The Inheritance Page 7

  Futna looked at me, but I looked down and avoided looking at her and everybody else. I feared the situation would escalate, resulting in an investigation that would reveal the lie. I knew it was a lie, and the others did too. Yet, I was the only one to whom Futna had said a few days ago, “If things had worked better I would have made it up to him and given him a boy,”

  She had also told me, provocatively, “A boy protects the inheritance!”

  How will dear Futna manage to go on living her lie and inherit the wealth? Pregnant? By whom and how?

  I took her aside that evening and asked her, with genuine concern, “What will you do if they find out?”

  She responded with unexpected force, asking defiantly, “Find out what?”

  I whispered, choking with embarrassment, “That you aren’t pregnant.”

  She stared at me and raised her hands to push her hair away from her face, then shook her shoulders and said smiling, “But I am pregnant!”

  Losing my self-control, I shouted, “Okay, fine! But by whom?”

  She turned away from me and raised her shoulders, laughing behind her hand, and said, “Pregnant by artificial insemination at the Hadassa hospital.”

  The mourning period ended a few days later. During that time family and friends drank barrels of sugarless coffee and ate mansaf, knafeh, and other delicious foods brought by relatives and neighbors. People sent trays of msakhkhan, lamb, bags of rice and sugar, whole cartons of cigarettes and matches. The kitchen was filled with food and merchandise and looked like a grocery or a restaurant.

  I used to watch them sitting in a corner under the walnut tree during the good weather, or on the living room sofa, cleaning okra and green beans, or knitting with Nahleh, waiting for the baby to be born to divide the inheritance. The judge of the shari‘a court ordered a freeze on the inheritance until dear Futna gave birth to the heir apparent.

  “The heir apparent,” said my cousin, the owner of the factory. Then he blushed and turned yellow and added, “And maybe an heiress.”

  “God forbid, the doctor in Hadassa said it is an heir not an heiress,” exclaimed Futna, who had come to invite me to visit her in Wadi al-Joz.

  I accompanied her to Wadi al-Joz, an area that is neither a valley nor has the walnut trees suggested by the name. It is an old neighborhood in New Jerusalem that was once beautiful and is now dirty. The New Jerusalem is not West Jerusalem, either, because the Israelis have West Jerusalem, everything is for the Israelis. West Jerusalem is filled with Ashkenazi Jews, men with side-whiskers, Sephardim, and the like. As for the New Jerusalem, it has only Arabs, Arabs from Hebron, Arab Jerusalemites, and riffraff Arabs who settled there after the high-class Arabs left, taking with them honor and noble descent.

  I had accepted her invitation to go to Jerusalem for various reasons—and who wouldn’t like to go to Jerusalem, especially me! I had many reasons to go there: first, because my father had worked in a souvenir shop there; second, because Umm Grace had told me that all the churches in the world were no match for even the smallest church in the smallest alley in Jerusalem; and third, because Jerusalem is always on our minds and in the news, in our poetry, and in the Chairman’s speeches. Everyone talks about it, and its fame is legendary. Finally, Jerusalem is for tourists, and I am, despite my origin and my true religion, a tourist immigrant.

  When my relatives heard my reasons for going, they were upset with me and considered me callous and weak in faith. They disapproved, and I understood that they expected me to explain my decision repeating the nationalistic slogans heard on Arab radios, Futna also told me, “In Jerusalem there are things to buy, shops, large streets and Hadassa!”

