The Dark Side of Love (74 page)

It was unbearably hot. Farid had slept badly that night and didn't want anything to eat at lunch-time. Claire went back to the bedroom for her siesta. He lay down too, but he couldn't sleep.

He picked up the weekly magazine that his parents always read: revelations of Stalin's crimes in Russia … Archbishop Makarios, leader of the independence movement in Cyprus, arrested for arms smuggling and deported to the Seychelles … world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano retires unbeaten … American actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco … Italian actress Sophia Loren praised for her role in the film
Woman of the River
. Farid was startled by the Italian star's resemblance to Laila.

“Laila,” he whispered. He badly wanted to see her, but he had to wait for Claire to wake up before he could find out his cousin's new address. The siesta hour had never seemed as long as it did today. When the turtledoves began cooing again, he breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the time. It was just after three.

Two hours later he was in the bus. Just before the eastern gate, he suddenly saw Matta pulling his heavily laden handcart along. It was a large one with two heavy wheels, and a leather strap at the front that Matta had put over his shoulder. Packages, sacks, canisters and several pots and pans were fastened to its large load area with cords.

The bus driver was thoughtful enough to slow down until the street widened and there was room for Matta to let the bus go by. He waved cheerfully to the driver and stopped for a moment's rest.

When Farid knocked on Laila's door, she opened it and froze in amazement. “Farid,” she whispered. “Wherever have you come from?” She was wearing a sleeveless beige house-dress, and a red dress on
which she was probably working at the moment was flung over her arm. Her face was prettier than Sophia Loren's, and her slender figure surprised Farid. He remembered her as larger.

“Come in,” said Laila, hugging him. “My God, how you've grown! I'll soon need a ladder to kiss you.” She closed the door and stood still for a moment in the shady entrance, watching Farid, who had gone ahead and was now waiting for her in the inner courtyard of the little house.

The house was in a side street behind the Al-Amir cinema. The dressmaker's workshop was on the first floor, and two other women were at work there, one making a long dress, the other ironing a white blouse.

“I have just too many orders at the moment,” groaned Laila, taking Farid into a small reception area and from there into the tiny dining room cum kitchen.

Her husband's spacious, well-lit music room was on the second floor. Several violins stood in a glass-fronted cupboard, and old stringed instruments from every continent in the world hung on the walls, making the place look like a museum. Otherwise the room was empty.

From the music room you could see across the courtyard and into the bedroom, which was in total chaos. The large room, with a window looking out on the main road, contained a broad bed, a couch, and a massive wardrobe. The bed was unmade, and dirty laundry lay about everywhere. No one had cleaned the big bathroom for ages. On the third floor there was a guest room with a bathroom, a lumber room, and a picturesque terrace with a table and chairs and a jasmine trained to grow over it.

Farid was surprised to find that the question of why Laila had never told him about her wedding suddenly seemed entirely unimportant. He felt oddly happy just to be near her, and that happiness had wiped all the resentment away from his heart, like a sponge.

“Tell me about those birds of ill omen at the monastery. You can say anything here without being censored!” she said.

He described his life in the monastery at length, she kept asking for details, and he never even noticed her employees leaving, or dusk falling outside. Laila filled his world with curiosity and laughter.

“Ah, so who do we have here? Let me guess. You must be my wife's beloved Farid.” It was Simon, Laila's husband. Farid hadn't heard anyone coming.

“Goodness, how did you get in?” asked Laila, herself surprised.

“Like most people,” said Simon, smiling. He put his violin down on a corner table and went towards Farid. “Through the front door.” He offered his hand.

“I imagined you much more handsome, from your cousin's paeans of praise,” he said, looking Farid up and down critically. “The nose could be a little smaller, the mouth and eyes a little larger. And more flesh on your bones wouldn't be a bad idea,” he added.

“My husband,” Laila interrupted, turning to Farid to console him, “ought to have been a butcher. He likes fat meat, but don't let him bother you, you're the most handsome man in all Damascus.”

“So what do you know about handsome men?” asked Simon. Farid felt that the man had something cold about him, and shook the proffered hand rather more heartily than he really wished to.

“And for you Laila drops everything, even her work and my supper, am I right?”

“I'd do anything for Farid, but there's plenty of food in the fridge.”

Soon the three of them were eating and talking together. Simon didn't like monasteries or the Church. He had spent three years in a boarding school as a child, and called it a madhouse.

After supper he changed, took his violin, and left the house to play in a concert.

“What's he like to you?” asked Farid.

“Delightful,” said Laila. “Once you're used to his sarcasm he's wonderful.”

Farid felt distrustful of Simon, although he didn't know why. When he left, Laila barred his way. “Well? Are you going without a hug? Without a goodbye kiss, my lord Cardinal?”

“By no means, my lady Abbess,” he replied, grinning. “If my father heard us, he'd disinherit me.” And he kissed Laila on the cheek.

Laila took his face in her hands, closed her eyes, and gave him a long kiss on the lips. “That's what I call kissing, my lord Cardinal.”

Those were happy months for Farid just after his return. He didn't have to go to school again until autumn, after the three-month summer vacation, and then he could go straight into the ninth grade. His reports were excellent, and the elite school in Saitun Alley attended by all his friends was happy to take its former student back. His father was on the finance committee of the Catholic Church, which made decisions on the fate of the school.

