In Freikeh, before Ameen and "May" died — and this may be the last photograph ever taken of her.
... Albert Rihani was telling us about May "in Freikeh":
No one is left to tell people about "May's" days there except Albert Rihani. Ameen Rihani died one year before May.
And Saada, Ameen's sister, died... And "Freikeh" and Albert remained.
And in Freikeh "May" lived after her great ordeal, beside the Rihanis — Ameen, Saada, and Albert. Ameen carried her, all but bodily, to Freikeh.
There, "May," you will recover the serenity of your mind and heart.
There, there is no gossip and no
idle talk... clear air, fresh earth, and an easy life. Come, May, with us to Freikeh...
And one day in early summer, May moved from her house in Ras Beirut, in the Rihanis' company, to Freikeh...
To a house neighboring the Rihani house, no more than an arm's reach between them... And "May" stayed two days — after much insistence — with Ameen, to move afterward to her seclusion, in the house standing on the edge of the Freikeh valley.
Her days in Freikeh had a great deal of quiet and rest in them, but she was almost in a kind of isolation, living alone in the house, for she refused to have anyone come to serve her. What did "May" do in that seclusion? Was she writing? Was she dreaming? Was she suffering?
Things no one knows anything about, not even Ameen Rihani himself, though she was everything to him in those days...
She told us once, said Albert Rihani, that she was writing a new book. We pressed her to show us something of it, but she
did not... It may be that she wrote and it may be that she did not... We know nothing!
And what else do you remember, Albert? — Yes indeed: those evenings we used to spend at May's, in her house — they were among the most delightful of evenings... We would carry the Lux lantern — Ameen, Saada, and I — on our evening visit to "May" every night... And I do not recall that she ever spent an evening at our house, or came by, except once: she had refused to receive anyone in her house, so she received some friends, one single time, at ours.
And in those evening gatherings, we would sit at the pinochle table, and I remember perfectly that "May" would laugh a great deal whenever she caught my sister Saada having stolen the "Joker" and hidden it in her hair.
May lived clear of mind in Freikeh, active, doing everything for herself, but she was very reserved even with those closest
to her... She would not accept a visit from anyone...
And she would rise very early,
The Rihani family — Freike — Beirut
O noble house of Rihani, is it in your power to console me for my departed one — and your departed, and the departed of the great East?