  To make a long story short, I drove there with her in a white Mercedes, a 1990 model. Had it not been for my father’s stroke and his death, she would have bought this year’s model. On the way to Jerusalem she never stopped talking, telling me every story, large and small, about my uncle and his children, stories that would make your hair stand on end. She said, “Your uncle, may he go blind, has everything, money and ranches. He owns a huge ranch filled with bees and wasps and the Honey of the North is their honey. If he had taken good care of it and refrained from cheating, it would have been imported by Maxime’s restaurant. Do you know Maxime’s?” she asked me. She continued “Your cousin, may he go blind, is so unbearable—he is not only unbearable but also a cheater. The Israeli candy is better and tastier than his candy It’s worth the price you pay for it, unlike your cousin’s candy which is as hard as a rock. Your cousin spits when he talks and breathes as heavily as a bull May he go to hell I would never have just shut up and handed over my rights the way he wanted me to Who does he think he’s dealing with? I’m a Jerusalem girl and from the Musrarch too! Even though I belong to a well-known, well-respected family hard times forced us to live in Musrareh when we were kids We lived in the family house” it was an old and uninhabited awqaf property We cleaned it up and stayed there till we all got married. We learned everything there—we learned to fight, argue and use very big words. My mother who was educated by the nuns and who is very cute—you’ll soon meet her—whenever she heard what we were saying she almost passed out She would cry and ask my father, ‘Do you want my daughters to be uncouth, rude, like street girls?’ My father, who was handicapped and very sick would try to comfort her, saying, They will marry one day, ya Amira, soon the girls will meet their destined men and find the suitable person.’

  “My mother would shout, ‘What well-born young man would agree to marry the girls of the alleys? Your daughters are street girls, how could well-born girls have become like this? Do you expect the Nashashibi or the Khalidi families to become our in-laws while we live in this house? Who among their children would marry our daughters?’

  “My father would cry and sob and so did we. Then we got married to lowly relatives, one was unemployed, another penniless, and a third was crazy, drooling, and had a runny nose, too. What counted was that we married men from our social class, well-born men who made us live in hell. We ran away—I left and my sister did the same; my third sister went to Cyprus; the fourth was admitted to a mental hospital; and my younger brother became a man only when I married your father, who opened a shop for him. What can we do? That’s life. I was humiliated and so were my mother and my father. I’ll never return to Musrareh, even if it means killing someone.”

  I discovered Jerusalem at Futna’s hands. Her east balcony overlooked valleys, olive trees, and the garden of a missionary university with walkways that led to wide stairs, residences, and blooming flowers behind large glass panels. I could see the Aqsa Mosque with its shiny dome and its minarets, the wall of Jerusalem, and its historical buildings from her west balcony and from the kitchen. I saw churches, bell towers, the cemeteries of various religions, dark-colored trees, white rocks, and a barren brown-gray colored land from the roof of her elevated house. Far on the horizon, where the western clouds appeared, I saw high and low buildings, a wall of strange constructions that looked like a hospital or a huge prison that Futna referred to as a “settlement.” A settlement, she explained, is what my uncle, that spiteful, ignoble man, and his children, would like to do with the inheritance. She firmly believed that they wanted to put their hands on my father’s real estate.

  Futna directed me toward the east, then the north and the south, saying, “Look, look, do you see our tombs, our houses, our alleys, and our courtyards? Do you see the trees? We planted them. Do you see the Russian church? And the Roman Catholic convent? Here and there, it all belongs to us. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to meet my cousin, who will explain history to you.”

  We visited him on a Friday evening, at the usual reception time. The living room was filled with relatives and other visitors. Before going in, Futna showed me the house library to prove to me beyond a shadow of doubt her cousin’s knowledge of history. I noted the beautiful building, the courtyard, the pond, the fountain, the gazelle’s head, the Persian rugs, and the lamps. The pond was made of mar
ble and was surrounded by lions and snakes from whose mouths water flowed with force, making foam. There were also jasmine, lemon trees, and climbing plant. The whole place was surrounded by a run-down wall with holes, and white columns blackened by age and history.