Oddly enough, Farid didn't find it difficult to get used to his father's indifference to him. Elias never asked about him or his plans. There was nothing between them any more apart from civil greetings. Claire was upset, but Farid pacified her. “There are advantages, because now he's leaving me alone I do feel something like respect for him and his achievements. He's useless as a father, but a fine man in many other ways.”

Claire laughed with relief. “I've known that for a long time. That's why I love him.”

One day, Farid was lying on a shabby old couch in what he called the loft, reading old French magazines that his mother had kept. The loft had been his favourite room for as long as he could remember. It was light and airy, with large glazed windows, and occupied the whole east side of the house. The kitchen and pantry were directly below it.

Everything his parents had ever decided to put away was stored there, and he could sit for hours on end reading, rummaging about, rediscovering old metal and wooden toys, putting them together again. There was always a piece missing, but it all had a charm that appealed to him.

So he was lying on the couch with its worn cover, reading an account of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain in a French magazine from the forties. He felt tired. Josef had been telling him about his plans last night, and they sat up until two in the morning.

Farid fell asleep. The last thing he heard was his mother at work in the kitchen below him. She was making a large tabbouleh salad, because she expected her women friends to come visiting that afternoon. Farid intended to go to the cinema while they were there. The performance began at three.

When he woke up the heat had died down, but he still didn't feel like getting up, and he couldn't go to the cinema now anyway, since it was already quarter past three. He lay there and thought of those three days with Rana. Suddenly he heard Madeleine greeting his mother as she sat down on one of the chairs arranged around the fountain. The courtyard was shady now, and Claire had sprayed all the flowers and the ground with water.

Farid stayed where he was, and smiled when he heard her telling Madeleine that she had prepared everything and then even had an hour's siesta. Farid had gone to the cinema, she added, without saying goodbye. He probably hadn't wanted to disturb her.

Next to arrive was the midwife Nadime, whom his mother welcomed particularly warmly, followed by several other women. Farid couldn't identify them by their voices, but he was sure that Suleiman's mother, Salma, was among them, and Antoinette's mother, Hanan, too.

Claire offered lemonade chilled with ice, and after a while Madeleine said, “Let's hear what those fine fingers of yours can do with the strings.” The others backed her up.

“Very well, I'll play, but you must all sing,” replied the woman addressed, and there was silence. The music she conjured from her lute delighted Farid. She sang an old love song, and the other women softly joined in the refrain. It was a conversation between a man and his lover, who bravely seeks him out at night because she longs for him. Unusual poem, thought Farid, who was more familiar with the reverse situation, when men hung around outside their lovers' houses by night.

The women went on singing for a while, then the tabbouleh was brought in, and Claire served diluted, ice-cold arrack with it. “But don't drink too much, or your husbands will blame me,” she said.

“That's not my problem,” said the midwife Nadime, who was a widow.

“None for me, thank you,” cried another woman. “This is Wednesday, and if my dear husband wants to suck my breasts he'll get tipsy.”

The women ate tabbouleh, drank arrack, and laughed more and more often. Farid couldn't follow the thread of the conversation any more. It was all just laughter and confused scraps of sentences.

How long it went on he couldn't say, but at last he heard his mother clear away the tabbouleh dish, stack the empty plates, and carry them into the kitchen. She was gone for only a short time, for she had prepared large bowls of roasted, salted pistachios, peanuts, melon and pumpkin seeds well in advance. There was silence again. All Farid heard was the faint cracking of nuts.

“My turn now,” Farid heard one of the women say, and the others agreed. For a brief moment he thought a man had joined the party, but then he realized that the woman was imitating her husband's voice. The others applauded, and then Madeleine took her turn, and so did the others, all of them mocking their husbands' comical behaviour. His own mother wasn't at all bad at imitating one of Elias's furious outbursts.

After this role-play, Claire brought in coffee with cardamom. The fragrance rose to the sky. Her guests sipped with relish, and whispered together. For a while they were all talking at once. Suddenly Farid heard Madeleine's voice. “Yes, I do love hands. Rimon's hands were once so soft. His fingers were as long as a pianist's and smooth as marble. They had strength and elegance in them, tenderness and power. Now they've suffered from working with stone all these years. They're so callused that I hate to look at them, let alone feel them on my skin. No heartfelt feeling comes through those horny hands, no warmth, nothing. And oddly enough the only person I think of when I feel his hands is my father, which takes all my desire away. So I ask him not to touch me during our love play. He's good and sticks to that rule, and if he forgets, well, he gets nothing from me for two weeks.”

“And he puts up with it?” asked Claire. Madeleine's answer was lost in the general laughter. Confused voices followed. They were talking about cunning tricks, but Farid couldn't make much of the fragmentary conversation he heard. He went on reading his magazine, and the women seemed far away. At last he heard the midwife Nadime
exclaim, in mock horror, that it was nearly six already, and the party broke up.

“Come with me,” Madeleine asked his mother. “There's something I want to show you.”

Soon after that the women left the house. Claire went with her friend, and of course she didn't come home at once, since she had to have a coffee first.

When she did return it was just after six-thirty. Farid was sitting by the fountain, cracking a few leftover pistachios.

“Oh, you're back,” said Claire, beaming. He nodded. “How was the movie?”