in vain were the registers searched for his name... All their efforts went for nothing...
And President Saad's concern extended even further: he got in touch with the other boarding schools in Choueifat, all of which follow the Anglo-American system in their teaching — and on this ground Ahmad's claim was admissible and came near to being believed, for he knew English, not French, and he was plainly a schoolboy. Which school, then, could it be? So long as the registers showed no trace of his name, nor of any other name resembling it, and so long as not a single one of the teachers, the boy students, or the girl students recognized him??...
The detective says in his report that Ahmad is a fraud! Anxiety began once more to gnaw at the young boy's heart. The Islamic Orphanage in Tripoli never ceased to demand him, and he kept refusing to go. Miss Arman took him more than once to the home of the Red Cross member Mrs. Najla Saab, and his story would stir pity and tears!.. Everyone who heard the story burned with eagerness to help him. But what way was there to help him, when his identity was unknown, when there was no one in the world to claim him, no pair of arms opening before him to fold him in tenderness?? Then Mr. Rida al-Tamer, likewise a member of the Red Cross, rose to the occasion and instructed one of the detective force to accompany him for a whole month... And so it was done, and the detective drew up a detailed report, the gist of which was that Ahmad was nothing but a swindler and an impostor, fabricating lies and idle tales resting on no foundation!!..
At the Lazariyeh hospital: He could not but leave Miss Arman's home, so the Red Cross office arranged his transfer to the Lazariyeh hospital, where he stayed in the charge of Dr. Chedid.
Here, in the warm, gentle atmosphere of the nuns, Ahmad recovered his calm of nerves and cooperated with everyone in carrying out various tasks at the hospital. But Dr. Chedid gave a report in which he praised Ahmad's excellent conduct, and the nuns endorsed his testimony — which led those concerned with him to say that the hospital must not be his permanent abode, and that a boarding school alone was the solution...
At the Dawudiyya College in Abey: The efforts of Mrs. Najla Saab with Sheikh Aref al-Nakadi bore fruit in an agreement to admit him to the Dawudiyya College in Abey at a reduced fee, to be paid by the Red Cross. Ahmad was fitted out with the necessary clothes and entered the College on September 29, 1956, receiving his weekly pocket money (his allowance) from the Red Cross as well, in the amount of half a Lebanese lira. But peace of mind did not come to Ahmad; at this period he was suffering an exhausting psychological state, revealed in a letter he wrote to his father from the Dawudiyya College, in which he complains of his straitened means and of his "khaki" clothes, which did not match the clothes of his fellow boarders — and demands of his father a respectable allowance so that he might go down to Beirut and buy the clothes he wanted from "Alfa," like his companions... He ends his letter with a threat to his father, saying word for word:
"I do not have an ironed shirt like everybody else, and that is why I am writing you this letter, Father, not by way of threat, in all seriousness and truth. And if you do not bring these things, or send me money to buy them, I will do what I want, and you will see how someone dies and disgraces his father after his death... You must send me at least a lira and a half a week — do you not fear Jesus? My greetings to Mama and to my brothers, and farewell from your obedient son — Ahmad."
It was as though Ahmad, at the Dawudiyya College, was burning to appear before his companions in a grand light — his way to that being an abundance of fine clothes and trips down to Beirut! So he took this violent tone in addressing his father — though by now he was supposed to have arrived at the understanding that his father was no longer alive... And perhaps in the depths of his heart he still hoped to find his family and return to his happy family life, for after writing this letter his crisis began to grow worse and to tighten its stranglehold upon him, until he bolted from the Dawudiyya and ran away, when not more than a month had passed since his entry... When his flight became known to the College administration, it telephoned the Red Cross office and passed the news along...
Miss Arman rushed anxiously to call the police stations, giving them Ahmad's description and appealing to them to search for him... At last they found Ahmad at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, and the Red Cross social worker hastened to his aid together with the nurse Nihad Ghantous... Did the two of them find him still at the hospital? And why is this fair-faced boy driven toward a life of vagrancy, despite the good care available to him?.. Could the cause of his anxiety be his need for fatherly affection and stability?? And will he at last find this material and psychological stability??
Sultan Soap
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