“I want to get my email,” he said.
“Sure. How did you sleep?”
“Got up at six, which is not as bad as usual. I should be over it by tomorrow if I take a nap this afternoon.”
“Do you have diarrhea yet? You always have diarrhea when you first arrive here.”
“I don’t know, Mother. I haven’t eaten anything yet. Don’t worry about it, okay, Mother?” He was at her computer, the modem dialing. It was only eight in the morning and he was dressed in pleated, tan, casual slacks, a pressed burgundy shirt, and brown loafers with what had become his signature, gold tassels.
“Is my son up?” Mustapha walked out of the bathroom stark naked but dry. Even his pubic hair was now white. “On the computer already, definitely your mother’s son.”
Ramzi stood up and kissed his father. Clothed facing naked.
“You should have woken me up when you got here,” Mustapha said as he began dressing.
“You looked too peaceful sleeping.”
“You,” Mustapha pointing at Saniya, who was still sipping her coffee, “you should have woken me up.”
“I will next time, dear.” Another sip.
He finished dressing in his customary ten minutes — as meticulous in his clothing selection as his dapper son. Still used garter belts to keep his socks up. Drank his coffee in two gulps. “Well, I’m off to work. I’ll see you at lunch, son. We can catch up then.”
Mustapha left the room. Ramzi waited till he heard the distant door to the apartment close before taking a compact disc from his pants pocket and turning on the stereo behind the computer.
“I just love the fact that you have everything you need in your bedroom, Mother.”
“It’ll be your bedroom when we’re gone. Do you ever listen to anybody other than Joan Sutherland, dear?”
“Sometimes.”
The first call of the morning was always at eight-thirty from Amal, her oldest stepdaughter. This morning was no different. The phone rang, in asynchronous stereo for Kooky always followed with an exact trill replica.
“Happy anniversary, Saniya.” Amal, always cheerful in the morning, was probably in the office already. “Is Father out already?”
“Yes, of course. It’s twelve minutes past eight-twenty. The schedule must be kept.”
By the time she finished her coffee, every family member would have called to wish her a happy anniversary and congratulate her on the safe arrival of her son. She was surprised to receive a phone call from her other stepdaughter, Sarah, from America. Sarah was not calling about Ramzi — it seemed those living abroad did not view international travel as an event worthy of a congratulatory call — she simply wanted to wish her a happy anniversary. Somewhat perturbed, Saniya asked if she needed money. Not at all, she was just calling because of the occasion.
She found herself considering what she should wear, how she should appear to her son on his first day back in over a year. What impression should she impart? What attitude did she want to reveal? In fall, on a rainy day like today, she always wore trousers, shirt, and a sweater, comfort and warmth over wide hips. She hesitated, contemplated a designer suit.
When Ramzi left for the United States, leaving her alone with her husband, a knell sounded. Her children had grown up, her husband was acting childishly, and she felt discombobulated and distraught. It was her expected retirement, but she was not prepared for it. It felt like a combination of stud farm and glue factory. She had to reinvent herself, change herself but not appearances. She adjusted to a new life without allowing the family to perceive threat. She picked the trousers, shirt, and a sweater. She would appear to be the kind of mother her son expected.
By ten o’clock, she was at the office, the Lebanese International Cable Company, LICC, her bastard baby. Although she was no longer needed for the day-to-day running of the company — Amal managed quite well on her own — she still managed to show up every weekday morning. People assumed it was Amal’s brainchild, and Saniya preferred it that way. She had thought of it when her husband bought a satellite dish.
When the war ended, everyone in Lebanon who could afford it installed a dish. The black and gray circles replaced the straight lines of antennas on Beirut’s rooftops. She wanted to “share” her good fortune with those not lucky enough to afford the price. Think of all the children who do not have the choice of good television because their parents are not hard working enough to be able to afford the five or ten thousand — dollar price, she told her husband. Don’t they deserve to see the same programs the rich children do? It won’t take too much of my time, she said. No, no, she said, I won’t be dealing with people. I’m not good with people. I’ll let Amal do that. I know, I know, I don’t have the technical understanding, but we have a satellite, and we have cables that run from it to our television, so it can’t be much harder to have cables running to other televisions. I’ll hire some engineer. Her husband finally relented, allowing her to dirty her hands, for the sake of the children. Although he did not know exactly how much she now made, since she was in charge of all finances, even his, her income the year before was ten times what he brought home.
When she looked back at how her business had started, Saniya was surprised by many things: the ease with which she made decisions, the decisiveness itself, the sheer audacity of her actions, her understanding of the logic of investment, and her lack of self-doubt. The company was set up easily. She opened an office, hired an engineer, and bought a huge dish from which they ran cables to any customer for only ten dollars a month. Her cables crisscrossed the city like dribbles in a Jackson Pollock painting. She had two hundred clients signed up within the first week. She recouped her investment in a little over six months. The problems arrived when men — it’s always men, men with money — began to copycat her idea. The solution arrived when she hired Tariq, the driver.
Tariq was a young Shi’ite from the south, a cousin of her husband’s driver. Her husband objected to him because of his connections to Hizballah, labeling him a fundamentalist because of his beard. Although Tariq was religious and had fought with Hizballah — could any teenager avoid the peer pressure of belonging to a murderous clan with a war raging on? — he was not the fanatic her husband assumed. If he looked with keener eyes, Mustapha would have noted the pitted skin. The short, unkempt beard was an attempt to cover up acne scars. Her husband saw a face that suggested the personality of a ruffian. Looking further, she saw the eyes of a boy desperate to please. She hired Tariq. He became her partner in crime.
When her competition began to take root — three different companies, owned by men with political connections — Saniya realized her only hope lay in dealing with them quickly and decisively utilizing the Lebanese Business Method. She asked Tariq and friends to hijack and destroy a truck carrying equipment belonging to one of her competitors. The owner of the company blamed the other two. The Lebanese cable war broke out. No one suspected her company or its principals — Amal, who was oblivious to what was going on, or her — for women knew nothing of “business” matters. Satellite dishes were riddled with bullets, generators blown to smithereens, cables cut. Her competitors left her alone for she had nothing to do with the battle. By the time the dust settled, the police got involved, and the newspapers ran their stories, her company was well entrenched. Other than the first blow, Saniya and Tariq remained uninvolved in the skirmishes with the exception of occasional tinkering with “independent” satellite dishes, impairing the reception, forcing their owners to subscribe to the only working cable company in Beirut, LICC.
She went into Amal’s office. Her stepdaughter was on the phone. Saniya sat down and waited for her to finish. She noted for the umpteenth time how sparsely the office was furnished. Functional, nothing decorative, no paintings, no pictures of children, no knickknacks or trinkets. Amal moved her arms in circles, suggesting the conversation was endless. Her fingers then returned to drumming on the desk.