forests for rest

I am no Hemingway. I wouldn’t recognize the smell of wine on your breath, nor would I be able to identify the drink by the shape and color of its bottle. But when I see one of those glass containers used in World War II to apply alcohol to soldier’s wounds, I know as well as the next person that that bottle dispenses a different kind of alcohol today.

There are a lot of these bottles littering Amman’s countryside and, interspersed with the rocks, shards and shards of broken glass.

In a lapse of realism, I pinned this irresponsibility on Jordan’s tourists, its foreigners, the people who, I thought, would venture out into this wilderness to have a little wild fun of their own.

“No no,” my aunt’s husband said with the authority of a local. “It’s the shabab (young people). They come out here — boys and girls together — to drink and do things. You’d think it’d be others, but” he shrugged his eyebrows and clicked his tongue.

“Christians here tell us,” he continued, “we don’t drink like you Muslims do. When you drink, you drink a kundara (literally: a shoe; figuratively: a bootful).”

I laughed so hard. “A bootful?”

My aunt’s husband smiled one of his rare smiles. “That’s an expression here. When you drink ’til you’re drunk.” He raised an imaginary beer mug to his lips, but I saw him drinking his liquor from a boot befitting Paul Bunyan. (Gosh, I love Arabic expressions.)

While he went for a walk, my aunt and I perched on a flat boulder which sat on the neck of a hill. The enormous valley before us was a sight to see. A long steep road ran between the hills, like the meeting of two pages in a book.  The sky was freckled with clouds and the ground was piebald — greens, yellows, browns and whites — thanks to recent rain. A horse neighed in the distance and a crowd of untended goats grazed a stone’s throw from our picnic. The cool wind stung our faces and the hot homemade tahini-roasted-chicken sandwiches warmed our hands.

A car drove past, and a well-dressed man in a red keffiyeh and i’gal shouted “Sahtain! May you enjoy your meal!” from the passenger seat. When my aunt’s husband returned from his walk, we told him about the cheerful passenger, how we thought it a strange but respectful gesture. He respectfully disagreed.

“Any man who speaks to strange women like that is not muhtaram (respectable). Had I been sitting with you, would he have told me sahtain?” No, he wouldn’t. He had a point. Still, my aunt and I wordlessly agreed that he was a little jealous.

A half-hour later, when my aunt and I walked past a party of three middle-aged men along an empty road, they shouted “Tfaddalu! Come join us!” We didn’t hear it actually, but my aunt’s husband (who protectively followed at a distance) heard it and more. They had been drinking, he could tell, so he suggested we move our party elsewhere.

My aunt’s husband is a chivalrous man, a man with muroo’ah who will drive me (or even my friend) halfway across Amman so we don’t have to take a taxi cab at night. He does it out of a deep sense of obligation.

He knows Amman better than I do, so when he asks me not to wander off into the forest alone, I respect his wishes. And when he asks me to climb up out of the valley because wild dogs haunt the place after sunset, I do as I’m told. (And even though I’ve encountered one or two of the coyote lookalikes, I can’t help but think of the wild dogs as metaphor.)

In several of Shakespeare’s plays — most notably A Midsummer Night’s Dream — the forest represents an escape from the law and order of family and state. The presiding authority of fathers and kings disappears under the thick forest canopy, as love triangles turn into quadrangles and pentagons, and young people and fairies run amok. In the far less known Two Gentleman of Verona, Shakespeare’s forest is also home to bandits and outcasts, and a gentle lady is nearly raped by a gentleman among the trees.

Even in a country as heavily policed as Jordan, the forest does feel like a stateless lawless place. And every act — good or bad — seems to have a bigger resonance there because in our almost-solitude society’s pressures are, for the most part, stripped away.

In the forest, the tree, too, looks like an entirely different person; it seems more sublime raising its arms up to the heavens before a sympathetic audience than when its humility is dwarfed by glass-and-steel buildings grabbing lustily at a placid sky.

In the forest valley, both the cheerful yodel and the hollered profanity have a seemingly eternal echo. In a place where the sun rays are are more perfect than a king’s crown, where the hilly horizon is as proud as a pharaoh’s tomb, where a tree threatens to outlive me and my grandchildren too — everything is exaggerated.

To escape to the forest is to find myself instantly marginalized, to feel keenly my own insignificance. The tree will shed its leaves, the rocks will crumble to sand, the wind will travel its course, with or without me.

That is why, despite the outcasts, bandits and drunkards, the wilderness feels like a refuge. A place to hide away from society beside a spider’s web and a pigeon’s nest. A place to feel alone and helpless and safe and befriended — all at the same time. All, while taking in a single breath of freshly photosynthesized afternoon air.

ageless in amman

The first act had ended, and night’s curtain fell heavily onto Amman’s jagged cityscape. Artificial lights splashed the limestone hills with neon colors, as if to herald a second, more spectacular act.

