“Midhat Kamal!” It was Tahsin Kamal, one of Midhat’s cousins. He pulled Midhat into an embrace. Behind him, another cousin, Wasfi, who had been at university in England; and Qais Karak and Adel Jawhari, famous best friends who had developed beards and broad chests since he saw them last; and there was young Burhan Hammad, youngest son of Haj Nimr, who couldn’t be older than fourteen or fifteen but was already the tallest of the group, with a long neck and narrow face. And on the far side, lining up to greet him were two brothers from the Murad family, second or third cousins of Hani’s: Basil and Munir.
Midhat’s name spread through the crowd, and more faces turned, more people stood up to see him.
“Habibi Midhat, Midhat Bey.”
In the light from the window, the baritone reader of the newspaper also rose to his feet. It took a moment for Midhat to recognise him, for he had also changed a great deal. It was Haj Abdallah Atwan, a lesser patriarch of the Atwan family, and owner of the Atwan soap factory.
There were several ways to map the social fabric of Nablus. Some described the city in terms of East and West, as two separate worlds that only ever met in the arcade of the textile market during popular festivals, when the young men of the opposing sides would stage play-fights, and draw off the tensions that had built up during the season. Some ascribed this rivalry to the ancient opposition of the Qaysi and Yemeni clans, dating from the early Islamic settlement of the land of Can’aan. That ancient opposition centred now on the specific rivalries between the Atwan, Omar, and Murad families, which had reached their apex during the civil war of the last century. Others would shrug and say it was a natural division of geography, the East stays with the East, and the West with the West; yet others would say the two sides possessed two different cultures, and that was the root of the division. For example, the people of the East ate their kunafe in a sandwich for breakfast, between two slices of bread, whereas the people of the West ate their kunafe as a dessert after lunch. Thus, the East-West rivalry was simply a natural polarity of appetite and custom.
In fact the city had not always been divided thus. But as wealth developed in Nablus at the turn of the century, and trade routes strengthened between Egypt, Damascus, and Beirut, the major families were bloated into different factions, and a variety of alliances were formed. These alignments were most often built on inherited stories of infighting, which, if they were recent, were claimed to be ancient, and used to buttress a current action. And if an Omar wished to do wrong by an Atwan and found no pretext at hand, he could always reach back to the campfire of his Yemeni ancestors and pull up some ancient tale.
And as the city developed its industries of soap and textiles, this became a common occurrence: the leisure time of the new capitalists expanded as their working hours 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 ask Jamil about his own adventures in Constantinople. His cousin had grown into a handsome man, with the regular features of a figurine—two straight dashes for eyebrows, a curl to his lip, an aquiline nose—and his chest was as broad as an officer’s, his shoulders peaked with ganglions of bone as though his suit were sewn with the epaulettes of battle. Such a bella figura, he must have a score of conquests.