Women (3) — Umm Mas'ad and Hanineh

Umm Mas'ad

The oil press... the mulberry tree... the path to the spring... Umm Mas'ad knows them better than you or I... and were it not for her... there would be no press, no tree, and none of that pale path... along which Umm Mas'ad has walked so often... strutting with the gait of glory and of youth... or swaying along... her head crowned with a jar brimming over with the healing water of the spring!

And how many hours has Umm Mas'ad spent in the press... awaiting her share of the year's bounty: oil... pure gold... And how many evenings has she leaned her back, weary, against the trunk of the aged mulberry... In its shelter the field is hers alone... so she stretches her legs out on the wide ground... and sighs... then finishes whatever she pleases to finish... she who has handed the reins of her affairs over to generous nature! And nature, in the village... is a god!!

Umm Mas'ad is like the apple tree in the garden... a ripe redness adorns her face, and there holds firm in her a figure full in the trunk... hard in the branches. And there was, once, what there was for Umm Mas'ad — her charms and her coquetry! Hers were the winding dances at many an evening gathering... in the day of the heavy braid... the moonlit cheeks, the buckled waist, and the hennaed hand.

What remains today for Umm Mas'ad... is the company of the ewes out to the meadows, the milking of the plump cow... the washing of the sherwals... the stacking of firewood in the cellar... and the readying of the sack of lentils and chickpeas and kishk, and the crock of fat, for winter.

Umm Mas'ad's world in the village... is all she knows of the world! How, then, could she weary of it? How could she crave the strange new thing that lives in cities beyond her generation?

That strange thing is a legend that steals into her imagination and startles it... but with her it remains a legend to be told, not a legend to be lived!

Umm Mas'ad's day... is like her yesterday... like her tomorrow... it moves along with her and does not trouble her contentment... Her farewell to it is the same... always the same... It is she who shuts the door of the coop and throws the ewes the last armful of grass, then covers the mouth of the dark well and sleeps... Umm Mas'ad sleeps so that the broken dream may act out for her... what her eye lives in waking!

Umm Mas'ad... a happy simplicity!!

Hanineh

In Hanineh's world... there is a key... a cat... and a vase of flowers... And in her room the picture of a laughing child... so she laughs with him for an hour... of serenity! Everything stops her short... she stares, and spies, and smiles off toward yonder... a smile she meant to look indifferent... though — let us leave off insisting — everything draws her!

In her kitchen is the dignity of the parlor... and in every corner of her house are coarse mirrors in which Hanineh looks upon her face... and so she always sees it as she wishes to see it, youth penciling its eyes and beauty yearning toward it!

Her face... two eyes whose frame has withered... and the black of her eyebrows joined in one dark line... Her figure was spared shortness... and in its lines... a strange straightness. With everyone, she is stronger and lovelier and abler than everyone... And on her bed... in her shrunken room, she is the most lavish of weepers... the most wretched of complainers... and the greediest of cravers!

Hanineh's prayer to her Lord... is reproach... all of it reproach! Her relative Wardeh asked her about Salim's bride... She turned down her lower lip, and her voice dropped... and she said: "Well, so-so... she lacks grace... and orderliness, and the art of receiving, and liveliness... and charm... and poise... God help them, in any case!" She eats a little of much, with a guarded greed! She loves apples and does not love pears... loves olives and does not love oil... loves potatoes and does not love squash... and between her and herself she loves everything!..

Her red dress — its like has never been seen in the shops of Beirut, or at her dressmaker's. And her hat, she says, is of the first fashion... designed by a master long ago who then left the country, and no one like him has come back to us!

Hanineh receives the warmth of the approaching spring in a protective coat, with a shawl clinging to her neck and breast and both her arms. And she sees summer off in the same coat

and shawl!..

By her bed you see the ranged boxes of medicines, and she knows them better than Joseph... a new doctor, or Violette... a simple nurse...

Her evening companion is her meek room... and in it all of Hanineh's vegetables are cooked... and her fruit is rubbed and wiped before she divides it with deliberation and devours it alone!

On her table there is always one single gleaming plate... flanked on its three sides by knife, fork, and spoon, and in the corner of the table a browned loaf... enough for her day.

The great mirror, behind which the malicious tongues never cease recounting the toilet articles hidden away.

Hanineh chews her wishes as she chews her musk-perfumed gum..! And older still than her gum is her dusty comb... of fishbone!

Hanineh... turns in the circle of her loneliness... and moans!!