That had happened one year before she met Mansour. It was a difficult year because repeatedly she had to chase away the little airborne bodies that floated surreptitiously from her deep dream into her shallow dream. She began seeing the birds in the morning, but without any trees. Before the birds could retract their wings in anticipation of death, Milia would open her eyes and jump out of bed and head for the garden. She would put her mouth under the water tap in the little pond and drink and drink, getting her chest and nightgown wet. This morning ablution was her way of purifying herself from the filth of death, memories of the trees, and the disappearance of Najib.
How could she talk about these things? How could she strip away her dreams and tell the story to Mansour? How could she make him understand that a person must divest himself of words in order to be capable of divesting himself of clothes? And that dreams cannot be washed away except by water?
Milia’s story with marriage could be labeled many things. A lone girl lives with her widowed mother and her four brothers. The mother is afflicted with an obscure, nameless illness. The girl had to transform herself into mistress of a home when she was eleven. Saadeh did not go to the doctor. The sum total of medications she would resort to was a morsel of cotton soaked in the oil she carried home from the Church of the Archangel Mikhail. She would come home from the church and make the cotton into shapes that looked something like pills, which she would swallow after every meal. After Yusuf’s death, Saadeh became a nun in all but name — though a nun without a convent. She also timed her prayers to the tolling of the church bell — that never seemed to stop ringing, as it announced the nuns’ canonical prayers, which took up a goodly portion of the day. She rose at four o’clock for the morning prayers. She ate her breakfast and crawled back into bed as her illness took over. At eleven o’clock she reverted to prayer, performing that of the Sixth Hour, and when that was over she sat in her room waiting for the lunch Milia would have prepared. Her afternoon nap was over by five o’clock when she prayed Vespers before having her supper and saying her Soothoro prayers before she slept.
Saadeh’s favorite ritual, though, was lunch. Sitting in her room, she basked in the fragrance of the stew Milia was preparing, her mouth watering, waiting. When the plateful of food arrived she swallowed it almost at once. Saadeh had discovered the virtues of her daughter’s cooking. With exemplary speed the girl had learned to cook all sorts of dishes.
If it weren’t for your stomach, you would have become a saint, the nun remarked more than once. Saadeh’s appetite for prayer could be compared only to her appetite for food. Between these two desires she lived inside the pain that crawled through all parts of her body. In the end, the aches settled in her feet, which swelled until they could no longer carry her. So her life ended there within that small space, in her bed, praying and eating. She died on a day in July in the year 1960 after wolfing down an entire bowl of kibbeh arnabiyyeh that the wife of her son Musa had sent to her with her very young grandson Iskandar. Facing his grandmother’s appetite, the little boy stood stunned. Sitti, you’re going to die! he said to her when she told him she would finish the entire bowl in one sitting.
Then I’ll die on a full stomach, she said.
Milia knew her mother would die of overeating and she took it as a fact of nature — simply one of many natural disasters. Milia never did understand her mother’s accursed illness. Truth be told, she believed her mother was not ill at all. She had feigned it, Milia was certain, and then had come to believe in her own lies.
Her husband had died suddenly at the age of forty-five. Saadeh felt lost, as the nun said. Saadeh had told the nun that she hated that business and could not stand the smell of the man, adhering to her body so obnoxiously whenever he approached her. Immediately after the weekly intercourse that she could not avoid or escape, she would take three baths, trying to rid herself of the feeling that she had sinned, of the fierce notion that she wanted to disappear from the face of the earth.
I wish, ma soeur, I wish I could just go through that wall and disappear and make the smell go away, she would moan.
My dear, what are you saying? You smell like bay laurel and soap, the nun would say.
But I can still smell it, said Saadeh.
You were created to be a nun and stay a virgin, Saadeh — if it weren’t for that stomach of yours. I’ve never seen a one who was as fond of the stomach as you are.
This exchange or something like it occurred two years after the death of Yusuf. Saadeh was complaining to the nun of her aches and whining about the smell of the man that still hung in her nose. She remembered Yusuf and cried, and said he had blackened her with the soot of misfortune, she and the children. But what were her tears for?
Shufi ya haraam — al-awlad! The poor children, look what’s happened to them. They work from dawn to dusk, through the heat, and if God hadn’t opened the gates to my son Niqula and started him making coffins, we would’ve all dropped dead from hunger by now. Salim the oldest went with the Jesuits, says he’s studying law and is going to be a lawyer, and then there’s little Musa still in school — it was Niqula’s and Abdallah’s lot to work from the start and support us all. And then there’s Milia, I don’t know what demon got into that girl, but one month and she was cooking up a storm. That girl left school though she’s always got her nose in a book. She cleans house and does the washing and cooks and gets it all done in a couple of hours, too! When I used to spend the whole day in that kitchen and my cooking still came out saayit as the late mister used to say, but she’s a different case.
They were devouring a platter of stuffed eggplant cooked in oil. Saadeh couldn’t not eat with the saintly woman even though she had eaten already at home. This isn’t lunch, Saadeh, this is a trial and temptation! the nun exclaimed without missing a bite. Don’t you bring any more of your daughter’s dishes over here. What an aroma — Lord preserve us from temptation!
Mansour would repeat the story of the aroma that was like making love. He had finished his dinner on the terrace at home in Nazareth. He was getting ready to refill his glass of arak when Milia snatched it from his hand and scurried into the kitchen.
Why are you doing that? he yelled after her.
Enough drink, it’s time for something sweet.
She came back from the kitchen carrying a platter of qatayif dipped in honey. The tiny sweet pancakes grilled over a very low fire until they were golden gave off the fragrance of pure Hama butter and glistened with pine nuts. Mansour took a bite and cried out at the sweetness of it. Shuu ha’l-tiib hayda! Milia explained that she had crushed the pine nuts with sugar and rosewater and orange-flower syrup. He took a second bite with his eyes closed and she heard something very like a moan of pleasure.
This isn’t dessert, darling, this is like love. Like I’m making love with you, not like I’m eating! Amazing! And he dove in, and the qatayif were gone.
You shouldn’t eat so many, you need to really appreciate the taste, she complained. She had invented this sweet by chance, she told him. Making qatayif, she discovered she didn’t have any almonds or walnuts in the old house, so she hit upon the idea of filling them with pine nuts. But pine nuts are tender and subtle and the taste isn’t there on the tip of your tongue right away. To get the flavor you have to wait, and I was afraid my brothers wouldn’t like them, especially Niqula, since he’s a bit rough and he likes his food that way too. But Musa — when Musa tasted the qatayif he closed his eyes and reacted just like you did, and then all of them loved it. Especially the nun. That one’s the patron saint of stomachs — I never in my life saw anyone eat the way she does, like her whole body is in a rapture, like the skin on her fingers and hands tastes it along with her mouth.