A Christmas story by Mr. Farid Sayfari

How ignorant people are, and how dull, when they dig into the secret hearts of others!

So thought Miss Widad at the Christmas Eve party. They had worn her out repeating the same cold remark all evening long: "Mademoiselle, it seems you are not enjoying yourself tonight!" She laughed at them inwardly — for who had told them she was unhappy?

Poor things... they were at their feast, and she at hers. Her heart was leavened with a masked joy: the next morning, Christmas morn-ing, her sweetheart "Jean" would come to visit her after a full year's absence. Together they would go on a long outing, spending the day wherever the air pleased her and the sitting was sweet. Was not this unbridled romantic fancy — roaming among luxuriant gardens, running waters, the lights of the cinema, the darkness of the cinema, the crowded streets, the sparkle of the holiday-makers, the glitter of the shops, the dancing of the dancers, the eating of sweets, and taking Jean's arm — enough to set her soul aflame with colored pictures that clothed her mind in a fresh robe of inward delight?

Yet she appeared glum!

Yes, she appeared glum, because she was annoyed by the efforts of that old family gathering, which insisted on repeating those ancient traditions year after year, as it had for hundreds of years.

Good Lord — do they never tire, never have their fill of repeating that antique scene?

The Christmas tree was exactly as it had been the year before,

unchanged. The lights that shone in it now had been mounted on it just as they had been mounted before. The little figures of both sexes that her mother had set on it last year she had set on it this year as well. You saw on it nothing but small figures like the ones children play with: men with long beards, cows and goats and dogs. So too the decoration of the sitting room had not changed a hair's breadth from what it had been a year ago: the same thin, colored papers, full of holes, with serrated edges, hung on the walls and strung along threads. And then the Christmas carols never changed at all — those carols composed hundreds of years ago, which she had heard repeated when she was still in the cradle, they repeat now and take delight in. Nor had the manner of distributing the gifts changed: her father puts on those strange red clothes, like a clown out of China, and goes round to each person one by one, presenting the gift. Even the guests had not changed: her uncle's household and their children, her aunt's household, a few of the neighbors, elderly and old-fashioned in mind.

What are these false rituals? thought the mademoiselle, looking glummer than before.

Is this their world? Like a man riding a wheel that turns and turns and comes back to where it first began?!

No matter... let us be patient tonight... these few hours must pass... In the early morning "Jean" would arrive. Would he have changed this year? Oh, when would that happy hour come in which she would meet him? In which she would see what suit he had put on in readiness for meeting her? What would be the first word he

would say to her the moment she stood before him? Would he say to her, "How lovely you look in your holiday clothes"? Or "I have missed you so much, Widad, after this long absence"? Or what would she say to him? Most likely she would be struck dumb and stand with her mouth open, not knowing how to begin. Where would they go, and what program would they follow? She was ready to accompany him wherever he wished. And no doubt he would quench her thirst with his fresh youth, his amusing talk, his original gestures. Ah, how many happy hours I have spent with him, and how I have delighted with him in sipping the nectar of pure love! But time is a tyrant that cares nothing for lovers, and it carried him far from her. But now he would return... yes, he would return with the returning of the sun in the morning.

And she waited... and waited, and that evening party would not end easily: mouths open around her like the holes of mice, discordant sounds rising from them — talk and songs and loud guffaws. A single flat word uttered by one of the bores was enough to raise a wave of fawning, hypocriti-cal laughter.

As for Miss Widad, she found no spirit of wit in anything around her, and did not smile. She was far from what surrounded her, enjoying her own private world...

And in the early morning the members of the family rose early, rejoicing, caroling, merry. And Miss Widad, too, met a day differ-ent from all other days. The family gathering, their racing one another to exchange holiday greetings, the romping of her small brothers and their playing with their new toys, then

the smell of food in the kitchen, the decoration of the house, the beautiful clothes — all of it was only a spur to her senses, telling of the nearness of her sweetheart Jean's arrival. Without doubt it would be a longed-for day in every sense of the word.

After breakfast and the eating of sweets, each member of the family