Monday:
Sameera and Daoud arrive in Beirut to celebrate their 35th in the homeland, as Sameera says. They’ve finally arrived after the long New York-Paris-Beirut flight and they’re sitting on their luggage outside the terminal. Sameera recoils from a waft of diesel fumes, but closing her eyes she catches the smell of Beirut summer that’s unlike anything else—floral scents hanging in the moisture-laden air and some deeper, earthier alchemy of soil, sea, roasting meat, baking bread. A hint of greenery takes her back to the mountainside where they wed, the gracefulness of snobar-pines and olive trees, Daoud plucking a spray of wild yellow wizzal flowers, presenting it to her like a promise.
Since Daoud’s family emigrated to America when he was a baby, he’s only been back twice—with his parents at age fifteen, and for the wedding. He enjoyed those trips but always felt out of place—too American, he said. Sameera, on the other hand, went to the U.S. for college, met Daoud and stayed, but she’d have moved back in a heartbeat if he’d only agreed.
Somehow, whenever Sameera proposed a trip home, Daoud found an excuse: no electricity, demon traffic. Why not Jamaica or Mexico? But Sameera was relentless. Candlelight is romantic! They’d get out of the city. Her mother was turning eighty and Sameera hadn’t been home in three years. Most importantly, she said, they’d married on Mount Lebanon. She knew Daoud felt guilty that he’d worked right through their anniversary last year, since their restaurant, Kalila wa Dimna, was short-staffed. But now that they’d sold it, and with the kids grown, they were free. Ultimately, he accepted, but only for one week. She didn’t say, How about forever?
Sameera is startled back to now by her parents’ excited voices as they cross airport traffic to reach them. She lifts her mother up until she laugh-scoldingly orders Sameera to put her down. How she’s missed the press of their arms, the softness of her mother’s freshly-henna’d hair, her father’s nicotine-coarsened laugh. Yalla, he says. Let’s go home! Mama made maqloubeh just how you like it—with both eggplant and cauliflower, chicken instead of lamb.
But, what is this nonsense about one week? her mother scolds. You must stay a month minimum. Is this how Americans plan visits to their families? Sameera winces. Her mom knows just how to press her sore spots.
Wednesday:
Shopping trip to Ouzai. Today Sameera will cook for her mother’s birthday. She wanders through corrugated stalls surreptitiously pinching perfect plump-ripe tomatoes, tiny zucchinis, tender-sweet peaches grown in the Beqaa valley. The greengrocer is side-by-side with a grease-encrusted auto shop, florist, fish-monger. She’s jostled by women in bright scarves and plastic sandals haggling in harsh voices. Oh, to bargain again! She longs to join them, but figures everyone would peg her as a tourist, trying too hard to fit in. Odors of sweat, aftershave and cigarette smoke mingle with the sweetness of cantaloupe, blood reek of the butcher shop where flies buzz hooked sides of lamb and goat.
Stepping outside to catch her breath, Sameera is greeted by the aroma of cardamom-laced coffee dripping into espresso cups from a machine in the boot of a tiny truck adorned with plastic roses, evil-eye beads, photos of children with naughtier-than-thou grins. She meets up with Daoud, boasting her bulging sacks of loot. All this for $22! In Hartford it would be $100.
Daoud nods, adding a half kilo of fresh ground coffee beans to one of the bags. And this was only four bucks.
Sameera pinches his arm. See? If we moved back, we’d always have this.
Daoud rolls his eyes, tossing the bags into the back seat. Nice try, but I’d still rather pay the $100 at Stop & Shop. Nice and clean. Organized.
Sameera knows there’s no point in arguing. Sometimes it feels like they come from different worlds. She knows he’s proud of his heritage but seems to appreciate it more from afar. But her longing for Lebanon has only increased over time. After so many years away she has the sensation of living in perpetual suspended animation, twisting this way and that, neither fully Lebanese nor American, as if someone tweaked the double helix of her DNA into a mobius strip, so it’s never clear what’s up or down, nothing quite right wherever she is. Back in the States they had the restaurant, their kids, a nice house in the ‘burbs, living the clichés about the country that has it all—opportunities and ease, so orderly and sure of itself, forcing the world into neat categories.
Sameera’s done the math. Lebanon is smaller than Connecticut, but somehow holds every bit of its Byzantine/Levantine/Phoenician/Roman history. It’s everywhere—in the ruins and amphitheaters, in the swirling geometry of mosaics depicting wild boar and warriors in mauve, sand, and sage. In black hair and blonde, blue eyes and brown. Who hasn’t tried to lay claim to this mote of land? Crusaders, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, French, Israelis.
Now that she’s back, Sameera can see how centuries of turmoil have stunted the country’s growth, how it seems stuck in permanent adolescence, people believing they can wing it in any situation. Cars driving over median strips to avoid traffic. Banks promising dividends they can never pay. Believers convinced Allah will solve everything if they just pray five times a day. It’s as if the whole country is in retrograde, but somehow Sameera finds herself smiling at the same things that make Daoud curse and shake his head, yell at drivers when they swerve around him, honking.