  Regrettably, Futna’s cousin was an ugly and uncouth man, though she thought he was a great man because of his culture, his education, the cigars he smoked intently, and the checkered cashmere vest he wore. On that day, however, he wore an ordinary tie with a bronze pin shaped like a black woman’s head. His name was Abd al-Hadi and everyone addressed him as Pasha or Bey and other such honorific titles because he worked as an advisor or consul in embassies in a number of capitals. He was from an ancient city and of noble origin, heir to a house that testifies to his high rank. He was the pride of the family in his youth, a part he always played well. At his receptions there were always one or two famous personalities counted among the guests, as well as eminent family members, and young men and Traditionally, coffee was served at the receptions, first bitter coffee, then sweet coffee, followed by English tea with cakes and chocolate. The receptions were agreeable gatherings eagerly awaited by for which they wore their best clothes and their favorite perfume in the hope of finding what they were looking for a position a contact, or a means to reach both There were sometimes educated haughty young women hard to please looking for a good catch arriving with their parents and artfully and elegantly displaying their qualities drinking tea quietly without making noise, and mixing whispered Arabic and English words The graduates of the Schmidt and Talita schools spoke German but those who studied at the more reputable Zion School spoke French with an accent and broken Arabic.

  The Bey, a man used to elegant circles, greeted us in a stylish and polite manner. He was distinguished in everything, despite his ugliness, his sagging jowls, a conspicuous gold bridge, broken yellow teeth, and a pale wrinkled skin. All in all, he inspired admiration or respect, or both at first, but his conspicuous bragging and unpleasant appearance soon undercut that impression. He had a body like a sheep, all fat and no muscle.

  The Bey took us on a second tour of the library, looking at dictionaries and classical books such as the works of Avicenna, al-Ma’arri, Jean Paul Sartre, Oscar Wilde, and Ernest Hemingway. He liked Hemingway’s sense of adventure and love of traveling, his youthful life, his audacious and lustful nature—he was a man who, in the Bey’s opinion, refused to be humiliated, preferring to die with dignity rather than debase himself, a true hero.

  Futna nudged me lightly to draw my attention to the Bey’s words of wisdom, while her eyes hungrily took in his world. She drew enough optimism from his sparkling personality to invigorate her and revive her belief in a kind and gentle life filled with precious moments that would erase the painful memory of her life in Ramleh. The Bey explained that Hemingway had influenced his decision to remain single and resist the pressure of traditions. A life of love, politics, travels to Spain and Africa, enthusiasm for hunting, trips, nightlife, and caféés caused the cousin to dream of an impassioned and adventurous life. He explained how he roamed the world and the universe in search of glory and experience, yet he sincerely had found nothing more gorgeous than the city of Jerusalem and the eves of its women. The city was his first and last love and without it glory and history were meaningless. History started and ended in it, history and the secrets of the world lie in it. That’s why we fight with our cousins in order to promote and inherit the secrets. That’s the essence of our movement and theirs, two entities fighting over history and dignity and all kinds of glory and authenticity. Who will it be, they or we? Who will inherit the glory, the church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Aqsa Mosque, the Wailing Wall, and the church of the Nativity? Who will inherit Salome’s square, the place where she danced and received John the Baptist’s head on a silver tray, I wonder!

  Futna nudged me again and whispered humbly, “Do you hear what he’s saying? Now I understand.”

  I whispered to her while trying to catch every word in an effort to understand, “What do you understand?”

  She covered her mouth with her hand and said, “I tell you later, later.”

  The Bey moved on to another subject, away from nostalgia and nationalism because tackling national subjects moves and upsets him. He believes that this generation has not lived up to the accomplishments of their ancestors. How can we compare with the past, with their history, with their sovereignty? Our revolution failed because we marched behind the beggars and the vagabonds. During the days of Hajj Amin things were different, the leadership belonged to the upper classes; their origin, social rank, and appearance were a source of pride for the people. Clothes are very important, but those who are not familiar with high society, the upper class, and elegant circles are not familiar with such matters. The way food is presented is very important, and so is eating with a fork and a knife, not picking one’s teeth, or sucking bones in public.

  Everybody laughed at the joke because they were adept with a fork and knife, and had never sucked a bone or even a piece of meat without hiding behind their napkins. Someone mentioned a certain ambassador who didn’t know English and wore slippers; when he crossed his legs, his feet were in his guests’ face; he was also in the habit of rubbing the space between his toes. He addressed Hillary Clinton, Benazir Bhutto, and even Mrs. Thatcher by saying, “How are you, beautiful?”

