“He is loved,” I said above the dins of the room.
My sister had taken Nisrine to the visitors’ room. Fatima had returned and claimed my sister’s seat. The diminishing red numbers of the dialysis machine entranced her, as they did me. Twenty-two minutes, thirteen seconds. Salwa held my father’s hand.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s so obvious Nisrine loves him,” I replied. “You can’t fake that reaction. It broke my heart watching her.”
“Yes,” she said. “They were lovers once.”
“No,” I blurted. “No. It only seemed that way because they both loved to flirt.” My niece just looked at me, her eyebrows forming the top halves of question marks. “How would you know anyway?” I said. “You weren’t even born.” My voice faltered. “It can’t be. He flirted with her in front of my mother. He wouldn’t have done that if it were for real. They were friends.”
Fatima raised her arms in despair and sighed.
Salwa looked at me with my mother’s eyes, brown and wide. In a steady voice, she said, “She was one of his many mistresses.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked, my voice much weaker than hers. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but all you’re going by is what Lina tells you.”
“He paid for her eldest son’s schooling. You know that.”
“Of course,” I replied. “They were friends of the family.”
“Stop, Osama,” Fatima ordered, loud enough to shock the technician awake. “Take our word for it. If you want me to list all his mistresses, I will. Maybe it’s time you talked to your sister and compared notes.”
Lina filled her lungs with smoke on the balcony. I studied the straight lines of building rooftops. “How could you not know they had an affair?” Lina asked. We both looked out at the calm Mediterranean, which could be seen through a large gap between two buildings.
“God, Osama. You know he slept with other women. You couldn’t have been that blind. Why do you think she finally left him?”
“Please. I’m not stupid. He didn’t hide his womanizing from me. He was proud of it. I just didn’t think he’d do it with Nisrine. I don’t know why. Not her.”
She leaned forward on the railing and took another drag. “Why not her?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I huffed. “Maybe because she was a friend of the family. Maybe because my mother knew her. Maybe because we all knew her. I don’t know.”
She reached out and pulled me to her. I took the cigarette from her hand and noisily smoked half of it. “Bad form,” she said.
“Yes, that’s it,” I snapped. “It’s fucking bad form. That’s what it is.”
I felt her shake before I heard her laugh, a staccato outburst. It took a few seconds for me to join in. I tapped the cigarette ash too hard, and the glowing cinder dropped toward the street below. “I can’t fucking believe it,” I said.
“Fuck yes.”
“But you’re wrong. She didn’t just leave him because of his philandering. You know that. It wasn’t just the women.” I gripped the balcony’s rail, took a loud breath. “He had this way of looking at women he was flirting with, an expressive quality — humorous, even. It was as if his eyes asked them to confide in him, to tell him their stories.”
“His eyes never invited me to share with him,” she said.
“Me, neither.”
We sat at the burnt-orange dinette set, my father, Melanie, and I, waiting for Uncle Jihad to finish his shower. My sister had called and teased me as usual. She said my mother missed me so much she went out and bought a pot of hydrangea, and now no one could tell I was gone. My father smoked, read the paper, and drank his coffee. He made a gurgling sound with each sip. “We have to ask about residence,” he said. “Where will you stay?”
“Don’t know. Maybe the dorms.” I looked around the suite. “Maybe I’ll stay here. This is grand enough for me.”
“It’s nothing compared with the suite in Las Vegas. We had a swimming pool in the room.”
“It’s true,” said Melanie.
“In a hotel room? Why? Did you swim in it?”
“No,” my father replied. “Why should I swim in a pool?”
“I don’t know. You have a pool in your room, you should swim in it.”
“That’s silly.” He crushed the cigarette in the ashtray and picked up the paper.
“Oh, Dad, you just have no imagination.”
Melanie had to stop herself from laughing.
My father folded his paper. “Why don’t you two go out dancing tomorrow night? You two should go to a dance club and have fun. What’s the name of the place you told us about?”
“My Place,” Melanie said. “It’s the in club.”
“You want us to go dancing?” I asked, to make sure I’d understood correctly.
“Yes. Go out and have fun. I don’t want to go to a dance club. My ears won’t be able to handle it. You two kids like music. Go out and have fun.”
Uncle Jihad came down whistling a polka, his feet keeping time on the stairs. He hesitated for a moment, appearing concerned, and his face blanched. He seemed to lose his breath, but it was only a brief interruption of the polka, a musical hiccup. He descended the stairs happily. My father stood up. “Let’s go,” he said. “We don’t want to be late to the interview.”
In the waiting room, my cousin Hafez leaned over and whispered into my ear, “I must see him. I must.” His moist eyes pleaded, regarded me with such ardor, as if I were a saint and my blessing was what he lived for. Or was it my father’s?
“I’ll ask Lina.”
“Please, don’t. You know she wouldn’t let me.” His hand fell on my knee, like my father’s used to whenever he wanted me to pay attention. “I’m asking you.”
It was as if I were seeing him for the first time. Hello, I’m your cousin Hafez. We grew up together and spent hours and days and weeks and months and years in each other’s company, but you have no clue who I am. Let me introduce myself. I was supposed to be your twin, but …
Hafez hesitated slightly at the door before entering the room with me. My sister smiled at him. I cocked my head toward the balcony, and Lina understood. She gestured a need for a cigarette and stood up. She slid the balcony’s door silently and glided out.
Hafez and I were a study in contrasts, I in Nikes, jeans, and a UCLA sweatshirt, and he in suit and tie and Italian moccasins. My disheveled hair was badly in need of a trim, and his was gelled and styled. He looked more like my father in his prime than I ever did. He was a family man with three teenage children, and I was nothing more than an unkempt teenager, even though only six weeks separated us. He was always more our family than I was.
He stood at the foot of the bed, what had been my space in the room. He looked as if he was about to cry but still wasn’t used to the idea. He stared at my father as if he wanted to tell him something, or wanted my father to make things right. “I guess his heart is tired,” he whispered. He inhaled deeply. He was standing as close as possible without our touching. “I hadn’t expected him to fall before my mother. She has been all right this week, with all the family here for Eid al-Adha, but she’ll begin to get worse when Mona returns to Dubai and Munir to Kuwait. They—” He stopped. His face flushed, and he shut his eyes. The only reason his brother and sister hadn’t flown back to their homes in the Gulf was that they would have to return to Lebanon for my father’s funeral.