By the time she came back with the ladder and a pair of shears, I was in my grandfather’s lap. I knew the story he would tell. I had climbed the pergola. I was called down. There was only one story he could tell now: The Prince of Believers.
“Who was the boy that climbed trees?” he asked me.
“The Egyptian boy.”
“What was his name?”
I racked my brain, but could not remember. I knew the story, but the medieval Arabic names were completely foreign to me. “The Caliph,” I said.
“He was the Caliph, but that was not his name. A caliph is like a prince. It’s not a name. Don’t worry, my little one. I’m sure even your father and uncles don’t know his name. That’s because they don’t care where they came from.”
“I know his name,” my father interjected.
“Al-Hakim bi-Amrillah,” one of my uncles said.
“See. I told you they wouldn’t know because they don’t pay attention. Not like you. His name was al-Mansour. He was only eleven. This was a long, long time ago in Egypt. During the great Fatimid dynasty. The Caliph was going from Egypt to Syria to fight the bad Byzantines who wanted to come and take over our lands and make us all Christians. So the Caliph stopped in Bilbays because he felt sick. He knew he was going to die. He felt bad because unlike those Christian emperors who sat in their castles and told people what to do, our Caliph was going to join his army and fight alongside his men, but now he knew he wasn’t going to make it. So he lay in bed and he called al-Mansour, who was playing outside. The little boy came and he saw the Caliph in bed. The Caliph called him over and kissed him and hugged him like this. And everybody was there and saw the Caliph hug him. And then he told the boy, ‘Go out and play. I will be all right now. I know you’ll be a good Caliph.’ So everyone knew that al-Mansour was going to be the next Caliph.”
“And he was a star.”
“That’s right. So the little boy went out to play. After a little while, an intendant from the court, whose name was Barjawan, came out looking for the little boy. He looked and he looked, but he couldn’t find him. All of a sudden, he heard the voice of al-Mansour saying, ‘Hello, Barjawan.’ Barjawan still couldn’t see our boy. So the boy said, ‘I’m up here.’ And Barjawan looked up and saw al-Mansour playing in a sycamore tree. Barjawan said, ‘Please come down from the tree, your highness. The Caliph has gone to heaven. You are now the Prince of Believers.’ And the new Caliph came down from the tree. Everybody saw that he was an emissary from God. Then they all returned to Cairo, which the Fatimid had built. And the boy Caliph walked in front of everybody and all the people came out to see. The people realized at the same time that they loved the boy Caliph. He sat on a throne of pure gold. All the people came to pay their respects. They saw a confident Caliph with piercing eyes that could see the truth. They saw a beautiful boy with the face of a wise and learned man. They saw that the new Caliph was touched by God and his angels. The boy looked at them all and smiled upon his people. They felt his grace. And he said, ‘My name is now al-Hakim bi-Amrillah.’ You know what that means?”
“The ruler by God’s command.”
“Yes. And even though he was only a little boy, he became the greatest Caliph of all time. He was the star. He was generous and just, wise and judicious. Three months after becoming Caliph, he sent missionaries to herald the coming of a new age, which was to start when the time was ripe. In this new age, truth will be revealed and the knowledge of God was to be disclosed. That was the Call.”
“The Call for the Druze.”
“It was years later when the time was ripe and the Druze were born. Al-Hakim bi-Amrillah was older and even wiser. But even when he was a little boy, all the people could see he was special. That boy is the reason we are all here.”
“So I am the Prince of Believers.”
“You’re the Princess of Believers.”
“You keep putting these strange tales in her head,” my stepmother said, as she placed the large straw tray filled to overflowing with bunches of the sour white grapes on the table in front of all of us.
It was spring, in May, some years ago. I was visiting my sister Amal at her apartment in Beirut. A lazy afternoon, her kids playing in the den, while she and I lounged on a huge sofa. We sat facing each other, massaging each other’s feet, a favorite pastime of ours since we were children.
“I don’t understand why he loved you so,” she said wistfully, reminiscing.
“Neither do I, but I am grateful he did.”
