Josef whispered to Farid that the guests were eating the apartment that his father had sold especially for this stupid party, room by room. “Can’t wait to see when they’ll get to the WC,” he added. Farid didn’t entirely understand what he was talking about, but joined in Josef’s laughter. It went on like that: most scraps of conversation were drowned out by the noise of the party, and there was no time for explanations.
The skills of the singer who had been booked for the party left something to be desired, but she was pretty as a picture, and the men liked that. The more they drank the better they liked her voice, and they even began comparing her with Feiruz, the best woman singer in Arabia. Many of their wives, on the other hand, said sharply that the singer would get no further than the nearest bed.
Around midnight two large groups of guests were still lingering at the party. Farid and his parents had already left. Then something happened to cheer Josef as much as if he’d won a game of chess against the world champion Mikhail Botvinnik.
One group, consisting of about twenty of his father’s friends and relations, was sitting under the old vine on the south-facing terrace. The members of the other group, his mother’s relations and the pharmacist’s family, were sitting around the large fountain in the inner courtyard.
The wine was running out. Madeleine signalled to her husband, and he set straight off to fetch more. The cellar vault, made of white stone, was kept at the right temperature by a clever system of small windows let into it at ground level. Bronze lamps on the walls, handsome shelves, and oak tables, chairs, and cupboards gave it almost the look of a sacred building.
Josef’s father had been keeping his best vintages for this late hour. The storeroom under the south terrace was well stocked with wines from Lebanon, every bottle worth a fortune. He hesitated briefly in front of the shelves, and finally chose ten bottles of red wine. As he was standing under the three little windows, he suddenly heard his brother Farhan’s voice. “Rimon always liked to show off. Even as a child he just had to be the strongest all the time. Well, as you all know, he was only a third-rate boxer.”
Rimon froze. His failure of a brother, whom he had helped out financially several times, was laughing at him at his own daughters’ engagement party! Rimon was furious; the blood went to his head. He felt like shouting, “You envious, ungrateful sod!” when he heard his favourite cousin Maria’s voice.
“And his wife, too! She’s ruined the idiot entirely, and now she’s riding high on his back. My cousin was always a donkey. The idea of marrying her daughters to those two feeble-minded pharmacists was hers, and Rimon goes along with anything she says. And Madeleine isn’t beautiful or a good mother either, let alone a good housewife. My God, did you notice? Most of those dishes came from a restaurant so that our fine lady wouldn’t ruin her fingernails,” she said venomously.
Maria! Soft-spoken Maria, who was always telling Rimon, when they were on their own, what luck he had with Madeleine, quite unlike his brother Farhan, whose wife was a silly goose.
“Not only is it expensive,” Rimon heard his old aunt adding her contribution, “it tastes horrible too. I hardly touched a bite.” She was lying. He hadn’t counted, but every time he topped up her glass of arrack she had a new plate heaped high with delicacies in front of her.
“Nor did I,” said one after another of the company.
“No wonder, with such nasty stuff, and I’ll tell him so to his face,” announced his brother, stepping up his indignation a notch.
“Oh, don’t do that, you’re always sacrificing yourself, and then his wife just says you’re envious. Let him alone. What is it they say? If your enemy is suffering then wish him long life.”
They all roared approval, instead of slapping the speaker’s face — that slut who cuckolded his brother!
“And now, now,” cried Rimon’s cousin Girgi, a lawyer, “here we’ve been sitting for ages in the dry. I told Madeleine her guests needed something to drink, but she just gave me a silly smile.”
“You know something?” Rimon heard his brother reply in a low voice. “I hear he’s ruined. I wouldn’t be surprised if he declared himself bankrupt soon.”
That’s it, thought Rimon. Leaving the wine where it was, he stormed up the steps and made for the south terrace. But at the sight of all those people suddenly beaming at him in the friendliest fashion, he could only laugh. He laughed and laughed, until his relations thought he was out of his mind. Rimon had to sit down, laughing harder than ever at the stupidity of all these people who had no idea that he had overheard their slanders.
When his brother Farhan leaned over him and asked, with pretended concern, if he was drunk, Rimon, still laughing, gave him his famous upward hook. Farhan flew backward, landed on his aunt’s lap, and fell to the ground with her.
He stood up indignantly, collected his wife, and left. “And you can take our dear auntie home too,” called Rimon, spluttering with laughter. He turned his back on the sour, stony faces of his family, and without another word went to join his wife and the guests by the fountain.
178. Masculine Honour
By the autumn, Rasuk’s English girlfriend Elizabeth spoke Arabic remarkably well. She had an English accent, but it sounded amusing, and she could swear like a street urchin.
Rasuk loved Elizabeth more than ever. Proudly, he told his friends about all the men who had made eyes at her, only to be turned down flat. She loved no one but him, and they suited each other perfectly.
He wanted to get his military service done as quickly as possible, because then he could apply for a passport to travel. “No passport without military service first, and I don’t want to travel illegally. If only because Elizabeth loves Damascus so much, I want to be able to come back any time,” he said. With her help, he was planning to open an Oriental bazaar in England, and he already had ten Damascus suppliers lined up who would be glad to sell their craft products abroad: items made of wood, brass, steel and textiles.
When Rasuk talked about Elizabeth he praised her frankness, courage, and above all her respect for his freedom. “We don’t have that kind of thing in Syria. If people here love you, they cling. Your personal freedom is a disruptive factor, it endangers love. That’s why we try to give our partners as little freedom as possible. Elizabeth is just the opposite. She sees my freedom as sacrosanct,” he told Amin and the others one afternoon at the club.
“But somehow Europeans don’t really fit in with us,” said Amin. It surprised Farid that he of all people said so. He had always believed that Amin thought nothing of ideas like nationalism and the Fatherland. However, he didn’t comment.
“Yes, perhaps they love freedom more, but they don’t understand the concept of honour,” claimed Badi, an elementary school teacher from the south.
“Every human being has honour. It’s stupid to think we have a monopoly on it,” replied Rasuk brusquely.
“That’s not what I meant,” responded the teacher. “Every nation lives with its own scale of values. To some, conquering new territory for the Fatherland comes first, to others it’s the happiness of the family, to others again it’s the honour of their women, don’t you understand?”
“And here we come to the heart of the matter,” said Taufik. “Would anyone like more tea before the debate begins? I don’t want to miss something later.”
Four wanted tea, the rest ordered water or coffee.
“Then keep quiet and wait for me. I’ll be back in a moment.”
When Taufik had brought the drinks and been paid, he sat down in the back row, where he could keep an eye on the café, and said, “Fire away.”