Elias Khoury - As Though She Were Sleeping

Musa was completely taken with her when he saw her for the first time. She wore dresses in shades of brown that outlined her willowy figure and small waist. Her nose was small and slightly sharp and her lips were not overly full. She was always turning this way and that as if searching for someone she expected at any moment.

Yaqub Jamous had been guided to Christianity in America. He belonged to a Jewish family established in Safad since the mid-nineteenth century. Having developed a passion for an American tourist fifteen years older than himself, he followed her to Portland, where he married her in a Protestant church whose congregation espoused the beliefs of the Sabbatarians. He embraced his new faith after devoting himself to studying the divine nature and other theological matters. He worked in commerce while also proselytizing for the faith with his wife Dorothy’s brother. After Dorothy’s death he returned to his native land, bringing his only daughter, Suzanne, to live with him, the two existing on the subsidies sent by the American missionary wing of the group because he was a clergyman without a congregation or a church. His relatives disclaimed any association with him, and the Arab populace in general was not attracted to a Christian sect that held Saturday sacred as the Jews did. The community of Orthodox Christians in Tiberias who had gone over to Protestantism adhered to the Presbyterian branch of the American missionaries they had known. Presiding over that church in Tiberias was a minister of Syrian origin called Abdallah Sayigh, who was known for his fierce partiality to the Arabs and his aversion to Jewish immigration. Pastor Abdallah led a fierce campaign against Brother Yaqub, accusing him of being a charlatan, and forbade members of his congregation to speak with him because he was not a true Christian; indeed, surely he was a spy for the Zionists, working to fragment and destroy the Palestinian Christian community. Yaqub’s only congregation, therefore, was the lovely daughter who spoke no language but English.

It was not in Musa’s cards to speak with Suzanne and therefore to discover that she knew no Arabic. He saw her every Sunday and got in the habit of reserving a table that allowed him to sit facing her. He would look long and hard at those brown eyes, and when she lifted her gaze to meet his he would begin a surreptitious and silent dialogue with her. The girl’s allure was concentrated in her smile with its slightly distracted air, as if the smile were escaping her lips without her bidding it to do so. When she came back to herself, she would fetch back the smile swiftly, knit her eyebrows, stare at the floor, and stop eating.

Her father was different. This man, cast out from his old environment and ostracized in the new one, did not seem to care, or really to have much awareness of his surroundings. He stuffed his mouth full of Lake Tiberias carp and chatted jovially with everyone. When no one answered him he simply pressed on, his monologue coming to them in his peculiar version of Palestinian speech.

Musa was so in thrall to the girl that he could not feel any concern about the man’s somewhat ambiguous reputation or by the accusation of espionage that followed him everywhere. As soon as he heard the light tap of her feet on the floorboards of the restaurant his heart would start to pound hard. Sundays were the anticipated pinnacle of his week, he counted the days and when he reached Saturday night he began to count the hours. He stayed up sleepless in anticipation of seeing her, though if he could avoid insomnia he liked to sleep just so that the morning would come more quickly. When she arrived with her father he became suddenly confused about what he ought to do to claim her attention. He sat facing the two of them and ordered fried Saint Peter’s fish accompanied by pancakes with thyme. He sipped a glass of arak as he floated in the girl’s eyes and forgot to eat. The days went by, Sunday after Sunday, and still Musa found no way to exchange words with his darling — until Pastor Yaqub hit upon the solution.

One Sunday, having polished off his plate of musht followed by a dessert of carob syrup blended with tahina , the clergyman turned to the Lebanese youth and asked him why he wasn’t eating. He did not listen for an answer before rising from his seat, coming over to Musa’s table, picking up a fish, and blessing it, whereupon he ordered the startled young man to eat. Now, son, you can eat as you wish. The food will not run out, for Adonai, peace be upon Him, blessed these waters that are called the Sea of Galilee with His sacred feet. Did you know that Adonai walked on the face of the water but did not drown? He walked and the fish swam with Him. The Messiah walked across the water here, too, bending to bless the fish. That is why the Sea of Galilee has never emptied of fish and never will, until the end of time.

The minister talked, and he ate, and he summoned his daughter to join them at Musa’s table. The girl sat down and kept her eyes fixed upward as though she were not of this world. Thus Musa discovered the secret. He told his sister that the girl was not of this world. He said he had met her three times after his brief encounter with her in the restaurant. The first time, he went to her home and stood in front waiting for her. When she came out and began to walk along the street he walked behind her and then caught up and walked next to her. The girl responded to his greeting with a nod of her head. He told her how beautiful she was and asked her if she was ready to come and live with him in Lebanon. He said he had loved her from the very first glance and that he could recognize her merely by the light sound of her feet on the floor. She raised her hand to wish him goodbye and disappeared into a narrow corridor leading to the women’s bathhouse. Two days after this meeting and while the girl was sitting at her father’s table in the Seaside Inn, Musa summoned the courage to come over to them, holding out his right hand in the pastor’s direction. Then he turned to the girl and stuck his hand out, and his whole face went bright red as he asked her what she thought of the Turkish bath where she had gone. Suzanne did not answer but the pastor launched into a lecture about the importance of Arab baths to the formation of Andalusian culture. Jews and Muslim Arabs had frequented the same hammams in Córdoba and Grenada, he said. Tolerance was water, he declared, and so the essence of Christianity is the baptism. But Catholicism did not understand this, which is why the Castilians demolished the bathhouses and burned books when they occupied Andalusia. Pure savagery, my son, said the pastor. Now why don’t you come worship in our church?

The three times in total that Musa saw his strange beloved on her own were very alike, and so he did not find much to say about them to his sister. Each time, he followed her, then quickened his pace and walked beside her, speaking but hearing no response before she vanished into the passage leading to the hammam.

And then Suzanne disappeared completely.

Pastor Yaqub began coming alone to the restaurant. Instead of white wine he took to drinking arak. His resonant laugh disappeared and his face was lined with grief and worry. Musa would get up from his own table and go over to greet him but the clergyman would not lift his eyes from the fried fish on his plate. He chewed and swallowed the fish and drank his arak and wrinkled up his eyes as if he were about to cry.

Musa did not dare ask the pastor about his beloved. The girl was gone and standing patiently in front of the house no longer yielded any results. Instead of looking forward to Sunday as a joyous day of reunion, the sight of fried fish began to stir up emotions of distress and aversion in Musa. He stopped eating the Messiah’s fish and now he would spend his time sitting in the café at the Seaside Inn staring out at the still waters of Lake Tiberias and feeling lonely.