Rabih Alameddine - I, The Divine

“Jesus. When you said you’ll deal with dinner, I thought we were going to order a pizza.”

“Order a pizza?” He pretended to be offended. “I make my pizzas from scratch using my very own pizza oven.”

“Well, can I help with anything?”

“Why don’t you chop the tomatoes?”

I did as I was told only to be rebuked again. “No, no, no. You’re squeezing them. Leave it be. Why don’t you open the wine?” I took out the wine bottle. “You’re domestically disabled,” he joked.

“This is Lebanese. Chateau Musar. I love this wine. Where did you find it?”

“At my favorite wine shop. I already tried a bottle just to make sure. It’s quite good. Have to say I was surprised.”

He chopped the tomatoes with the speed of an accomplished chef. His fingers, though long and thick, seemed delicate, feminine even, like a doctor’s, or a surgeon’s to be more precise. I began to entertain erotic thoughts again. The knife traveled deftly over vegetables.

“You went to so much trouble,” I said.

“Say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“You can thank me better by getting a knife sharpener. You don’t have one.”

“And a spinner.”

“And a lettuce spinner. Come to think of it, I’ll get them. I’m not sure I trust you in a kitchenware store.”

As the scent of sautéed minced lamb wafted in the air, my cats, Descartes and Pascal, began to meow. David bent down and stroked them. Descartes licked his hand. David scooped some lamb into a saucer and set it on the floor. “I got more than enough lamb,” he said.

I sipped my wine. I noticed the delicate hair on his arms. “One could fall for a man who cooks,” I said.

“One could.” He smiled.

In those early days, I was oblivious. I wanted nothing but to be in his arms. I wanted

For Dina

Mustapha Nour el-Din:

My father

Janet Foster:

My mother

Saniya Nour el-Din:

My stepmother

Hammoud Nour el-Din:

My grandfather

Amal Arouti:

My sister

Ashraf Arouti:

Amal’s husband

Lamia Shaddad:

My sister

Samir Shaddad:

Lamia’s husband

Rana Nour el-Din:

My half-sister, unmarried

Majida Salameh:

My half-sister

Alaa’ Salameh:

Majida’s husband

Ramzi Nour el-Din:

My half-brother

Peter Westchester:

Ramzi’s lover

Kamal Farouk:

My son

Omar Farouk:

My ex-husband

Joseph Adams:

My ex-husband

Charlene Adams:

Joe’s wife

Dina Ballout:

My best friend

Margot James:

Dina’s lover

Fadi Arna’out:

My first lover

David Troubridge:

My lover

I had a fairy-tale childhood complete with the evil stepmother. She arrived at our house a young girl. Only fifteen years separated us (twelve between her and Amal, the eldest). She decided early on she did not like me and set a course of discipline that would last until my teenage years. She was strict with my two sisters as well, but she was a Nazi with me.

I did not do well in a disciplined environment, not in my stepmother’s house nor later with the nuns at school. I had an independent streak not easily vanquished, though my stepmother tried. My father and uncles used to teach us girls all kinds of pornographic swear words and laugh hysterically when we repeated them. When my stepmother arrived, she found them offensive and demanded a stop to all foul language. My father’s compromise was to have us use swear words only when my stepmother was not around. My sisters never slipped. I did. I liked the shocked look on faces when I came out with a delicious curse. When she was not around, I received a hilarious response. When she was there, I got hot peppers. But still I slipped.

She was always upset that I never did what she asked. I was a precocious child, and all I ever wanted was for people to explain why they wanted me to do something. She never would. She always demanded and I wondered why. For every why, I received a smack. I never stopped asking.

Since I was the youngest until my half-sisters were born, I was the house slave. My stepmother was constantly demanding things. “Get me a bottle of water, Sarah.” “My slippers from under the bed.” “Get me the blue jar of face cream, Sarah. The one on the nightstand. Make sure it’s the blue one and not the green one, Sarah. Not the green one.” I brought the green one back and got smacked.

Every night, I walked on her back because I was the perfect weight. She had walked on her mother’s back when she was my age, so I had to do it. She moaned with each step I took, and I imagined breaking vertebrae, my small feet making tiny indentations on her back. Skin turning pink.

I got revenge. Taking her shoes was my favorite. Once I figured which pair was her preferred, I would throw one of them down the garbage chute and listen as it clanked down the six floors and landed in the garbage containers with a tiny thud. No one ever looked in there. I always threw out one of the shoes, not the pair. That way she believed she had lost a shoe as opposed to someone having stolen them. I also liked to empty half of her perfume bottle down the toilet. When Violet, our nanny from the Seychelles, passed by her, my stepmother would smell the air. She was never able to pin anything on Violet, of course, and I don’t think she believed Violet was capable of doing the things I was doing. Nonetheless, she sent Violet packing within a couple of years of her taking over our house. When she did that, I declared war.

I put Bic pens in her coat pockets to bleed. I placed a live mouse in her apron. I dethreaded the hems of her skirts. But my favorite act of mischief, for which unfortunately I was caught, involved the sachets. My stepmother made sachets by cutting old mosquito nettings into small strips, stuffing them with lavender, and tying them up in a bag. These she would place between the freshly laundered sheets in the linen closets; the sheets, when taken out and placed on the beds, carried the aroma of lavender. My father loved that. One night, I went into the linen closet, took out the bags, and placed them in the cats’ litter box. The next night, I put them back between the sheets in the closet. My stepmother was furious. My father was the one who beat me for that, with the belt of course, in the bathroom.

I was a natural tomboy, and, knowing it annoyed my stepmother, I refused to wear dresses. I was frequently filthy, and I was better at games than any of the boys in the neighborhood. I did not wear makeup at all until I was fifteen, when I met my best friend, Dina. My stepmother taught my sisters, Amal and Lamia, household duties, such as cooking and sewing. I could not stand it. When she tried teaching me to embroider, I pricked my fingers until they bled. She never tried again.

She turned my father against me. I was his favorite daughter, his Cordelia. He always considered my uniqueness enchanting. After years of her nagging, he began to see me as a lost cause, an embarrassment to the family. The final disappointment for him was my skill at soccer. I had played the game as a child, on the streets with the boys. My father never considered this the problem my stepmother did.