When the Lights Go Out...

A story by Mrs. Evelyn Hitti Kanaan

Suhad was not lazy and idle, nor commonplace and dull, that she should take to bed early, as she meant to do on the night of December 31 — a night for which all manner of coincidences and justifications had made themselves ready, chief among them what has been imposed, on the appointed evening of every week in Lebanon, from the autumn of 1953 through the winter of 1954 until... — I mean the absence of electricity from the quarter where she lives with her family. That appointment takes on the menace of a burdensome guest, straining matters and embarrassing them — for Suhad's husband has no patience with the long dark hours, and her children give themselves up to shouting and wailing, and she struggles to give them their supper and make up their beds, until they sink into a heavy sleep — the end of an epic that began at five, its events, with their heroes small and big, unfolding by a faint light of kerosene and candles. Then follows the farce between Suhad and her husband, when they sit facing each other in the hall by the fire after supper: the woman, in the grip of weariness, opens her jaws wide and shuts them, only to open them again with a dull, worn-out sigh. And the husband, robbed of the friendly voice of the radio, takes on a form of drowsiness quite unlike his wife's yawning: he nods and nods, jerking his head after a snatch of sleep, then peering at her through the slit of his closed eyelids — and does not find her. Then he heaves himself from his chair to his room, the oil lamp keeping him company, to finish reading a detective novel in bed.

And she had been under the covers for some time — a long time, it seemed to her — in the adjoining room. And the hour... do not ask about the hour, that elastic hour, the hour now.

— What time would it be, man?

— Close on half past eight; in a little while the light will come.

— I forgot to tell you. The neighbors have reserved a table for us, with them, for New Year's Eve tomorrow. And in truth the dark is not without its merits — for a night's rest before another night's wakefulness is more profitable and more fitting.

— That is your philosophy. I wish you a pleasant sleep. As for me, let me settle down to my story, in which the gang has all but succeeded in getting the killer away. Or would you have me wait until the evening of January 2 to learn what happened in this thrilling pass?!

— All I care about is that you take care not to send up the lamp's flame while you overdo your coaxing of the light. And she thanked her Lord that she has no taste for detective novels and cannot abide them. And what she expected came to pass: not many seconds had gone by before the flame shot up and the smoke breathed out its black tongues with their poisonous, deadly smell, and the chimney threatened to break. So he shouted for her

to see to the matter, and Suhad came to deal with the problem, the wick refusing to go either up or down; and there was nothing for it but to put it out, and to swallow her husband's unbroken grumbling because he would now have to wait ten minutes steeped in darkness.

Hardly had her shivering limbs settled into her bed when her husband's regular snoring found its way to her ears. And she tells herself that darkness, under its cover, works the greatest wonders and marvels of the world. Enough that it handed Suhad something like a victory for her view: before her and her husband looms the welcoming of a new year, with a sure stretch of long staying-up ahead. For her nature had furnished her with a contradiction whose motto is "one day we grieve and one day we rejoice," quite unlike her husband's logic and his moderation. But then she remembered that he had already turned the light switch at his bedside table — in token that the crisis was over — so she rises at once, feeling the floor with the tips of her toes for fear of waking the silence, and to forestall the leaping out of the pent-up light.

And she wrapped herself up anew, her feet two blocks of ice, her teeth chattering as she went on heaping the covers about her head, trying to sink once more toward sleep. And behold — the electric light bursts out laughing at her from the ceiling of her room. She rises, dazzled in sight and breath, and rushes to the switch on the wall to silence its mockery of her imagined slumber and her cheated warmth. And she paces the hall to the other rooms, to see whether some light had been forgotten, though she had taken care not to miss a single one. To her astonishment she finds the kitchen lit, and to her fury she finds it in a state that bespeaks the maid's neglect of her duties — the plates and vessels, pots and utensils, in a riot that must surely have claimed some victims!! And misgivings began to beset her head: what if the maid had been negligent on purpose? Then there comes back to her ears — as though from years ago — her little son's crying for her to sit with him in the dark; and when she slipped in to look in on him, she found the maid at his side, motionless and drowsing.

Then she went back the way she came, her mind scattered, warming the coldness of the bed with the coldness of her body — and she could not tell which was the colder; and contradiction and perplexity returned to her. And she saw herself take refuge in the philosophy of resignation to fate, meeting the situation with optimism. No call for gloom: the night was still young, and before her lay eight or nine full hours, more than even a nursling asks of sleep. And for the same reason the opportunist philosophy of fact took its place, shaking the idleness off her and calling for productive work — the sewing in heaps, the mending in piles, and an age had passed since she last held a book... But what could she do? Drowsiness had stolen through her, and she was loosed from every tether. Welcome, then, to a sweet slumber, the very opposite of what tomorrow evening holds in store of delights and surprises. Hurrah, O sleep!!

And she had recovered her calm, and slumber had begun to play about her eyelids, and warmth and ease to lull her limbs; and she surrendered to a kind of trance. And there passed before her the dance floor — that roaring, tossing wave — when the lights die down as twelve o'clock draws near, and the shouts and cheers mount. And the horns blare, as if it were the Day of Gathering, and the whistles shriek, as if it were the Resurrection; and the ears are deafened with drumming and piping and ringing... It is the ringing, no doubt of it, the loudest of all the sounds. It rings in earnest, without respite, insistent, without relenting; here it is, ringing violently in her ears; it is here... then she is at home, in bed... And she starts up like one touched with madness, and hurries to the hall, and pounces on the receiver:

— Hello. Yes.
— Mr. —?
— This is the house of Mr. —'s uncle. He lives on the floor below.
— I know. I only want a word with him on a pressing matter.
— On holiday nights like this he is most likely out of the house.
— If only you would make sure whether he is in!
— I am sorry. Everyone here is asleep. Any message?
— A friend of his who wants to ask him about the program for New Year's Eve.
— By all means — telephone tomorrow. Good evening, and a happy new year in advance.

(And after she had put back the receiver)
— Calamity take you — you and the electricity!!