of school.
Our new home was high up. To get to it we climbed a staircase with a black wrought-iron railing woven into a pattern that looked like children holding hands. Inside was a huge apartment, so wide that anyone would have thought it was a separate house. The walls stretched up very high too, and in the middle, at the very top, there were some nice decorated-glass skylights, which added to the light flooding through the many windows. Entering by the big wooden front door, we came into a large room called the lounge; to the right was my brother-in-law’s room, which had a window overlooking the neighbouring garden. There were two other rooms, one bedroom shared by my nephews and Kamil, and another for Ibrahim’s family. Between these bedrooms there was a corner where Mother and I slept; I thought of this space as my own house and often played there on the big mattress we spread out on the floor at night. Other visitors toBeirut from the south – relatives and friends – would share our corner with us. For by this time our house had become a staging post for anyone on a trip to the city.
My favourite spot was the roof. When we went up the stairs into the open air it was as though we were in a lofty garden overlooking the other buildings. From up there we could see the fountain in a garden below, and a few trees scattered about, especially the luxuriant azedarach.
The move and our new good fortune only made Mother more depressed. She lamented the fact that Manifa, who had supported her husband so loyally, and worked so hard in the early days of their marriage, wasn’t there to enjoy life now. Abu-Hussein’s name was on the tip of every tongue from the south, whether they were settled in Beirut or only visiting. All spoke of his probity and hard work; they were so proud of this orphan boy who had risen to owning a business in Souq Sursouq 9 itself. Abu-Hussein’s father abandoned his mother when he was just three years old. His stepmother tormented him and pulled his ears, and so he would run away and walk for hours to see his mother, who had remarried and moved to another village. When he was six, his father died. He had lost contact with his mother by then, and so a relative took him to the house of the most learned Shiite Muslim scholar in Nabatiyeh.
The sheikh taught him the Quran and how to be a devout Muslim and in return Abu-Hussein looked after his horse. When he was twelve he decided to leave the sheikh and the south and try his luck in Beirut. He began as an errand boy to a Beiruti family, and then became a peddler and finally a merchant.
In our new home, Mother grew sadder, but I was seldom unhappy. The windows were always wide open and songsand music from neighbourhood radios worked their way inside. I used to hum the tunes and sing along with them. I was beginning to understand them now, and their language was the language of books, unlike the crude words of the songs I’d learned from women and men in the fields of the south.
It’s not Mother or Father I need,
What I really desire is my olive-skinned lover.
8 The Day of Ashura is on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar. It is commemorated by the Shia as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Imam al-Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 AH (10 October 680 CE). During the battle, fought over the succession of the caliphate, al-Hussein fought with seventy-two men against a thousand.
9 A famous bazaar in downtown Beirut. Sursouq is named after a family that owned a number of nineteenth-century mansions.
‘You Are Hereby My Witness’
I WAS UP ON the roof one day when Mother and Khadija called to me to come. They told me I must go into the boys’ bedroom and say the words, ‘You are hereby my witness.’ Then I could go back to playing.
Khadija gave me a white headscarf to wear. I went into the room and found myself facing a group of men in red fezzes and another man in
Our new home was high up. To get to it we climbed a staircase with a black wrought-iron railing woven into a pattern that looked like children holding hands. Inside was a huge apartment, so wide that anyone would have thought it was a separate house. The walls stretched up very high too, and in the middle, at the very top, there were some nice decorated-glass skylights, which added to the light flooding through the many windows. Entering by the big wooden front door, we came into a large room called the lounge; to the right was my brother-in-law’s room, which had a window overlooking the neighbouring garden. There were two other rooms, one bedroom shared by my nephews and Kamil, and another for Ibrahim’s family. Between these bedrooms there was a corner where Mother and I slept; I thought of this space as my own house and often played there on the big mattress we spread out on the floor at night. Other visitors toBeirut from the south – relatives and friends – would share our corner with us. For by this time our house had become a staging post for anyone on a trip to the city.
My favourite spot was the roof. When we went up the stairs into the open air it was as though we were in a lofty garden overlooking the other buildings. From up there we could see the fountain in a garden below, and a few trees scattered about, especially the luxuriant azedarach.
The move and our new good fortune only made Mother more depressed. She lamented the fact that Manifa, who had supported her husband so loyally, and worked so hard in the early days of their marriage, wasn’t there to enjoy life now. Abu-Hussein’s name was on the tip of every tongue from the south, whether they were settled in Beirut or only visiting. All spoke of his probity and hard work; they were so proud of this orphan boy who had risen to owning a business in Souq Sursouq 9 itself. Abu-Hussein’s father abandoned his mother when he was just three years old. His stepmother tormented him and pulled his ears, and so he would run away and walk for hours to see his mother, who had remarried and moved to another village. When he was six, his father died. He had lost contact with his mother by then, and so a relative took him to the house of the most learned Shiite Muslim scholar in Nabatiyeh.
The sheikh taught him the Quran and how to be a devout Muslim and in return Abu-Hussein looked after his horse. When he was twelve he decided to leave the sheikh and the south and try his luck in Beirut. He began as an errand boy to a Beiruti family, and then became a peddler and finally a merchant.
In our new home, Mother grew sadder, but I was seldom unhappy. The windows were always wide open and songsand music from neighbourhood radios worked their way inside. I used to hum the tunes and sing along with them. I was beginning to understand them now, and their language was the language of books, unlike the crude words of the songs I’d learned from women and men in the fields of the south.
It’s not Mother or Father I need,
What I really desire is my olive-skinned lover.
8 The Day of Ashura is on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar. It is commemorated by the Shia as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Imam al-Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 AH (10 October 680 CE). During the battle, fought over the succession of the caliphate, al-Hussein fought with seventy-two men against a thousand.
9 A famous bazaar in downtown Beirut. Sursouq is named after a family that owned a number of nineteenth-century mansions.
‘You Are Hereby My Witness’
I WAS UP ON the roof one day when Mother and Khadija called to me to come. They told me I must go into the boys’ bedroom and say the words, ‘You are hereby my witness.’ Then I could go back to playing.
Khadija gave me a white headscarf to wear. I went into the room and found myself facing a group of men in red fezzes and another man in
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