The Story of the Month

When Boutros Hammam took ship for Brazil on the morning of that dusky, rainy day, leaving behind in the house his wife Hanneh — still a bride, married no more than six months — no one in the village found in his going any surprise or strangeness. For at least half of them were away in America. So Hanneh could do nothing but dry her tears and accept the matter as it was accepted by the other women of the village — and she was no better than they — some of whom had been left by their men a week after the crowning, and some of whom had been waiting twenty years for his return.

Hardly had Boutros reached Brazil when Hanneh sent him the good news of the birth of a son. He rejoiced at it, and wrote naming him Makhoul after his own father, asking for his picture and confirming to her the promise he had made at her farewell — that he would stay in Brazil no more than three or four years. His letters followed one another after that, carrying to her and to his son and to the whole village his longing, now scattered in prose and now strung in verses of zajal. And between this and that, a check for a sum of money which Hanneh took care to surround with a halo of secrets: she would tuck it into her bosom and go down to Beirut alone and cash it at the bank, so that it became the talk of the village, and in their gatherings the women wove around it a thousand and one legends. If they asked her about it, she dodged the answer and said: "May Boutros bury me! His heart is tender!"

And suddenly Boutros fell silent. No check, no letter, no news.

It was the seventh year of his absence. The days went by without Hanneh learning anything of him. She was told at the very first that he had moved to a far village in the wilds of Brazil; then she was told that he had gone bankrupt in a business and fled from his creditors across the border. Then she was told other, dreadful things. And she believed neither much nor little of these sayings.

No one knows exactly how Hanneh contrived to scrape a living all that time and to raise her son. But they would see her — her clothes grown shabby, wretchedness plain upon her — going about her housework, or driving a goat of hers to the field, or coming back from Mass on Sunday with lowered head; and they spoke to her only rarely. If they asked her about Boutros she would force a mournful smile and lie to them and repeat her familiar phrase: "May Boutros bury me!" — then add: "He wants to come back to see Makhoul. His heart is burnt up over his son!"

And Makhoul grew and began to understand. It happened one day that he heard his mother say this, and he flared up, shouting:

— What heart is this that burns for me? I want to go to Brazil to see whether I have a father!

And he stamped the ground. Some laughed, gloating; and some pitied his state and drew near to console him; but he muttered and stalked off headstrong toward home, leav-ing his mother to run after him, wiping away tears of misery and wishing the earth would split open and take her in.

In vain did Hanneh try to persuade her son that he was still young — he was not yet eighteen — for he stood in her face like a pillar and insisted on carrying out what he

had said. She found no way but to yield to his demand: she gave him her bracelets, and he sold them for nearly the cost of the journey, and set off.

Makhoul turned his back on his mother as though he felt nothing. He did not even return her tearful embrace at the harbor, nor look back at her as she pressed up the ship's ladder and nearly fell into the sea. She came home between her brother and her cousin, shattered. And the neighbor women came to wish her that she might wel-come back in safety the one she had seen off in safety, and she said: "May Boutros bury me! He sent asking for Makhoul to take over his business — for how else could he come back, if he had no one to take his place?"

But the dear friends exchanged meaning glances. They had known for a long time that Boutros was living with a mis-tress whom he loved and who loved him. It was said she was of one of the best families of Brazil. Beautiful and rich. How should it occur to him to leave her for Hanneh and her precious

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