“Are you? If you were Hitler’s favorite child, would you be grateful for his love? I’m not sure I would be.”
“He was not Hitler. I know most of you remember him differently than I do, but he was not evil. Grandfather was just quirky. He was not a bad person.”
“He was a Machiavellian asshole, prejudiced as hell, xenophobic and bigoted. You just don’t remember him well. With you, he was all kindness and warmth; with the rest of us, he was a manipulative bastard.”
“He wasn’t that bad. He just didn’t care for you as much as he did for me. I can’t explain why he cared for me so much, but he wasn’t bad with you. He just ignored you.”
“You’re so naïve sometimes. He was a misogynist. He
hated all us girls. He thought all women were whores. He beat Grandmother up on a regular basis. You were just too young to remember. In any case, what he did to our stepmother alone is enough.”
“What we all did. We were all unkind to Saniya when she arrived.”
“We took our cues from him.”
“We took our cues from Father.”
“Nope. Father was willing to forgive Saniya’s inadequacies. After all, he picked her. He chose an uneducated peasant girl for a wife. He knew what he was doing. It was Grandfather who started the attacks. He turned all of us into the jeering audience. You should talk to her sometime and listen to her stories about him. It’ll give you goose bumps. He was a horrid man. He even told Lamia to her face that she would never find a husband unless she had plastic surgery. He hated women.”
“He loved Sarah Bernhardt.”
“He did not. He loved the myth, the unattainable myth of what a woman is. He had no clue who Bernhardt was. He apotheosized her. Her mother he called a whore, but according to him, Sarah lived
la vie galante
. Fuck that. She started out as a prostitute, like her mother, like her aunts. No metaphors, no euphemisms. She had to be a prostitute like her mother. There was no other way a woman could survive. But your grandfather probably thought she died a virgin. At least he wanted to believe so.
She was born a star.
Bullshit. Like any star in any age, she made it by sleeping her way to the top.”
“I can’t think badly of him, though. He meant so much to me.”
“I know that. It’s a good thing for you he died when he did. If he had waited until you reached puberty, he would have turned against you.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“I am,” she said emphatically. “Do you ever wonder why he always told you the story of the Prince of Believers, but not the story of Sarah?”
“He always told stories of Sarah. What are you talking about?”
“Not Bernhardt, dummy. Sarah, the first woman sent out on the Druze Call. You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? You don’t know who your real namesake is?”
“No idea at all.”
“Al-Muqtana sent a messenger to Wadit-Taym to reconfirm the vows of the followers of a heretic called Sukayn. They tortured and killed the messenger. Al-Muqtana decided to send a woman messenger because she would not meet the
same fate. Since the new faith felt that men and women were
equal in the eyes of God, he sent the most faithful, a woman by the name of Sarah. You didn’t know that, huh? She led a congregation that included her own father.
Her own father
. Can you imagine what an amazing woman she must have been? She was unbelievably successful. She reconfirmed
the vows of most of the followers, men and women. I loved
the fact that your grandfather used to say that the boy was the reason we are all here. Sarah was the reason we are here. We are the direct descendants of the people she converted. Don’t you find it strange that he would not mention her? He preferred to fill your head with stories of the Divine Sarah, but not the Druze Sarah.”
