know how to write, so she dipped her finger in the inkwell, made a fingerprint and he gave her a cheque. The
Ghandour
fingerprinted as well. He wasn’t happy with the small sum and so he spouted off a string of curses. I was still worried about being seen by my uncle’s wife as I received the cheque from the soldier’s hand. I needed the money because as soon as I’d heard we would be included in the compensation I borrowed money in advance against it and had already spent all of it.

But I didn’t escape her after all. I bumped into my uncle’s wife on my way back from the office. She was standing there waiting. Waiting for us – me and my brother, too, probably. I didn’t look in her direction, but I heard her say in a loud voice, ‘I hope you’ll have to use that money to buy medicine!’

Chapter 22

Kamileh will get out of bed at the crack of dawn. Each day it becomes a little more difficult than the day before. She feels cold the moment she throws off the blankets; the river is near but the sun is still far off.

She will repeat the same actions, the ones of her darkened life.

She will die the day she changes a single letter of a single word of it. She imagines she will die in her sleep.

Each day she reviews what will happen, in great detail:

She will lie down to sleep one night in good health and not wake up the next morning. Around noon the neighbours will notice she hasn’t come out to the balcony and that the door and all the windows are still shut. They will come over with some trepidation and knock at the door as they whisper to each other. She won’t hear. They will call to her, a little louder each time, but she won’t hear. They’ll go to her bedroom window and pound on it, calling out to her, but she won’t hear. Everyone will come. They will summon her friend Muntaha from her house, and the moment they call to her, Muntaha will know that Kamileh is dead. Kamileh has taken precautions for that morning when they will call her and she won’t answer and they’ll knock at her door and she won’t open. She’s taught Muntaha how to open the kitchen door so they won’t have to pry it off. She’ll reach in through the back window, tug on the rope tied to the door latch and the door will open. They will come into the bedroom, whispering, and there they will find her. Upon seeing her, Muntaha will be the only one to let out a cry of grief. ‘Don’t weep for me. Just stop the neighbours from stealing everything in the house. Lock up the gold bracelets and necklace, and Yusef’s things.’ Yusef, her husband.

But today she isn’t going to change anything, especially not today.

She slept with peace of mind knowing that she’d prepared all of Eliyya’s provisions without forgetting a thing – a suitcase filled with food just like the one she sent him off with on his first trip when she followed him all the way to the gate area at the airport and no one had been able to stop her.

On this day she will fight to keep on going. She turns on the dim kitchen light even though she hasn’t been able to tell the difference for a long time. If she didn’t turn the light on, she would not begin the day. Still under the veil of sleep, she sets the coffee pot on the small burner, the front right one. She stands there and waits until she hears the water boil, tosses in two and a half teaspoons of ground coffee and raises the pot up from the burner so it won’t boil over. She can hear it bubble up before it boils over. Over time she’s come to hear sounds she didn’t used to hear before – the flapping of the swallow’s wings on spring days and the sound of the toilet flushing at the Aasis’ house. She raises the coffee pot high above the stove to allow it to foam up. She turns off the gas, turning the valve of the propane canister. After every use she turns the propane canister off and sometimes she even gets out of bed at night to make sure she’s shut the gas off. She places the pot of coffee on the serving tray along with two earless cups turned upside down. Always two cups, turned over, even though she isn’t expecting anyone to join her for morning coffee. Muntaha would still be asleep at that hour. Kamileh goes back to her room, puts on her dress and easily gropes her way to her seat out on the balcony, because she can sense the light. In the past she used to like to wait for day to break behind the high mountains. Now, too, she sits in the same spot. She pours half a cup of coffee, drinks it and pours some more. She even drinks the dregs from the bottom of the cup. She carries the tray and the coffee pot to the kitchen, washes them and puts them away. She fills a bucket with water and goes back to the balcony to water the flowers and the plants before the sun gets to them first. She will only change the details of her daily routine when she is tired of it all, on the day when she no longer feels like getting up the next morning.

Ibrahim al-Halabi is the first to pass by, the first to wake up and leave the house at dawn. He slows down when he reaches the balcony, Kamileh returns the greeting without extending the conversation beyond that. He always has something to say. He always wakes up early to go and stand in the town square, in front of the bookshop, and slowly sip a cup of coffee he buys from the coffee vendor. He watches the town wake up and watches people going into the store to buy the morning paper or pay for lotto tickets, and he watches the government building open its doors across the street. Once people start going to work, Ibrahim al-Halabi’s day comes to an end. He closes up and heads home around nine in the morning, not going back out until dawn the next day. If he’s said hello to Kamileh on his way by early in the morning, he won’t feel obliged to say anything as he totters back home. It was sufficient to merely look up at the balcony and make sure Kamileh was still where she ought to be on the balcony, watering her plants and drinking her coffee. This, in turn, would give him peace of mind that life was running its normal course and he’d won one more day just like the day before. A day whose beauty only people like him understood – people in good health on the brink of the final departure.

After a bit the school teacher follows, clip-clopping in her high heels. One time she greeted Kamileh, but Kamileh didn’t reply or didn’t hear her, so now the teacher always walks past without saying hello. She walks past and does not even look in the direction of the balcony. Coldness suits Kamileh.