“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
“Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
He read and read, and his voice was very soft. His face hung loose and his legs quivered. He sat as if he were falling onto the edge of his old pulpit and started to cry. That was after the whole thing with Lillian Sabbagha, and after everyone had gone. Alice said she went in, took him by the hand, and tried to lead him home. But he walked to the front of Our Lady Church and there he held onto the railing as if he didn’t want to let go. He started praying in a loud voice.
From that day on, the man started falling apart. He became delirious and spent most of his time inside Our Lady Church. Father John tried to calm him down and asked Alice to take him home. Only Alice was left; she took him herself to the nursing home and returned with a pallid face and eyes swollen from crying so much.
In the Salonica Hotel, Alice burst into a fit of laughter and the Egyptian owner thought she’d gone crazy.
“What’s happened to you, Alice?”
“I’m laughing at myself, and this world. Who’s going to be there to take care of me when it’s my turn?”
No one took care of her. When the war broke out again on February 6, 1984, and the business district transformed into a theater of destruction, Alice disappeared. We didn’t hear anything about her. Did she die, or did she go to some unknown place? Did someone take care of her, or was she left, alone, in the middle of the destruction?
Whenever Alice talked about her memories, she’d lean on her right hand and let herself slip away. I saw her, and she was always like that. When she spoke she’d slip away to I don’t know where.
“Life is like the bracelet, my son. When he came with the scissors to cut the bracelet, I laughed. He got the scissors and broke it. When I saw it there on the ground, I broke into tears, and he started laughing. I was young and didn’t know anything. He was laughing and I was standing in front of him, crying. He told me that’s enough, get up, take a shower and get dressed, we have to go. I took a shower and got dressed and went, and I’m still going. His name was Abu Jamil. An impresario, you know, the guy who works everything out. He’d talk to the nightclub owner and fix the price; his word was final. I went when he cut the bracelet. Life is like the bracelet. Look. Look right now and tell me what you see.”
She raised her hand up, and I heard a rattling sound. I saw the black sleeve roll down over her wrist, revealing a collection of silver bracelets, some thin, some wide.
“I sold all my bracelets and bought new ones. This place “The Montana,” it’s not a bar, it’s a whorehouse. And Zaylaa isn’t anywhere near al-Askary. And men these days aren’t men. And I am not myself. Get up, my son, get up. You never told me who you were, who your father is.”
I was sitting with her in her room at the Salonica Hotel. The walls were red and peeling so badly they looked as though they hadn’t been scraped for a thousand years. She was sitting on the edge of the only bed, which was plopped in the middle of the empty room. Next to her was a small kerosene stove she used for making coffee and boiling potatoes. I was sitting on a chair stripped of its bamboo with my cheek against my hand, and my hand propped up on my knee, trying not to miss a single word.
“Who are you? From what family? You haven’t told me.”
“I’m related to Madame Sabbagha. Her mother is my father’s mother’s sister.”
“You’re a liar. What do you want from me? Get up, my son. You’re like my son. I can’t anymore. Next thing you know you’ll become senile like the Reverend, and I’ll have to take care of you, and I can’t anymore. But you’re a young man. Honestly, my son, who are you, from what family?”
I told her I had nothing to do with the whole story, that I just wanted to listen, that Simaan Fayyad was our neighbor on “Little Mountain” and I’d known him for a long time. I knew him as a middle-aged man living with his sister in a small house in the Shalfoon area. I didn’t realize he was the grandson of Fayyad Fayyad, the one who met with the czar’s brother and covered the ground with salt and candles.
“You’re a liar. Why are you lying to me?”
I stopped talking and so did she. She poured herself a glass of arak, didn’t mix it with water, and slugged it down in one gulp.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I write. I work as a writer.”
“What the hell is writing for, for God’s sake?”
“To compose books and create heroes, so people can read them and enjoy them.”
“Why don’t they just watch TV? Wouldn’t that be better?”
“Maybe. How should I know,” I said to her to bring the subject to an end.
She looked up at the ceiling as if she were trying to remember something. Then she looked at me.
“I know a writer. We were working for Shaheen. Do you remember Shaheen? Of course you don’t, you still hadn’t broken out of the shell yet. There was a guy there who’d come every night. They said he was a writer, that he was like Gibran Kahlil Gibran. He was stuck on that blond German woman who socked him for his spirit and his money. God, she was a whore, how can anyone do that to a man she’s in love with? But she was a whore. What can I tell you? He’d come every day, sit down, and wouldn’t move for anything. And every night he’d bring her to his table and open a bottle. He was fat, with a face as white as a corpse. At the end of the night it’d turn out he didn’t have any money. He’d take a beating and sit out on the sidewalk and throw up. They said he was a writer. Writer, my foot. I hope you’re not like him.”
“I am like him,” I answered her.
“No, my son. You come from a good family. But what do you want with me?”
“I want to write about you.”
“You’re a liar, like Zaylaa. Nothing you say is true, you’re full of lies. Honestly, what do you want with me? What can I help you with?”
“I want you to tell me stories.”
“Why should I?”
“So I can write.”
“Okay. Instead of telling you, why don’t I just write them?”
She laughed out loud.
“My son, get up. Get out of here. Go, get out of here, say hello to your mother for me. It better not’ve been Zaylaa who sent you. He wants to get rid of me. The son of a bitch said he doesn’t want me to sell flowers inside the Montana anymore. He says I’m bothering the customers. What kind of customers are they? Products of test tubes. See what’s happened? But there’s nothing wrong with working for a living.”
“You’re right,” I said to her.
“What do you mean, I’m right? It’s as if you didn’t understand a thing, like a deaf man at a wedding. My son, that’s not the story. What’s confusing me is why he’s still around. They all died, or left, the ships were filled to capacity with people, but he’s still around. Gandhi died, and he’s still here. He killed his sister and maybe his mother. He became a ringleader, a big boss. The Jews came, and he’s still here. Can you explain that to me? And now he wants to put me out of work, and I’ll die and he’ll still be around. Can you explain it to me? But you, what do you know. What did you say you do for a living, my son?”