Rabih Alameddine - I, The Divine

I had always thought I was the one who took after my mother. After all, I inherited her exotic looks, her artistic tendencies, her mood swings, her Americanness. I was the one who was perpetually lost, always trying to find myself in the rubble. But in the end, I realized it was my sister Lamia who took after my mother. She inherited her insanity.

It is quite possible that I am not the best person to describe my sister or to speak for her. I am biased and cannot write objectively about her. I will let her speak for herself:

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Dear Mother,

My husband is very strange again because about five weeks ago, he bringed a mannequin home for what reason he will not say but I don’t know how to say mannequin in english but you know what I mean like the big doll. The children have liked it in the beginning and they called it Madonna but not too long and they don’t like it anymore, why I don’t know, and I wanted to throw her out but my husband he said we might use her some day but I did not like her naked all the time so I dressed her and put a wig on her hair and The children liked her now so I put her in the salon room in one of the couches. Well I liked the way she is looking now and I start to dressing her in different every two or three or four days and I put makeup on her face and I gave her some new looks wonderful and it was fun and so the children talk to her as if she was someone human being. But my motherinlaw thinks its realy crazy but I said to her maybe she better talk her son because he says he want her in the house at the beginning so she said I should not be dressed her but I told her Madonna only wear things I dont’d wear because I don’t have a body like her and she is very thin, don’t you think and I can’t get far away with what she puts on. Why is she blaming me all the time?

I argued another time with my father because he still has the same temper. He got upset with me because I gave Ashraf some Cypro and hee said only doctors are suppose to proscribe strong antibiotics and he was so holyer than thee but He agreed with me that all the symptoms of Ashraf’s were a bacterial infection, but he thinks I should have talked to a doctor but I think he just hates me. Amal selfproscribes valuums and Majida takes Prozac whenever she has depressions like candy and bonbon but if I give my son antibiotic, I did the wrong thing, don’t you know? You know of course that Ashraf was better and it was the right thing to do of course but my father didn’t said to me that I gave him the wrong medicine but only that I need to talk to a doctor. He went on and on and on like running water all the time about the danger of all medicines are over the counter in this country and as if that had anything to do with me so I said to him what can I do about that but he didn’t tell me so he treats me like a little girl who doesn’t know right from wrong. And my husband doesn’t do anything because the fat thing only sit there and let my father shout at me and I keep thinking that one day, he shall’ll stand up for me and tell my father stop but he doesn’t know whats going on so I told him a couple of time that if my dad shouts at me it means he’s insulting him since he was the man of the house and not my father who isnt the man of the house at all, don’t you think? He doesn’t understand it and I dont depend on him for anything because its all up to me and I am the rock of Gibraltar and My husband is a weakthing and he can’t even answer up to his own mother, so how can he answer up any one personne like my father. People will always run all over him and ride him and wipe there feet on him like a outdoor carpet and he lets them because he’s been passed over for better job at work over many hundred times. I swear on you, if he didn’t married me, he would’n’t have gotten anywhere in this life but being with his mother at home all day crying over spoiled milk. Do you watch ER? I watch every show even though the children try to harass me during the show but I like it because it shows how much better American hospitals are than Lebanese hospitals and much better hospitals and all the nurses and doctors are pretty and they have all the best machines and none of the patients are as demanding as the patients are demanding in Beirut. My father still doesn’t give me enough appreciate me and I have to say to him all the time that I am a nurse and I am a good nurse too But he doesn’t see that, does he, but I’am just happy that we don’t work on the same department because I swear on you, he treat the philipino nurses better he treat me. Because at one time when we were over at his home to have dinner, he start talking about a procedure he did on that day and then he looked at me with a bad smile and asked me what uterus was in Arabic because he was just making a joke of me because I study nursing in Cairo and start to learn anatomy in Arabic as if that make my nursing degree bad, Can you believe that? If I had graduated from the American University of Beirut, then I was a real nurse and as if it was my fault that we had a war and I go to Cairo to make sure my family is safety and you know, at the least I have a degree, don’t you think? I’am the first woman in the family to come out a degree. Sarah says she graduates from Barnard, but I know she is lying, she is, and she does’nt have a single picture in a hat and graduation dress and she says she didn’t go to the graduation celebration because she thinks graduation celebrations are for children and the only reason she thinks its for children is because she couldn’t go and I’am sure she did’nt have a graduate. I told her one every time to show me her degree and she asked me in a realy angry way, Why? You want to hire me? Because If she realy come out a degree, wouldn’t she show a degree papers to me, don’t you think? but my father loves her and always Sarah this and Sarah that thing and she is graduate from Barnard and shes the smart one and she is the joy of his heart and she is the apple of his eye and she is the flower of every four seasons. They can all go to hell on a quick basket.

I shouldn’t talk about my father because I know it makes you upset and I promise not to do it again ever but you realy should stop upsetting over it and I say this with the kind heart, the whitest heart like yassmine flower because it pain my nerves when you are upset. Don’t let him make you angry like that because he’s not worth much and hes an unhappy man and he will always be an unhappy and he is sad and he does nothing with his life because he hass very little work no more and all the new doctors are much better than he and he should retire a long time ago but he goes to the hospital every morning and does nothing al the time. Then he comes home and all he does is make his wife sad and angry and she deserves it, but realy, what kind of life is that, don’t you think? You shouldn’t get upsetting when I talk about him because he’s a nobody and he’s a loser and he is a painful neck but I hope you can see that.

I made another doily for you, better than last two because the last two have faded and gone bad and faded and you will see because I sawed flowers on it with gold thread because you’ll realy like it for sure. And as I’am writing this, one Israelien plane just shaken my windows and I can tell you how much I hate that. Your so lucky you left before the Israelien planes start to fly over Beirut all the time and you never know when they are going to bomb but realy worse, because they fly always near the ground and break the sound boom and the boom shatter many windows all over and its very bad all the time and they do it on purpose just because it pains my nerves.

I better leave now because I have shaked too much to write and I have a pain corn on my left foot and I dont understand why because I had been wearing the same shoe pair as if my left foot is growing because I am growing up. Okay, I willl stop writing now.