“We’ve gone to the doctor, Mother, and he confirmed that it’s my problem.”
“Go to a different doctor. For sure he’s a doctor she bought from her community, and they agreed with him that he would say that.”
Then she changed her mind, “But why go? I’ll look for a bride for you and in a month or two you’ll know you’re fine. Your wife will get pregnant and in nine months you’ll have a son.”
Ezz laughed, and said, “What do you say we go together to the doctor of your choice, so you can hear from him in person that your son can’t have children?”
At that point my aunt decided there was no use talking, even if she didn’t say that to her son, because the girl had bewitched him. She had tied him to her, and he wouldn’t leave her and would end up “with no family of his own.” She turned it over to God, although that didn’t prevent her from calling on him to witness what the girl from Saffurya had done to her and her son.
We would go to Sidon on the weekend, Amin driving us in his Renault. The boys loved Sidon. Hasan was the one who was most attached to the city, saying that he loved its smell, the narrow lanes of the old city and its architecture, the gardens stretching around it, and the sea. He would say, “In Beirut we barely notice the smell of the sea. Here the smell of the sea is clear and sharp, it mixes with the scent of the orange blossoms.” Hasan loved the scent of orange blossoms. When they were in season he couldn’t wait for the weekend, he would come home from school and say, “I miss my grandfather, I’m going to Sidon.” “And your homework?” “I’ll do it when I get back.” I know he wasn’t lying and that he really did miss his grandfather, but why did he miss him more during the season of the orange blossoms? An hour going and an hour coming, then an hour or two there, and when he came back he would have to stay up late to finish his homework, not finishing sometimes until morning.
When the family went to Sidon to spend the weekend or to stay with my aunt and uncle during the summer vacation, Hasan would go out for an hour or two and then come back to be with his grandfather. He never tired of listening to his stories. Sadiq and Abed were different, no sooner did they arrive in Sidon than each was off looking for his friends, and we would barely see them before bedtime. When we went back to Beirut and my aunt and uncle would say goodbye, my aunt would say what she always did at the end of every visit, “What’s your rush, Amin, why do you need to work in Beirut? Come back and work in Sidon. We’ll all be together, and you might be able to convince Ezz to come home, instead of living there among strangers, in the camp.”
On the way home, Hasan repeats his grandmother’s words. He doesn’t understand the reason for leaving Sidon, and he pesters his father to reconsider our living in Beirut. I glimpse sly smiles in Sadiq’s and Abed’s eyes; years later, only years later, would I understand why they were smiling.
While we’re in Sidon Ezz complains about my uncle Abu Amin’s behavior; the matter of his participating in demonstrations has become a source of tension in the house. “Because you’re no longer young, Papa. In one of these demonstrations you’ll be killed by the army’s bullets. You can’t run when they fire on us. Consider me your representative, all the young men represent you.” It’s no use talking. My uncle doesn’t confine himself to participating in demonstrations starting from Bab al-Sarail Square in old Sidon or from Ain al-Helwa, rather he travels from town to town, “Because it’s a duty.”
The army decided to close down the Fatah office in al-Khiyam. My uncle declared, “I’m going to al-Khiyam.”
“The army has set up checkpoints and barriers all along the way, how will you go?”
“How can I not go? The people of al-Khiyam are demonstrating for our sake, should we just watch? Besides, I know roundabout ways that will avoid the checkpoints; I’ll show them to the driver.”
The scene would be repeated in later years, Ezz’s words and my uncle’s answer. Ezz would speak and my uncle would stubbornly take a taxi and set off for the demonstration in Tyre, or al-Khiyam, or Nabatiyeh, or Bint Jbeil, or al-Rashidiya. Even when Imam Musa al-Sadr organized a demonstration a year before my uncle died, in which nearly 100,000 people participated to demand political reform and arming the residents of the border villages, my uncle could not be convinced that the demonstration was for the Shii residents of the southern villages. He answered Ezz, “For shame! They did not fail us, how can we fail them?”
Demonstrations became part of my uncle’s weekly schedule, and worry became a fixture on Ezz’s schedule. He complained, “He’ll die by an army bullet in one of these demonstrations. He has constant pain in his knees. He won’t be able to run and avoid the bullets. God, my heart nearly stopped the day of the protest demonstration against the siege of the fedayeen in Kfar Kila. The bullets from the army were like rain, the demonstrators were falling by the dozen, killed and wounded, and I was worried about Abu Amin, and Abu Amin was completely oblivious, he was at the head of the demonstration shouting as if he were twenty. It came out okay. But he was five years younger, now he’s over seventy and I don’t know how to keep him from going.”
Ezz laughed bitterly. “They’ll kill him. What can I do, imprison him in the house? Tie him to the foot of the bed?”
My uncle did not die by an army bullet in a demonstration. He was not hit, unlike dozens of young men who were better able to run and maneuver. Ezz was not obliged to imprison him in the house or tie him to the bed; illness forced him to stay in bed. He would ask my aunt to call me on the telephone in Beirut three or sometimes four times a day. He would say, “How are you, Ruqayya? I wanted to hear your voice.”
I would speak to him for two or three minutes and then he would give the receiver to my aunt.
I decided to go to live with him for a while.
I sat down with Sadiq and Hasan and Abed, and told them that I would stay in Sidon a week or two or three, or maybe more, until my uncle got better. Abed protested, “He has my grandmother and my uncle Ezz and his wife. We need you too!”
Sadiq commented, mocking him, “Abed needs to nurse every three hours, how can you, he won’t be able to bear it!”
Abed hit him on the shoulder and said, without smiling, “Ha, ha, ha, you’re really funny!”
I scolded them both.
Hasan said, “Don’t worry, we’ll manage.”
I said, “Hasan knows how to prepare a quick meal for you. If you could, Hasan, or you could buy them something to eat. Sadiq is responsible for straightening the house and Abed will wash the dishes.”
“Every day?”
“Yes, every day! Because Sadiq will straighten the house every day and Hasan will take care of the food every day!”
Abed said, “And the wash?”
“Bring it on the weekend and I’ll do the washing and ironing.”
“Why aren’t you giving Papa any job? That’s discrimination.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself. Your father works in the hospital from daybreak until night.”
Abed went back to his grumbling. “We’ll die of hunger. We’ll live for two weeks on macaroni and rice and eggs and fried tomatoes? Hasan doesn’t know anything else.”
“Enough, Abed, you’re fifteen years old. You are to cease all this childish nagging and listen to Sadiq and Hasan.”
“On top of everything!”
“And if I hear that you quarreled with either of them I’ll stop speaking to you!”
“As if I were Israel!”
“I’m not joking.”
“Okay, but I have a condition…,” he corrected himself, “Two conditions: When we come to Sidon on the weekend you’ll make me maqlouba once and musakhan once and kubbeh bi-laban once.”