  The Bey’s guests usually laughed at such stories, but he wasn’t amused because he found such situations embarrassing to him personally. They hurt the reputation of the Arabs. When he was overseas, in Washington, London, or Paris, he tried his best to give the Americans and the Germans the best impression of the Palestinians and to plant in their minds a new image, one totally different from reality, because reality, let it be said between us, is bitter. It’s an undeniable fact that our people are backward and underdeveloped because they marched in a revolution led by ruffians. Who are our leaders but a bunch of thugs?

  I stopped him at that moment and asked him about an article I had read in the Washington Post in which the woman writer had written, “The revolution is your revolution.” No one understood what I meant because of my broken Arabic, which was described as sukkar qalil, ‘semi sweet,’ in reference to the way Arabic coffee is drunk. I did not understand what the ‘semi-sweet’ meant, however. The Bey laughed at my comment, showing his bridge, a sight that made me pretend to have understood to put an end to his laughter, but he went on laughing and I could still see his bridge. He asked gently, with a sly politeness, “What, what did she say?”

  Someone explained, teasing me in a charming manner, “She said, “Our revolution is your revolution, or rather, their revolution?”

  The Bey said, laughing, “Wait a minute, let’s listen to her, did she say our revolution is your revolution or their revolution?”

  That same one, who was short and thin and wore tweed and glasses, replied, “Did she say our revolution in Amman or our revolution in Lebanon or our revolution anywhere?”

  Someone else commented, “Or maybe the revolution in Washington!”

  I didn’t answer, but I continued to smile for this and that one, and I looked at each one of them, then around the diwan, and at the top of the wall, and at the gazelle’s head, and the Aqsa Mosque poster hanging above the Bey’s head and that of his family. I looked at the two swords above the sofa, at the fireplace, and a mother-of-pearl maquette of the Dome of the Rock, and camels carved of olive wood. Then he asked me again: “Which revolution?” I only smiled with pronounced politeness, while staring at the poster above the Bey’s head, the two plated swords and the wooden camels.

  When Futna’s mother entered the room everybody jumped to their feet. Her son—the shop owner whose shop was financed by my father—his pregnant wife, and a young child, accompanied her. Futna rushed to her mother and cried a little, grieving for my father’s death. She was seeing her mother for the first time after the mourning reception, which Sitt Amira had missed. Ill and with brittle bones, A
mira walked slowly and carefully, and went out only in emergencies. Her visits to the diwan however, were something else. She never missed them because, according to her, they kept the family close and safeguarded traditions.

  Amira is a regular of the diwan and so is her son Abd al-Nasser. She participates actively in its gatherings and Listens to the discussions she deems very-serious and earnest. A woman of her intelligence and personality, with a degree from Zion School received in the good old days, a woman who does embroidery and crochet and plays the “Moonlight Sonata” on the piano, a woman like her wants to stay in touch with what is being said in society’s circles. Her father had joined the revolutionaries fighting against the British, then he fought with Hajj Amin in the revolution. She too contributed to their effort, knitting sweaters for the revolutionaries and giving injections, a skill she learned in her nursing lessons. She listened to Haykal’s articles read at Sawt al-Arab radio station in the 1960s. She named her son Abd al-Nasser to show her strong belief in Arab nationalism and her support for the cause of liberation.

  This explains the regular attendance of Sitt Amira at the diwan meetings regardless of the Bey’s presence or absence and despite some negative factors in her life; she had married a poor member of the family, had lived in a waqf house in Musrareh, had long been humiliated at the hands of the Shayib family, and though no one gave her the time of day when she needed help, she had maintained her dignity. She firmly believed that attending the diwan gatherings gave a person a sense of belonging and importance and an awareness of one’s origin and social consequence. Even if no one helps when one is in need, as happened to her, it’s enough to feel that despite them she is a member of the family who is a Shayib from father to son; she married a Shayib, and so did her daughters. She had wanted those marriages, including Futna’s to my father, and her son Abd al-Nasser’s wedding, to have taken place in this gathering and in this diwan. My father had considered buying the diwan once but failed.