Mother of All Pigs. Malu Halasa
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be accepted in Jordan, and all of our lives would be miserable. So I think it’s best for us to remain here. God bless you.’”
Saying nothing, Fadhma hands Muna the picture of herself when she was small. “I don’t remember this,” her granddaughter grins uncomfortably. After a long, hard stare, she passes it to Samira before asking Fadhma, “Why did you give your children Muslim names, Jadda?”
The old grandmother again regards the girl in a new light. At least Muna isn’t unintelligent. Fadhma smiles proudly. “It was your grandfather’s idea.”
In the hopes that Muna’s interest in family history is greater than Samira’s or Laila’s, she begins slowly. “Hundred of years ago, Christians dedicated to Sabas, the patron saint of our family, waged war against the pagan gods of the desert. After those battles, they settled in the Crusader fortress in the country’s south and would have gladly stayed there, if not for a dispute over a local woman—”
“There’s always a woman,” interrupts Samira with a laugh. “Someone looks at someone. Someone’s father gets upset. So-and-so’s brothers become involved, which pretty much all the time leads to murder.”
Fadhma refuses to acknowledge her daughter’s comments and continues: “It would have ended in a sectarian war, but the church leaders in Jerusalem petitioned the Turkish governor in charge of the region and the Christians were given permission to come to the mountains here”—Fadhma twirls a finger in the air—“and settle in the ruins of an abandoned Byzantine city that had been destroyed seven times by earthquakes. When the tribes arrived, they took shelter in a cave by a spring, which they thought was God’s gift to them. It belonged to someone else. Inadvertently our relatives traded one fight for another, and your great-grandfather was killed in a battle. It was devastating for the family. But at the young age of ten, Al Jid made a solemn vow not to avenge his father’s murder, something remarkable considering the code of honor among the tribes. Once he married and had children of his own, he called them not by Christian names but ones that were either Muslim or considered neutral. That way they could live unmolested among strangers.”
She pours herself a second cup of coffee. “Your grandfather believed Islam and Orthodox Christendom were a large and small tree that had grown into one. The leaves were different but the shade the same. He also taught himself to read and write.” She could see him now, spending hours in the window alcove at the front of the old house, where he sat in the natural light with his books. “He was in love with the history of Arabia. Our daughters were named after great Islamic women, some of them warriors. Would you like to hear his favorite poem? It was their bedtime story.”
Mother Fadhma sits up and recites a little self-consciously:
We are daughters of the morning star,
We tread on pillows underfoot,
Pearls adorn our necks.
Musk perfumes our hair.
If you fight, we will embrace you,
If you retreat, we will abandon you.
And say farewell to love.
“This was the song of Hind and other rebellious Meccan women on the field of battle,” she goes on explaining. “They banged their drums and urged their men to kill Muslims who had come from Medina to steal Mecca’s profitable pilgrim and caravan trade.”
Finally Mother Fadhma feels like she is enjoying herself. Since Hussein’s troubles, she has been denied a favorite pastime, taking morning coffee with the elderly women of the town and telling stories. Neither Muna nor Samira displays the wit or feistiness of her old friends, but the young women are a reasonable audience. Fadhma would have told them all she knew about the bravery and savagery of Hind on the battlefield and her run-in with the Prophet Muhammad; the conversion of the pagans who first fought the Christian saints and the brutal dawning of a new era belonging to the One God. It would have been a history lesson that her husband would have been proud of, but he was oftentimes oblivious to the repetitive nature of his stories. Already Fadhma can sense the tedium rising from Samira’s side of the room, so she leaves her tales for another time and asks, “What are your plans for today?”
Muna eagerly nods at Samira’s reply: “We might go to Amman and come back early for the wedding feast tonight. Or we can spend the afternoon at the Internet café. I’m sure something will come up. We haven’t decided yet.”
“Don’t go far,” her mother warns. “Guests are expected this afternoon.”
“Guests?” Samira echoes incredulously.
“Some of the townspeople are coming to meet Muna,” her mother proudly exclaims.
“Well, maybe we should try to get a SIM card for my phone,” suggests Muna evenly, “but it probably won’t work. I’m told the town has bad reception”—she sounds almost apologetic—“because of Jebel Musa, but the mountain isn’t the problem. It’s me. I’m addicted to the Internet.”
Samira appears sympathetic, although Fadhma doesn’t know why she should be. The young speak a different language and Fadhma can’t ignore the feeling in her tired old bones that her daughter is hiding something. Where has she been going these past few months? Whom is she spending time with? A man? Just because Muna is visiting, Samira shouldn’t think she can take advantage. Fadhma is keenly aware this is not the right time. She would rather sew her lips together with coarse straw than cause a scene and create a trail of speculation that finds its way back to Cleveland, Ohio. Suddenly the room feels hot and claustrophobic. Wordlessly, Fadhma packs the letters back into their box.
Two men haggle loudly by a truck. “You must make up your mind,” bullies the taller of the pair, a much older balding, beak-nosed man. His shoulders droop winglike and his arms flap excitedly. Thin, wiry, ornery—more scavenger than songbird—he bobs up and down in barely suppressed excitement. Blood rising, talons at the ready, he is about to land a decisive blow. But mid-swoop he flutters impotently back to earth, acutely aware of being watched. Not every rabbit needs to know when the hawk strikes, Abu Za’atar thinks, and ushers his prey into the Marvellous Emporium. Fresh kill is always needed to line his nest. He hasn’t earned the nickname ar-Rish Ajjanah, the Featherer, for nothing.
Once the transaction is completed, the driver summarily dispatched, and the precious boxes of junk, really—electrical parts and secondhand US Army T-shirts—dumped in a storeroom, Abu Za’atar berates himself for getting overexcited. Some men his age wind down with backgammon or crossword puzzles. Armed with only a feather duster and microfiber cloth, he often takes these forays through the canyons of his empire, a momentary respite from life’s duller pleasures. These expeditions also serve as a stark reminder that his most prized possessions, many hidden away from public view, have a value beyond money.
The accumulated layers of kitchenware; exotic imported foodstuffs (mainly Asian); sports, casual, and ready-to-wear—men’s, women’s, children’s, toddlers’, and newborns’; absurdly high high heels and flat, sole-destroying trainers; festive decorations for all holidays, including those Islamic (Shia, Sunni, Druze, Alawi, and Ismaili), Christian (Syriac Christian and Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Maronite, and Phalange), and pagan (Yazidi, Zoroastrianism, and Druidic), and the big names in between (Buddha and the Maharishi); syncopated doorbells; Chinese paper cuts; hotel-standard pants presses; analog telephones; electric shoeshine machines; and haute couture nail polish, among thousands of other remarkable products and gadgets, are more than just a jumble of unrelated artifacts. A passerby glancing in through the window would be forgiven for mistaking the Marvellous Emporium for a postmodern aberration of outsider art. Abu Za’atar keenly insists to first-time customers that no one but he alone can prize an object from its exhibition place, citing avalanches as a clear and present danger.
In the past he considered the emporium a fixed monument to his life on earth, to be dismantled when the appropriate time comes, buried in a landfill, and forgotten. But Umm al-Khanaazeer