Rami had always been her favourite cousin. Unlike his brothers, he seemed neither particularly religious nor extremely conservative, and he didn’t covet cars and money. His father, Sami Kudsi, was the poorest member of his family, and at the age of thirty had lost his inheritance in bad speculations, but he claimed to be a survival artist, and kept his wife and five children on the little deals he did. As a bankrupt, he wasn’t officially allowed to own anything. His wife said he was a broker, but no one believed that. More likely, it was rumoured, he was a receiver of stolen goods. Somehow he had managed to get his boys a free education in a good Orthodox school, where the five brothers studied and took their final exams one after another.
In retrospect, Rana blamed herself bitterly for having felt so safe with Rami. It was just that he had always understood her, and fanaticism of any kind was not in his nature. So she had told him about the approaches made by his youngest brother Kafi, and both had laughed until the tears came at the shock she had given that religious fanatic.
Of course she didn’t dare tell him about Farid, but at least here was someone she could talk to. The fact that he liked her had not escaped her notice. But Rami had been so pleasant and unassuming. He had just been promoted to first lieutenant, and was having further training at the military academy in economics and logistics. “That means I won’t rise fast in the army, but I won’t fall either. Someone has to look after the practical side,” he said wryly. He had no ambition at all, and devoted his mind to the purchases made by the army, from bootlaces to complete winter equipment. He didn’t like wearing uniform, and did not even carry a gun.
Rami was also the only man who invited her to the cinema or to eat an ice cream without any ulterior motives. Or so she had thought, because that was how she remembered him from their childhood. Why had she been so naïve? Why had she never noticed that she was a woman now, and the way her cousin looked at her had changed?
After Farid’s arrest, when she felt she was stifling in the malicious atmosphere of her parents’ house, she had phoned Rami and asked if he would like to go to the cinema with her. Her mother and brother had no objection to her going out with him — he was the only man they didn’t object to — even if she happened to come home late.
And then the catastrophe happened.
Rami had come to lunch that Sunday. He liked the kebbeh that his aunt baked. Jack was there too. Only her father was away for a week; he had flown to New York to attend a lawyers’ conference.
Rana’s mother had been unusually pleasant to her daughter, and she made the best meat pasty imaginable that day. Kebbeh was the usual Sunday lunch of prosperous Christians, and she had been lavish with spices and roasted pine nuts. She had served Lebanese red wine with the meal. “Wine sensitizes the palate, and my kebbeh is at its best with red wine,” she claimed. At first Rana said she didn’t want any, but then she drank a glass for the sake of politeness, although diluted with cold water and ice.
They laughed a lot. She had seldom seen her mother so relaxed and easy-going. Finally Jack went off to his room, and they could hear his favourite record down in the drawing room, songs performed by the Egyptian singer Abdulhalim, whom Rana liked too.
Then her mother also left the drawing room, saying she would make coffee. Rana laughed with Rami at the ear-splitting sound of the music, and Rami kept refilling their wine glasses. Her head was beginning to feel heavy, but she enjoyed Rami’s company and his jokes.
Suddenly he put his arm around her neck. “Oh, how happy it makes me to hear you laugh,” he said. At first she thought nothing of it, but when he kissed her throat she froze, abruptly stood up and said she was going to ask her brother to turn his music down. But she had taken only one step towards the door when Rami became a wall barring her way. He didn’t do it quickly, but at his leisure. His footsteps were perfectly steady, his outstretched arms did not tremble.
He seized her like someone claiming his own property. At that moment she understood it all. She saw not only the trap and her own stupidity in ever sitting alone in a room with this man, she also understood her family’s plotting, and the misery suffered by women for thousands of years, and she struggled with all her might, but like a trained karate fighter Rami threw her to the floor. It happened very fast. She lay there on the heavy Persian rug, and he lay on top of her, still beaming. “I really, really like your laugh, do you know?” he babbled. His weight immobilized her. Rana felt dazed. “Please,” she begged him. “Rami, please let me get up.” But he became deaf, a deaf brute, kissing her and trying to push his tongue inside her mouth.
“No,” screamed Rana, kicking and turning her head aside so that Rami couldn’t get at her lips. He grinned, and did not become frantic or nervous, but acted as if he had all the time in the world. Gradually he was pressing ever more heavily down on her body, and then she felt his right hand reaching for her panties. She screamed and begged at the same time, but no one heard her.
The pain was like fiery pincers stabbing her. She wept and hit him, but he forced his way further in until she felt dizzy.
When her mother came back after an eternity, she pretended to be surprised, threw herself theatrically on the sofa, and wept. But Rana saw the hypocrisy in her eyes. Jack came running in too, in pretended horror, but instead of being angry he consoled her by saying she had a very good bargain in Rami, he was more than she deserved.
A few days later her father came home. He spoke to his wife first and then to Rami, not to her. After three days he finally came to her room, not to comfort her but to tell her it was her own fault, and she must either die or marry Rami, who had said he was ready to atone for his wrongdoing by taking her as his wife.
Rana cried and screamed, but she had no chance. She felt sick and ran a temperature, but three days later she was dragged into the drawing room, where a priest, who knew the whole story, swiftly performed the marriage ceremony and signed the register. When he asked Rana if she took Rami as her husband, she replied loud and clear, “No,” but her denial was drowned out by a chorus of “Yes” from everyone else present. Rana thought she had gone out of her mind.
She wouldn’t sign the register herself, so her father took her hand and signed for her, while her brother held her other hand in a steely grip. Rana was crying, but no one took any notice.
At that moment she had a vision. For a second she was dead, and when she opened her eyes again a second life began. She felt her heart turning into a cactus.
There was no point drowning in her own tears. Her enemies outnumbered her. They’re rejoicing at your unhappiness, an inner voice told her. You must follow your heart and be a cactus, one that will survive this man who has brought you such misfortune. Your revenge is your memory which will never let you forgive, and when the moment comes you must close your eyes again, die for a second, and then come back to life as Rana once more. And when that happens, the cactus will flower and die.
When she had reached this point in her memories, the bus was just coming to the large Square of Seven Fountains. Rana stood up and went slowly to the door.
The next stop was hers.
206. Josef’s Promise
Claire thought she would not survive Farid’s arrest. Damascus was a desert without him. When the news came, Elias had left the confectioner’s shop at once and gone to see his friends and acquaintances. Many of them were in the highest political positions, but they offered only sympathy and regret. Claire tried at least to find out, through her former school friends, if Farid was still alive and where he was being held. But not until early in the afternoon of the day he disappeared did a distant cousin of Madeleine’s tell her that her son was held prisoner in the secret service building. This cousin was married to one of the Interior Minister’s bodyguards, but even she could do nothing for Farid because he was “a political”.