We had spent our Friday afternoon like virtually every Friday afternoon: my aunt and I tidied up our homes; my aunt’s husband prayed jum’a at the mosque and picked up edibles from the bakery; then, we all packed into the car and cruised off to the scenic outskirts of the city.

Earlier that afternoon, we had driven along a narrow road hugged by striated clay-colored hills, and my aunt’s husband reminisced about swimming in Jerusalem. (I’m not sure what triggered the memory; there was no water in sight, but, who knows, really. The mind’s eye sees much more than meets the eye.)

“That’s not right.” My aunt frowned at her husband, and I frowned at her. Since when were early childhood memories liable to scrutiny? But my aunt continued, “How old were you?”

“I don’t know, but I remember it distinctly. Swimming with my siblings in Jerusalem.”

“So you must have been — what? — three at least, maybe four, if you can remember.” She clicked her tongue, unconvinced. “How old are you, ya zalameh (oh man)?” At that, I perked up. Did she just ask what I think she asked? Does she really not know her long-time husband’s age?

I needed to hear this. I mean, if you manage to keep your age secret after thirty-some years of marriage, you’ve got to be the best con artist alive.

“‘Ammu (Uncle), you don’t know your age?” I was sitting up like a sprightly hare, holding the back of my aunt’s seat.

He smiled, as if that were an answer.

“No, he doesn’t know his age.” My aunt translated.

“My mom told me that she held me in her arms [when she fled] in ’48.” This was a clue to the mystery of his age.

I suddenly wished I were better at mental math. 1948 was a long time ago — over sixty years. Then, he had been old enough to have stored a valid memory, but young enough to be carried in his mother’s arms.

“They didn’t take the birth certificates with them,” my aunt said of her husband’s family.

This story was not unfamiliar. My grandparents — Allah yirhamhum, may Allah have mercy on them — have lived and died, and the dates on their tombstones are approximate.

Still, I thought, I  cannot imagine what it is to live and not know how long I’ve lived.

What must it be like to measure your years not by a solar or lunar calendar, but by the number of wrinkles on your face, the number of white hairs at your temples?

If you don’t know how many years you’ve burned through, how are you supposed to figure out how many matches you have yet to light? But perhaps it doesn’t actually matter. After all, we may feel entitled to a certain number of matches — perhaps a full 42 count — but none of us actually knows how many our box holds. We simply go from year to year, striking that birthday match, all the while hoping that it won’t be the last.

Somewhere along the unpaved roads from Jerusalem to Amman, my aunt’s husband lost his age. Perhaps it’s taken residence in the city’s oldest quarters, crumbling with its walls and aging with the parapets. Perhaps it’s still a child, splashing around in a pool within earshot of al-Masjid al-Aqsa.

Wherever it’s gone, it’s unlikely that it’ll be back.

But I’m not one to mourn a lost name or date. Yes, I might consider his age among the casualties of that war, but I’ll not forget that the war cost countless others far more. My aunt’s husband is numbered among the lucky, the survivors. This, even if he has no number to his name.

one large eid, coming up

Pizza. That meal transports me to the U.S. more quickly and cheaply than a jet plane ever could.

In fact, Pizza Hut served as my roundtrip ticket to the U.S. before, when I was in Cairo, but only after several unhappy dining experiences.

The most vivid of these occurred on our very first day in Um Ad-Dunya (Egypt’s nickname; literally, the Mother of the World). Baba and I had entertained this notion that, in this city of twenty-million, we could walk into any restaurant and fare well. Not so.

We happened upon a restaurant that looked fairly respectable, but we soon discovered that the storefront was – pardon the pun – only a façade. As soon as we walked in, we found a man at our left with rolled-up sleeves, reading a newspaper at a small foldable table, a glass of tea in front of him. He distractedly pointed us to a flight of stairs. Down we went, into a dimly-lit room the size of a college dorm, furnished with a handful well-worn tables. The curcumin- and paprika-colored walls, the steamy humidity, and the lack of windows all combined to make us feel as if we were in a pot, stewing.

Not surprisingly, we were the only customers.

I don’t remember what we ordered but, whatever it was, it consisted of a little pile of orange rice topped with bite-sized hearts, kidneys and other miscellaneous organs. Had I been forewarned about this lesson in cardiovascular anatomy, I might have found my plate less revolting.

Lucky for me, however, Baba’s always been quite in touch with his carnivorous side, so all my meats were enthusiastically transferred from my plate to his. I spent the rest of my time trying to force half-cooked rice through the closed doors of an offended appetite.

