After a few ritual exchanges and comments about the color of the kitchen cabinets, the railing and the sofa, my aunts get on my mother’s case for letting my father, their brother, spend time in the café. “How do you allow it?” the younger aunt asks my mother. “He’s a grandfather already, and still he spends time in cafés?”
“What can I do?” Mother says. “He goes there to spend time with his friends.”
“What do you mean, what can you do?” my older aunt asks. “Stop him. What are you, a little girl? A man of his age and in his position? What does he think — that he’s still eighteen? Sitting around all day playing cards and shesh-besh. I’ll have you know that people have told me he gambles. They swore he plays for money. I wanted the earth to swallow me right then, I was so embarrassed. That’s all we need — for worthless people to come and humiliate me because my brother spends his time playing cards in cafés. Why would he be playing cards when he has a good wife at home? My husband, Allah yirhamo, never spent a day in a café from the day we were married till the day he died.”
“Instead of going to religion lessons at the mosque in the evening,” my younger aunt says, “instead of sitting with good people, reading the Koran and praying, he’d rather sit around and smoke, drink coffee and play tawlah. What’s missing in his life? Look at me. I recite verses from early evening until I fall asleep. Can there be anything better than reading verses to drive the demons and the evil eye away from your home and your children? It’s all your fault, you make him run away.”
My mother, experienced with such harangues, restrains herself as always, and makes do with nods and short replies, promising to do whatever she can. She will always pretend to agree with every word they say. She knows perfectly well that she has no choice and that no matter what she does they’ll never think well of her and will never stop making fun of her or criticizing what she does.
My older aunt tells us about another man she knows who “brought a bride from the West Bank.” The brides from the West Bank are a subject of conversation, and they mention a long list of middle-aged men who “brought brides from the West Bank.” “An eighteen-year-old,” my older aunt says of her new neighbor. “Adorable, sweet, white as an angel, not like the monster he had who just kept getting fatter and fatter.”
The younger aunt agrees. “I wish my sons would each bring a bride from the West Bank. There’s nothing better than having children, and today’s girls don’t want to have so many.” It takes me a long time to realize that taking a second wife from the West Bank is becoming the norm in our village. Because the girl is from over there, they can disregard the Israeli prohibition on polygamy. “It’s just because they don’t want the Arabs to multiply,” my older aunt says. “It goes against the teachings of Islam.” As far as the young brides from the West Bank are concerned, marrying an Israeli Arab, no matter how old, is a chance to escape from poverty, especially since the mohar gift the Israeli grooms are willing to pay is a windfall for the relatives who stay behind.
My aunts crack sunflower seeds, and the more the conversation picks up, the faster they crack them. Their talk is animated, as they review the village gossip and compare versions. They talk of a man who stabbed his brother last night. One of them heard about fifteen stab wounds; the other, who insists that her source is more reliable, heard it was eighteen. They talk about men who cheat on their wives, about how they were caught and where and when. They talk about homes that have been robbed recently, how much was taken from each house, who the suspects are, what weapons they used — an Uzi, a.36 or a.38—like regular small arms experts.
My mother must have heard my aunts’ stories already. My wife shows some interest, and every now and then, whether out of politeness or out of genuine concern, she gets in a question of clarification like, “Are you talking about the brother of so-and-so?” My wife knows the people around here much better than I do, and her reactions give the impression that she’s not surprised at the shocking stories that come up in the conversation and takes them in stride. I’m the only one who sits there and can’t believe things like that are happening around me. My aunts go on to describe how children are being kidnapped for ransom on their way home from school, how people get shot, even when they’re just sitting in a café. How a week ago a guy drove up on a motorbike and walked in with his helmet still on and a pistol in his hand, and shot someone. “And what would have happened if my brother had been sitting there that minute?” my younger aunt asks my mother. They talk about little children who’ve been raped, businesses that have been burgled and youngsters who’ve been arrested.
My aunts stay for a long time, and finally say, “Y’Allah,” and get up to leave. My wife urges them to have some tea. First they say they can’t but she skillfully insists and makes them promise not to leave before tea is served. They stay seated on the sofa and I can tell by the look in their eyes that they’re satisfied with my wife’s behavior.
By the time the tea arrives, I have heard more stories — about usurious moneylenders using thugs who don’t think twice about shooting anyone who’s behind on his payments, about a whole army of criminals who exact protection payments from businesses and rape the wife of anyone who turns them down, or force them out of their vehicle in the middle of the village and confiscate it in broad daylight like the tax authorities, and about one poor guy, owner of a grocery store, who balked and dared to cross them. His store was sprayed with submachinegun fire and now he pays them like everyone else does.
When they leave, they kiss my wife and again wish her well in the new house, and say how they hope Allah will sow blessings in her home and in her womb. My wife clears away the refreshments tray. I turn the TV on again and watch an Arab news channel. Before my wife goes back up to the bedroom I ask her whether those stories are true. She sniggers and says that it’s all they talk about in the teachers’ room all day. “What would you know? Just coming back here to sleep. You don’t work here like me. I’m the one who got screwed by moving back here. What do you know about things anyway? You still think the teachers hit the pupils, don’t you? Don’t you understand it’s the other way around now, that the teachers are scared, even in elementary school? That teachers have been stabbed? You’ve brought me back to a place where you ask kids at school what they want to be when they grow up and without batting an eye, half the class say they want to be gang members.”
7
I hardly write for the paper anymore now. Cutbacks, they say. Less than a year ago, I had a position and a contract. My name was featured at the top of the masthead with the other members of the editorial board, and now it appears under the heading “regular contributors.” In a lousy month I don’t get more than ten small items into the paper. But still I keep going there each morning. It’s become a bit embarrassing lately. My spot with the computer has been given to a perky young fashion reporter. I don’t have a desk either, but I go there anyway. I want them to see me, to remember that I still exist, that I’m still ready to do my bit for that shitty rag. Mostly I sit in the smoking room going through the papers, turning pages till around noon, then make the rounds of the nearby streets. I never eat out anymore. On rare occasions I allow myself to sit in a café and order a short espresso, and then I usually spend at least an hour sipping it, browsing through the papers.
For the first time in my life, I’ve begun looking at the financial supplements before the other sections. Stories about mass layoffs, bankruptcies, the poverty line, the monthly unemployment figures reassure me to some extent. The Arab towns and villages have always held the lead on those unemployment and poverty ratings, and for me this has been a comfort of sorts. My wife and I are managing okay for now. The return home salvaged the situation, and was actually the smartest step I could have taken. We don’t have all that many expenses, don’t even spend much for food, because we eat at our parents’ houses. We can really make ends meet on my wife’s salary alone, even though teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the country, or perhaps the very lowest.