I, the Divine (12 page)

Our entrance was greeted with tears all around. When my father saw Ramzi, he cried like a baby, hugging his son, shaking uncontrollably, which only increased the flow of tears from the family. In all my years, I had never seen my father cry. He had aged, white hair and wrinkles, stooped posture. I joined in the crying. It was the closest I had felt toward him in a long time.

It took a couple of minutes for my father to compose himself. Until he did, Omar was in charge, which was disconcerting at first, since he was not exactly part of the family, but became understandable as he spoke, explaining what happened. He had arranged everything. Lamia was to be institutionalized. There was no doubt she was mentally unbalanced. There would be no trial, no more publicity. In time Lamia would be forgotten by the community.

“What about the children?” I asked.

“They seemed okay,” Amal answered. “You have to transfer them to a different school, don’t you think?” The question was directed at Lamia’s husband, who was not paying attention. He was sitting in his chair, seemingly nonplussed by the events surrounding him, in his own world as usual. Two folds of fat hung over his starched back collar. “Samir, do you think you should transfer the kids to another school?” Amal asked again.

He looked up, awakened from his reverie. “Maybe I should. I guess so. Put them in a new school where no one knows them.”

“Yes,” Amal said. “It’s for the best and school hasn’t started yet so there should be no problem.”

“I’ll tell my mother,” he said.

“I’ll talk to her,” Amal said. “Don’t worry about it.” She looked at me, shaking her head, and whispered, “It’s a good thing he still lives with his mother. She’s the only competent one in the whole family. The kids will be fine. I’ll make sure of it.”

I trusted her. My sister Amal had devoted her life to one single thing, being a good mother. If she said she would make sure Lamia’s children were taken care of, the job was as good as done.

The scene was unlike a funeral in one respect: the men and women were not separated. My half-sister Majida, whose serious burgundy suit and pulled-back hair made her look older than her thirty-one years, sat between my father and Ramzi, all three involved in a heavy conversation. My father nodded his head, agreeing with what Majida was saying, took off his glasses and wiped them with a tissue. Saniya was lecturing Lamia’s husband, and Omar and Kamal were involved in a discussion.

“Can I go in to see her?” I asked Amal.

“She’s heavily sedated,” Amal replied.

“I’d like to see her anyway.”

In a darkened room, the heavy curtains drawn, Lamia lay on her bed, looking almost dead. A fairy tale came to mind, Sleeping Beauty, except Lamia was no beauty. She looked peaceful, a hint of a smile creased her lips. Someone had brushed her black hair, which surrounded her head on the pillow like a halo. The presentation was discomforting.

When we were little girls, Lamia’s favorite game was playing dead. She played it in secret, only Amal and I were privy to it. One of our aunts died as a young spinster, and Lamia had sneaked a peak at the funeral, intent on finding out what happened. She wanted us to play the mourners while she died. She darkened the room, just like it was now, lay in bed, and waited for us to cry. We did not. We could not play her game. Watching her on the hospital bed, I finally cried for her.

Amal held my hand. “Strange, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s too weird.”

She waited a couple of seconds before saying, “I’m having an affair.”

“What?”

“I’m having an affair,” she repeated. She was still holding my hand, looking intently at me.

“Why are you telling me now?”

“I have to tell someone. There’s no one else I can talk to.”

“But now?” I asked, gesturing to include the dormant Lamia. “Here? Can’t you wait till later?”

“No, I can’t wait,” she snapped. “When is the right time to talk about this? When we’re all at dinner or what? I want to talk to you. Do you realize how hard this is for me? I thought you’d want me to talk to you for a change.”

For a change. Amal was one of my confidantes. Since my first boyfriend at thirteen, I had always shared my men problems with her. When I fell in love in college and wanted to elope with Omar, she was the only one I could talk to. My best friend Dina, with whom I had shared everything, had already immigrated to the United States. Without Amal’s steady support, I would not have been able to leave with Omar.

“You’re right,” I said. “Maybe we should go to the cafeteria.”

“No. We can talk here. It’s not like she’s listening.”

I sat down on a chair facing the bed and Amal sat next to me. “Is he married?”

“Yes, of course.” She raised an eyebrow and smiled with only the left side of her mouth.

“Is he in love with you? Are you in love with him?”

“No, no, it’s not like that.”

“You’re doing it for the sex?” I asked incredulously. After my parents, Amal would be the most difficult to imagine having sex.

“No. Stop that. It’s not about sex. I wish it was as easy as it is for you.”

“You
are
having sex though? I mean you did say you’re having an affair. Usually, that involves more than afternoon coffee.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, slightly irritated. She leaned back in her chair and adjusted her dress. “We are having sex, but that’s not why I’m having an affair. I want to be with someone. I’m lonely, really lonely. Twenty years I’ve been married to that idiot and I began to realize I don’t like him. I know you never liked him, but I thought I did. One day I woke up and realized I don’t like him. He’s not the best kind of man, he’s not the worst kind of man and I didn’t care. After everything he’s done to me, I don’t hate him. I just don’t care. Twenty years of my life spent with someone I don’t like. It’s a terrible blow. I woke up one day and the first man who flirted with me got me. A prize, huh? Are you upset?” She looked away from me, down at her hand as if examining her fingernails.

