In Praise of Hatred (2 page)

Meanwhile, in the large house, I would lose myself in the galleries and the three generously proportioned rooms. I was captivated by a large mirror hanging at the back of Maryam’s room that had a wide walnut frame carved with creepers and damask roses. I took advantage of any of her absences to enter her room and stand in front of the mirror, engrossed in the details of my face and body whose weight I would palpate. I remained sleepless without knowing that I had begun to change and enter through the gates of young womanhood. Safaa noticed my transformation, treated me kindly and alluded to certain matters, in contrast to Maryam, who I knew was worried that I stood so often in front of a mirror, inspecting my figure and my chest and indifferent to other exciting things in her room. She wrote down a charm for me, observed me cruelly and closely, hung a hijab on me, and ordered me never to take it off because Satan was lurking in my body. My sternness increased and my silences lengthened.

*   *   *

The only man who was not related to us and who was still allowed to enter the courtyard and wander throughout was Blind Radwan, who lived in a small room in one of its corners. Blind Radwan was tall and gaunt, clean-clothed, and his hands always smelled of the perfumes he traded in. He mixed them in large glasses whose capacity he was familiar with, then decanted them into small medicine bottles, sealed them tightly, and sold them to private customers who were drawn chiefly from the women of the district of Jalloum and visitors to the Umayyad Mosque. He promoted his small trade using pleasant songs, overlaid with
dhikr
and verses from the Quran. He claimed that his brand, under the name of ‘Blind Radwan’, was known in every corner of the Arab world, and boasted that foreign traders had tried various means of obtaining the secret of a certain mixture which made women compliant, amorous and delicious in bed. Another blend made men overflow with charm and virility that no woman could resist. In front of Maryam, he claimed that this particular scent was the one with which the Prophet had perfumed his Companions and forged them into rare flowers which he planted in the Levant, never to be uprooted.

Radwan had been used to sleep, eat and drink with his blind companions from the mosque, who would disperse around the area of Sayyidna Zakaria to read
mawalid
and infiltrate various houses of Aleppo in the evenings. No one had known about Radwan other than those in the mosque, as if he had been born, lived, and would die there, silently; his eyes, with their lost sight, would trace circles in their sockets, sniffing the colours and richness of the clothes of the worshippers.

My grandfather brought Radwan to the house and gave him the room which had at one time belonged to my great-grandfather’s groom and carriage driver. Maryam cleaned it out and my oldest uncle, Selim, moved in a squeaky iron bedstead which had long been overlooked in the cellar, along with a woollen mattress. My grandfather refused to listen to protests from my grandmother who considered this to be a violation of the sanctity of the house, although she worked to make up the deficiencies of an unmarried man’s room.

Blind Radwan lived happily like a servant with special privileges, entering into the fabric of the family to become one of its permanent features. I couldn’t imagine the house without Radwan; when I was much younger he used to sit me on his knee and take out sweets and cloth toys from his small closet. He would sing to me in his sweet voice and I would paw his chest sleepily. When I moved into the house permanently, I avoided him and treated him the way a lady would a servant. He neither protested nor overstepped the boundaries – he would eat at the kitchen table and move on. Maryam never forgot his meal times, and he was never far away from her. He accompanied us to the hammam
every Thursday carrying a large bag, waited for us by the door until we had finished, and accompanied us back the same way, his crudely made cane never misleading him. He would walk in front of us, head raised, with stable and evenly spaced steps. For Jalloum, this scene became a symbol of the little that remained to my aunts of the bygone glory of their forefathers, which they had created out of their permanence, and their refusal to submit to the transformations which the city and its families had not escaped.

*   *   *

Every Thursday I went to my parents’ house after school to eat with them and my two younger brothers, Hossam and Humam. They were like strangers, and greeted me politely like an unexpected guest. My mother would kiss me without warmth, and as I helped her to prepare the food she would ask coldly about my news and about my aunts without waiting for a reply – she was confident that nothing would change in her old family home. She had left it as a young girl twenty-five years earlier after my father’s return from Alexandria, where he had gone to work as a fish vendor directly after the 1958 union with Egypt. Many people doubted the truth of this tale, and declared that my father was an agent of Abdel Hamid Sarraj. Two years after Syria’s secession from the United Arab Republic, my father returned to Aleppo and, without any preamble, asked my grandfather for my mother’s hand. My mother had vague memories of him back then as a young man with a big head, who walked haughtily and unhurriedly buckled down to work, never deviating from his chosen course.

