She told Madame Lillian she preferred teaching.
Madame Sabbagha smiled wickedly. She didn’t tell her her daughter was disturbed, but that she was at a boarding school and Vitsky could tutor her during the summer.
And Vitsky became a maid, thanks to Simaan Fayyad, who saved her from that strange situation she found herself in when Bishop Athanasios tried to sleep with her.
In this white young woman, the bishop saw the features of kings.
“You look like the czars,” he said to her.
And she always denied having any relation to the Romanov family. She said she was of noble blood and that her fiance was an officer in the Royal Army.
“You’re being modest,” the bishop said, refusing to believe her.
The bishop fell in love with this young woman. He’d take her with him to visit the richest families in Beirut, where he’d arrange for her to work as a tutor for their daughters.
Every evening the bishop would invite her to evening prayers. He always prayed at 4:30 in the evening, in the small church in the diocese. At 4:15 she’d find Simaan Fayyad waiting for her at the door to her room. He’d walk her to the parish, and there she’d join in the prayer in a language she didn’t understand. Once she said the prayer of Zakariyya. She said it in French, her voice trembling. “Now release your slave, O Master, according to your word, in peace.” And when she reached the word peace, when Zakariyya asks God to kill him, she stopped chanting and her voice was drowned with sobs. The tears rolled down her face, and the deacons who were attending the prayers were struck with amazement and sorrow.
That day “His Eminence” made her stay for dinner, and after dinner he took her to the reading room, and there he tried to sleep with her. Vitsky didn’t say anything, not knowing Arab customs. It never occurred to her that this old man in his seventies would try what her young officer fiancé never tried.
He pulled her toward him and kissed her on the forehead. The smell of old wood, like the smell of icons, permeated the reading room. And His Eminence Athanasios with his white beard, short stature, and neck that shook from side to side, diffused an aroma like the smell of wood. When he kissed her forehead she was taken by the smell, as though she’d surrendered to him. So he pushed her against the wall. She stood, not understanding what was happening, and he went after her. Just like that, with no introductions, he started kissing her face. She began to scream and so he put his hand over her mouth. She threw her arms up to push him away, and then she ran. She couldn’t find the door; the dim light made it difficult for her to see. She ran and fell onto the floor. There he was, on top of her in his black priest’s gown, trying to pin her down. The sound of him panting rang in her ears. She slid out from under him using her elbows and stood up. She found the door in front of her, opened it, and ran out.
In the courtyard she noticed the blood.
The edge of her olive-colored dress was covered with blood. She bent down, overcome with grief, and found a deep cut on her right knee. Simaan Fayyad offered her his arm without saying a word. She held on to the man’s arm and went back to her room.
Whenever Vitsky got sad and when the anxiety of waiting for her fiance who never came back took hold of her, and memories brought her to the brink of regret, she’d uncover her knee to show Lillian Sabbagha the scar that would never disappear. She’d tell her there was only one place she wanted to be buried, in Kiev, in Holy Russia.
Madame Sabbagha would try to soothe her by telling her she reserved a plot for her among the Sabbagha family graves and that she’d be buried next to the noblest family in Beirut.
“We are the seven families, my dear, and you will be buried with one of the great families. As if you were at home.”
Madame Sabbagha would start telling the story while knitting with some blue yarn and blue knitting needles, sitting in the middle of the living room. Vitsky sat with her, listening with half an ear. Madame Sabbagha wouldn’t turn on the lights until it got completely dark inside. But during the early hours of the evening, when light mixes with darkness, Vitsky could no longer see anything but the open loops in the yarn, for Madame Sabbagha refused to turn on the lights.
“I’m not stingy, but why do we need the lights when we can still see? It’s a waste.”
“You’re right,” Vitsky would say, yawning. She’d say in broken Arabic she’d had it and was going to bed. Vitsky would speak Arabic when she wanted to express dissatisfaction, as if this language was good only for swearing and expressing dissatisfaction.
Madame Sabbagha would go on knitting the blue sweater she would never send to her grandson, because her daughter never got married and didn’t live in France. Her daughter, whom she never visited, was in the sanitarium in Dayr al-Salib. She told everyone she sent her to France and she got married there. She said she was knitting for her grandson little George.
Vitsky wanted to go, but Madame Sabbagha tried to make her stay and listen to her stories about the past glories of her family, now extinct.
“It’s unbelievable. They all died. I’m the only one left. I’m like you, Vitsky. I’m all alone. I have no one.”
“No, not you. Me, yes. You know who I am.”
“Of course I know. But they’re all dead. One was a lawyer, one was a journalist, and one was a poet. Three brothers. The first got married but didn’t have any children. The second never married, he just kept on chasing after barmaids. The third died a young man, eighteen years old. His name was Shukri. He was really something, as beautiful as a full moon on a clear day. He died of typhus at eighteen, and only I remained. And I, too, had only a daughter. They married me off to my cousin in order to keep the money in the family. As you know, he was, God rest his soul, a bit simpleminded. He spent his time selling the land we inherited, and then he laid down his head and died. They all died, leaving no male descendants to carry on the family name. Shukri drove the Jesuits crazy. Once the class was supposed to write a poem, and so Shukri wrote twenty poems for the whole class, using twenty different meters and twenty different rhyme schemes. His poem was the best; it drove the Jesuit priests crazy. ‘Don’t trust a Jesuit priest / who dons a demon’s habit / And saunters in it like a he-goat in his lair’ or his hair or his I don’t know what. Poor me. I was the only one who didn’t have a good memory. To hell with memory; it eats you alive and makes a laughingstock out of you.”
She’d repeat the same stories every evening. How Wadia the maid died and was transferred to her distant village in Akkar. Curses against the war and those fighting in it. Stories about the hairdresser, and Madame Nuha Aoun, who was killed. All this with Vitsky at her side, like her own sister.
Simaan Fayyad told Vitsky that Madame Sabbagha would be like a sister to her. He told her he’d rescue her from the mess with the bishop and take her to work in Ras Beirut at the Sabbagha residence, and the madame will be like more than a sister to you.
After that Simaan Fayyad disappeared.
Vitsky spoke about him once in front of Madame Sabbagha. She said he was a gentleman, and very sweet, and so Madame Sabbagha broke into laughter.
“He’s an idiot, my friend. I hope you didn’t fall in love with him.”
Vitsky shuddered at talk about love. She never loved anyone. Her whole life she remained faithful to the Russian officer whom she searched for everywhere. For twenty years or so she’d go to the Red Cross in Beirut and inquire about him. Then she stopped going because the official there started treating her as if she were crazy. Vitsky was never in love with that nitwit Simaan Fayyad. All she said was that he was cute.