— ... Betwixt and between!
— What?! And is her house far from us?
— No — right here... she is in your very hands!
And how lightly that heavy-set woman sprang up, and how quickly she gathered me to her, and began showering me with kisses wherever they might fall.. She wept, and I wept with her, and her tears clasped hands with mine. In the flood of her overflowing feeling she rose above the secondary considerations that had been, until a moment before, her first measure; she forgot the hat which, for all its triviality, had been the greatest barrier between us... and I loved this lady who, in the language of her heart, gave the truest expression to something beautiful — I do not know what to call it, my friend!!
On that day I discovered that the artificial outward differences between one human being and another, however far apart and however many, must vanish and dissolve the moment people meet on the human plane — the plane that is above petty things and free of these worldly differences..."
•
Howayek's turn came, and all ears turned his way... He said:
My most beautiful memories go back to the dawn of my childhood, when my years could be counted on the fingers of one hand...
My grandfather, the priest, used to furnish the peasants of our village, shortly before they went down to Tripoli to buy their yearly provisions, with a little note of recommendation to a friend of his called Hajj Ahmad — a merchant in Bab al-Tabbaneh. And Hajj Ahmad, once he had made sure of the peasants' identity, spared no pains in extending every assistance; sometimes he would even make good a deficit, small or large, that their budget fell short of, and instead of having them sign a note for the amount,
he had them carry back a simple declaration to be kept in trust in my grandfather the priest's cabinet until the silkworm season came round and Hajj Ahmad appeared at Helta on his mule.
I remember how I would let my legs fly like a colt, to meet Hajj Ahmad at the edge of the village — meet him with clapping and cheering, and with dancing eyes!... He would lift me up to him — "You've grown, Youssef," he would say to me — and seat me before him on the gaily decked mule, and off we would go jogging together to the ringing of its yellow bells!!
... God! How those far-off nights live in my memory — all the while Hajj Ahmad stayed as our guest, to carry out his chief errand of buying the silk cocoons and settling his accounts with the peasants!
I remember well how my grandmother, the priest's wife, at every sunset, would spread out for Hajj Ahmad, on a corner of the roof, a little mat that she kept clean in his name, year after
year, for the performance of his prescribed prayers...
And my grandfather, he too, would withdraw with his stole and his rosary to another corner of the same roof to complete his prayers... And after prayers, the Hajj and the priest would move to a round low table set on the ground, laid with dishes of mujaddara and saliq and olives, and sometimes grilled chicken... and I would sit between them, happy and content, as we dipped the thin flat bread into the dishes and traded anecdotes and jokes.
In those serene, God-given moments Hajj Ahmad delighted in teasing me, and he would ask me, to my embarrassment: — Tell me, Youssef, whom do you love more, your grandfather the priest, or me? And I would answer him with a child's simplicity and with something of that virgin shyness that knows no dissembling: — I love my grandfather the priest dearly... but you I love more... because I am mad about the jazariyya sweets you bring me every year from Tripoli!!
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