My mother stayed in her father’s house after the wedding, while my father embarked on his compulsory military service, which lasted three and a half years, and it was during this time that I was born. They didn’t rejoice at my arrival; a leaden atmosphere was hanging over the large house as my grandmother was gravely ill, as if she were insisting on catching up with my grandfather who had died a couple of years earlier, in the tragic manner of men who choose their lives and the manner of their death. These men would not brook anyone’s mockery, despite the infirmity of their old age, which my grandfather described as the other face of God’s love.

My grandfather resigned from his three businesses and gathered my three uncles in the house’s reception room. Maryam and my grandmother sat beside them as my grandfather briefly explained that he was no longer capable of overseeing his business affairs, and turned their management over to his sons. To mitigate against any unforeseen difficulties, he bequeathed his wealth according to Islamic law and the house was to become the property of his daughters, who would retain the right to make use of it until the end of their lives. Uncle Selim protested against this defeatist tone, trying to dissuade his father from his resolution. My grandfather laughed and leaned on his cane; he ordered my grandmother and Maryam to prepare the table in the dining room reserved for guests, and to take out the best silver dinner service.

My uncles didn’t understand their father’s intentions until a week had passed, during which my grandfather exerted all his efforts to retain the ability to stand and walk like a military leader inspecting his troops. He accepted only Blind Radwan’s help, leaning on him like a crutch when going to the mosque on Friday or when relieving himself. He wouldn’t allow my grandmother to treat him like an old man; he used to say to Maryam, as he leaned on Radwan, ‘A woman must not see how low her man sinks in old age, so she can remember him with love.’ For four years, Radwan left him only at night. Sometimes he would even sleep nearby on a mattress prepared especially for him in the corner. One evening, my grandfather asked my uncles to come the following morning, as he wanted to visit the Citadel. They debated the matter between themselves, but not one of them dared to venture an opinion.

At nine the next morning the three men were confounded. My grandfather had asked them to help him up but when they rushed over to carry him, he stopped them with a gesture. Confusion reigned over everyone as he directed them outside, and asked for Radwan to accompany him. The folk of Jalloum couldn’t believe the scene: my grandfather in the lead with Radwan beside him, smiling as if he were the only one to have understood what had happened. Leaning on his companion’s arm, my grandfather stood in front of the gate to the Citadel, contemplating the high walls and sniffing the stones as if he were settling his debt with time. He descended to the gate of the covered market and plunged into its crowds, savouring the smell of clothing, textiles and sackcloth; of gold; of the crowding of women’s bodies; of the souk, blazing with lights; of abayas embroidered with silver and gold and spread out over shop fronts; of strips of rugs and dappled carpets. He entered the customs house and stood in the entrance to his shop where Khalil got to his feet smiling, and kissed him before returning to his place. My grandfather looked for a long while at the pile of carpets in the shop. He said, in a voice barely audible to my uncles and looking at Radwan, ‘This blind man has an equal share in all your wealth. If he comes to be in need one day, you will all be held responsible before God…’

Selim murmured and Radwan raised his head, smiling. He pressed my grandfather’s palm whose face lit up like the dawn in delight at meeting the other traders and his former clients. He opened his pores to the breezes and sounds to chase away the ignominy of previous years. My grandfather directed his footsteps home after praying in the mosque with my uncles. Radwan bore the sarcasm of his blind associates who, in a salute to their smiling friend, chanted a
mawlid
without taking a penny.

That afternoon, my grandfather returned to his house in state. He briefly teased my grandmother and lavished praise on my aunts for the delicious food which had been laid out on a table near the fountain. Everyone sat down and savoured the overlapping conversations while a chaos of interweaving hands stretched out towards the lamb stuffed with almonds and laid on a mound of
freekeh
fried in butter. My uncles had brought their children who were longing to see their grandfather, and their wives who disbelieved the marvel which was embellished with every retelling. After washing his hands, my grandfather got up, entered his room, took off his woollen robe, lay down on the bed, and died.

