One day not long after the time Hakim told the Syrian joke while he and Father were watching TV and discussing the new beginnings in Lebanon, the phone rang in the hall. It was one of those old telephones with a rotary dial and a heavy handset. Ours was mint green. I was nearby, so I answered the phone.
“Hello. Samir el-Hourani speaking,” I said.
Silence.
“Hello?” I said, shrugging at Father, who gave me a surprised look. It was a bad line, lots of crackling. I could hear someone breathing at the other end, as if they were taking a deep breath.
“Hello?” I said again.
The person at the other end exhaled. Someone was singing in the background. Next thing, Father was standing beside me, taking the handset.
“This is Brahim el-Hourani,” he said.
I watched him and saw his eyes narrowing. Then he hung up.
“The line was cut off,” he said brusquely. Then he turned on his heel, taking his jacket off the hook, fished a few coins from his pocket, and quickly worked out how much he had.
“Are you going out?” I asked.
“That was your grandmother,” he said. “I have to ring her back.”
“What do you need your jacket for?”
“I’m going to the phone box.”
“But we have our own phone,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
“I know, Samir. But it’s very expensive to ring Lebanon. I’ve been saving coins especially so that I can ring your grandmother from the phone box.”
He knelt down to tie his shoes.
“Can I go with you?”
“No,” he said. “Wait here. Your mother will be back any minute with the shopping. I want you to help her carry it in.”
With that, he left the flat.
A few days later, the phone rang again and I answered. Again, no reply. Just more breathing. No singing in the background this time, but I thought I could make out engine noises. “Grandmother?” I said into the silence. No reply. Maybe the line was even worse at the other end? I listened for a little longer this time. Then the line went dead. I told Father about the phone call, and off he went again to return the call from the phone box. But before he left, he went down on his knees, put both hands on my shoulders, and looked me straight in the eye.
“Samir,” he said insistently, “promise me you won’t tell your mother about the phone calls.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want her to worry.”
“But if Grandmother is sick, don’t you think she’d want to know?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Of course. But you know your mother. She’d get upset, and that wouldn’t be good.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Do you promise?”
“Not to tell Mother?”
“Not to tell anyone.”
I promised. And I kept my promise too.
Grandmother rang a third time, I think. Father answered the phone, said his name, hung up almost immediately and left the flat. This time, he didn’t even put on his jacket.
Soon the weather turned colder. The leaves changed colour and cast our neighbourhood in a golden-red glow in the evening light. Then they turned brown and fell. A street in timelapse. The pretty autumn colours seemed to rub off on people too. I loved how the crisp air could bring a magic smile to rosy cheeks. Even the grown-ups were friendlier, out raking leaves on our street. Of course, I loved to kick up the piles of leaves again when no one was looking. For me, autumn was also full of things to look forward to. Winter—and the longed-for first snow of the season—was only round the corner. Then there were walnuts, which I loved not just because you could make little ships out of them, but because they tasted so good. And the dark evenings were great because it meant Mother would light candles and turn the heat up. Another reason I loved autumn was because it came with an image of my mother that has become one of my indelible memories of her. She’s sitting on the sofa with a rug tucked round her legs, steam rising from a cup of tea in front of her. She’s flicking through catalogues looking for inspiration for new dresses. Before turning the page, she briefly puts her left index finger to her lips to moisten it. I don’t think she was even aware of doing this.
Eventually, the weather got so cold you could see your own breath outside. By then, the new Lebanese parliament was two months old, and it had quickly become clear that Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister, wasn’t going to hang about. The reconstruction plans had already been drawn up. The Syrians were still in the country, of course, and they wouldn’t be leaving in a hurry. But things were progressing that November. All that was missing was the first snow. Our snowsuits hadn’t come out of the wardrobe yet. On 10 November 1992, I turned eight.
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8
One day in the run-up to my birthday, Father drove out to our town’s industrial estate. That’s where the joinery was where Hakim worked. When he got back, he took a thick plank out of the boot. The timber was a pale but intense colour. I stood by the car and watched. He had gloves on and a warm jacket, and his breath came out in clouds as he wrestled with the board.
“Here, smell this,” he said, holding the board under my nose.
“I can’t smell anything.”
“Exactly. This is dry cedar.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“That’s a secret,” he said, giving me a wink.
“Where did you get it?”
“I ordered it through Hakim’s workshop. The boss there knows a wholesaler. It’s not easy to get cedar in Germany.”
“I thought cedar smelt different.”
He carried the board past me and nodded in the direction of the shed.
“Come with me,” he said.
I followed him, practically reeling with the euphoria of having some attention from him again after all these weeks. He leaned the plank up against the wall in the shed, took a small saw from his toolbox, and cut into the wood.
“Smell that.”
A powerfully aromatic, woody smell hit my nose.
“That’s the essential oils in the resin,” he said. Then he put his own nose close to the fresh incision and inhaled the smell.
“What are we going to do with the wood?”
“We are not going to do anything. I am. And I might show it to you when it’s finished.”
“You might?”
“I might.”
Then he straightened up, stroked my head, walked past me, and disappeared.
He spent the following weekend in the old wooden shed. I also spotted Hakim going in there at various stages, reemerging later and beating sawdust off his clothes. Yasmin and I, bundled in our winter jackets, sat on the steps of our building keeping