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Authors: Alameddine Rabih
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been dunked in an Italian fountain of joy.
The coffee klatsch is reuniting this morning. Good for them.
The three witches have been having syrupy coffee together every morning for almost thirty years. On the third-floor landing, in front of Joumana’s apartment, my neighbors gather around the round brass tray, smoking, gossiping, and getting ready for the day. Marie-Thérèse hasn’t sat on her stool at all in the last year—a bit too much mourning, if you ask me, but understandable. That she’s making the trek upstairs is a grand occasion.
“You light up the day,” Joumana calls down. Her voice rings out along the stairwell and drops right into my kitchen.
It’s a glorious, gilded Levantine morning.
The acoustics in the building are such that in my kitchen I hear every word spoken on the landing. Every morning, I hover intimately among my neighbors. I hear the clink of cups on their saucers, the clank of saucers on the brass tray, the pouring of the coffee, their sacred ritual—“irrigating the Garden,” Joumana calls it. I hear them chatter and gossip: Have you heard this? Can you believe that? They curse enemies and laud friends. I hear every sigh and giggle. I listen to them make plans, compare notes, exchange recipes, and exhibit every newly purchased inessential.
Years of conversation.
So many mornings: Fadia unleashing her frightening trademark laugh, a crackling falsetto exhalation that makes her elongated throat swell and undulate like a baker’s bellows, a wild and epidemically infectious laugh, and she’s prodigal with it. Joumana’s husband putting his head out the door; he good-mornings the women, jokes with them, and shouts down to Mr. Hayek, Marie-Thérèse’s husband and tormentor, in the apartment below mine to make sure he’s ready for their walk to the American University, where they both teach. Joumana teaches at the university as well, but she drives her car and never rushes her coffee. She pokes fun at the men because most days they walk in a dawdling mosey and she picks them up along the way. “They want exercise,” she says, “but not perspiration.”
Poor Mr. Hayek no longer makes that walk.
I pick a fragrant mandarin out of the bowl, poke a hole in its bottom with my finger, and begin to peel. I pour myself a second cup of tea.
“I’m so happy you’re out of mourning,” Fadia says. “A year is too much.”
I concur, of course. A year is too much if you loved your husband. It is much too much for Mr. Hayek.
“I understand why you chose to do it,” Fadia goes on. “I’m with you, my love. But I say six months—six months is more than enough. I loved my husband, everyone will vouch for that, but I couldn’t keep wearing black.”
“I didn’t mind the black,” Marie-Thérèse says. A loud car horn from the street obscures her next sentence.
“It’s better that you took it off,” Joumana says. “He’d have wanted you to. Your husband hated black.”
“And don’t wear those black nylons anymore,” Fadia says. No car horn, no backfiring truck or rumbling motorcycle, is able obscure her voice. “Although they do cover a lot.”
“Fadia!” Joumana admonishes.
“What? Don’t look at me like that. Fadia tells the truth. You know that. I think we could all use a little depilation. That’s all I’m saying. Am I lying? Tell me. No, I most certainly am not. We all need a good pedicure as well. Am I right? Am I right? This evening we’ll all go to the salon. Just the essentials, that’s all. Top to bottom. And you know, my love, unshaved legs are contagious. If we don’t do something about yours, who knows what will happen to mine? It’s even worse with unpedicured nails. Look, look.” Fadia’s voice hoots and shrieks. “The color is chipping as we speak. We need an emergency intervention.” Fadia, who always enjoys her own joke, laughs, the crackling falsetto.
“Girls’ night out,” Joumana says.
“We can be young again,” Fadia adds.
At
The coffee klatsch is reuniting this morning. Good for them.
The three witches have been having syrupy coffee together every morning for almost thirty years. On the third-floor landing, in front of Joumana’s apartment, my neighbors gather around the round brass tray, smoking, gossiping, and getting ready for the day. Marie-Thérèse hasn’t sat on her stool at all in the last year—a bit too much mourning, if you ask me, but understandable. That she’s making the trek upstairs is a grand occasion.
“You light up the day,” Joumana calls down. Her voice rings out along the stairwell and drops right into my kitchen.
It’s a glorious, gilded Levantine morning.
The acoustics in the building are such that in my kitchen I hear every word spoken on the landing. Every morning, I hover intimately among my neighbors. I hear the clink of cups on their saucers, the clank of saucers on the brass tray, the pouring of the coffee, their sacred ritual—“irrigating the Garden,” Joumana calls it. I hear them chatter and gossip: Have you heard this? Can you believe that? They curse enemies and laud friends. I hear every sigh and giggle. I listen to them make plans, compare notes, exchange recipes, and exhibit every newly purchased inessential.
Years of conversation.
So many mornings: Fadia unleashing her frightening trademark laugh, a crackling falsetto exhalation that makes her elongated throat swell and undulate like a baker’s bellows, a wild and epidemically infectious laugh, and she’s prodigal with it. Joumana’s husband putting his head out the door; he good-mornings the women, jokes with them, and shouts down to Mr. Hayek, Marie-Thérèse’s husband and tormentor, in the apartment below mine to make sure he’s ready for their walk to the American University, where they both teach. Joumana teaches at the university as well, but she drives her car and never rushes her coffee. She pokes fun at the men because most days they walk in a dawdling mosey and she picks them up along the way. “They want exercise,” she says, “but not perspiration.”
Poor Mr. Hayek no longer makes that walk.
I pick a fragrant mandarin out of the bowl, poke a hole in its bottom with my finger, and begin to peel. I pour myself a second cup of tea.
“I’m so happy you’re out of mourning,” Fadia says. “A year is too much.”
I concur, of course. A year is too much if you loved your husband. It is much too much for Mr. Hayek.
“I understand why you chose to do it,” Fadia goes on. “I’m with you, my love. But I say six months—six months is more than enough. I loved my husband, everyone will vouch for that, but I couldn’t keep wearing black.”
“I didn’t mind the black,” Marie-Thérèse says. A loud car horn from the street obscures her next sentence.
“It’s better that you took it off,” Joumana says. “He’d have wanted you to. Your husband hated black.”
“And don’t wear those black nylons anymore,” Fadia says. No car horn, no backfiring truck or rumbling motorcycle, is able obscure her voice. “Although they do cover a lot.”
“Fadia!” Joumana admonishes.
“What? Don’t look at me like that. Fadia tells the truth. You know that. I think we could all use a little depilation. That’s all I’m saying. Am I lying? Tell me. No, I most certainly am not. We all need a good pedicure as well. Am I right? Am I right? This evening we’ll all go to the salon. Just the essentials, that’s all. Top to bottom. And you know, my love, unshaved legs are contagious. If we don’t do something about yours, who knows what will happen to mine? It’s even worse with unpedicured nails. Look, look.” Fadia’s voice hoots and shrieks. “The color is chipping as we speak. We need an emergency intervention.” Fadia, who always enjoys her own joke, laughs, the crackling falsetto.
“Girls’ night out,” Joumana says.
“We can be young again,” Fadia adds.
At
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