When he finished the entire menu, he celebrated with a drunken, boastful evening with friends, and then he returned to the village for a few days, his medical education all but forgotten. Those days dragged into a few more, and those into a few more still, as he grew fond of a married woman, Sitt Yasmine, whose husband was a farmhand for the bey.
Every morning, Aref hid behind the village’s great oak tree, waiting for the farmhand to leave. Then my great-uncle would ride his horse to the house, tie the reins to the window shutter, and entertain himself with Sitt Yasmine. If only he had tied the horse to the back window. The neighbors told the husband he was being cuckolded, but he didn’t believe at first. One morning, a friend took the farmhand by the arm and brought him back to his house. “See,” his friend said, “there’s the horse.” The farmhand yelled, screamed, “O Sheikh, get out of my house now or I will commit murder.” Aref escaped out the back. The farmhand and his friend gave chase, intending to do him harm with a rake, a hoe, and an empty bucket between them. Aref laughed, tried to tie his belt while running. He reached a cascade of olive orchards, the silver-green trees in rows that stretched to the bottom of the hill. He jumped across into the lower orchard, landed on the soft earth, ran a little more, and jumped again, but this time his foot caught in an olive branch. He spun in midair like a tetherball and shot headfirst to the ground. He died on impact.
The farmhand returned the horse to my great-grandmother. She must have opened the door for him with my grandmother Najla in her arms.
Miraculously, Sitt Yasmine remained unharmed. It is said the farmhand was so shocked by witnessing the demise of a sheikh that he forgot his wife’s betrayal and didn’t remember to beat her.
• • •
When my grandfather decided he wanted my grandmother for a wife, he sent word to her brother Jalal, already a respected family man at twenty-seven. Jalal had left the confines of the village for a more cosmopolitan life in Beirut. Since Ismail al-Kharrat didn’t have a family to represent him, he sent one of his admirers, a charming but not very gifted fellow, a sheikh himself, and the first cousin of the bey on his mother’s side. My great-uncle received him as a good host should, but when the guest requested his sister’s hand for the hakawati, Jalal said a simple no. My great-uncle would have laughed, but, as an Arab intellectual, he lacked a sense of humor.
“And that bastard just said no,” my grandfather said. “He didn’t elaborate, felt no need to explain his position. I had my guy prepared with all kinds of wonderful things to say about me and why I’d make a good husband for your grandmother, but the bastard didn’t have the courtesy to let my guy speak. Just no.”
“You can’t call him a bastard, Baba,” Aunt Samia said. “He’s my uncle. He’s the children’s great-uncle. You can’t just curse him like that.”
“The man was a bastard,” Uncle Halim insisted. Already drunk, he sipped his arak delicately. He took another sip and then gulped down the rest. “It’s not like Baba is adding anything new to the equation.”
“You’re taking his side?” Aunt Samia said. She stood up, handed Little Mona to her bewildered husband. “Of all people, you have the gall to say something like that?” Uncle Akram held the girl with his arms straight and outstretched, as if she were smelly locker-room laundry. “In my house?” Mona’s legs dangled in midair. Her father turned his head left and right, hoping someone would rescue him. “You choose to do this in front of all these kids? Do you care if they all grow up to be gypsies with no morals? Maybe you want them to grow up to be Kurds?” She walked toward the kitchen, pivoted, returned to take her daughter. “And you,” she admonished her husband, “you sit here and listen to him insult the family and you do nothing.”
“But it’s not my family.” Uncle Akram looked to my father for support.
“You always resort to that, don’t you? Whenever I need you, you hide.” She took a deep breath, raised her voice. “Uncle Jalal was called a bastard. What are you going to do about it?”
“But he’s not my uncle,” her husband said.
“And he is a bastard,” Uncle Halim said, snickering.
“No,” Aunt Samia said. “No, no, no.” Her daughter began to pout and whimper.
Lina grinned. My mother looked at her and winked. Uncle Jihad, who was sitting on the corner couch, entered the winking fest. Then he nodded at my mother, as if agreeing to something, and threw his contribution into the ring.
“Osama,” he called loudly, “what happened to the money you borrowed from me?” I didn’t understand. “Did you spend all of it?” His voice didn’t match his face. My mother was trying to catch his attention. She nodded to Little Mona and raised her eyebrows. “Samia, my dear,” he said, “why don’t you give me the precious darling?” Aunt Samia, still staring at Uncle Halim, handed her daughter over distractedly. With the little girl in his arms, Uncle Jihad returned to me. “Did you think I’d forget the money, Osama?” He waited a few breaths before adding, “Did you waste the money”—breath—”or did you hide”—breath—”the money?”
My mother grinned, shook her head slowly from side to side in admiration, as if telling Uncle Jihad she was in awe. He shrugged, as if replying it was nothing.
You could count. One. Two. And the jinn of hell broke their chains.
“You stole my money,” Aunt Samia shouted at Uncle Halim, who recoiled visibly. Her face was as red as if dunked in tomato paste, and her eyes were as white and wide as saucers.
“Samia, no,” my father yelled, but she was off in her outraged world.
“It was my money. It was mine. My mother wanted to give it to me. To me. My money.”
“Samia,” my grandfather pleaded, “stop it.”
“The neighbors, Samia,” my father added. “The neighbors will hear.”
Anwar and Hafez pushed all the way back in their chairs. Lina sat forward. Uncle Jihad seemed to have lost interest. He tried to distract Little Mona, who was staring at her livid mother.
“You hate Jalal because he wanted you to give the money back to Mama. But you hid it. He isn’t the bastard. You are. You’re a lowlife.”
“If it weren’t for the children,” Uncle Halim yelled back, “I’d smack you from here to the village, you big-mouthed idiot.” Aunt Nazek moved closer to him, tried to calm him, but he stood up. “I returned the money. I didn’t hide it. You’re a big fat liar.” He shook his finger at her. “You’re lucky the children are here.”
“This is unreal,” my grandfather said.
“I’m not a liar. You hid it. You hid the money.”
My father stood up. From the look on his face, you could see it was over. He seethed. “Everybody just eat shit and shut up,” he screamed. Quiet. My father sighed. “Samia. He was eight years old. You were — what? — twelve? What’s the matter with you? You were children. What the hell does it matter what he did then? How much did he hide? Was it one quarter or two?”
“I don’t care,” she said, but we all heard the defeated whine creep back into her voice. “He stole my money.” Her rapid breathing slowed. “He stole my money again. I can prove it.”
“Eight?” my mother asked Uncle Jihad.
“Yes.” He nodded, stroked Little Mona’s hair. “I was about as old as this one here. I was traumatized, I tell you.” He blinked once, twice. Looked up to the ceiling in mock sorrow. “That incident scarred my life.”
“And you.” My father turned to his. “Why do you keep telling my kids these stories?”