‘My little barefoot prince,’ he said. ‘Isn’t he handsome?’
‘Stop that, you’ll draw the evil eye on him . . . And speaking of bare feet, you forgot to buy shoes.’
My uncle clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Where was my head?’
‘In the clouds, probably.’
My uncle immediately went out again and a little later reappeared with three pairs of shoes of different sizes. The smallest pair – black leather lace-up shoes that scraped my heels – fitted me perfectly. He didn’t take the other pairs back; he was keeping them, he said, for me to grow into.
Like two moths flickering around a flame, Germaine and my uncle flitted around me constantly. They took me on a tour of the house, any one of whose vast high-ceilinged rooms was large enough to accommodate all of Bliss’s tenants. Each spotless window was adorned with heavy drapes and framed by green shutters. It was a beautiful, sunny house, though a little disorienting, with its hidden doors, its spiral staircases and the built-in wardrobes that at first I mistook for rooms. I thought about my father, about our shack and the farm we had lost, about our filthy hovel in Jenane Jato; the difference was so great that I felt dizzy.
Every time I looked up, I saw Germaine looking down. She was determined to spoil me. My uncle did not quite know how to behave, but he did not leave my side. They tried to explain everything at once, burst out laughing for no reason at all, or simply stood, holding hands, staring at me with tears in their eyes. Meanwhile, wide-eyed, I discovered the wonders of the modern world.
That evening, we ate in the living room and I discovered something else strange: my uncle had no need of an oil lamp, he simply pressed a button on the wall and a host of lights in the ceiling lit up. I felt terribly awkward at dinner. At home I had been used to eating from the same plate as my family. Now that I had a plate all to myself, I didn’t know what to do. Ill at ease with the eyes watching my every move, the hands constantly stroking my hair, pinching my cheeks, I barely ate a thing.
‘Don’t rush him,’ Germaine kept saying to my uncle. ‘Give him some time to get used to things.’
My uncle would curb his excitement for a minute, only to get carried away again a moment later.
After dinner, they led me upstairs.
‘This is your room, Jonas,’ Germaine announced.
‘My room’ was twice as big as the room my family shared in Jenane Jato. In the middle was a huge bed flanked by two night tables. On the walls were paintings, some dreamlike landscapes, others of people praying, their hands clasped under their chins, heads ringed with golden haloes. On the mantelpiece was a statue of a little boy with wings and above it was a crucifix. In one corner was a small writing desk and an overstuffed chair. The room was pervaded by a strange perfume, sweet and ephemeral. Through the window I could see trees and the roofs of the houses opposite.
‘Do you like it?’
I didn’t answer. The lavishness of my surroundings frightened me. Everything seemed to be perfectly, precariously balanced; I was terrified that with one false move I would bring it all crashing down.
Germaine asked my uncle to leave the two of us alone. She waited until he had left and then undressed me and put me into bed, as though I would be incapable of doing so myself. My head sank into the mountain of pillows.
‘Sweet dreams, my son.’
She drew up the blankets, kissed my forehead, turned out the bedside lamp, then crept out on tiptoe, carefully closing the door behind her.
As a rule I was not scared of the dark – a solitary boy with little imagination, I usually found it easy to get to sleep – but now, in this opulent room, I felt strangely uneasy. I missed my parents. But this was not the reason I felt fearful. There was something ominous about the room, something I could sense but could not put my finger on. Was it the smell of the blankets, or the scent that hung in the air that made me feel light-headed? Was it the sound like breathing that echoed in the room and wailed in the chimney? I was convinced that I was not alone, that there was something crouched in the shadows watching me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up; I gasped for breath. I felt an icy hand over my face. Outside, the full moon lit the street. The wind whistled through the railings and whipped the trees. I forced myself to close my eyes, clutching the sheets. I could still feel the cold hand on my face, and the impression that there was something else here with me became unbearable. I could sense it standing by the end of the bed, ready to leap on me. The air felt thin, my heart felt as though it would explode. I opened my eyes again and saw the statue of the winged boy on the mantelpiece turn slowly and stare at me through vacant eyes, its mouth fixed in a sad smile.
Terrified, I leapt out of bed and crouched behind the headboard. The winged boy turned again to stare at me, its monstrous shadow splayed across the wall. I scuttled under the bed, dragging a blanket with me, curled up as small as I could and closed my eyes tight, convinced that if I opened them, I would find the statue on all fours, peering in at me.
I was so petrified, I’m not sure if I finally fell asleep or simply passed out.
‘Mahi!’
The scream woke me with such a start, I hit my head against the slats of the bed frame.
‘Jonas isn’t in his room,’ Germaine shouted.
‘What do you mean, he isn’t in his room?’
I heard running in the corridor, doors slamming, footsteps on the stairs. He can’t have left the house . . . The door is double-locked. My uncle’s voice. The veranda door is locked too . . . Did you look in the toilet? I just checked – he’s not in there. Germaine was panicking. Are you sure he’s not in his room? . . .
I told you, his bed is empty . . . They searched downstairs, moving furniture, then came back upstairs and into my room.
‘My God, Jonas,’ Germaine cried when she saw me sitting on the edge of the bed, ‘where did you get to?’
My right side was stiff and my joints hurt. My uncle examined the lump on my forehead.
‘Did you fall out of bed?’
I pointed stiffly at the statue: ‘It kept moving all night.’
Germaine put her arms around me.
‘Jonas, my poor little Jonas, why didn’t you wake us? You’re so pale, I feel terrible.’
The following night, the statue of the winged boy was gone, and with it the crucifix and the holy pictures. Germaine sat beside my bed telling me stories in a jumble of Arabic and French, stroking my hair until I fell asleep.
As the weeks went by, I missed my parents terribly, though Germaine did everything she could to make my life happy. In the morning, when she went shopping, she would take me with her, and I never came home without a new toy or some sweets. The afternoons she spent teaching me to read and write. She was eager to enrol me in a school, but my uncle was determined not to rush things. Sometimes he let me come to work at the chemist shop with him, and sitting me at a little desk in the back office while he served customers, he had me copy out the alphabet in an exercise book. I was a fast learner, Germaine thought, and she didn’t understand why my uncle was so hesitant to send me to school. After two months, I could read whole words without stumbling over the syllables, but still my uncle would not hear of sending me to school until he was sure my father would not change his mind and come looking for me.
One evening, as I was wandering around aimlessly upstairs, he called me into his office. It was a dark room, lit only by a small skylight. There were books everywhere. Every inch of wall was lined with bookcases and there were piles of books on the sideboard and on his desk. His glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose, my uncle looked up from the book he had been reading. He perched me on his lap and pointed to the portrait of a woman on the wall.
‘You need to know something, my boy. You haven’t fallen from a tree into a ditch . . . You see that woman in the picture there? Her name is Lalla Fatna. She was a woman of money and status, and as domineering as she was rich – one general used to call her Jeanne d’Arch. She owned land enough for a small country, with meadows teeming with livestock. Eminent people came for miles to visit her and she had them eating out of her hand. Even officers of the French army courted her. They say that if the emir Abd al-Qadir had met her, it would have changed the course of history. Look closely at her, boy, because this woman, this legendary figure, was your great-grandmother.’