Today he saw her growing round and she told him she was pregnant, as if she were being born anew; as if the child in her belly would give Milia her ultimate shape. Seeing the red lines on her neck he remembered the story they had not told him. He wanted to know.
As for her — she had not cared. Her fixedly downward gaze, which had suggested to Mansour that bashfulness was this young woman’s hallmark, seemed now to take on another meaning. The gazes of this woman traveled only inside the world of arcs and circles in which she existed. Looking down, she saw the circle complete. She was closed upon herself and she would go where no one else might follow her.
He felt jealous. No, it wasn’t jealousy exactly. Distance — as if, with these circles of hers, the woman encloses a space, draws a line between herself and him, and leaves him powerless to break through it.
She said she was going to sleep and stood up.
Sit down.
As you like. And fine, you name him. I don’t know why you’re acting like this, I thought you would be happy the way any man is when he knows his wife is pregnant.
No, it’s not the name, he said. What I’m concerned about is something else. And he asked her about Najib.
It was the first time in two years she had heard this man’s name. Everyone in the family had stopped mentioning his name. If they needed to refer to him they would say that one there. The pronoun replaced the man, and so Najib had become a mere jumble of letters empty of flesh or sense.
Najib had disappeared as had his image and his name. Now here he was suddenly coming back at the very moment Milia was freeing herself of her past, and of the memories of those days. She wanted to say to Mansour that she didn’t know. Or, she wanted to say: No, it isn’t that I don’t know, but the story died and has been buried, and there’s no call for reviving it.
It was her grandmama Malakeh above all who taught her how necessary it was to distinguish between stories. She would scold her daughter Saadeh whenever she mentioned the name of her husband’s father and the story of the house he had bought.
The story that goes rotten has to be buried, said Grandmama. Stories carry odors.
This grandfather, Saadeh’s father-in-law, had caused the women of the family deep and chronic pain. It was imperative to forget the story of the house. The woman who had lived there had to be buried along with the story. No one spoke now of the Egyptian woman, or of Khawaja Efthymios, or of the scandal that flared up when the grandfather bought the house after the death of his lover who had been the mistress of another man. So why, now, would Mansour want to resurrect a story that Milia had buried?
At least for Saadeh, finally the nightmarish business of the priesthood and the monks seemed over. Wherever had that naughty boy gotten his ideas about the Jesuit monks and this Catholic business? He was the only one among his brothers to finish his education, saying he wanted to become a lawyer, but then he had started his interminable chant about joining the Jesuits, stirring up a veritable storm in the household.
His brother Haajj Niqula swore he would kill Salim after hearing the screaming match between mother and firstborn son. Niqula went into the liwan and returned to the dar wearing his father’s red tarbush. In a deep fierce voice he told his brother that he would kill him.
Does a brother kill his own brother? Salim shouted.
That’s how killing came into the world — brother killing brother. Cain killed Abel. Now Abel wants revenge. No one can mess around with me. These idiotic behaviors have no place in this house. It wouldn’t cost me anything more than a single bullet. And I can furnish the coffin easy, from my shop — with pleasure.
From that day on Niqula never, ever removed the tarbush from his brow. Through the tendons of the family ran shivers of fear. Saadeh did not know what to do. She went to her holy woman for advice. I have two boys, she said. The first wants to become a Jesuit monk and if he does, the second will be a criminal. What am I going to do?
A Jesuit! cried the nun. I take refuge in God from evil Satan! As though he is not even the grandson of Salim who first rang the bell of the Church of Mar Girgis in Beirut. That Salim was a true man! And now comes Salim the Younger who inherited his grandpapa’s name, but so what? He’s leaving the true faith — he’s leaving the Orthodox to go join the French! I spit on the Devil!
She made Saadeh spit on Satan, too, and then Saadeh asked what she ought to do to avoid this mess.
Is this brother serious about killing his brother? asked Sister Milana.
Saadeh confirmed it.
What a man! said the nun. He ought to have been your firstborn son. If Salim really wants to be a monk, he should go to Mount Athos in Greece. The monks there are the real thing — true Orthodox monks, praise the Lord!
So you want to send my son off to Greece, God forgive you!
Wouldn’t that be better than seeing him die?
Why would he die?
Didn’t you tell me his brother Niqula means to kill him? Niqula should give him a bit of a scare to get him to change his mind, and meanwhile I’ll see to what we need to do.
What if he doesn’t change his mind? asked Saadeh.
Then he dies, said the nun.
He dies!
What can we do about it?
You mean, you’d approve?
No, I didn’t say that, but these things are the will of God.
And I lose my boys!
You won’t have lost more than you’ve lost already — is there anything more fearsome than unbelief like this? Leave Niqula alone to say what he wants and don’t put any pressure on him.
You mean, you don’t have any problems if a brother kills his brother?
Of course I do — Thou shalt not kill, says the Commandment. But that doesn’t mean a person knows how God’s will is going to work out. The Commandment says: Thou shalt not kill, and the Commandment said it a very long time ago, but people did not stop killing each another. Anyway, all people are brothers. Saadeh, that means when people kill, they are always killing brothers. But of course I’m against killing.
The nun pulled Saadeh forward by the hand and they knelt before the icon of Mar Ilyas. The nun murmured her prayers in the presence of the saint who stood erect in a fiery chariot holding up a flaming sword.
He is the one who will deliver your children to safety, Saadeh. Don’t be afraid.
Saadeh cried for most of the day. This woman whose solace was to spend almost all of her waking hours in the Convent of the Archangel Mikhail felt profoundly shaken and lost. Yes, in her prayers and her fasting and her devout hope for brotherly love, she believed in the power of true faith. But she despised the Jesuits because they spoke in Jesuit-speak and prayed in the Latin language, which she did not understand.
But it’s just like you, Mama — you pray in Greek and you don’t understand what the words mean, Salim protested.
No, we do understand, or even if we don’t understand the words, Greek touches the heart as it is spoken, and the heart is where we understand everything.
It’s not necessary that we understand the words of the prayer, said Salim. The Pope is the only one who truly understands. That’s why someone has to know seven languages — at least — to become Pope.
Shut your mouth and don’t say a word about that man! She made the sign of the cross as if seeking Satan’s protection from the fellow.
The storm Salim had set off dispelled quickly enough. After Niqula announced his intention to kill his brother, Salim never returned to the topic of entering the monastery. Milia was convinced that one day her eldest brother would simply disappear without a trace, having been swallowed up in a black robe in one of the Jesuit monasteries somewhere outside of Lebanon. That way the original sin would not really be committed and so Abel would not seek revenge on his brother Cain. For what was the meaning of the story if it became mere revenge? Had it been a matter of simple revenge, and had it worked, then no one would remember Abel and the story would have died a swift clean death.