That evening, my uncles recalled that my grandfather had hobbled to the family tomb, contemplated the gravestones for a while, then pointed with his cane and said, ‘Bury me here.’ He had sketched out a rectangle, adding, ‘Here I’ll be close to my ancestors and friends.’

Radwan disappeared for four days, during which no one laid eyes on him. It was understood that my grandfather had chosen the manner of his death, and with Radwan’s help he was able to determine precisely when would be his last moment.

*   *   *

Within this house, incomplete tales of men, women and miracles were narrated, and they fascinated me. They made me a captive of the light reflected off the water in the stone pool, the focus of the circle we formed when we gathered around it. In summer we clung to its moisture and moved all our everyday effects into the courtyard: the dinner table, the comfortable cane chairs, and the radio from which Safaa was never parted. During summer days she was a victim of bouts of deep depression, and sometimes even of a gaiety whose secret no one knew. She wore diaphanous clothes cut above the knee and hurled water over the plants and stones, which would release a fresh scent thanks to the invigorating moisture. She would bring coffee and sit on the edge of the pool, slowly and deliberately drinking from her cup in the early afternoon breezes. Maryam objected to her nakedness, her voice becoming increasingly strident with an accent of stern rebuke. The affable Safaa made no reply, other than to refute Maryam’s argument that Radwan would soon be back by saying, ‘He’s blind. He can’t see.’ When Maryam retorted that God in Heaven could see us, Safaa replied that God saw us naked, and in all forms and situations. The argument always ended when Maryam stood up from behind her Singer sewing machine and sat by the pool, quietly drinking coffee and rereading Sura Yusuf. I noticed the premature wrinkles on her forehead and the harshness in her eyes. She tried to hide her tenderness, which was noticeable only when it exploded all at once and drowned me. She had tried to kill something with her black clothes and her severity, but she couldn’t. She never spoke of her softer, affectionate side to anyone; she never allowed any trace of its existence or even attempted to make it appear, but hid it in a deep and abandoned well. I tried to question her, and gathered up my strength and the words necessary for marshalling a sentence, but I stuttered, and the words fled. She raised her eyes and fixed them on mine, waiting for me to speak; I kept quiet and looked elsewhere, wary of meeting her gaze again.

*   *   *

The Samarkandi’s son returned with his mother so he could bid my grandfather goodbye before their return to Paris, and my grandfather welcomed them as honoured guests. Maryam was afraid, foggy with the scent that had lingered since the Samarkandi’s son’s first visit. He asked everyone to pose for a souvenir picture which would make his father happy, and my grandfather agreed. Everyone gazed perplexedly at the camera shutter, holding their breath; Uncle Omar looked afraid, Maryam lost. The son of the Samarkandi took another picture of my grandfather standing alone near the lemon tree, and another of him sitting on a cane chair next to the pool, then yet another of everyone with Bint Aboud Samadi. A festive atmosphere animated everyone apart from Maryam; she was numb, and couldn’t shake off her torpor. Before mother and son left, my grandfather went into his room and came out carrying a skilfully decorated carpet, a portrait of Omar Khayyam surrounded by cupbearers and Persian phrases. The Samarkandi’s son was taken aback by this treasure, which my grandfather said was one of the original carpets he had bought from the auctions in Istanbul, and which befitted the success of his own Samarkandi son. Bursting with happiness, my grandfather led his guests to the door. When the Samarkandi’s son stood in front of Maryam and put out a hand to bid her goodbye, she had reached the end of her trance. Her lips murmured almost inaudibly, ‘You have slaughtered me…’ No one noticed the alteration in her except my grandmother, who knew that her daughter was wretched, the prisoner of a concealed adoration she could never express. There was no need to guess who the person might be; since coming of age, Maryam had seen no other eligible man’s face. My grandmother tried to get closer to her daughter to have this acknowledged, but Maryam’s silence hardened. Her secret remained confined to her sisters, who tried every means of convincing her to relinquish this hollow pride.