Rabih Alameddine - I, The Divine

“Feeling better?” her brother asked.

“I’m awake now, I think,” she said. She flicked her hair, ensuring that everyone got at least a little wet. Her son tried to get out of the way, laughing.

“I wonder if someone can drown in our volcano,” Ramzi said.

“Tell it to me again. You saw David?”

On a rusty swing set in the garden of my father’s ancestral mountain home we sat, my stepmother, Saniya, my sister Amal, and I, between them. The red cushions were tattered, the swing’s canopy chafed thin, no longer an adequate protection against the sun. The metal springs clanked whenever the swing moved, which was not often. It was a lazy afternoon.

“You should get another swing set,” I suggested. “I’m surprised Father has kept this.”

Saniya sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. “No one but us uses it. I don’t think your father has been out here in over ten years.” She looked straight ahead, at the runways of Beirut’s airport, apparently thinking of something. “It holds many memories. I don’t want to get rid of it.” She paused, smiled. “We made love on it once.”

Amal laughed. I could not help but smile. “You should have told us before we sat on it,” I joked.

“Janet used to love this swing,” Amal said.

I quickly glanced at Saniya to note her reaction. Nothing. She was still smiling genuinely. After thirty-five years of marriage, she was no longer bothered by the mention of my father’s first wife.

“She’s the one who bought it,” Saniya said. “She chose this bright red color.” She looked at me, smiling wickedly. “It matches the color of your hair.”

“It does not. My hair isn’t that bright.”

“Almost!”

“She used to sit where I’m sitting,” Amal said. “This was her corner. Funny what we remember.”

I did not remember my mother from her days in Lebanon. I was too young when she left. When I moved to New York in 1980, I was able to get to know her, but my Janet was nothing like the Janet the rest of my family knew. My Janet was bitter, a defeated woman.

“Sarah’s right,” Amal said, glancing at a group of sparrows flocking to the giant holm oak on her left. White butterflies hovered ahead of us, some floating, some flitting about nervously. “You should get another swing set or at least reupholster this. The color is all wrong. Nostalgia shouldn’t interfere with taste.”

“I don’t want to get rid of it,” Saniya replied. “It’s a testimonial, a reminder of how things used to be, or how I imagined them to be.”

Amal’s eyebrows were raised, but she did not say anything. It took me a minute to decipher what Saniya said. I could not keep quiet though. “Are you saying you no longer make love?” I asked.

“We haven’t made love for a long time,” she said. “Not since the hysterectomy. It was rare before, but stopped completely after.”

I felt Amal shift next to me. I knew what she was thinking. She and I had had that discussion before, but I was unsure whether she would bring the subject up. Her innate reticence would prevent her from doing so, yet her deep feelings about it made her antsy. She gave me a knowing look, then turned and stared ahead at a tranquil view of Beirut.

“You shouldn’t have let him do a hysterectomy,” she said. Deep feelings won. I smiled to myself, proud of her.

Him was my father, an ob-gyn.

“It was necessary,” Saniya said. We both waited, thinking she would elaborate.

“I don’t think so,” Amal went on. “Mild spotting is not a good enough reason for a hysterectomy.”

“There was a change in my pap smear.”

“So what?” Amal asked. “Did he try to figure out what was going on? Did he ask for a second opinion. Hell no. Let’s just cut. If it needed to be done, you should have had someone else do it. Dr. Baddour would have been good.”

“Your father is a good doctor.”

“A good doctor does not perform a hysterectomy on his wife.”

“He did one on his mother.”

“I rest my case.”

“You’re putting too much into this,” Saniya said. She took her cup of Turkish coffee from the rusty stand attached to the swing. She sipped slowly. “I’m not sure I would’ve wanted anyone else to do it. He delivered all of you. It’s not a big thing.”

The birds in the tree were getting louder. Amal looked up. “I think this family is one big mess,” she said.

“It’s my family,” Saniya replied.

I woke up with a hangover. Thousands of tiny ants marched in step between my temples, having come through my mouth and dried their feet on my tongue.

I did not recognize where I was. Some hotel room. Why didn’t they put Alka-Seltzer in every room instead of Gideon’s? Dina was sleeping next to me. Slowly, it dawned on me. New York hotel. Friday, January 20. The complete fiasco, otherwise known as the opening reception of my first, and probably last, New York exhibit was last night. I covered my head with a pillow and moaned.

I got out of bed, careful not to wake Dina, who looked peaceful and serene lying on the bed. I would not have survived the night before had she not been with me. She deserved better than my mood today. I tiptoed to the bathroom and closed the door. I looked at myself in the mirror and jumped back. God, I looked awful. I opened my pillbox, took out two Tylenols and one Xanax, popped them in my mouth. I drank a whole glass of water, refilled it and drank again. My mouth was still dry. I turned the hot water on. I desperately needed a shower.

The water felt refreshing. I placed my head under the spray, closing my eyes, wishing I could cleanse myself. I wondered why I was not feeling as bad as I should after last night. Maybe the reception was too surreal, maybe I drank enough to subvert any real feeling.

I opened my eyes to reach for the soap and saw a large spider at the edge of the tub, small body with long, spindly legs. It was struggling hard to get out of the tub, but drops of water were getting in its way. I was sure the steam was not making it feel safe either. I wanted to help it, but did not know how since I was wet. I turned my back to it to block the water and help it climb out. I soaped myself, thinking the spider had to save itself. Usually, I used a tissue to move spiders out of the way. I was fond of them.

My first boyfriend, Fadi, had to study the Koran like all dutiful Muslim boys. I remember him telling me a story once about one of the adventures of the prophet Muhammad. When the prophet was running away from infidels who were trying to kill him, an angel told him to hide in a cave. Once the prophet went in, a spider built a large web covering the entrance and a dove laid eggs within the web. When the infidels arrived at the cave’s mouth, they decided no one could have entered without disturbing the web and the eggs. The prophet was saved. Ever since I heard that story, I liked spiders.

The phone rang. I turned the water off and reached for the bathroom phone, hoping to get it before Dina woke up. I said hello and heard its echo from Dina in the bedroom.

“Oh, good. I got both of you.” My stepmother, Saniya, was on the phone, calling from Beirut. “Tell me everything. How was it?”

“Disaster,” I moaned on the phone.

“Wonderful,” Dina said.

“That’s about what I’d have expected you two to say,” Saniya said. I could hear her chuckle on the phone.