Sadiq sat with his father and uncle to discuss the details of the engagement, and Abed joined them. I went up to the room carrying Maryam, with Hasan trailing after me. In the evening we went to the bride’s uncle’s house.
The bride seemed kind and affectionate, younger than I had imagined even though Sadiq assured me before and afterward that she was only two years younger than he was. The formal living room was very large, with big chairs whose wooden frames were painted in gold. In the middle was a large rectangular table, covered with a piece of glass; on it were large crystal ashtrays and a number of rosaries that seemed to be valuable, because they were displayed as if they were fine pieces. I was intrigued by three large pictures hung on the wall, each in a gold frame: the middle was of a porter or a water-carrier who was carrying a picture of the Aqsa Mosque on his back; the pictures on each side were of a sluggish sea, and of a table holding a platter with fruits in dull colors.
The room was crowded with men and women, and I learned only shortly before we left which of the women was the bride’s mother and which was her aunt and which her uncle’s wife, and who was more closely and more distantly related. The men turned aside to talk over the arrangements for the marriage. Afterward we moved to the dining room, where the table and the rest of the furniture also was huge, crowding the space with chairs and china cabinets.
When we came back to the hotel Amin asked me, in front of Ezz and Sadiq and the other boys, “What do you think of the bride, Ruqayya?”
“She’s very nice, congratulations.”
Sadiq said, “Mother, I don’t understand what made you suddenly say, for no reason at all, ‘We are refugees, our family lives in the Ain al-Helwa camp and we have relatives in the Jenin camp.’”
I found his comment strange, and I said, “Isn’t it the truth?”
He said, “I don’t object, but the words came as a surprise, for no reason. Anyway, who of our family lives in the camp in Jenin?”
“Wisal and her mother.”
“They are people we know, not relatives.”
“They’re my family. I have no one left but Ezz and Karima in Ain al-Helwa, and Wisal and her mother in Jenin, and Abed too — even if he lives in Beirut he’s from the camp in Jenin.”
Ezz broke in to end the tension that had begun to form around us without our having noticed: “I attest that the mulukhiya was respectable, one more degree and it would reach the level of the mulukhiya you make, Ruqayya. If it were two degrees better it would surpass it. Watch out, if the girl cooks like her family it will slip away from you, and I’ll go to Sadiq’s house for the mulukhiya.”
Sadiq laughed, and said, “Then we have to start now to try to get you a visa to come to the Emirates.”
“Yes. And I’ll write that the reason for the trip is mulukhiya.”
They laughed. I joined in with a smile, but I was downhearted. I said, “I’ll put Maryam to bed.”
“Then you’ll join us?”
“I won’t leave her alone in the room. She might wake up and be frightened to find herself in a strange place.”
Sadiq said, “It would have been better for you to leave her in Beirut with my uncle’s wife.”
Ezz said, “That’s what I suggested.”
I did not comment. I lifted Maryam and went up to the room, followed by Hasan. I put the girl to bed and sat with him. We talked a long time about Egypt and his studies and the situation in Beirut; but neither of us mentioned the visit or the bride or her family’s house. We didn’t notice that we had passed midnight until Amin came in. He planted a kiss on Maryam’s head, as she was fast asleep, and said to Hasan, “Ezz and your brothers are waiting for you in the coffee shop; I’m going to sleep. Good night.”
25
Wisal (II)
I don’t usually pay that much attention to the clothes I wear, but when I was getting ready to visit Wisal, I changed my clothes three times. I put on one of my dresses, looked in the mirror and then decided to put on another one. I went back over my directions to Amin about Maryam, if she gets hungry do this, if she wets herself you’ll do that. He laughed and said, “Come on, don’t worry,” and then, “Go ahead, Hasan,” as he had decided to go with me.
A taxi took us to al-Baqaa Camp; we looked for the house for some time, and at last arrived at the address. The door was open, and Hasan clapped his hands. A woman came, and I was embarrassed to see her as I did not know if it was Wisal or someone else. She was my age. She extended her hand and greeted us as she welcomed us repeatedly, so I realized that she was not Wisal.
In later years I would recall the moment we met, in that small house in al-Baqaa Camp on the heights above Amman, at the beginning of 1978, because when Wisal came into the room she did not extend her hand in greeting but rather opened her arms wide and embraced me, and also because as I embraced her, I was certain that the scent filing my nose was not from my imagination. It was my friend, the girl of Qisarya who had come to me now from Jenin, bearing with her the scent of the sea. I tell myself that a wish can create an illusion and sustain it; but then I say no, the scent did not come from my mind but rather from her body and her long dress and her hair, reaching to my nose and from there penetrating my head and breast and bowels — how could that be the effect of an illusion?
Wisal brought me a traditional Palestinian dress and told me that she had begun embroidering it after that telephone call that Abed had made from Beirut. She said that she had finished it three years earlier, waiting for us to meet. I fought back tears as I contemplated her handwork on the dress she had brought to me over the bridge from Jenin. It was not cut and sewn, as she left it for me to sew, to fit me. It was three pieces of fabric: the first was large, for the body of the thawb, from the collar to the hem, which she had embroidered over the breast and around the hem, and two smaller pieces for the sleeves, with the same motif embroidered at the border of each. She had not chosen the usual black fabric for me but rather an indeterminate light color, almost off-white, which she had embroidered with thread of every hue and shade of blue, from light sky blue to the deepest color of the sea. I looked at the dress and could find nothing to say; my tongue was tied, and I felt that my gifts were not appropriate. I left the wristwatch and the heart suspended on a golden chain and the bottle of perfume in my bag, repeating to myself, they do not suit the occasion. I heard Hasan’s voice saying, “I must go. Do you know how to find the way back, or shall I come back to pick you up in a couple of hours?” Then with a haste I did not understand, he said to Wisal, “Goodbye, Aunt,” and kissed her hand and left rapidly.
Wisal was the one who began to talk. She pulled me in, and I entered first with timid steps; then my tongue came untied and began to listen to her and to exchange stories with her. Then she asked, “When are you going back to Beirut?”
“Tomorrow.”
“God forgive you, Ruqayya, stay one more day. One day, and then go in peace. I want to meet Dr. Amin and Sadiq and little Abed, and I want to get to know that handsome young man who perched like a little dove for a moment and then flew off. Tomorrow we’ll have lunch together, God willing.”
“As you say, Wisal.”
In the hotel, after Maryam and Amin had gone to sleep, I looked into the mirror for a long time. I saw myself with Wisal right next to me, in her embroidered country dress and her full, fertile figure. Why had she seemed older than I, years older? She had become tall and plump, her country dress and its belt emphasizing her plumpness; I had remained as I always was, thin, my thinness emphasized by the dress that was tight on my body, falling narrowly from the waist to end just below the knee. Perhaps my hair, drawn back and held in a narrow black ribbon, made me look like a schoolgirl when I had passed forty? She covered her hair with a white shawl, showing a lock of hair in which white was mixed with the black.