Rabih Alameddine - The Hakawati

“She’ll be fine. Just give her a few minutes.” Aunt Wasila took my mother by the hand and led her back toward the corridor. “You,” she called to me, “come in and speak to your mother while she recovers.” On the floor, a fallen pearl gleamed in her wake.

Maria awoke in dimness. She felt woozy and disoriented until she realized that the bed was swaying gently. She asked, “Where am I?” and Arbusto, covered in darkness, said, “At sea. Toward Genoa.” Maria tried to guess at what had happened. She considered what had befallen her, such humiliation after such glory. She wept in silence and surrendered her fate to God. For three days and three nights, tears were her lovers, her intimates. And on the third day, a storm erupted.

The sky unleashed its waters, filling the sea beyond its brim. The only light to lead the way was lightning, and thunder called the boat in every direction. A fateful gale broke the mast. Storms and squalls battered the lonely ship for days and weeks and months and months. Sailors lost their sanity, and their captain lost control of his vessel. On the day the storms abated, Arbusto climbed to the deck of the ship, which was moored on the shallow shores of an island.

“Where are we?” Arbusto asked the captain, who replied that the island was called Tabish. A neglected monastery peeked above the woods blanketing the island. The captain sent the passengers ashore with his men, who had to cut wood to repair the ship’s battered ribs of oak.

Upon the deserted island, Maria felt even weaker, and labor overwhelmed her. “I must relieve myself,” she informed her kidnapper, and walked into the woods. Arbusto did not object, nor did he accompany her, for he knew the island presented no possible escape. Into the forest she marched and marched, concentrated on one step followed by another, did not dwell on her hopelessness. She reached the monastery and climbed upon the abandoned altar, where she delivered a baby boy as beautiful as the new moon. Maria covered her son in her robe, kissed him, and said, “Your fate, food to hungry fish, is certain if you accompany me. I leave you in God’s house, to His mercy.” She closed her wet eyes, knelt on her weary knees, and prayed. “Promise me, O servant of this holy site, in the name of God and all His illustrious prophets. Guard this boy, and protect him from any evil that may prey upon his soul.”

She left her boy and returned to the ship. A week later, she was brought before her father in Genoa. Arbusto realized that, if he could pass as a king’s judge, why not as a priest. He donned the apparel of a man of God and led Maria to an audience with the king, who asked his daughter, “Have you abandoned your faith?”

“I have abandoned more than that.”

“You must be punished for marrying a Muslim,” her father said. “You will be a prisoner in your quarters for the rest of time.” And a weeping Maria spent her days gazing out her window, waiting for God’s redemption.

The tear was on the left hip of my mother’s dress, minor but conspicuous. Aunt Wasila knelt and examined it. My mother swiveled sideways before the full-length mirror, her hand smoothing the rent fabric. “Let’s try to tape it from the back,” she said.

I wondered why Aunt Wasila was being so helpful. She had always kept her distance from the family, and all the more since Uncle Wajih had passed away four years earlier.

“Tape is tacky,” Aunt Wasila said. “It’s a small tear. Where’s your sewing kit?”

“You look great,” I murmured.

“You don’t,” my mother said. “Go change.”

I explained that my bag hadn’t arrived yet. She asked if I was having any problems in Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with my simple no, she asked about school. Aunt Wasila pulled a long thread through the rip.

“I thought you’d need me,” I said.

My mother relaxed visibly. “That’s sweet. Now, comb your hair. You’re wearing jeans to your sister’s wedding. What’s this world coming to?”

My cousin Mona knocked and entered, paying Aunt Wasila no mind. “Lina wants to know why her brother hasn’t gone in to see her,” Mona said, and laughed. “Although she didn’t exactly call him her brother.”

Lina kicked out all our girl cousins when I entered her room. “They fuss so much that I end up trying to soothe their nerves instead of the other way round.” She sat on a taboret, gazing at her reflection in the mirror. Her makeup was done, and she already had on her wedding dress. All that was left was pinning the veil. “Are you trying to steal my thunder?” she asked.

“When have I ever been able to do that?” I sat down on the bed. My feet hurt. “How can I compete when you look so grand?”

“You’re being so nice. How come? Are you sober?”

I stretched out on her bed, sank my head into her pillow, breathed in her perfumes. I fervently wished that we could lie there and listen to David Bowie or be howled and moaned at by Led Zeppelin, the two of us. She stood up, and I tried to see if she’d gained weight. She stood taller than anyone in the family. My mother was tall as well, but she was thin and bony. Lina wasn’t fat, but she could fill a dress, which made it difficult to gauge her weight. She sat on the bed, leaned back on her arms. “I wish I could lie down, but my hair would be a disaster if I did.”

I got on my knees, crushed two pillows together, and placed them at the foot of the bed. “Lie this way,” I said. “Trust me.”

She lay back gently, her neck held up by the pillows, and her hair floating in air. She patted the bottom half of her dress, which seemed to rise like a soufflé once she was prone. “Take my shoes off. Ah, that’s much better.”

I lay back down and had a close encounter with her white-stockinged feet. I scrunched my nose. She wiggled her toes. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “And I’m so happy that you’re not asking me stupid questions.”

“There are too many. I didn’t know where to begin. Where are you going to live?”

“Don’t start,” she said.

“I’m not asking why, I’m just being practical. I’m not asking if you love him or anything like that. Where are you going to live? You can’t go to the barracks, or wherever he’s holed up these days. He certainly can’t live here with you as long as he’s fighting.”

“We’ll buy a place when the war is over. Until then, we’ll keep going like this. It won’t be for long. We’ll make do.”

“How will he support you? You quit school. Why? You’re the smartest person I know.”

“I’ll finish later. Look, I’ll make it work. Shut up. I’m resting.”

Ma rouf and his men could not find any bandits or brigands. He inquired at every village along the way whether anyone knew of a band of scoundrels who had waylaid an innocent merchant. Soon he began to guess at the merchant’s mendacity. Ma rouf returned to Deir ash-Shakeef to discover his wife gone. “I am a vain and daft man,” he declared.

He sent out parties to search for the deceitful villain. One party followed Arbusto’s trail to the city of Jaffa, where it was discovered that he had sailed on a ship bound for Genoa. Ma rouf called his men. “I will set sail and retrieve my wife and butcher everyone involved in this perfidy. Return to the Fort of Marqab, and perform my duties until I return.”