“—so instead of false shocked sympathy, maybe you could help out, all of you, instead of tramping around at night and drinking and smoking weed and—”
As she speaks, something happens to the four children, a hardening, their faces bricking over. Atef can see it coming. “Enough,” he implores.
Too late. Manar hisses: “Oh, as if you even love Teta in the first place.”
For a moment, there is a sensation of suspension. Free fall.
“Manar, habibti,” Riham begins.
“No, no, let her talk. She hates me.”
“I don’t hate you—what are you, five?”
“She doesn’t mean—”
“Zain, stay out of it.”
The voices rise. The children sit up and suddenly they are divided. Alliances between the children—what children?—and the adults. Atef realizes he has been lumped together with the adults and wants to argue the injustice of that. Budur takes a step forward, distraught.
“Everyone’s upset,” she calls over the bickering. “And saying unnecessary things. Unkind things. We just need to—”
“This has nothing to do with you,” Linah says acidly to her mother. “Why are you always involving yourself in everything?”
“This isn’t helping anyone,” Budur says.
A low, sarcastic snort. “Oh, give me a fucking break.”
“Linah!” Karam yells.
“What?” Linah hurls back.
“We’re sitting here,” Manar says, “worried about Teta, trying to distract ourselves, then you guys come home and start screaming hysterically about chicken.”
“Like they’re going to understand,” Linah tells her.
“Wasted breath.”
“Goddamn it, Linah,” Karam begins, but there is no time, because the others are already speaking, louder, louder, their voices a cacophony.
“You guys are always making a big deal out of nothing! This is just like last summer.”
“Leave her alone!”
These are mine, Atef thinks. These children.
“Kis ikhtkom,” Souad hisses in Arabic. “You barbarians.”
“Oh God, here we go.”
Atef feels the sound gathering before he makes it, a squall between his ribs.
“Enough!” he roars.
Everyone falls silent, staring at him—gentle Jiddo who rarely speaks, quiet with his peppermint candies, who sits in armchairs and watches television—with newfound amazement.
He finds Souad and Karam sitting on the veranda, swaying back and forth on the swing. The sky has darkened and stars are visible. They look chastised, a duo of misbehaving children. He thinks of what Linah said, all the things he doesn’t know of their lives.
“Baba,” Souad begins. “That was . . .” Her voice trails off. Finally, she pats the swing next to her. “Sit.”
There is a pack of cigarettes on her lap and she taps one out; Karam takes another.
“Don’t smoke,” she tells him, exhaling a milky stream.
“Okay,” Karam says, touching the cigarette tip to a flame.
“Insubordinate.” Souad turns to Atef. “I tried.”
Atef stretches his legs out, his left loafer falling onto the floor. He inhales greedily, wants one himself, but it always hurts his throat.
“Look at that,” Souad says. Atef thinks she is referring to the smoke, but when he turns to her, she is gazing at the sky, the yellowish stars.
“Which one’s the North Star?” he asks. “I can never tell.”
“You find the Dipper.” Holding the cigarette steady between her teeth, Souad extends her arm. “And then you trace the line. Follow the pointer stars. There.” Atef follows his daughter’s finger and suddenly he sees it, bright, higher in the sky than the others.
Atef lets himself picture the courtyard of the nearby mosque, the rustle of olive trees, the blank stone of the graves. Death in rows. His son once told him about a cemetery plot in Boston where seven, eight generations of a family were buried. Karam marveled at the concept, full centuries of family buried in the same dirt. Here, there was only Salma and Widad, the aunts that moved here from Nablus. No one knows where Mustafa was buried. Atef, when his time comes, will be buried here as well. What about his children, he thinks, would they be buried in America? Beirut? What about the grandchildren? The thought of their death startles him and he twists his mouth, admonishes himself with a silent God forbid.
His daughter’s laughter is the balloon string tugging him earthward. It pulls him back into himself. He and Karam turn to her, curious.
“Remember that black dress? That time at Khalto Widad’s house for dinner? How she stood up to leave and when we asked her why, she said—”
“‘I hate this collar,’” Karam supplies. “‘A hundred dinars to itch like hell.’”
The bubble of laughter between them grows into a hysterical giggle. Souad is the first to pop it, her gasp of laughter suddenly turning into a sob. Atef feels the weight of his daughter droop against him. She puts an arm around his shoulder, tucks her chin on it. He remembers her monkeyish limbs as a child, the way she would stick her tongue out at passersby on the street. “Baba,” she whispers. He waits but there is nothing else.
The veranda door slides open; Riham steps out in front of the swing. She stares at them for a second.
“Not now, Riham.” Souad ashes the cigarette. “No lectures on smoking.”
Riham holds her arm out, wiggles her fingers.
“Gimme.” The three of them gape at her.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Riham waits, her arm extended. Souad glances at Karam, then erupts into laughter. She hands over the cigarette, looking at her sister, astonished.
“Is this happening? Am I hallucinating?”
Riham puts the cigarette between her lips; they watch her take a long, solid drag, like an inmate on furlough. Tilting her head back, she holds the smoke for a second before blowing it all out in one exhale.
“Mother,” Souad says, her voice stunned, “of God. Who the fuck are you?”
“Souad,” Atef says automatically.
“Sorry, Baba.”
“What?” Riham asks innocently. She flicks the cigarette; the four of them watch it arch over the veranda railing. There is laughter in her voice, a girlish joy at surprising them. “It’s been a long day.”
Atef remains outside after his children leave. Alia, Karam, the grandchildren. His mind darts and then skips. What is there left to think about? So the children know. The grandchildren know. Weariness settles over him and he repeats it: They know, they know. It relieves him of a certain weight. So they’ve seen their parents up close, as one does with statues in Florence. The cracked toes and chalky masonry.