a shari’a court judge before he became mayor. The only parties he ever hosted were gatherings of the learned on the second floor of his house, where the men sat in a circle to drink tea and discuss scripture. While it was not unheard of for an alem to be a sociable man, Haj Nimr was not known for attending parties either; at the announcement of this gathering, therefore, his daughters became very excited, even though they would not be allowed to attend. His wife, Widad, arranged for extra help, including her sister-in-law’s two maids and manservant. Yellow irises from the garden were arranged in diamonds on the tabletops. Huge plates were laid out of stuffed things—courgettes and vine leaves and aubergines—heaped on piles of baked tomatoes slipping from their skins. The best maker of kunafe in the old city was hired, and he set up his equipment in the kitchen to ensure the cheese was perfectly hot at serving time.
Nimr invited Haj Hassan to take coffee with his family before the party started. This was an event his daughters and his wife were allowed to attend. Hassan wore his best cravat and his shiniest pair of Damascene shoes and rode his horse from Zawata into Nablus at midday.
Set back from the road, the triple-arched windows of Haj Nimr Hammad’s house were visible over the high stone wall. Passing through the gate, Hassan climbed the steps alongside a chain of trellises wound with vines. He reached the triple-arched doorway, and ascending the pyramid of steps before the entrance, turned the handle and entered the vast hall with its enormous vaulted canopy, full of light.
Haj Nimr’s three children were waiting on a couch on the far side. Haj Nimr himself had already seen his cousin since his return, but he greeted him again now with four exuberant kisses as if for the first time. Nimr was tall and slender, and the thick black brows curving down the sides of his eyes were shot with grey; his eyelids hung low. Hassan was much shorter, and his cousin had to bend slightly to reach his cheek. His beard was already white, and shaved close to mark the end of exile. The tip of his nose reached down over his moustache; and though his eyebrows were high and thin, still Hassan resembled his cousin in the eyes, which like Nimr’s slanted at the outer edges, giving him a mournful appearance. Hassan bowed to the children and approached. The two eldest were girls, Fatima and Nuzha, and they leapt up to greet him; the youngest child, Burhan, sat silently.
For all his local fame and achievement Hassan was both modest and somewhat severe. His gaze did not deviate, and his presence could be unnerving for anyone who could not match his self-possession. But whenever someone quite reasonably described Hassan as aloof, another would snatch the chance to claim more intimate acquaintance and feign surprise, since on the contrary Haj Hassan was, in his own experience, a remarkably warm man, honest, and loyal.
When Nimr kissed him Hassan gave a rare laugh, and now that he was seated the family waited in silence. Nimr had heard versions of Hassan’s tale, among them several naming Russia as his site of exile, but, trusting none, he was as eager as his children to hear the truth from the man himself. Unlike his children, he concealed his enthusiasm under a sage smile and deliberate shakes of his venerated head.
After asking courteously about their schooling, Hassan gratified the children with a more interesting question:
“Almost three years and you are all just the same as I remember you—only taller and wiser and more beautiful! Do you know where I have been?”
“England!”
“Were you in Egypt?”
“Oh no—no, I was in Damascus.”
He told the story drily, using the best turns of phrase he had practised on the house of Abu al-Kheir and his own family, which now rolled off the tongue without forethought. He described the warning from Haj Taher Kamal, his journey from Nablus to Aley, and the newspaper at the inn. The boy slapped his thighs at the encounter with the affable soldier on the roadside, and slapped them harder at the lemonade offered to the soldiers who searched Abu al-Kheir’s house.
The keenest listener was Fatima, the eldest daughter. She absorbed the story without laughing, as she absorbed all the stories her brother shared of the men who were returning to Nablus with war wounds and foreign certificates. Among the returnees, she knew, was