Most of my dining experiences in Cairo were a little upsetting, if not to the sensibility, then certainly to the stomach. Like most travelers unaccustomed to the food, water and air of Cairo, I promptly experienced traveling sickness — an elegant euphemism for diarrhea.

On one of the day I stayed in, apologizing to my stomach and reading Mama’s college copy of Wuthering Heights, Baba went down to grab some groceries and to simply be in Cairo. (I wasn’t in Cairo, really. My mind was wandering around the British moors just outside the coldly enchanting Heathcliff residence.)

“I’m walking up our street.” Baba told me over the phone. “I think I’m gonna get myself a shawerma sandwich. You don’t want that, do you? Yeah, I figured. Well, what do you want me to get you? You know what – I saw a Pizza Hut some blocks down. You want pizza?”

Baba probably risked his life to get me that pizza, and I certainly appreciated it.

That familiar red, white and black box magically took me away from this city dressed in plastic bags, powdered with the black soot of trains and perfumed with the intermingling scents of sultry smog and sweat.

Only one thing about this pizza distinguished it from the pizzas at home: it featured a pepperoni I could intentionally eat without sinning. (Oh, a second distinguishing feature: Arabic labeling. But, that’s a moot point, because my language-blind palate can’t tell the difference between ‘Beetza’ and ‘Pizza’.)

Now, my aunt is a good listener and, somewhere along the line, she figured that pizza is among my comfort foods. So last Thursday at 3 pm, after a long and tiresome workweek, she gave me a ring.

I was still at UJ, my last class had just ended, and I checked my silenced phone. It reported six missed calls in the last ten minutes. To me, that didn’t spell ‘let’s have pizza tonight.’ It spelled ‘emergency’. (As it turns out, her phone has an automatic redial function.)

In any case, I heaved a sigh of relief and, during my walk home, conjured up an image of my aunt and me in warm pajamas, I watching a movie on her family-room rug with my chin in my hands and she on a chair wrapped in a blanket, both waiting for the doorbell to ring.

But we didn’t wait for a doorbell to ring. Instead, we made the pajamas and movie wait, and drove down to a Pizza Hut. Unlike the predominantly delivery- or carryout-oriented Pizza Huts I’ve known, this was a full-fledged restaurant with a huge seating area and many a family to fill it.

Guess what toppings we had? None, because we didn’t have pizza! We had fettucine alfredo and ice cream sundaes. How that came to pass is beyond me.

We learned (the hard way) that Pizza Hut is not named Fettucine Alfredo Hut or Sundae Hut for a reason. Even so, I had a pretty excellent time. And why wouldn’t I? I was sitting across from one of the most adorable women I know and my favorite aunt.

After we turned a burdensome week’s worth of stories into a punching bag, boxing it and conquering it with laughter by turns, we both fell into a contemplative silence.

I looked around. Sitting at the table before us were an attentive husband, a wife with a ponytail and four children: one a darling, arm-waving little boy on a child seat, another a little girl sitting on the lap of her Southeast Asian housekeeper.

Behind us sat four hijabi girls whose features bespoke African lineage. They were giddily celebrating a birthday. Their party came complete with the flickering flashes of active cameras and a laptop DJing their favorite songs. (Batteries not included.)

This was Eid, I suddenly realized. I must have thought aloud, because my aunt quizzically asked, “Eid? How so?”

Well, many Muslim Americans ditch school and work to eat out after Eid prayers, I explained. That’s why, if I’m at a restaurant and the majority of the clientele are families, Muslim, and people of (my) color, then, well, it’s unequivocally Eid Day. (That or I’m at Mas’ Islamic Chinese Restaurant.)

Even though Eid Al-Adha is only days away, I’m not expecting it to be remarkable.

It will be unremarkable, I think, because I’m half a world away from most of the people who reciprocate my smiles.

It will also be unremarkable because, really, Eid is for children. (Yes, I’m being jaded.) When you’re a kid, you get the eidiya and your net worth increases, albeit in $2 increments. Meanwhile, when you’re an adult, you sort of graduate to giver-status, which, I suppose, could be satisfying if you happen to be an altruistic do-gooder.

In college, I learned that Eid is not a big deal. This because my ochem professor made clear to me once that Eid will come every year, but this ochem exam only happens once. (Gee, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!)

But there’s one more reason why this Eid will be unremarkable: In Amman, I can experience Eid – as I know it – anytime. It’s only as far away as the nearest family-friendly restaurant. That’s why, for me, there’s a holiday at every street corner.

If that doesn’t make me smile and appreciate where I am, then I really ought to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. If that film doesn’t inspire in me an ebullient holiday spirit then, by golly, I don’t know what will.

manufactured in the rumor mill

Some years ago, a couple of Amman shopkeepers decided that their sewing machines would sooner tailor their own runway-worthy outfits than sell themselves. So they decided to give the sewing machines a leg up.

