Corey walked over to where my babies, Bucka, Monk, and Ginny, lay shivering with fright and began to kill them one by one. He started with Bucka, while Monk and Ginny cowered at his feet. He lifted Bucka by his neck, shook his head ferociously until the cub’s neck snapped, and flipped the corpse away. He then picked up Monk while Ginny stayed where she was, waiting her turn for annihilation. By the time he killed Ginny, I no longer recognized myself. The announcers were pedantically explaining the logic of Corey’s behavior, while I sat open-mouthed, shocked, unable to hear anything. I sweated, felt porous, like my body was made of clay not yet fired. I was afraid if I moved even an inch, one of my limbs would fall off.
On the screen, the pride was adjusting to life with Corey. Slowly, I began to grapple with what had happened. Individuals came and went, but the pride was what survived. Always. I had identified with each lion or lioness as a separate entity. I had thought I knew about lions because I saw Ginny as a cute and cuddly cub.
If I wanted to know about lion, I had to look at the entire pride. I had to look at it not as a single organism per se, but as a new unit much larger than the sum of its parts. Red was lion; Lewis, the lion who left the pride, was lion; Lisa was lion; Corey was lion; and my baby, Ginny, whose life was snuffed out to ensure Corey’s new lineage, was lion. I could not begin to fathom what being a lion was if I only looked at each lion individually, or even at the relationships between the lions. All of them together, not all of them individually summed up, but all of them as a dynamic organism, were the species; all were the word lion.
I had tried to write my memoir by telling an imaginary reader to listen to my story. Come learn about me, I said. I have a great story to tell you because I have led an interesting life. Come meet me. But how can I expect readers to know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the people dear to me? I have to explain how the individual participated in the larger organism, to show how I fit into this larger whole. So instead of telling the reader, Come meet me, I have to say something else.
Come meet my family.
Come meet my friends.
Come here, I say.
Come meet my pride
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I used many books as reference or inspiration: Lebanon: Death of a Country by Sandra Mackey; Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk; The Druze Faith by Sami Makarem; Civil War in Lebanon, 1975–92 by Edgar O’Ballance; Crucial Bonds: Marriage Among the Lebanese Druze by Nura Alamuddin and Paul Starr; The Divine Sarah by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale; The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer; and, of course, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino.
Raya Alameddine offered her impeccable French. Asa DeMatteo, despite his skewed priorities, offered his convoluted English. The writer Suleiman Alamuddin generously offered many historical tidbits, chief among them the story of the Druze Sarah. Nicole Aragi remains God’s gift to writers. I owe a debt of gratitude to Barbara Dimmick, Hana Alamuddin, Karim Heneine, Debra Meadows, Michael Denneny, Ashraf Othman, and my editor, Alane Salierno Mason.
I wish to thank the staff of the MacDowell Colony.
I am blessed to have the endless support, guidance, generosity, and patience of my family. I thank them.