I said to Ezz, “As long as you’re going to go and live in Beirut, I’ll ask my aunt and uncle to move in with us.”
“Who told you I was going to move to Beirut?”
“Didn’t you say that you got a scholarship?”
“I’m not going to accept it!”
Amin joined in, “What do you mean? A scholarship from the agency for study at the American University, what crazy person would refuse that?”
“I graduated from school and that’s enough. I have an offer of work as a teacher in the agency. My mind tells me, take the job, boy, stay with the old ones and with your friends and do work you love.”
“We’re here with the old ones. Your friends won’t fly away, and anyway Beirut isn’t America, you can come back every weekend.”
I left them talking and got up to make the coffee.
I returned with the coffee and found them downcast. I surmised that they had disagreed, and I tried to dissipate the tension by telling them about a new sentence Sadiq had come up with that I thought was witty, but it didn’t interest them. Ezz drank his coffee, said goodbye, and went out.
I asked Amin, “Did you quarrel?”
“We differed. I said that he was stupid. He’ll regret his decision when he finds that the guys he surpassed in school have become engineers and doctors and men of law, that some of them have gotten their doctorates and become university professors, and he’s marking time, a high school teacher for the aid agency. He didn’t like what I said. He was annoyed.”
“I think he doesn’t want to leave his parents.”
“That’s foolish. I left my parents to study before I was thirteen years old.”
“It’s different. He feels he’s responsible for them.”
“I’m responsible, I’m the oldest. I won’t fail them. I’ll ask them to move in with us.”
“I believe that Ezz wants to marry.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t tell me but I know that he loves a girl in the camp. He wants to marry her.”
“Has he introduced her to us?”
I laughed. “She’s the only one he hasn’t brought to visit us or to visit my uncle’s house.”
“How did you find out?”
“He told me.”
“He didn’t tell me!”
“She’s from Saffurya.”
“Have you seen her?”
“I’ve seen her.”
Amin moved his left hand, spreading out his fingers like a fan. “How?”
I told Amin about the girl. I described her and told him what I knew of her family.
There was no doubt about Ezz’s wish to marry this girl. I think it was one reason for his inclination not to accept the scholarship, and he may have wanted the job for the salary. He worked in the summers and sometimes during the school year, claiming that he did so because he loved the work, or because So-and-So embarrassed him and he could not refuse his request; but I knew that the financial situation in the family was not the best. My uncle had been forced to sell two of his boats and only one remained; and the house was always open and my uncle was generous as always, never refusing a request from someone in need. Neither Ezz nor my uncle Abu Amin spoke about it, but I deduced it from what my aunt said and alerted Amin. He was embarrassed to speak with his father, but he offered to give Ezz part of his salary regularly, every month. Ezz refused, saying, “You have a wife and son, and Ruqayya is pregnant. Our Lord has been gracious and blessed us, and we lack for nothing.” He said that and assured us it was true. But now, as he asserted that he preferred to work, I thought to myself that certainly all this was one reason, and maybe the primary reason and not the secondary one, for his refusal to continue his study.
Ezz began his new work in the aid agency on the first of October, and on the 29th Israeli forces occupied Gaza and the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt began. Sidon blazed with demonstrations; I was following the news and reactions in Lebanon from my bed, as I had given birth to Hasan. I remember that I was carrying an infant of less than three months in my arms when my uncle announced that he was going to Egypt.
My aunt asked in amazement, “Why Egypt?”
He looked at her, disliking the question: “Because it’s Egypt!”
My aunt said, raising difficulties, “If my sister Zeinab were with us, she would say, ‘Take me with you so we can look for the boys.’” She sighed. “God have mercy on her and compensate her for her patience. For sure she’s living with them in Paradise now.”
The words escaped me: “Wouldn’t it have been better for him to have mercy on her during her life, and leave her at least one of the three!”
“Better, Ruqayya? He has his wisdom that his servants cannot fathom. Say rather, ‘Thank God, the only one we thank in adversity.’”
I said nothing.
My uncle went by sea to Port Said, and returned after three weeks, receiving the people who flocked to him as if he were returning from the Hajj. He presided over the room and told his story: “I visited Port Said and Port Fouad and Port Tawfiq and Ismailiya and Suez, and of course, Cairo.” He said, “I saw the Canal and swam in its waters.” He said, “I took the train to Cairo and attended a concert by Umm Kulthum. I went to the movies and before the show I saw a film called The Talking Newspaper, where I saw Abd al-Nasser as if he were standing before me in person, when he was speaking from the pulpit of al-Azhar Mosque and people were shouting for him, and then when they were carrying him in his car. And I saw the planes when they were bombing Port Said.” He would say, “I asked about the neighborhood where Abd al-Nasser lived, and I walked in it.” One of the young men asked him, “Why didn’t you ask to meet him?” My uncle said, his face a little red, “Cairo is big, I didn’t know who to contact to take me to him. And anyway he’s busy, and those who love him are many — imagine if everyone who loves him asked to visit him, would he attend to the visitors or concentrate his efforts on running the country?”
Two months after my uncle’s return, Ezz confided in me that his father had sold half the boat to cover the cost of his trip to Egypt. “He didn’t tell me. If I had known I would have managed it for him. I can borrow the money and then return it, since I’m employed and have an income. But he didn’t tell me.” Ezz laughed, long and loud, and said, “Well done, Abu Amin! Always acting like a king!” I laughed too.