I lose my temper and yell at her, “What is there to tell? Where does our story begin and how does it end? Should I make up an ending? Should I kill you all? Or give each of you a great love story, or a failing one? Or maybe you want the story to end with us all skipping happily on the shore, feeling love for our third world country with innocent happiness twinkling in our eyes? Is that what you want to read?”
She comes back stronger than ever, “That’s what you want. Think a little before you talk! What do you want out of this story? For it to heal you and us all of our illnesses and pain and boredom? Aren’t you curious about how our story will end? Maybe I’ll get Alzheimer’s, and you’ll get cured of cancer, and Zeezee will emigrate, and Shwikar will get married and have seventeen children. Do you like this ending? Or do you want a more theatrical one? How about we all become prostitutes and sell our bodies for money and become rich, but we’re all secretly in pain because we can’t find true love? Fun story? Suspenseful enough for you? Or not? Maybe we each go on living our own lives, just as they are, and nothing exciting happens. What if nothing happens, would that bother you? Isn’t it enough that we stay as we are, age in this experiment we’re living and eventually die, each in her own way? Why does Lebanon have to slap you, and your name have to be David Charles Samhoun, and the phoenix have to be reborn, and Hayat have to kill herself because she’s sick of life? What do you want? Maybe you’re just not cut out for writing a novel.”
I answer with equal severity and determination, especially after hearing that last comment, “Yeah, maybe I’m not cut out for . . .”
“You know what? That’s a cowardly response. Please, think before you speak because this story has turned you into a limited person. You’ve become very limited. You claim to have ideas, but you don’t produce them. Think. You have a brain, so use it a little. We all consider each other special kinds of friends, and not friends by chance. You must feel the same. Where did you get all this stupidity from? Huh?”
I’ll reply calmly this time; I do like her reprimanding me: “I try to write this damn story every day and get tired of it, so I try to come up with something, and dig deep because I worry about coming off shallow, so I dive and dive but don’t go deeper than three inches. And I know that this isn’t enough to write a novel. I don’t know. But I’ve really gone stupid. Since I’ve gotten the urge to write, I’ve started seeing everything in unpublishable pieces. I find my life shallow and in need of symbolism to make it deep and more meaningful. Find more meaning . . . blah, butter.”
She says, calmly and jokingly: “Butter will make you fat. I think you need a vacation, to go away somewhere.”
“Where to?”
“Paris.”
I laugh.
She laughs.
The French embassy had refused to give us both the French visa before. Why? Because my bank account did not have the required six thousand euros in it for more than three months, and because her bank account looks a lot like mine, almost twins.
She asks me teasingly: “Samantha Fox?”
“Yeah! Do you remember our friend, Manchette? She used to go to our school. She’s a journalist now. Do you remember how, whenever someone asked her name, she would answer ‘Samantha Fox’? I got it from her.”
She laughs and asks, maliciously this time: “Faten Hamama?”
“Well, I thought about going with Hind Rostom instead, or Nadia Lutfi, or Shadia, of course. You know that I don’t like most of the damsel-in-distress characters that Faten Hamama played, but I chose her name because it sounds funny when saying it to a man beating me to a pulp. Hamama, ha ha.”
“And David Charles Samhoun?”
“My friend from the library and her brother bring him up in conversation all the time. And every time they say his name I imagine Raafat al-Haggan’s theme song playing in the background. Taraaa, tara ta tara tat a tararaaa. Remember it?”
“Serena Aharoni!”
“Ha ha.”
“And Umm Kulthum?”
“I wanted any excuse to mention her. I just love her so much! The night I wrote that scene, I was smoking a cigarette in front of the television while listening to her sing ‘You Confused My Heart.’ So I got inspired all of a sudden and started writing about her, describing my feelings toward her and my opinions. Owf! But, as Balqis says, ‘The work you do at night is a joke in the morning.’ I laughed so hard when I read what I wrote the next morning.”
“Let me read what you wrote about her. I’ll be gentle in my criticism, not because I’m being nice to you, but because she’s my one true love.”
“Sure! Here. They’re scattered ideas. I was thinking that I would piece them together in the morning. You’re not allowed to poke fun at the ‘depth’ and the ‘obvious symbolism’ in my writing this time. And I would thank you to take notice that everybody loves Umm Kulthum, but some people find gentle meaning in their love for her. I mean that . . .”
“Are you a Sunni and silence a Shiite? You the worm and it the chicken? What’s the secret behind your love for talk and noise and . . .”
“Fine, I’ll keep quiet!”
She reads:
Stoners loved Umm Kulthum. Stoners still love Umm Kulthum.
That was the opening line.
Zumurrud reads it intently then bursts out laughing.
I try to look insulted, but I can’t. I do, however, burst out laughing too. I’m very happy she’s read what I wrote about Umm Kulthum.
I feel relieved.
I like the idea of taking a vacation. I like the
