Rabih Alameddine - I, The Divine

“I’ll take care of this rambunctious little scamp,” my grandfather said, carrying me into the living room.

“Please, don’t fill her head with wicked stories.” My stepmother’s requests fell on inattentive ears. She walked back to the kitchen, looking as if she had already lost a major battle.

My grandfather sat in his dark ultramarine chair — even though he had a home of his own, he had an armchair (with its own taboret) in our house, which no one was allowed to sit on. I sat on his lap and played with his white hair, sparse, smooth to the touch. He jiggled, adjusted himself to a comfortable position.

“The great Sarah Bernhardt was just like you. She was a troublemaker, always a scamp. Even when she grew up, she was known for her winsome, sweet, playful ways. But when she was a little girl like you, she caused a lot of trouble. Just like you. At school, oh boy. She was a firecracker. She drove the nuns crazy. Big troublemaker. She could curse with the best of them, make the nuns blush every time she came up with a doozie.”

“I bet I can curse better than her. Your mother’s vagina is plugged with a thousand donkey dicks.”

My grandfather roared, his head jerking back, his glasses almost falling off the tip of his nose. “That’s a good one.”

“Yes. My dad says I have a tongue like a sailor on leave.”

“And your dad’s right.”

“The nuns liked Sarah, right? They all liked her because she was special.”

“You bet. Even though she was a troublemaker and was hysterical most of the time, they knew she was a good girl. She was a star. Everybody could tell that. And stars are quite passionate. She had uncontrollable passions. At school with the nuns, she also became devout because she was extremely passionate. She wanted to be a nun.”

“But she didn’t, right?”

“Right. Because she grew up and she was smart. Remember, Jesus is only for children and people who never get smart. And anyway, she became passionate about the theater. She had her first play with the nuns at Grandchamp. How old was she?”

“She was thirteen.”

“That’s right. She was thirteen. At first, the stupid nuns didn’t put her in the play. They didn’t think she could do it. This big archbishop was coming to the school.”

“The guy in a dress.”

“Yes. The fat guy in a dress came to the school and they staged a play for him. But Sarah was not in the play. She watched and watched all the rehearsals. She didn’t want just any role. She wanted the lead role. She knew she could be the star. Then when the guy in the dress came and he sat down to watch the play. ”

“He lifted his dress to sit.”

“That’s right. He lifted his dress to sit. The girl who was supposed to be the star got scared. She started crying. Stupid girl. The girl said she was too scared to go on stage in front of people. She was shaking and crying. The nuns didn’t know what to do.”

“So Sarah said she’d do it.”

“Yes. She came out of nowhere and said she could do it. Sarah said she knew the role. She had memorized it. So the nuns didn’t have a choice. They let Sarah be the star.”

“And she was great.”

“Always. She was the Divine Sarah. She came on stage and the guy in the dress cried and cried like a little girl because Sarah was so good. Now, people from all over the world, from Brazil, from China, from Africa, they all go to Grandchamp just to see the school where the great Sarah went on stage for the first time. Nobody remembers the stupid nuns or the guy in the dress. They just want to see where the Great One began. It’s a pilgrimage. You know what a pilgrimage is?”

“Yes. Like Mecca.”

“Yes. Like the silly Muslims who go to Mecca and walk in white dresses.”

I still hear him to this day. I hear his sonorous tones when I take walks. I hear his silly laugh when a crow caws. I hear his collusive whispers in the passing breeze. Don’t tell your stepmother. She can’t know about this. He had a heavy Druze accent, stressing his Q s. Whenever I hear a mountain Druze speak, I am reminded of him.

“Tell me about the time she fell in the fire.”

We were at his house, in the family room, a room covered with books and bookshelves, and the little wall space not covered was painted a striking yellow-green. I sat on his lap as usual.

“Her mother sent her to live with a nurse in Brittany, in the northwest of France. Her mother was a bad woman. She didn’t want Sarah around when she was seeing all those men. So she kept sending Sarah away to live with other people. Her mother hated Sarah because she knew Sarah was a star of the greatest magnitude and her mother was envious because when Sarah was around, nobody looked at Sarah’s mother. Poor Sarah. All her life she tried and tried to make her mother love her, but she couldn’t. Her mother couldn’t love her because she loved all those men. Sarah liked Brittany because she stayed on a farm and she played all day with a lot of animals and the animals loved her. Why did the animals love her?”

“Because she was the great Sarah and everybody loved her.”

“That’s right. And when she grew up she had lots of animals she loved and they loved her back. What kind of animals did she have?”

“She had lots of dogs and cats and a cheetah.”

“That’s right. And more too.”

“An alligator from America. Ali Gaga. Not Ali Baba. And a parrot. His name is Bizibouzou. And a monkey called Darwin.”

“That’s right. So one day, while her nurse was in the garden gathering potatoes, and the nurse’s husband was drunk in bed, sleeping, baby Sarah was sitting in her highchair watching the beautiful fire in the hearth. She unfastened the little tray in front of the chair and now there was nothing in front of her. All of a sudden. ”

“Baby Sarah fell into the fire.”

“When she screamed, the nurse’s husband was quick. He ran and snatched Sarah up and he dunked her in a pail of milk and then he covered her with butter. All the peasants came from all over Brittany to give Sarah butter to heal her burns. Then a week later, her mother came with her man and she brought doctors too. And then Sarah’s aunts, the bad women, they came too with their men. They kept saying, ‘Poor Sarah. Poor little Sarah,’ but then they got bored and left and didn’t take poor Sarah with them even though she begged her mother to take her. And she cried and cried and poor Sarah was all alone without her mother.”

“Poor little Sarah.”

One time, my stepmother, Saniya, came into the kitchen and found me naked, having covered my whole body in butter, both salted and unsalted.

These days, I also hear my mother cursing him, calling him all kinds of names. She has been dead for some years now, but I hear her curse the son of a bitch — her favorite name for my grandfather — for the things he put her through. “He worked and worked until your father was forced to divorce me.” My mother cursed him till the day she died. “He was evil, evil incarnate. Everybody thought he was the nicest man, but the things he did, the things he said.”

On the terrace of my grandfather’s summer house in the mountains sat my grandfather, my grandmother, my father, stepmother, uncles and aunts. Under the grape arbor, which provided shade all the way from the terrace to the driveway, protecting the cars from the despotic sun. I stared at the grapes, my mouth watering. They were still sour, a ways from being ripe, what we called hosrom . These were my favorites — eating the sour grapes with salt was a veritable taste explosion. While the adults were chatting, I climbed the pergola until I reached the vines and began moving slowly across the arbor, suspended high in the air, hanging on with one hand at a time.