I was in bed, sleeping over at my grandfather’s house. He tucked me in and began another story. “A long, long time ago, all the Christians in the world got together and decided to invade our country. As always, they couldn’t stand the fact that not all the world was Christian like them. So they got together and decided they wanted to liberate our country from the infidels, which meant us. They wanted to liberate us from ourselves. They called themselves the Crusaders. When the Crusaders started coming, we fought them all over this country. But they kept coming and coming like ants and we kept beating them and beating them. One day this big ship of Crusaders landed in Sidon. They didn’t know what to do because all the crusaders were losing everywhere. So there was this young Crusader who was smart and evil and he had lots of plans. His name was Richard Nixon. Nobody liked him because everybody thought he was up to no good, but they always listened to him because he was smart. So Nixon looked around when the Crusaders landed and he decided he knew why they always lost. It was because all the seashore was flat and the mountains were so close that we always won because we attacked them from up high. So Nixon told the Crusaders they had to climb the first hill and build a fortress and they had to do it quickly before we arrived. The Crusaders listened to him because they knew that Nixon was devious. They climbed the hill and started building the fortress. They built and they built, they cut down trees, our cedar trees which were ten thousand years old. That’s why we have fewer than one hundred cedar trees left. It was all because of Nixon. They used wood and they moved rocks, and then they got tired when the night came. They were almost done so they thought they would finish it the next day. Well, at night, our birds and animals got together and they decided they didn’t like these foreigners coming over here and cutting down our trees. So while the Crusaders slept, the birds flew over and began taking each piece of wood and each stone, the donkeys put the heavy stuff on their backs, the foxes directed traffic, the rabbits dug holes under the walls so they would come tumbling down. The birds and animals worked until daybreak when everything that Nixon built was broken down on the ground. When the Crusaders woke up, they saw that all the work they did had been in vain. Nixon stood up and told them all was not lost. He told them they had to start all over again before the infidel army came. He told them they would win the war but all they needed now was a little more effort. So the stupid Crusaders began building the fortress again. They worked and they worked until they got so tired and it was night and there was only a little bit left to do so they went to sleep and decided they would finish it the next day. Again, that night, the birds and animals came and they were laughing. The birds laughed as they carried the wood. The donkeys laughed as they carried the stones. The rabbits laughed as they dug holes. The foxes and the turtles laughed. Because the Crusaders were stupid. When the Crusaders woke up the next day they saw again that the work they had done had been in vain. So Nixon got them to start working again. Same thing happened the next day and the next. Our army arrived one day from the mountains. The general looked down at the Crusaders and started to laugh. He said those stupid Christians think they can stop us with a small fortress like that. They won’t finish it in time anyway so we’ll attack them tomorrow after getting a good night’s sleep. The Crusaders did not see our army so they worked and they worked until night came and they got tired and went to sleep. The next day, when our army woke up, they saw that there was no fort at all. They saw the Crusaders begin to build the fortress again. The army wanted to attack, but the general said no. He said the army should wait until tomorrow because the stupid Crusaders were getting tired of building and they would never finish it anyway. They would attack them tomorrow when the Crusaders first woke up. So they went to sleep and when they woke up, the general saw that there was nothing there again. He laughed and he laughed when he saw Nixon telling the Crusaders they should build the fortress again. So the army sat down and watched the stupid Crusaders build the fortress again and again and again. Years and years passed and the Crusaders got tired. They started leaving one by one. Nixon got upset and he wanted everybody to stay and build the fortress because he thought it was a great idea. But the Crusaders stopped caring about anything. They were now old men. Then there were only twenty Crusaders, then ten, then five, then only Nixon. Every day, he would build a little bit of the fortress and every day it got taken down. Now, you know what they say. If you go to this little hill above Sidon, you will see this little old man trying to build a fortress. Nobody talks about it, but we all know he is still there.”
“Grandfather,” I said, “Richard Nixon is the president of the United States.”
“That was a different Nixon.”
“I’m ten years old now, Grandfather,” I said. “Don’t you think I would know the difference between the Crusaders and the president of the United States?”
I had always wanted to believe it was my grandmother who schemed to get my parents divorced. She was the one who constantly badmouthed my mother after my father divorced her. Even on her own deathbed, my grandmother still spoke ill of my mother. My assumption was understandable. My grandmother was the one whose plotting was visible to the naked eye. She was always mean-spirited, angry, and resentful. I do not think she liked any of us girls. When my stepmother had her first boy, my father’s sixth child, my grandmother was not happy like the rest of us. She bemoaned the fact that her husband was not alive to see my father’s first boy. I do not think she liked my half-brother either. While he was growing up, she made fun of his childhood stuttering and accused him of being a momma’s boy.
It took me years to accept the truth. When I finally heard what my grandfather told my mother at my birth, I was converted.