They spread the word that a certain brand of sewing machines — the one on their shelves — contained an expensive “red mercury.”

Within days, all of Amman was on the look out for this “red mercury.” Tens of people went door to door, offering hundreds of dinars for sewing machines worth less than a fraction of that sum. The sewing machines were dismantled, but no red mercury was found.

When the police traced the rumor to its source, they found the shopkeepers and duly punished them.

How did I come to know of this contemporary gold rush? I heard of it through word of mouth.

lights, camera and no need for action

Forests, I thought, are by definition green. But in Amman, forests look as if someone has sifted dust on them, so that every spindle on every pine appears dry, and a walk between the trees feels like a stroll through a sepia photograph. Rocks, not grass, carpet the forest floor, and powder-soft sand turns my black running shoes white.

The first thing you hear in the forest when you click open your car door is silence. Total and utter silence. There are no birds, or else they are still and mute. The sounds come gradually, however. A bee that shamelessly insists on sharing your sandwich. A bark from a dog somewhere in the hills. The cries of a cat in labor. The occasional sandpapering of tires against an unpaved road. The drum of your skipping feet kicking up dust.

***

We packed our Spartan picnic supplies into the car and followed the beaten paths on foot. Only after the sun set against the hills and rendered the auburn rocks a still deeper reddish hue did we file into our veteran Mercedes. Night was upon us. It was time to go.

As we retraced our tire marks through the hills, my aunt insisted that we stop to snap a picture. From the side of the road, you could see Amman hidden behind a sequined velvet cape.

The few pictures I took using the last bar in my camera battery were decidedly unsuccessful. Too much exposure, too little exposure — then nothing. I didn’t have time to mourn the death of my camera battery, because the dark LSD screen was replaced by another, more stunning darkness — that of the valley below. Earth and sky seemed to melt into one another, and the horizon was an abstraction. The moon was a genuine pearl that complemented rather than disdained the imitation pearls below.

There were days in L.A. when I saw the blinding city lights and thought how much I’d like to turn off the switch, to see the metropolis camp out under the stars, for once, without the help of Edison’s inventions. But tonight, the artificial lights of Amman — streetlights, headlights, lamp lights — were as natural as moonbeams to me, as dear as a camp fire on a wintry night. The darkness stripped away all the structural differences and all that remained before me was a haloed city, not unlike my city of angels.

please hang up and (don’t) call again

It was narrated that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) once said, “When Ramadan comes, the gates of Paradise are opened and the gates of Hell are closed, and the devils are put in chains.”

Now that Ramadan is over, the little devils are out a-prancing.

After a month of no-nonsense, my phone is ringing and I don’t recognize the number. It must be my Jordanian-American friend who is due to arrive in Jordan today.

“Alo?” My neutral greeting.

A pause. A guy’s voice. “Hi. Who is it?”

Um. You’re the one calling. “Who’s speaking with me?”

“I won’t say yet but I wanted to tell you something–”

I hang up. I feel a little guilty. But I reassure myself that there are many things I ought to feel guilty about, only this isn’t one of them.

Moments later, another call. Same number. I make this call end before it starts. A while later, a new number. I pick up. Same foolery. Hang up. Then, when my aunt’s husband gets back from ishaa’ prayer at the masjid, the phone rings and I ask him to please deal with it.

My aunt and I watch. He’s waiting so long, we’re both afraid he’ll miss the call. He finally takes it and gives the guy a chance to speak. This is the monologue I hear:

“Ahlan ya muhtaram (Hey there, respectable one). Why are you calling this number? Because this number dialed you first? I don’t think so. You’ve got the wrong number. You have no business calling this number, clear? Don’t call again.”

He hung up like it was final. And it was.

Last time I was in Amman, I got these oh-my-god-it’s-a-female-on-the-other-line! calls, and Baba was the one to convince the callers otherwise. If there is such a thing as a verbal slap-in-the-face Baba did it, and without using any invectives. There’s something about a male relative’s gravity that electrocutes the faceless person on the other end of the line.

The sad thing is it’s not a person or two. There are lots of callers who pass your number along. Who manufacture their entertainment at your expense. Who eat up your minutes and somehow think they’re doing you a favor. What, you think I’m as desperate as you for strangers’ attention? You think I’m out on a search for indiscriminate friendship and affection?

Consider for a moment the consequences of such a flirtation if the lady turns out to be, say, married. Or elderly. Or hideous. Or your mother. See — there’s one person who, contrary to reason and despite your fruitiness, will love you. Call her more often, not me.