“Upset?”

“Are you upset with me? I thought you’d be the only one who would not be embarrassed by what I’m saying.”

“Embarrassed? I’m proud of you. If there’s anything that’s upsetting, it’s that you’re still with the asshole. Divorce that son of a bitch and send him to his mama. I told you that a long time ago. Dump his haggard ass. I’m surprised it took you this long.”

We sat in the dark, no longer looking at each other, but staring at poor cataleptic Lamia. I wished there was something more I could say. Amal suddenly whispered, “Well, if not a divorce, then a frying pan again.” She began giggling uncontrollably. It took me a few seconds to join in, enough time to recover from the shock of her bringing up the frying pan incident at such a stressful time. We giggled like schoolgirls again. “Boing,” she would say and try to keep her laughter low enough not to be heard. “Boing,” I would reply.

The frying pan incident. Another family scandal. Amal’s husband slapped her once, ten years earlier. She was furious, but had to live with it, or so she thought. She complained to Saniya, who told her she was lucky her husband was a nice man. Amal should look at the marriages around her and consider herself fortunate. My father agreed it was a terrible thing for her husband to do, but he was her husband after all. She called me. I told her if any man ever hit me, I would deck him and damn the consequences. Apparently her husband got upset with her one day a couple of years later while she was cooking. He slapped her. She turned around and banged him over the head with her frying pan (full of butter). His first reaction was, “What did you have to do that for?” Like a little boy. Our father had to stitch his bleeding forehead. Her husband was the butt of jokes for a while, but he never laid a hand on her again. Whenever Amal and I got together, all one of us had to say was, “Boing,” and we would crack up. People were unable to stop talking about the crazy Nour el-Din women for a while.

Lamia remained unconscious throughout our hysterical giggling. I sat looking at her, wondering what part she played in our family’s problems. A friend once drove me from Brooklyn to John F. Kennedy Airport. Along the way, while stuck in traffic on the expressway, I noticed a black family in a small, brownish, older-model Toyota. Dad driving, Mom in the passenger seat, four kids in the back, the eldest no more than ten, the youngest no less than four, all singing at the top of their lungs, in discordant harmony, with the radio blaring, a song called “I Believe I Can Fly.” As I watched them I was uplifted at first, but a feeling of envy overcame me. Our family never sang, never came together in joy, not as long as Lamia refused participation. If my father wanted to tell a story, she made sure to mention she hated fairy tales. If my mother suggested a game of trumps, Lamia commented on the silliness of card games. We had no family outings. Our family did not believe it could fly.

I have a great story to tell you. I was there. This is what I saw:

I saw a principled man regretting his past actions and attempting to correct the course his young life had taken. I saw him cruelly divorce his blameless wife. For a few moments, he had taken a risk, stepping beyond the imaginary circle Lebanese men drew around themselves in colored chalk. He had married nontraditionally, an American woman, for love, the riskiest of all. He divorced for comfort, for tradition, for safety.

I saw a young woman, still a teenager, marry a man many years her senior, for duty, to fulfill her destiny. I saw a woman who looked at the principled man finding him a worthy husband, a doctor, a provider, a father for her future family. She saw a good name, and an upward move in the community. She saw the pride in her mother’s eyes.

I saw a debonair city man choose a mountain girl for a wife. I saw him pick an uneducated girl he could train, mold in time, sculpt as his Eliza. I saw a man from a titled family decide on a peasant for a wife, someone who would always look up to him, never challenge him, never threaten. I saw a man choose a girl for a wife.

I saw a silly young woman, the butt of her in-laws’ cruel jokes. I saw an incompetent homemaker trying hard to learn on the job. I saw a horrendous cook ruin every meal, the aroma of burned food stultifying. I saw a naive girl stand for hours in front of modern appliances unable to figure out how to work them. I saw a crying girl murmuring heart-wrenching apologies for placing an electric kettle on a stovetop burner. I saw an unforgiving family snicker.

I saw an inexperienced girl look at the man’s daughters and recoil in terror at the prospect of responsibility. I saw her unsure what to do, make many mistakes. I saw a little girl take full advantage of these mistakes.

And boy, was my father surprised.

My father divorced my mother in 1962, when I was two. She died in 1995. In all those thirty-three years, he never saw her, wrote, or called her. She no longer existed. I, through no fault of my own, reminded him of her. I was my mother’s daughter.

As I grow older, I notice how much I look like my mother. The eyes are the same, the hair is almost the same, mine is more brown than red, but I do dye it red every now and then. The nose, the forehead, the same. My sisters take after my father’s side of the family. I inherited the exotic looks.

When we were children, my father would regale us with stories, some fairy tales, some real stories from his days as a child, and some that were entirely made up. He used to love telling us “Sleeping Beauty.” He would show us each a mirror and in a solemn voice, tell us in English, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” My sister, Amal, would shout, “Sleeping Beauty.” Lamia stayed silent, as if she were being asked a trick question. I would shout, “Me!” My father loved that.

These days, the rhyme is different. I look at myself in the mirror and can’t help myself. I begin to chant:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

I am my mother after all.

And I start crying.

It isn’t just the looks. I notice how my life ended up and realize I am my mother, even though I hardly knew her