We moved to the sofa, and I inspected Uncle Wadih. He looked younger than Papi, even though he wasn't. Teta said there were three years between them, yet it was Papi's hair that was greying, his face that was pulled in all the wrong directions, and his eyes that seemed to see everything and nothing. Uncle had slick black hair and an unlined, easy face.
‘This uncle of yours,’ said Papi, looking happy, ‘you see his shiny car out there? Well, the summer he bought his first banged-up one, we used to go down to Beirut in it. You remember, Wadih, how you used to drive slowly and not let me roll down any of the windows? The temperature was in the thirties, the sweat pouring off us, and still you wouldn't open them.’
‘Why not?’ asked Naji.
Papi smiled. ‘So the girls would think his car had air-conditioning. There we sat like idiots, smiling and sweating.’
Naji hooted with laughter.
‘You weren't interested in other girls for long, ha, Nabeel?’ said Uncle. ‘You see, Ruba, your mother was so beautiful your father fell in love with her almost in a second.’
I leant against Uncle Wadih on the sofa and the heat of him came through his clothes. I couldn't remember whether Papi was this warm or not because I couldn't remember ever having leant against him.
‘Was she the most beautiful one?’ I saw a pretty girl running and laughing, but the girl wasn't Mami.
‘Yes,’ said Uncle Wadih, as Mami came back in with a rakweh of coffee. ‘But, then, all women are beautiful in one way or another. Your mother's a good woman – and a good wife, which is rarer. And at least there are still such women. Pearls among rubbish, ya Nabeel?’
Gazing at the shimmer of her silk shirt, I imagined Mami made of pearls: smooth polished face, smaller pearls for her eyes, and a row for her toes.
Over coffee Uncle said there was no hurry for him to be back at work, and he would stay awhile. Everyone looked pleased except for Mami, who stared into her tiny cup.
‘What do you work as?’ asked Naji, settling himself on the other side of Uncle.
‘I work in a wood factory,’ Uncle explained.
‘What kind of things do you make?’ asked Naji.
‘Oh, all sorts of things. Beauuuutiful things.’ Uncle's arms rose and fell so that his jacket crunched lightly.
‘Do you make them?’ Naji wanted to know.
‘Stop bothering your uncle,’ said Papi.
Naji glared at him. ‘He doesn't think I'm a bother.’ He looked up at Uncle. ‘I've made things from wood – from sticks and things, just like you.’
Uncle laughed softly – a low drumbeat. It was a strange sound in our house, where grown-ups never laughed. ‘No, I don't make them. The factory isn't in Beirut. Down in the city I deal with the business side.’
Business. The word reminded me of the dead man.
The following day Uncle Wadih went to visit the dead fat man.
‘What? Even though he's dead?’ Naji asked Teta.
‘He's gone to see the man's family.’ Sitting down on her bed, she handed me a hairbrush. ‘Here, scratch my back with this, habibti. A thousand ants are dancing on it.’ She lifted the back of her shirt to reveal it, broad, and pale, and I scratched.
‘Now all over.’ Teta's shoulders drooping and her head falling forwards.
When I finished, the brush went back on the table beside the blonde Virgin Mary with the bottle-top crown, but as Teta pulled down her shirt, her eyes were glistening.
‘Did I brush too hard?’ I peered at her. ‘Did I, Teta?’
‘No, my soul.’ She took hold of my hand. ‘You could never brush my back too hard.’
Leaning against the bedpost, Naji chewed his lip. ‘Why are you crying? Did you know the dead man?’
‘Yes.’ She sighed and, taking a tissue out of her sleeve, dabbed her eyes. ‘But I didn't like him.’
‘Why are you crying, then?’ asked Naji.
But Teta only sighed, pulled herself up and went out of the room.
As we crossed the road to go home, a heat-haze was rising from the engine of the parked cream Mercedes, and I heard the high-pitched laughter of little girls. Except it wasn't little girls.
The Rose Man's daughters were standing on the far side of the veranda with Uncle. Ghada, the younger one, had her hand over her mouth and laughter was escaping from beneath it. She was gazing at Uncle Wadih from under her eyelashes and holding her head at an angle that made it look as if it wasn't screwed onto her neck properly.
‘What's she doing?’ I asked, peering round the corner with Naji. But now Uncle leant down to say something in Samira's ear, and although she was the sensible sister, she unseamed into giggles too.
‘What joke is he telling?’ I started to go forwards, but Naji pulled me back.
‘We mustn't. He wouldn't like it.’
Then Uncle started on something else. '“Se trouva fort dépourvue, quand la bise fut venue: pas un seul petit morceau de mouche ou de vermisseau.” He was using a different voice, one he only used when he was talking to women. He had another for when he was talking to us.
Samira's arms were wrapped round herself, Ghada's fingers picked at the skirt of her blue dress, and both were gazing at Uncle as though he were Jesus.
Suddenly Uncle put up his hands the way people did when a gun was pointing at them. “Elle alla crier famine chez la fourmi sa voisine. La priant de lui prêter quelque grain pour subsister jusqu'à la saison nouvelle.” He bent his head towards the sisters. ‘That means the grasshopper was suffering with hunger.’
‘Look!’ giggled Naji. ‘They're grown-up and they're still listening to the ant and the grasshopper!’
The two women were entranced. Samira clutched at her neck. ‘That's beautiful. Did you hear how beautiful that was, Ghada? Did you hear the poetry?’
Ghada smiled the way unmarried girls smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘But that poem … The way you recited it was beautiful,’ Samira declared.
Uncle gave a slight bow, and we went inside to wait for him. The weather was still sticky. Since yesterday it had felt as if the clouds must split like cloth and let out their load, yet still no drop fell from the dark sky.
Mami had gone out to buy food, but drinking cordial in the kitchen, we listened to the faint voices of Papi and the Rose Man in the next room.
‘Maybe that's why Uncle's out on the veranda,’ said Naji, suddenly angry. ‘So he doesn't have to be in there.’ He jerked his thumb towards the living room.
‘What's wrong?’
Naji glared at the closed door. ‘Him. He's always talking about the war. Uncle's not like that. He laughs and jokes and … knows how to be with people.’
We were finishing our second glass of cordial when Uncle Wadih came back inside. I clutched his jacket so he couldn't get away again. ‘You were out there for ages.’
He looked surprised. ‘They're lovely ladies.’ It was the voice he used for me and Naji. ‘Don't they deserve to have me talking to them?’
‘How long are you going to stay?’ I demanded.
Uncle glanced at the nearly empty glasses, then checked his jacket for fingermarks. There were none. ‘I haven't been here a couple of days and you're thinking of me leaving