Three Daughters: A Novel (40 page)

“Can we sit on the balcony?” asked Nadeem.

“Of course. Make yourself at home.”

“Thank you. Will you join us?”

“Call me when the camel corps comes. I want to see them move their bowels and have the British regiment step in it.”

“Come watch it now,” said Nijmeh, peering back into the dark office. “You can sit next to me.” She patted the space on a bench and squeezed to the right to make room for him. “I can hear the music. They’re coming. Quick, come out or you’ll miss it.”

“You care if I come out?” asked Slivowitz.

“I want you to.”

“Then I will.”

When he sat down, she took his arm because they were squeezed onto the bench. “Hold on to me so you don’t fall off.”

All the branches of the army paraded past them, even the women’s regiment (which made Nadeem mutter). Then came the camel corps from Transjordan. It was a colorful relief from all the display of guns and weapons. Nijmeh left her seat to get a closer look.

“You’re a lucky man, Nadeem Mishwe,” said Slivowitz. “You have a treasure beyond words. A sweet heart. A caring soul. A face of such beauty it makes me want to cry. Don’t let her see me cry. She’ll think I’m crazy and I don’t want that. I want her to want to come back.”

Nadeem nodded. Looking at Nijmeh’s straight back, he felt an old intrusive twinge that willfully invaded his mind. There were so many mixed images that could torment him—even now—if he let them. They crisscrossed in his mind, interrupting his peace at odd moments. Interrupting his sleep in the old days.

Nadia might or might not have been his child. Bits and pieces of information would trail along, one bit attaching to another and adding up to proof that certain events might have had a different origin. How many times had he counted back the days and months to try and pinpoint her conception and then felt miserable for being disloyal? The woman he wanted by his side was by his side. He had longed for her during the war as an angel must long for heaven and God had kept him alive to return to her.

He had nothing to gain by knowing. And there was everything to lose. That afternoon, staring at the back of his precious granddaughter, he met the idea without flinching and put it to rest once and for all. He was, as Slivowitz said, a lucky man. He wouldn’t change a thing about his life. He had read somewhere that we are all—even those who would deny it—blindly adoring of our own lives exactly as they are. He knew this was true for him.

If Nijmeh had been a boy, Samir would have sent her to the
École des Frères
to be toughened up. But for his daughter Samir wanted no outside influence and hired Mr. Setapani from the School for Oriental Research to tutor her in French, mathematics, philosophy, literature, and history. They worked outside his office, where he could keep an eye on them. When lessons were over, her outdoor education began.

At eight she learned to shoot. The man hired to instruct her had mixed feelings. He considered it bizarre for a girl—who should have been playing with dolls and jumping rope—to spend so many hours with her still-dimpled knuckles curled around a six-pound gun that could, with no trouble, blow a man’s brains to kingdom come.

When she was nine, Samir decided she must learn to use a knife. They isolated a small lamb who, sensing separation from its mother, rooted itself to the ground. Muffi finally carried it to the back of the house and Samir showed Nijmeh how to hold it. One hand went between the front legs, the other, with the knife in position, arched the neck. “You have one opportunity. One,” said Samir. “It must be deep. It must be quick and clean.” She had practiced repeatedly on an old stuffed sack, but now her legs trembled dangerously.

The first stroke wasn’t deep enough and the animal danced around bleeding until Muffi finished it off. She was going to ask not to do it again but her father’s eyes were determined. With the second victim, her stroke was swifter and deeper but too arched and ragged. She had to do it once more to get it right.

Afterward, Samir walked away without a word and dinner that night held no conversation.

During those years, Nadia and Samir had two lives. One was centered on their precious child, but there was a core where Nijmeh was excluded and all that existed was their mutual dependence. Over the years, Samir fell in love with Nadia anew. He had never known another face that so clearly revealed its understructure. It represented very nearly what she was—thoroughly open. Her honesty was part and parcel of her sensuality. It was the reason she opened herself to him without setting limits to her sexuality. She didn’t know how to hide behind coyness and this was the quality that had always aroused him with staggering intensity. When he wanted her and she was wearing that expression of utmost earnestness, unaware of his thoughts, his heart swelled with something close to adoration. Here was the nourishing center of his life. The one true thing that mattered. His wife.

Delal had a different upbringing from Nijmeh. At three she was enrolled in the progressive Montessori School. By five she spoke passable French and could plunk out “
Sur le pont d’Avignon
” on the piano. She could read and print simple words in legible block letters and sat with Peter many nights deciphering the important stories in the newspaper. At seven she began tap-dancing lessons and transferred to the small but prestigious
L’École Francaise
.

She had distaste for the outdoors and was bored by the business pursuits her mother would inherit. While Nijmeh was visiting Bedouin tents of her father’s business partners, Delal was visiting Beirut with Peter and buying faddish clothes brought in by the French. She was the first girl in Jerusalem to own a pair of American dungarees (which even she hadn’t the nerve to wear outdoors).

