the first customer of the day. Hussein forces a welcoming smile.
“Mrs. Habash, good to see you. What will it be today? We have delicious lamb.”
The mayor’s wife is one of the town’s most prominent citizens. She married her cousin and belongs to an ancient tribe, which, like the Sabas lineage, traces its ancestry back to a fortress settlement in the country’s south. Over a hundred years ago their families, and other Christians, were forced to flee northward—the result of a misunderstanding that turned into a sectarian conflict. Eventually they came to a Byzantine city destroyed by earthquakes and established a village that grew into a town. This historic connection is useful to Hussein. It makes it easier to stop by the mayor’s office every couple of weeks with what he calls “a little bite” that is bigger than the crumbs the mayor usually receives. Hussein considers the expense of these friendly consultations another indispensable operating cost. Why should he and his uncle Abu Za’atar be the only ones with their noses in the trough? It is only fair, and no one asks him to do it, but it doesn’t make dealing with the mayor’s wife any easier.
Mrs. Habash dismisses his offer. “I was thinking Issa would like chicken for lunch. You don’t have one in the back, do you?”
Hussein began keeping a few birds in a small coop in the yard after Mrs. Habash told him that she didn’t like going to the market. She feels it’s beneath her dignity to bargain like a falah, a peasant. She prefers to come to Hussein instead and is prepared to pay for the privilege. He calls out, “Khaled, jajeh!” and the boy appears clutching a robust, speckled fowl in his arms.
Hussein is puzzled. Khaled is fond of this particular bird. It is the pick of the flock and the boy gives it special treatment and feeds it extra food. But he can’t say anything in front of Mrs. Habash, so he takes the plump chicken and turns it around for her benefit. She nods in approval. Hussein hands the bird back to Khaled and tells him to prepare it. He urges the boy to hurry—“Assre’!”—more for his sake than for the customer, whom he regards as intrusive. She has probably ordered chicken only so she can gossip while it’s being plucked.
“How’s the family?” She inspects the meat on the counter. “I hear your niece has arrived. I hope she’s not like one of those Arab hip-hoppers.”
“Not at all. Muna is a well-mannered young woman,” he replies, although from what he remembers from last night, he cannot be sure.
“I look forward to meeting her. I would be happy to show her the mosaics after service on Sunday.”
“I’m sure she will enjoy that.” He can already anticipate what’s coming next.
“Perhaps you will join us?”
Long ago Hussein abandoned whatever religious convictions he held. Experience made it impossible for him to carry on believing. Nevertheless, in the past he went to church for the sake of form. As his drinking, disillusionment, and shame increased, he gradually stopped going. Those had been his reasons. His wife insists on attending for the children’s sake, even though it has become difficult. Sometimes people whisper and stare.
Hussein doesn’t want to offend such an important customer. He usually compliments Mrs. Habash’s good taste and even agrees with her when he thinks her opinions are ill judged. His uncle stupidly recommends this as sound business practice.
Hussein instead opts for evasiveness: “Sundays are my busiest days, Mrs. Habash.” It was hard to miss the cars that blocked the main street during the weekend. “All of my customers are Christians anyway. And when I can, I take a moment alone to…” He can’t bring himself to lie outright, so he swallows the word “pray.”
“That’s all well and good,” she sighs, “but commerce is no substitute for worship. Religion anchors our way of life.”
At any moment she is going to remind him that their town was mentioned in the Bible. The Byzantine ruins their families settled on had been an ancient Moabite town where Musa walked and Isaiah prophesized. Like the writing on the side of the tour buses said, VISIT THE LAND OF THE PROPHETS. His father would not have agreed more.
Hussein throws up his hands and wearily concedes, “Can’t argue with that.”
Ignoring him, Mrs. Habash presses on: “I was just telling Issa this morning, even a woman of my considerable years feels the strain whenever I’m near the Eastern Quarter. Mark my words, in a year’s time all us ladies will be wearing hijabs.”
Hussein knows how he is expected to react, but his customers from the Eastern Quarter have been thoroughly decent to him. His van may have been assaulted outside the mosque, but he cannot bring himself to hold a grudge against a religion and all who follow it. His eighteen years in the army taught him to be extremely wary of organized bigotry, and even his two-year special assignment didn’t dissuade him.
Hypocrisy, he reminds himself, is not the exclusive preserve of the pampered and protected who rarely venture beyond family and home. He encountered it in his commanding officers and the secret police, men far more devious than Mrs. Habash. Yet he finds her attitude disquieting. When the numbers of Syrian refugees were low and they were housed with relatives and sympathetic friends in the country, she talked about the importance of solidarity and initiated a few desultory charitable collections. The homeless and bereft who wandered through were nothing more than annoying nuisances, to be pitied rather than feared. Once hundreds of thousands fled over the border and the Eastern Quarter filled with refugees and other migrants, the town’s demographics started changing and Christians, historically the majority, were being outnumbered. Those with the most to lose—people like Mrs. Habash—responded by locking their gates, building their walls higher, and closing their minds.
“Laila hasn’t mentioned any trouble to me,” he admits slowly.
“She will,” intones the mayor’s wife, before complaining, “I just don’t know when the country will return to normal and our town will belong to us.”
Hussein finds Mrs. Habash’s memory highly selective. The town has never been theirs. When their grandfathers and their uncles and fathers—then small boys—first settled, they fought side by side against local nomads over a watering hole. Go back a few generations and someone somewhere is always fleeing or seeking sanctuary with strangers. The entire region has a long history of forced migration. The Syrians are not the first refugees, nor will they be the last.
To divert Mrs. Habash’s attention, he remarks blandly, “I sell so much goat these days—”
“I suppose it’s cheap meat they want for all those children,” she declares. “You can see why they have no money.”
Hussein suddenly feels drained. The morning has already taken its toll. There are too many lines of division between those who have money and those who do not. Hussein sees himself scrabbling in the middle, attempting to grab whatever he can for his family but feeling like a failure most of the time.
Tiredness overrides his better judgment. “All of us like a lot of children, Mrs. Habash, whatever our religion, don’t you agree?”
The mayor’s wife has no offspring; it is the one weakness in her social armor. Hussein doesn’t care that he is being reckless. Lower than refugees are barren women. Everyone agrees: they are without purpose. Christian, Muslim, and Jew alike, they have failed their families and their gods.
Mrs. Habash’s composure instantaneously toughens, as she aims for Hussein’s most vulnerable spot: “By the way, how’s business?”
Before
