Elias Khoury - Broken Mirrors

“You think I’m going for the tourism?”

“Don’t you need to eat? Go eat on the Asi, best tabbouleh in the world. And I know you like churches. There are two you have to visit — the Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt and the Church of Mar Elian.”

Nasim arrived at the Hotel Safir in Homs at twelve noon and, deciding not to waste time, took a taxi from in front of the hotel and asked to go to Shukri Qawatli Street. He made the taxi stop at the entrance to the crowded street and decided to walk. He ate a shawarma sandwich he bought from one of the cheap restaurants situated at intervals along the street and walked. He was amazed by the old city — a mixture of Mamluke, Ottoman, and modern — and the aromas which filled the air from shops selling herbs and spices. He walked slowly, reading the names of the shops that ran along either side of the street. Suddenly, he read the name “Raheb Pastries” over a low wooden door. He bent his head and entered, finding himself in a vaulted space gleaming with the black-and-white stone that distinguishes the buildings of Homs. The floor was of white marble, there was a smell of orange blossom water, and a coolness that emanated from a little pool in the center of the place.

It was crowded with customers. A group of men, their heads covered with white caps, were standing behind the platters of pastry taking orders. He didn’t know what to do. He went forward, stood with everyone else, ordered a plate of cheese pastry, and sat down at one of the tables.

In a few minutes a tall man with a white face, gray eyes, and light brown hair came bearing a small tray with a plate of cheese pastry, a glass of water, and a small flask of orange blossom water. He placed the tray in front of Nasim and said, “You’re from Lebanon, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?” asked Nasim, who noted that the man wasn’t wearing a white cap like the rest of the workers and that his sideburns were graying.

“The boys told me. Welcome, Lebanon, and the scents of Lebanon!”

Nasim took the spoon to eat but noticed there was a question in the man’s eyes.

“Can I ask you a question?” said Nasim.

“Of course,” answered the man.

“The fact is I came from Lebanon specially, because I have a message for the owner of the shop.”

“All’s well, I hope,” said the man, and sat down.

Nasim said he carried a message to the three brothers from their mother in Beirut. He said he was married to her daughter, Hend, that the woman had one foot in the grave, and that her last wish before she died was to see her children, whom she called “the three moons,” and hold them to her breast.

“Salma!” said the man.

Nasim said he understood their position and that of their father, “but to forgive is noble, and Salma is a mother who was deprived of her children.”

The man stood up, then sat down again. He lit a cigarette while Nasim devoted himself to devouring the pastry in front of him.

“What a cheese pastry! You should be proud,” said Nasim, adding that he’d buy two kilos to take back to Beirut.

The man waved to one of the workers, and in minutes Nasim found the table before him covered with three sorts of pastry that he’d never seen before.

“This is bashmeeneh,” said the man. “Layers of wheat baked with country butter between which we put a mixture of sugar syrup and natef. It’s made only in Homs. And this is khubziyeh and this is simsimiyeh. Eat and praise God, as the Beirutis say. Come here, Shukri. Fetch me three kilos of cheese pastry for the gentleman. Put the clotted cream on its own in a cold pack because the gentleman’s traveling to Lebanon, and we’ll need a box of bashmeeneh too.”

The man rested his head on his hand, looked at Nasim for a long time, and then said he was Mokhtar, Salma’s third son. He said he didn’t remember his mother because she’d left them when he was very little. He’d been raised to hate and despise her; he’d never married because he loathed women — all because of her. Yet he too had been waiting for this moment. He said he’d never seen a picture of his mother, which was why he didn’t remember her, but he’d seen her in his dreams and was sure that the phantom which had for so long visited him in his dreams looked like her. When he saw her he’d know her without her having to be pointed out. “I know my mother’s very pretty, a real cutie.”

The story of the three brothers in their exile can excite only pity. They’d spent their childhood without a mother and with their cruel paternal grandfather, who despised his son Qasem because he’d been cuckolded. Their father had been stricken with depression and taken to the bottle. When their grandfather died and authority passed to the drunkard son, he began behaving like the feudal lords of Mamluke times. His cruelty and the savagery of his behavior toward the peasants were on every tongue. The peasants of Kherbet el-Raheb and the seven villages had never suffered oppression as they did with this man. He seemed to have become a different person. His haughtiness, drunkenness, and depression were replaced by viciousness. He imposed compulsory labor on the peasants, roaming through the farms with a group of rifle-bearing guards. The crack of a whip heralded his coming and people would pray God to protect them from the Devil. He’d even wanted to revive an ancient custom no longer widely practiced, the droit du seigneur , and his appetite for food and women knew no bounds.

The people of Kherbet el-Raheb could never forget the savagery with which he treated Salma’s father, Abu Salah. Sheikh Deyab Abd el-Karim had refused to allow Abu Salah to leave his land and prevented him from moving about the village, but when Qasem inherited he took possession of the land that Abu Salah had farmed and threw him out of his house. He allowed his daughters to take their mother in but Abu Salah was forced to remain alone, without shelter or work. He died homeless. He told his wife to go to her eldest daughter, Daad, and remained alone in the open, then vanished. Presumably he died, though no one found his body to wash and bury.

Mokhtar said the peasants’ revolution that had burned down their house and killed their father was the last chapter in the tragedy of their life with that savage man, “though there was no call for them to drag our father’s body through the streets of the village. That was wrong and indecent.” He recounted how his eldest brother, Deyab, had hidden gold liras in the waistband of his trousers and taken the decision to migrate to Homs.

“And why didn’t you go back after things had calmed down?”

“We thought about returning but the civil war had begun. ‘Where are we going to go?’ we said. ‘The land has been left unsown and here we have a pastry shop which is doing well, thank God,’ and then Deyab and Ahmad married sisters from the Atassi family, which is a very respected Homs family, and I’m now about to marry a girl from Tartous and we’re doing fine, thank God.”

Mokhtar said he wanted Nasim to give his mother and Hend his greetings and that he didn’t think he could arrange a meeting between Salma and her children. “That Deyab, God protect us! Like his father, arrogant and without a trace of tenderness. He certainly won’t agree to let Salma come here, but thank God, three years ago God gave him guidance and he stopped drinking arak, his wife started covering her hair, and even his daughter, Salwa, who’s fifteen, covers her hair. This year the three of us are going to make the pilgrimage. May you do so too, God willing, brother-in-law.”

“His eldest daughter’s called Salma?” asked Nasim.

“Salwa, not Salma, and forgive me: you’re one of our Christian brethren, right?”

“Right,” said Nasim.