was the first downpour. He breathed the rising scent of the wet dirt with pleasure as he approached George Saba’s house. He climbed the stairs and saw that the disrespectful gunman still watched him from the curb by his car. He knocked on the door. There were black blast marks around the jamb and the wood was splintered.
George’s wife Sofia leaned out of a window. “Hello, Abu Ramiz, good morning. Can you go to the door at the side of the house? This one is broken and can’t be used. I’m sorry. The police blew it open when they came for George.”
Omar Yussef waved and took the steps down to the basement. He noted that Sofia’s head was bandaged, though she disguised it with the kind of headscarf women sometimes tie behind their ears to do housework.
Habib Saba embraced him in the doorway. His eyes were red from two days of tears, and they filled again when he saw Omar Yussef. He excused himself and guided the schoolteacher inside. “Forgive my emotion, Abu Ramiz, but you are the first Muslim who has been to see us since this trouble.”
“That’s a terrible shame, Abu George.”
Omar Yussef followed Habib Saba up the stairs to the salon. The room was lit by a single bulb. Sandbags covered the broken windows. It was drafty and cold, and the rain brought out a strangely rank smell of the sea from the dampened sacks of dirt. There were two racks of wedding dresses. Omar Yussef could barely see in the gloomy room. He could just make out that some of the dresses were partially burned. Their thin plastic packing was torn and the hems were smeared with the milky brown of extinguished flames.
Habib Saba noticed that Omar Yussef squinted in the darkness. “George had some nice, old lamps in here, but the policemen took them.” He smiled. From a teak dresser, splintered by a half-dozen bullet holes, Habib Saba lifted a statuette of a nude woman reclining in a contorted position. “I thought they had taken her, too. But I found her in the corner behind the sofa. I think someone must have thrown her at the wall. She was a little scratched, but she seems to have come through all right. I shined her up, because there was ash or some kind of burned material attached to her. Do you like her?”
Omar Yussef took the statuette in his hands. The model’s hair swirled beneath her head, her neck stretched painfully, and her left hip jutted unnaturally, as though it would pierce the skin. “It’s a Rodin?”
Habib Saba nodded. “Well, a copy, of course.”
“That French fellow always made this young woman pose in positions of such extreme discomfort. I think she must have felt the pose reflected some terrible pain within herself, or she would never have been able to let herself be used like this,” Omar Yussef said. Though the metal of the statuette had already survived being cast onto the floor by one of the policemen, he was nervous holding it. It was the feeling he experienced when cradling a small child, fearful that he might expose its delicacy to damage.
“The model ended her life confined to an insane asylum, so I imagine you’re right about the pain, Abu Ramiz,” Habib Saba said. “The piece is called
Omar Yussef gently replaced the statuette on the dresser. “There really seems to be no way to escape that word, does there?” He laughed with the clipped sound of a man clearing his throat.
Sofia brought a plate of cookies and coffee. “I made the coffee
“God bless your hands,” Omar Yussef said. “May there always be coffee in your home.” He put his hand gently to her head, pushing the headscarf back so that he could see in detail the purple and green of a bruise that spread from beneath her bandage. He touched her arm lightly. Sofia gave a pained smile and left the room.
“Consider yourself with your family and in your home,” Habib Saba said. He tried to make the traditional formula sound contented, but Omar Yussef saw that the old man scratched the back of his hand nervously.
Omar Yussef drank some coffee. The sofa where they sat was tight against the wall. Omar Yussef gestured to the stone behind him. A half-mile beyond it were the Israeli guns. “I hope this is thick stone, in case the shooting starts.”
Habib Saba laughed. “We will protect you from all danger, so long as you remain on our couch, drinking our coffee and giving us the pleasure of your company.”
George’s children came nervously to the doorway. Habib called them over and they greeted Omar Yussef. They were usually warm children, but today their greetings were perfunctory and shy, as though their marrow had been removed and their hearts deadened. Omar Yussef put his hand on the head of the boy, Dahoud, who was seven. George Saba was about as young when Omar Yussef first knew him. He could see George in the boy’s face now. He had always perceived a great nobility in George’s high forehead and his blue eyes, and he recognized the identical elements in the boy’s makeup. “Where do you go to school?” he asked.
“The Freres School,” the boy mumbled.
“Just like your father. I used to be his teacher there, you know. He was very clever. I expect you are clever, and so is your sister, just like your Daddy.”
Habib asked the boy to bring his cigarettes. The girl retreated toward the kitchen. “She won’t leave her mother’s side for more than a moment,” Habib Saba said, quietly. The boy gave him his Dunhills and followed his sister out of the room. Habib watched the space where the boy had stood, as though he thought that by concentration he could fill it with the presence of his own son.
“When George wanted to leave for Chile all those years ago, I tried to change his mind. Do you remember, Abu Ramiz?” Habib Saba lit a cigarette and inhaled sharply. “I was so selfish. I wanted my son to be here, with me. I didn’t care even that his prospects were obviously quite limited here. I just wanted him close. But you convinced me to let him have his own life, his freedom. Abu Ramiz, you were right then. But I kept telling him that he should come back. I never let him rest in Chile. To my shame, I used to write to him about my loneliness after his dear mother died. I was quite aware that he would not be able to stand the guilt. So in the end he gave in to me, and now look at the result. He’ll be punished for this thing, this crime that he could never truly have committed. He’s a Christian, an outsider. Even the other Christians will be frightened to stand up for him. He is alone, as all Christians are when they come up against authority in our town. It’s my fault for wanting what a traditional father would have wanted, to have his son near him. You are much more modern than I, Abu Ramiz.”
“It’s not wrong to love your son and to want to enjoy his presence,” Omar Yussef said.
“Now I won’t have his presence and perhaps I won’t have a son, either.”
“One day of George is better than a lifetime with a more ordinary son.”
“But each day without him is a lifetime.”