Nijmeh knew the lineage of every horse on the farm. Delal knew the words to every song on the
Hit Parade
, an American program she received over the Armed Forces Radio. Her favorite song was “Hubba, Hubba, Hubba, Hello Jack,” sung by Perry Como. She had no clue to its meaning, only that that it was modern! The swingy tune and antic words made her feel as if she had her fingers on the pulse of the world.

“Julia!” Samir rose from his desk and came around to kiss his sister’s cheek. “What a surprise. You haven’t been here since we redecorated.”

“No.” She wasn’t interested in looking around. She had a mission. “I wanted to see you alone and this seemed the best way.”

“What’s wrong? Is Peter all right?”

“Peter’s fine. Delal is fine. I’m fine. I came to talk about something that’s none of my business but in my heart . . .” She massaged her upper chest. “Someone should speak to you about Nijmeh.”

“What about Nijmeh?” He looked surprised. “She’s here, no? Outside. There’s nothing wrong with Nijmeh,” he said emphatically and Julia shifted her weight and looked for a place to sit down.

“There’s nothing wrong with Nijmeh yet but Samir—how can I say this without making you angry? You’re not allowing her to be a child. Oh! I’ve put it badly.” She pushed herself to the edge of the chair. “That sounds awful, because I know you love her, but she can’t shoot and ride and slaughter animals and go around in braids and long dresses all her life. Who is going to befriend her? She should be surrounded by girls her age. She should be allowed to dress up and go to dancing parties. I love and respect you. You’re my ideal of what a brother should be, but it needs to be said. Even if it just makes you stop and think. I know why you’re doing it. Baba sent you to the Bedouins to be made self-reliant, but you were a twelve-year-old boy. And strong. Nijmeh isn’t even ten—a girl.” She was rushing to get through it.

“Calm down.” He took her hand. “I’m not going to hit you. You think I’m too restrictive with Nijmeh, is that it?”

She nodded. He let go of her hand and went to stand by the window. “Julia, for the first time in my life I’m fearful.”

She inhaled deeply, undone by this revelation. “Of what?”

“That I have no control of my life. That because of some devilish caprice one morning I’ll wake up and there’ll be no family left at all. Baba’s dead. We have no brothers.” He ran his hand through his hair. “For the first time, I’m furious with my mother for not having had more children. She was unforgivably selfish. It wouldn’t have meant that much to her and it would have made such a difference if we had a brother.” He turned around.

“But Samir, you can’t put that burden on your daughter’s shoulders. She can’t single-handedly carry our entire family into the future.”

“I want her to feel deeply rooted. I want her to feel that her roots are above everything else.”

“Perhaps they shouldn’t be. Perhaps her happiness should be first.”

“If I do the job right, her loyalty and her love of her culture will be her happiness.”

Julia sighed. “I haven’t helped at all.”

“You have. I’ve been thinking of putting Nijmeh in a boarding school during the week. I think it would be safer with all the bombings and sniping going on. Did you know Joseph Lam was injured coming through the Damascus Gate? I’ve thought of
L’École Française
. It’s a small school and well supervised. The girls wear a simple jumper uniform, so she’ll look like everyone else.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Julia laughed. “Have you told Nadia? Oh, Samir. She’ll be so happy in school with all the other girls her own age. Delal will look out for her. Ooh, wait until I tell Delal.”

The worst day of my life,
wrote Delal in her diary,
was the day Nijmeh came to my school. It’ll be all right though, because I can take care of her. She’s dumb in many ways. I gave her my test just to see if there was any hope for her. There isn’t. I asked her, “If you had a cracked glass and a good glass and a guest came, which one would you drink from?” She immediately said, “The cracked one.” She’s one of those idiotically “good” people who are either murderously boring or murderously dumb. There’s no hope for her, which suits me fine. She’ll never understand that she has to pay attention to what’s going on. Ha, ha, ha.

When Nijmeh’s mother came into her room on Saturday mornings, it was for one reason. “Would you like to go with me to the farm this morning? You could have a riding lesson and we could help Farid with the horses.”

“All right.”

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“Yes, I do.”

Nijmeh would rather have done ten difficult things than ride those horses. Her mother expected her to love it and to say she didn’t would have crushed that look of expectation.

She had been given a complete riding outfit—boots, breeches, coat, vest, shirt, and hat—and felt ridiculous in it. As quickly and efficiently as she learned from her father, that was how clumsy she was at learning to ride from Nadia.

On Saturdays her mother appeared at the side of her bed already dressed in jodhpurs and a linen shirt. In the fall and winter, she wore a thick black sweater over the shirt and her pale face stood out like a cameo against the black. Her long hair was loose and plentiful, overflowing her shoulders like a cloud of sunlit copper. Her mother was perfect.

She spoke in a low, husky voice that Nijmeh tried to match but couldn’t. It wasn’t as low and silvery as Teta’s voice, which she also loved, but it was the voice she would have wished to have. That voice made any word, any name—it made
Nijmeh
—sound extraordinary.