Now the Reverend Amin had found himself all alone. His children had gone to the States, and Ms. Eugenie said she couldn’t take the war and followed her children. And he was here. “A shepherd cannot leave his flock,” he told his wife. But what flock? There was no longer a flock. He was the pastor of an empty church. Even his friendships fell apart, and his only friend, Lillian Sabbagha, had nothing to do with the church. “It was an innocent relationship,” he said to Alice, who laughed and patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it, Reverend, don’t worry,” she said to him.
And on that incredible day there was a lot to worry about. Lillian Sabbagha stood in front of everyone like a lunatic and exposed their relationship. That day the Reverend didn’t dare leave the house. He walked behind the coffin of Vitsky the maid, but he was obliged not to enter the church because people’s eyes pierced his back like needles.
The Reverend Amin had no idea why Lillian would say such a thing. She stood inside Vitsky’s room and started blabbing like a madwoman. Once she caught sight of him she started talking, and she didn’t stop until Father John interfered. Why did she do it? Did she hate him, or was she crazy, or was it that she couldn’t take it anymore and had to tell everything?
“It was a lie,” he told Alice, who didn’t believe him. The Reverend Amin was alone and sad. There was no one left. If it hadn’t been for Alice taking care of him now and then, he’d have become a laughingstock, a useless beggar.
But why did she say what she said? Why did she ridicule him and turn him into a joke?
Was it because he asked her to fly? The Reverend Amin didn’t want to sleep with her, and even if he had wanted to he couldn’t. Ever since Eugenie left he couldn’t.
“Unfaithfulness requires the presence of the wife. When the wife disappears, or leaves the country, unfaithfulness loses its meaning.”
Alice looked at him sympathetically, for she’d heard this kind of talk hundreds of times. But she couldn’t figure out how he wanted to make her fly.
“Is it true, Reverend? Did you really want to make her fly?”
The Reverend Amin slipped into a state of lethargy, laughed, and didn’t answer.
“But how, though, how did you think she was going to fly? Did you want to throw her from the window?”
The Reverend Amin didn’t want to throw her from the window, or the door, or anywhere else for that matter. Once he told Alice he’d tell the truth, but on condition she not tell a soul.
“My heart is like a deep well; you can trust me, my friend.”
He said he went to her house as usual, that he’d started visiting her a while back. Then the visits turned into a regular thing. He went to her house and Vitsky, her maid, was getting ready to leave. Her demented daughter was asleep in her room. He sat in the living room and drank a beer with her, for she didn’t allow him to drink whiskey because she couldn’t stand the smell. They sat together and talked. She was asking him to retell the story of his grandmother Um Tanios with the Prophet Muhammad. He told her the story and she laughed hysterically. “I moved close to her,” he said. “I only wanted to put my head on her chest. I like that. With Eugenie I used to lay my head on her chest and say ‘Mama’ to her. She’d answer me, ‘Daddy,’ and run her fingers through my hair as we watched television. I wanted Eugenie, and so I put my head on Lillian’s chest, and instead of saying ‘Daddy’ to me and running her fingers through my hair, she got up, grabbed me by the hand, and took me to her room. She took off her blouse and her brassiere and I saw those two large breasts. I didn’t do anything. I approached her. I held her by the hand and sat her down on the edge of the bed. I sat down next to her and placed my head on her chest. But she stood up again. She ran and turned off the light. She stood in front of the window, next to the windowsill, as if she was going to fall out. She was leaning forward with her hands on the windowsill, and her hair flowed over her breasts. I was afraid she’d fall and die. I ran to her. The room was dark, and so I tripped over the chair and fell to the floor. She stayed in front of the window, motionless. I got up and grabbed her by the waist and tried to bring her back to the bed, but she refused. I didn’t tell her to fly. She said she wanted to fly. I didn’t say any of what was said about me. All I did was put my head on her chest and nearly start to cry. But she’s crazy. She’s the crazy one. It would happen every time after that. She’d take off her blouse and her bra and stand next to the window. That whole story of flying, and that I would push the woman and ask her to fly is just not true.”
Lillian Sabbagha told quite a different story.
She said the Reverend tried to rape her. She went to the priest, Father John, kneeled before him in the confessional, and told him whatever came to her mind. Father John didn’t say anything to her. He knew she wasn’t completely balanced mentally, that she spoke illogically, and that the whole affair was shameful. Did it make sense that the poor Reverend would push her from the window and rape her? It seemed the woman had lost her mind since the death of her white Russian maid.
In that maid Little Gandhi, saw the image of the white angel. She’d pass by him, with that head of hers, which was always held high, and that back, which never bowed down to anyone. And she’d tell him to come and get the shoes. Never once did she bring him a single shoe. She’d stand next to him without looking down where he was sitting next to his shoe-shine box, in front of the row of shoes lined up on the sidewalk. Gandhi would leave everything and go to pick up Madame Lillian and her maid’s shoes. The maid’s shoes were cleaner and more elegant than the madame’s.
Gandhi had no idea this woman was a Russian princess and that she worked for the Sabbagha family after she sold all the jewelry she’d brought with her from Russia. She was fifteen and had crossed continents and countries only to find herself in the port of Beirut, not Alexandria. She tried to find work, and she did, teaching French to local Beiruti children. But she was like someone who’s always waiting for something. Only Father John al-Mazraani knew the real story about her, and during mass he insisted on beginning Communion with her. She would stand first in line, wearing her white robe and orange sash, and the priest would bow to her with his chalice.
Madame Sabbagha was the one who let out the secret to everyone in the neighborhood. That was the day she found Vitsky dead in her small room. Madame Sabbagha shrieked and said, “The princess, the daughter of princes.” The neighbors came running. Abu Saeed al-Munla, Spiro with the hat, the teacher Ahmad, Husn, Dr. Atef, Alice, Zaylaa, and lots of women. They were all in front of the house. And when Lillian Sabbagha heard one of the women asking “What’s wrong with the maid?” she shouted “You, you’re the servants; this was a princess.”
The white princess was dead inside the house, sprawled out on her bed in her white nightgown, as if she’d known she was going to die. Her eyes were shut and her hands were folded together over the blankets. There was a faint smell of decay coming from the room.
Father John ordered everyone out and everyone went out except Madame Sabbagha. Then the doctor came and declared that the death had occurred at night, the cause being a heart attack.
Father John carried out the burial rites right away, but Madame Sabbagha insisted on having the bishop come and started screaming in the priest’s face. Everyone was at the house, which had suddenly filled up with nuns. Gandhi didn’t know where the nuns had come from, or how they’d entered the princess’s room. Everyone was in the entrance, which had been turned into a reception area, and the priest was saying there was a war going on and it was impossible for the bishop to come. And Madame Sabbagha screamed and wailed. Here the Reverend Amin stepped in and the scandal broke out. She attacked him, Gandhi said, and almost killed him. She shouted that he wanted to kill her and tried to rape her and throw her from the window. At that point, Gandhi said, Father John stopped the commotion and scooted the Reverend out the door. He promised Lillian he’d get in touch with the bishop.