Rabih Alameddine - I, The Divine

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.