Saturday:
They’ve splurged, rented a house in the Shouf mountains near the old wedding venue that’s now a hotel. Sameera borrowed her dad’s Toyota for the weekend and as they wind up the steep, narrow roads, the old rust-box strains around every switchback.
When they reach the hewn-stone house, Sameera pauses on the gravel path to listen to the warbling, chittering sounds she’s so keenly missed. A hardoon lizard skitters by like an old friend welcoming her home. She takes Daoud’s arm, gestures toward the valley dotted with red-roofed houses, takes a deep breath of sage-scented air. I could look at this view forever, habibi, couldn’t you? Daoud mumbles something inaudible, unwinds his arm from hers, says he’s going to put the bags inside.
At night, Sameera lies awake listening to distant hyena howls meld with the mewl of a tom cat on the prowl, millions of competing crickets, the scent of brush smoke in the air. Looking out the big picture window, she squints at the summer stars that glow like pearls on black velvet. Deneb, Vega, Altair stare back like wise old souls that will never die. They’ve witnessed all: battles and shortages, queues of restless people waiting hours for a few liters of gas, conversations that always begin, What’s the exchange rate today? Do you have electricity?
Sunday:
Sameera calls to check on her mother, still feeling guilty they’ve taken their final two days by themselves. I’m fine, habibti, she says. Yalla, go enjoy your celebration. Sameera is relieved until her mother adds with a loud tchh, But one week only? What is this? Sameera tries to shake off the pangs that only her mother knows how to stir in her, wishes she could confide how she’s really feeling. Wishes her loyalty to Daoud didn’t somehow hold her back from that.
Daoud has never been big on going out, knows too much about restaurants, he says. He’d rather stay home, pop a bottle of champagne. Says he’ll cook up something special.
But we’ve come all this way, habibi, Sameera says.Daoud relents, but grouses at having to time showers so as to press electric shavers and blow dryers into service before the power cuts out again.
They drive to Mir Amin restaurant with its vaulted ceilings, inlaid archways, and stunning views of the slopes and valleys of the Shouf from the patio. Daoud holds her hand, smiles. Honestly? I’m happy we came. Happy to be going home, too, he adds pointedly. They clink glasses and Sameera tries for a smile but can’t deny the ache inside. How to tell her husband of over three decades she’s not happy to be going home to Connecticut? That this is where she’s always belonged, belongs still. Wishes he felt the same.
They enjoy a feast only a traditional place like this can create. Round after round of mazzeh: hummos, baba ghanouj, sfeehah, tabouleh, grape leaves, labneh, ‘ras kibbeh, a tray of olives, radishes, tomatoes, scallions. They wonder how they’ll manage the main course, but somehow by the time still-steaming skewers of chicken taouk, shish kebab, and kefta arrive, their mouths are watering again. At the end, they enjoy a platter of fresh fruits, but draw the line at dessert and coffee. Yet, her parents have apparently made a couple of surreptitious phone calls and a glossy chocolate ganache cake materializes in front of them along with two glasses of sherry on the house.
As the sun melts crimson-and-plum into the mountain, they return exhausted, full, and tipsy, fall into bed, the faint aroma of wood smoke still hovering in the night air, crickets zeek-zeeking, tom cat yowling. Sameera looks at Daoud happily drifting off, at the packed suitcases standing like sentries by the door, tries to ignore the heaviness she feels. She peers out the window but sees no stars. She’s disoriented, wonders if it’s fog, or her eyes blurring. Or perhaps those distant fireballs are also destined to spend all eternity oscillating in the lonely space between worlds.
But Sameera doesn’t want an eternity of longing, realizes this might be her last chance. She’s done putting the needs of others ahead of her own. Done with destiny. The chorus of crickets seems to rise approvingly along with Sameera’s thoughts. Throat tight with a thrill of excitement and fear, she tears a page from her notebook, begins to write. The words are addressed to Daoud, but it’s as if she’s telling herself what she’s always needed to hear.
She folds the note with its artless blue lines and tattered edges where she ripped the pages out, wishes she had something more elegant. But this will have to do. Sameera kisses her fingers, floats a silent kiss to her sleeping husband, lifts her heavy bag, slips out into the cacophony of the still-starless night.
Kathryn Silver-Hajo’s work appears in Atticus Review, Centaur Lit, CRAFT, Emerge Literary, Ghost Parachute, Milk Candy Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, Ruby Literary, The Phare, and other lovely journals. Her stories were selected for the 2023 and 2024 Wigleaf Top 50 Longlists and nominated for Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Food Writing. Kathryn’s books include award-winning flash collection, Wolfsong, and award-winning YA novel, Roots of the Banyan Tree. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and curly-tailed pup, Kaya. More at: kathrynsilverhajo.com; facebook.com/kathryn.silverhajo; twitter.com/KSilverHajo; @kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social; instagram.com/kathrynsilverhajo
Doric Literary 