No one knew why Salim changed. Was it the relationship with Frère Eugene or was it failing to pass his courses at the law school, or was it something else entirely?
Salim’s relationship with the Jesuit brother began with the Sunday school and the films and continued for a very long time. Salim started going to the summer camps which Eugene organized for the youth of the area. And then suddenly Salim came and announced that he had gotten a scholarship to study law at the Jesuits’ university and it would not cost his family a penny. But Salim seemed unable to bring his study of the law to a conclusion. He remained at the university for years, and whenever he was asked when he would become an avocato he would respond by saying that he was working and studying at the same time, and that had delayed his graduation. As for what he worked at and where, no one knew. It seems he failed at the law or was distracted by other activities. And then when he came to them with his Jesuit bombshell, everyone realized instantly that he had not been simply studying law after all. Probably he had even joined study sessions in Catholic theology. He told Musa that Frère Eugene had promised to get him a travel bursary to Rome so that he could continue his studies there, but only on condition that he would enter the monastic life.
Ten years had gone wasted, while Niqula and Abdallah worked in the father’s shop and then switched to the coffin business, and Musa went on with his studies, and Milia left school to become a homemaker. Salim just went on playing around with theology, as their mother said. Then he had the goodness to come and inform us he was going to become a monk! she groused. Thank God Haajj Niqula threatened him, said Milia — and she heard her mother’s voice coming out of her own throat, as if she had had no part in forming those words. There’s no doubt Frère Eugene was the root of this disaster, but we rid ourselves of one calamity only to fall into a new disaster.
The new disaster was the buried tale. Mansour listened carefully to the unfamiliar fragments that came his way. He became convinced that he had been in the wrong. Now he must give the story another burial out of fear for Milia’s neck, which had filled up with razor-thin red lines.
It didn’t bother me all that much, said Milia. A bridegroom, they said to me. Oh, a bridegroom, I said, and I accepted because what they said to me was accept. Then he disappeared and we understood that Salim had dragged him off so that he could marry Angèle. Exactly how it all happened no one seems to know. What did I have to do with whether Salim could marry his girl? I certainly don’t know! All I know is that Angèle had a sister, an older sister, named Odette, and that their father wouldn’t hear of Angèle marrying until her older sister was married. So, Salim convinced my fiancé to agree to the scheme, and the two men disappeared and went to live in Aleppo and got work in the woodworking shop owned by the girls’ uncle Jacques Estefan. So, instead of a brother killing his brother, a brother killed his sister. In a word, it seems the blame for it all falls on my brother — everyone said so. I said, No, maybe it is Najib’s fault. Maybe he’s the one who made it all happen. Najib was smarter than Salim and he didn’t fear his Lord. My brother’s just a poor simple fellow trying to get along, I’m sure of that. But no one believed me and all of them went on saying it was Salim who was to blame. So I believed them — what could I do? And I started saying the same thing they said. Then the nun came and said, It’s time to put this business to rest — one scandal but it’s the size of two. The girl’s exposed and so is her brother. The scandal over the girl is nothing unusual. She was engaged and the engagement was broken off.
So, Milia went on, at this point the nun raised her voice loud enough for the neighbors to hear her next words: And she’s as much a virgin as Our Lady Maryam, peace be on her name! And that won’t change. Then the nun lowered her voice again to say that Salim had gone and married into the Roman Catholics and he’d become one of them. Well, with him, out of the frying pan into the fire, she commented.
Lower your voice, shrieked Saadeh.
It was the only time Saadeh ever raised her voice to the nun. In fact, no one had ever even heard Saadeh’s voice in the presence of the nun. Saadeh always made herself as inconsequential and obsequious as she could before the nun, slumping over, swallowing her voice as though she had developed laryngitis, and speaking only when necessary and in a nearly inaudible murmur. But on that disastrous day Saadeh’s emotions were fixed on her daughter, dreading to think what Milia’s future might be. The business of Salim was not so earthshaking, after all, nor the two women whom he had married. That’s what she said — that he had married two women — and then she hastily retracted it. See — look what I’m saying! But it’s my heart talking, it’s as if he kidnapped his sister and killed her. People are despicable!
Milia told her little brother about the two look-alike sisters — two girls of medium height, round faces and fair skin, long noses and lips so thin they seemed to have been erased and teeth so tiny the gums seemed to swallow them up. Salim had taken the thinner one and given Najib the plumper one, and that was that.
Where did you see them? asked Musa.
They were with Salim at Bourj Square. I was dropping in on my brothers in the shop at the Souq of the Carpenters, and then I walked toward Souq Tawile and saw them. Salim was trying to hide behind the women. No — that wasn’t it. I was walking down the street in the dark. It was raining. I slipped and fell and my dress got completely soaked. I got up and began shaking off as much water as I could, trying to recover, and that’s when I saw them. Najib was strutting along arm in arm with the fat one, and Salim was scampering along behind as if he were trying to catch up with them but couldn’t. And then Salim slipped. They looked back and saw him, but they just left him there. He was lying on the ground completely soaked. I started to go over to him — I wanted to help my own brother. And then Najib did turn back. I jumped and then I ran. I looked back and saw Najib kiss the fat one and they started laughing, and I started crying.
Musa closed his eyes and said he didn’t understand anymore. As far as my brother Salim goes, he said, he has died and that’s that, I have to forget him. And you as well — you have to forget.
Milia’s tears slipped down her cheeks. Musa bent over his sister, touching his fingers to her eyes. He saw a little girl and saw himself kissing eyes wet with tears. He stepped back and heard his sister asking him not to cry. It’s not worth it, she said. Anyway, it is better this way. It never would have worked. But if he and my brother were failing at university and wanted to become carpenters, fine, then why didn’t Salim get work in the shop here with his brothers? And what does that other one have to do with being a carpenter anyway? Salim we can understand — he is the son of a carpenter, after all. But Najib? Since when is he carpenter material? And then, who is this father who wants to marry off his daughters at any price? And what are they doing in Aleppo, anyway — soon enough they’ll regret it.
Did Milia tell the story the way it happened? Of course not, because no one can know how to tell a story exactly the way it happened and in the order it happened. If that were possible, people would spend their whole lives telling a single story. Milia passed over a number of things. She said nothing about her love for Najib, the way his anecdotes and experiences attracted her, the obscure feelings that took over her spirit and her body, the like of which she had never felt before. Not, at least, until finding out yesterday that she was with child.