The Holiday as They Understand It (A Reportage)

Shortly before the holiday season set in, I went out into the street to sound the opinion of whoever passed me and whomever I passed — those I knew and those I did not — on the holiday and what it means to them. And if my question came as a surprise to them, their answers came as a surprise to me: most of them were given on the spur of the moment, far removed indeed from the spirituality of the holiday, and yet, for all that, engaging and merry, and telling of the hopes and sorrows within their souls:

Q — What do you feel on the day of the feast? ... With this question I stopped a friend of mine, Miss Lodi Abu Shaqra, who works as an employee in one of the companies, and after some hesitation she answered:

A — The holiday is truth and light; but I do not rejoice on the day of the feast — she added, laughing — because I feel I have grown older than I was at the last holiday.

Q — What does the holiday mean to you? With this question I came in upon Mr. Roger Jabriya in his bookshop. The smile vanished from his face, and after I had explained my purpose he said:

A — The holiday... nothing... especially for one who suffers crises of the soul. Holidays, in my view, are dangerous absurdities, in whose name morals are torn down. His younger brother was sitting beside him, so I asked him as well:

Q — Of what does the holiday remind you?

A — No, no... ask some man other than me... I am not fit for seriousness... And when I insisted, he said slowly: It reminds me of Bethlehem... Palestine... the days when we were there.

It seems my errand appealed to the young man, for he took me along to everyone whom neighborliness had made his companion and friend, muttering all the while, "By God, you certainly know how to pass the time..." — a men's barber, the owner of a dyeworks, a nouveautés dealer, and a Polish lady; this one and that, and another, carried along by the general excitement, who came of his own accord, until quite a hubbub could be heard from us in the street. I asked the nouveautés dealer, Mr. George Barbir:

Q — What do you like best to do on the day of the feast?

A — ... To work on the day of the feast — only for the sake of the first sale of the day, not the profit, believe me.

One man declines to answer on account of his multiplying business; another laughs, having found an unexpected occasion for joking; while a third took the matter to heart and lit a cigarette, sending its smoke up high in the hope that it might bring him inspiration!!

Meanwhile a foreign lady, advanced in years, was passing, and my companion stopped her, saying:

Q — Madame Fino Krutska! Of what does the holiday remind you?

A — The feast before everything, she answered, once she had grasped the point of the question; then sliding on the snow, and also the prayers, and the holiday trees, and... come with me and I will show you the pictures of our holiday journeys... And she went her way in peace.

I came back to one of those who were with me, Mr. Rashid Habib, to ask him whether the idea of the holiday appealed to him:

A — I am afraid to answer your question, lest I say something that contradicts the teachings of my father, the priest... But in any case, I do not think of the future; my thought is for my day alone. Come back on the day of the feast and I will answer you, he said teasingly.

Then a man came out of the barber's salon with the scent of perfume wafting from him, and I put the question to him straightaway:

Q — Are you all fragrance for the coming of the feast?

A — I love the pocket more than anything; if it is full, then welcome to the feast — and if not... put down whatever you please.

I left them at that point, and as I passed the A B C building it occurred to me to go in, since people of every class go there.

I asked one of the shoppers — I learned afterward that he was the engineer Herdman, one of those in charge of the Litani project — what the holiday means to him. He said:

A — The holiday is a hope that dawns upon us, so that we feel we have been created anew, as Christ was born, and that we live — if only for one day, or only once — in concord with God, with ourselves, and with others.

As for Dr. Asaad Abu Haidar, whom I also met at the A B C, he saw no call for seriousness, but answered my question in jest:

— The holiday, as you can see, suggests to me bankruptcy, and the spending of my money in the shops on everything harmful and everything beneficial alike — and yet, at the feast, how sweet it is.

But the sweetest answer I obtained was from a venerable old lady, about a wish of hers for the feast. She said, in verses of her own composing, something after the manner of zajal poetry:

"I asked my Lord for life until the twenty-fifth, that I might be present at the feast of the Nativity, and see the people united, the Magi with the shepherds and the angels crying out, and the children in the streets rejoicing and clapping their hands."

And there I stopped... among the meanings of the holiday. Each of them sees it through his own self — a season of joys or of sorrows. But before the holiday of which Fouad Suleiman said:

"... a faith that drives us toward God
... and a tenderness that binds us to our poor brothers..." (1)

the human soul, however dark and overcast it may have grown, cannot but brighten at its coming, and hope anew...

(1) Fouad Suleiman: Tammuziyyat, p. 142