decreased, and gossip started its ruinous motor into the salons of the wealthy. With such wealth came unhappiness, and with unhappiness intrigue, and the circulation of bitter jokes, and the women who had been free to cut wheat in the fields and carry olives in their aprons were locked at last in their homes, to grow fat among cushions and divert their vigour into childbirth and playing music, and siphon what remained into promulgating rumours about their rivals.
Abdallah Atwan was a pale-skinned man with thin hair and thick grooves either side of his mouth that made him seem older than his years, which could not number more than forty-five. He was renowned for his fondness for recalling the civil war between the Atwans and the Omrs, and for reciting the litany of names of those who had committed crimes, and the names of their victims.
One tier below the landowning families were the ulema, scholarly families like the Hammads, who had begun to dominate politics as well. And below them were the newly rich mercantile families, who encroached now on the hard-won territory of those political ulema. There were mixed feelings towards this new set, the Kamal family among them, who were in the ascendant, attending the same parties, participating in the same conferences, and marrying their women.
A man might, of course, form a friendship in defiance of history. A man might lay history aside when kneeling on the floor of the Green Mosque. But Abdallah Atwan was not such a man. As he now put down his newspaper, less on account of Midhat than the disruption his entrance had caused to his rapt audience, Abdallah Atwan’s demeanour, reaching across to shake Midhat’s hand, was full of the ancient intersections of society and their forefathers.
“Hamdillah as-salameh,” he said.
“Allah yisalmak,” said Midhat.
“Your father’s business is doing well,” said Abdallah.
“You are a European,” said Burhan Hammad. “Look at you.”
It was true that without thinking much of it, that morning Midhat had pulled on his pinstriped suit from the Rue Royale, and walked into town with his steel-topped cane. He looked over at the local suits of the rest of the company, their ties sewn by the village women. He produced a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and offered one to Burhan. Though young, Burhan already flaunted a fashionable waxed moustache. He examined Midhat’s suit admiringly.
“Yalla Midhat!” shouted Qais Karak. “All the characters are home at last.”
“Keef I am European?” asked Midhat, once both cigarettes were lit.
“The way you hold yourself.” Burhan laughed out his smoke.
Midhat sat at a table in the centre of the atrium, and a new circle formed around him as Jamil ordered coffee, and the young boys prodded Midhat for stories.
“What can I tell you?” said Midhat.
“Tell us about the women,” said Tahsin.
All these men and boys, five years grown, had an alternative narrative of Midhat. Even from these few minutes’ intercourse, they surely saw aspects of him invisible to those he had met in France. At the sense of exposure Midhat grew hot. He could not conceal, nor even detect, the survival of his child-self in his mannerisms, or traces of his characteristics as they had been popularly understood. A childish predilection for certain sweets, or certain games—the kinds of facts that were enlarged as personalities in Nablus were distilled into characters painted simply, so they could be picked out from a rooftop and fitted into stories. Midhat wished he could isolate those traces and remove them. Not because they were defects, but because they pinned him down.
Already it was clear from their amused expressions that the men around Midhat found him strange. And perhaps they had reason: to Midhat, this taste of coffee recalled the Seine, the bright window recalled chandeliers and women’s faces.
“Midhat was just telling me about a love affair he had in Paris,” said Jamil.
Midhat stared at his cousin. Jamil smiled back.
“It was not in Paris, Jamil.”
“You said it was in Paris.”
“No … I … in Paris there was …”
“Tell us, Midhat!” said Tahsin.
Midhat began to fabricate a composite woman made up of the features of a few he had regularly slept with. Maria with the canvas spats, Nicole with the red hair—he erased the odours of their bodies and sprayed them with violet, mixed their narratives with the plots of certain famous ballads, until someone cried out:
“I don’t believe you.”
Midhat chuckled, and they all slapped their knees. “Ça y est!” he said. Jamil watched with silent laughter. It struck Midhat that he should