Farid’s gun was loaded. The Colt-9. As soon as he felt threatened, he identified a target for himself. He knew at whom he would shoot and he planned out specifically how he would act — in which direction he should charge, what he would do with his left hand, and how he would not even give the young lawyer’s attendants enough time to protect him with their bodies. He would shoot him in the head. Three times at least, and the remaining shots he would use for cover as he withdrew. The zaeem was almost pushed along by them rather than walking unaided. The brothers finished their hymn as they led the way to the door of the church. There was a silence in which all one could hear was the heavy breathing of the men and the bustling of bodies. The crowd reached the church’s wide courtyard, which allowed people to spread apart, though the threatening looks continued even at a distance.
No, nothing happened at all.
Some of the women in the back rows had not even been conscious of the pushing and shoving; they carried on with their usual chatter as the procession spread out bit by bit along the road leading to the church.
Sheikh Melhem’s funeral was merely a rehearsal for what was going to take place in less than a month, in June, at another funeral in another village perched over one of the commanding heights of the nearby mountain.
Master Boulos had almost lost hope of putting Farid on the right path. The only thing left for him to do was to encourage him to emigrate.
‘Why don’t you go to Australia, Farid? You have lots of relatives there who are doing well, don’t you?’
The sewing pins in Farid’s mouth prevented him from answering.
‘Look at your brother Shafiq. He doesn’t get caught up in all of that.’
Farid smiled mockingly. No, Shafiq was not someone Farid wanted to emulate.
Master Boulos did not have any illusions concerning the future of the tailoring profession. It was not going to provide for any future generation after his own. What had happened to the shoemakers would happen to the tailors, too. The shoemakers went and destroyed the contents of the new ready-made shoe shop that opened on the main street of the town and the police escorted them to jail. But what good did that do? The shoemakers showed some bravado, but the tailors were much more cowardly. Master Boulos knew every single one of them. It was a difficult profession and Farid was not good enough at it.
‘They say Australia is really nice,’ Master Boulos added.
Many of Farid’s generation emigrated. Some of them suffered a lot. They went alone, putting their faith in God, without a single relative there to greet them. Some of them slept under the open skies during the first days, on church benches or in public parks. As for Farid, his trip would be guaranteed from A to Z. The program was all set:
He would leave Lebanon at the beginning of summer, or in October, as he wished.
He would board the ship in Beirut. A long journey, but enjoyable.
His uncle would send him travel expenses. He would pay the money back at his leisure once he was there, after he started working and getting paid. In Australia, people were paid weekly.
He had work waiting for him in the factory. There was demand for workers in Sydney.
He could go into tailoring if he wished, but they told him that over there it was considered a woman’s job, in general. Or into shoemaking if he wished, and when he was able to save up some money, he could open up a laundry or small grocery store of his own.
They had sent him a picture of all of them together, and a picture of their house with the white wooden railing, and also a picture of a kangaroo carrying its baby in its pouch. We live on the beach, they wrote him, in the Coogee suburb in Sydney. Sometimes the waves reach the front steps of our house. In the summer we sit under umbrellas sometimes while the waves splash over our feet.
They asked him to bring them a souvenir: a small stone from their house in the town.
The last letter he received contained a picture of his cousin. She had a wide face and a full figure; she was smiling. She looked like his mother.
She’s waiting for you, they wrote on the back of the picture.
He imagined her waiting for him, sitting on a rocking chair while the waves splashed over her feet.
They sent him the money from Australia, without waiting for an answer from him. They tried to encourage him that way.
His aunt bored everyone there, constantly showing his picture with his American hat tipped to the side and going on about how handsome he was.
‘I don’t like travelling by sea. Who would trust his soul to the waters?’ Farid said, after he had finished marking the pattern into the cloth with pins.
He was lying, and Master Boulos knew he was lying.
The hours were long, and tailoring work was slow. The only way to entertain oneself was with talk. Talk about girls and marriage, this time around.
‘Either travel or look for a nice girl…’
Nice girl? No. Farid was not good at that. Love required an eloquent tongue, and he was not good at talking.
Khawkh al-dibb, the Bear Plum. That was Farid Badwi al-Semaani. That was what he was called by people at the coffee shop. No one was spared their barbs. The sharp-tongued men goaded him, but they feared what he might do.
A bear plum looks appetising, light green with a tinge of pink, but no one would dare bite into one, because they’re far too bitter to eat.
‘Here comes Bear Plum!’ Sometimes they would say it loud enough for him to hear, when they spotted him coming out of one of the narrow streets leading to the coffee shop. ‘Welcome, Bear Plum,’ they would say and he would sit down with them, smiling without malice, so he could silently watch them play cards. They all played cards. They would lose and get angry, or win. Farid, however, remained a spectator. Someone said he didn’t know the rules of the game and just watched anyway. But he only acted as if he didn’t know how to play, so that he would be able to leave after a few minutes and go back to the tailor’s shop. Master Boulos accused him of always looking down at his shoes, then claiming he didn’t like the way they shined, an excuse to put his tailoring aside and go to the café. There he would whistle for the shoeshine boy who would follow him inside and start shining his shoes. Farid would demand that he use ample polish and brush well, especially at the heels.
Tailoring was a difficult art for him. All that concentrating tired him out. He would mark the material with tailor’s chalk, and put a stitch with needle and thread at the crease of the trousers’ hem. He used tricks, like making the buttonholes with extra fine thread. He had thick fingers that didn’t obey him. If he needed to thread a needle, he would try for a long time, and then call someone to thread it for him. Frustrated, he would go to the café while Master Boulos pretended not to notice.
Moving from one profession to another in the span of a single generation was not an easy thing for Farid to accomplish. First there had been the mules, with all the prodding and loading them up with heavy bundles, and lighting a fire under their tails if they lay down, or hitting them until their legs started to bleed, or even biting their ears as his uncle used to do, to force them to stand up. From there he went to sumac-coloured stone, and then to fine English wool, in one fell swoop.
Bear Plum didn’t care what people said.
He could take a joke, but he never lowered his eyes from anyone’s. Just looking at him seemed to him an attempt to intimidate him. He was easy-going but unemotional.
They tested him at Umm Raymond’s Restaurant. They were sitting at the next table drinking arak and eating: Saeed Ibrahim and Antonios al-Khoury. He and Saeed eyed each other. Saeed Ibrahim was dangerous. You couldn’t take him lightly. They stared at each other. Not the slightest blink. The dare dragged on. Farid would not look away. Impossible. The other customers left one at a time. No one wanted to die by mistake.