dimples from which grew slender fingers, how long it was hard to tell, since they were closed and contracted like that. I couldn’t stop looking at the baby. My aunt brought him to me, here he was in my arms. I felt a tickle in my breast, which had not happened to me before. At the time I didn’t identify it as the rush of the milk.
My mother was not present for the birth of any of her three grandchildren. Would the name have made her joyful or sad, would she have blessed it or suggested another name instead? That night, thinking stopped at this question which flitted through my mind, landing in a corner and returning later, after a week or two or three, then disappearing completely, not to return.
My uncle Abu Amin was the one who named Sadiq and Hasan. He named them after I had them, for he did not give names before the birth; first he made sure of the health of the mother and the child, and then he gave the name. When I conceived the third boy I announced when I was still pregnant, in my fifth month, “If it is a girl I will name her Wisal, and if it is a boy he will be Abd al-Rahman.”
11
A Young Man’s Laughter
Ezzedin announced, laughing, “Some people have all the luck! Mulukhiya soup and a job and a scholarship, all on the same day! Of course the mulukhiya is the most important. We’ve eaten the mulukhiya, and now I have to choose: the job or studying in the university? In fact, I have chosen.”
Ezz loves mulukhiya and he loves it more when I make it for him. He turns the table into a carnival of laughter. He announces loudly, “Ruqayya’s mulukhiya can’t be beaten, she makes it better than my mother and my aunt and all the women of Sidon.” I signal to him with my eyes because I know that my aunt is annoyed by this talk, but he ignores my signal and expands on his love for his favorite dish, on the condition that it comes from my hands, because it strengthens the heart, hardens the bones, extends life and assures that no one will defeat the Arabs, despite all appearances to the contrary—and in all certainty, it will return Palestine to us! We laugh.
I don’t know what the house would have been like, or how it would have been with my uncle and aunt, if Ezz had not been living with them. With his spontaneity he drew them into a bubbling cauldron of life, with his comings and goings, his comments and his stories and his endless wit. There was also the political news he would bring to his father; Abu Amin would listen with interest, and it would be followed by a long discussion about the possible and the impossible. Sometimes it seemed to me that Ezz could make friends with a passing breeze. He would introduce everyone to everyone, and his friends would become friends with each other, and his associates’ friends would become his friends. He would open the house to them, introduce them to his mother and father and then introduce the family to his family, and they would visit each other and form friendships. The house was never without guests: “This is my friend from Amqa, these guys are from al-Zeeb and they live in Ain al-Helwa, this family is from al-Tira and I invited them to lunch with us.” “Mother, what do you think about their daughter, isn’t she beautiful?” “Her eyes are small, Ezz … the girl who came with her brother two days ago, the girl from Safsaf, is prettier, her eyes are a beautiful black and her figure is like a gazelle’s!” My aunt is bothered by all the guests, but she busies herself with greeting and hosting them, and they take her, unawares, into their stories and anecdotes, into what happened and how it all ended. When they have gone and she’s overcome with exhaustion she sleeps deeply and peacefully, in spite of everything. Abu Amin, also, has earned standing among many young men: they greet him in the streets of Sidon, they come up to him happily when they see him in the coffee shop, and they come often to the house to ask about him, to consult him, and to
My mother was not present for the birth of any of her three grandchildren. Would the name have made her joyful or sad, would she have blessed it or suggested another name instead? That night, thinking stopped at this question which flitted through my mind, landing in a corner and returning later, after a week or two or three, then disappearing completely, not to return.
My uncle Abu Amin was the one who named Sadiq and Hasan. He named them after I had them, for he did not give names before the birth; first he made sure of the health of the mother and the child, and then he gave the name. When I conceived the third boy I announced when I was still pregnant, in my fifth month, “If it is a girl I will name her Wisal, and if it is a boy he will be Abd al-Rahman.”
11
A Young Man’s Laughter
Ezzedin announced, laughing, “Some people have all the luck! Mulukhiya soup and a job and a scholarship, all on the same day! Of course the mulukhiya is the most important. We’ve eaten the mulukhiya, and now I have to choose: the job or studying in the university? In fact, I have chosen.”
Ezz loves mulukhiya and he loves it more when I make it for him. He turns the table into a carnival of laughter. He announces loudly, “Ruqayya’s mulukhiya can’t be beaten, she makes it better than my mother and my aunt and all the women of Sidon.” I signal to him with my eyes because I know that my aunt is annoyed by this talk, but he ignores my signal and expands on his love for his favorite dish, on the condition that it comes from my hands, because it strengthens the heart, hardens the bones, extends life and assures that no one will defeat the Arabs, despite all appearances to the contrary—and in all certainty, it will return Palestine to us! We laugh.
I don’t know what the house would have been like, or how it would have been with my uncle and aunt, if Ezz had not been living with them. With his spontaneity he drew them into a bubbling cauldron of life, with his comings and goings, his comments and his stories and his endless wit. There was also the political news he would bring to his father; Abu Amin would listen with interest, and it would be followed by a long discussion about the possible and the impossible. Sometimes it seemed to me that Ezz could make friends with a passing breeze. He would introduce everyone to everyone, and his friends would become friends with each other, and his associates’ friends would become his friends. He would open the house to them, introduce them to his mother and father and then introduce the family to his family, and they would visit each other and form friendships. The house was never without guests: “This is my friend from Amqa, these guys are from al-Zeeb and they live in Ain al-Helwa, this family is from al-Tira and I invited them to lunch with us.” “Mother, what do you think about their daughter, isn’t she beautiful?” “Her eyes are small, Ezz … the girl who came with her brother two days ago, the girl from Safsaf, is prettier, her eyes are a beautiful black and her figure is like a gazelle’s!” My aunt is bothered by all the guests, but she busies herself with greeting and hosting them, and they take her, unawares, into their stories and anecdotes, into what happened and how it all ended. When they have gone and she’s overcome with exhaustion she sleeps deeply and peacefully, in spite of everything. Abu Amin, also, has earned standing among many young men: they greet him in the streets of Sidon, they come up to him happily when they see him in the coffee shop, and they come often to the house to ask about him, to consult him, and to
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