In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa Page B

convince me that no one remembered a stupid fight between classmates; anyway, the school was preoccupied with more serious matters after a blue Mercedes had begun waiting for Ghada every day – inside it was a man whom even Nada’s death squad officer was afraid of and made sure to greet when they met at the school gate. I started going back out into the yard, but I was exhausted, and inattentive in class, to the astonishment of the teachers, who knew the extent of my intelligence. Whenever I spotted Ghada climbing in beside that fifty-year-old man whom I saw as mysterious and coarse, I felt that my knees wouldn’t support me any longer.
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    Safaa ignored the incidents with Ghada, and my tears when I hugged my mother and left like a fugitive. She suggested that I help Radwan formulate a new perfume, and write the song he would sing at the Prophet’s mawlid in front of Bakr and the other guests who were soon to congregate at my grandfather’s house. She added, ‘Men … forbidden men will be coming to this tomb; we’ll cook for them and have a look at them through our windows.’ She was gleeful when she pronounced the word ‘men’ and she took me by the hand, trying to impose a smile on me which soon turned to brazen laughter. It disturbed Maryam who came out of her room and stood, watching us from afar.
    I wrote down Radwan’s dictation. Safaa deliberately mixed the quantities wrongly but he didn’t protest, and occasionally even praised her dexterity in carrying out his instructions. He had returned to the status of a wandering poet who wrote odes in praise of the Prophet. Safaa egged me on not to stick to what he said, but to write down its opposite. I didn’t possess Safaa’s courage in teasing her servant; I considered him to be an uncle whose ancestry I had forgotten. I pretended not to notice his frequent plundering of the Peak of Eloquence by Ali ibn Abi Talib, his breaking of the poetic metre, and his descent into cruder regional dialect when describing his perfumes and praising my grandfather, uncles and some notable sheikhs. I laughed from my belly when he gave himself free rein and cursed French colonialism in two lines. He smiled sourly and said, ‘Write. Write! Aleppo will remember this, and the musicians will come running.’
    Maryam didn’t approve of how close we were to Radwan. She sat by Marwa and the two of them began loudly discussing preparations for the party. Marwa wrote down a list of requests which they would send in the morning to my grandfather’s shops; Selim would spend three days dispatching his workers, laden with bags, to fulfil my aunts’ requests, causing the larder to overflow. Safaa was roused to anger and Maryam to contentment by this – now Maryam had the chance to declare proudly that no guest had ever gone wanting in this house; and if ever the larder were found empty, then its inhabitants would no longer have the right to hang the family tree on the wall, and its daughters would be little better than passing beggars.
    At night I read over Radwan’s dictation of his ode. I was pleased with the game, and added on a couplet of beautiful love poetry which no one knew was my monologue to Ghada. I described her beautiful face and my heartbreak at her departure from me. Radwan never acknowledged that it was an addition to his ode; his mu’allaqa , as he termed it. I told him, ‘It will be your legacy.’ His voice rose in defence of his talents as he reminded Maryam of the odes he used to sing to my grandfather and his guests.
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    I didn’t know why Bakr summoned me urgently for a matter of the utmost importance. He came to the house late one night, spoke with Maryam for a few minutes, and then came into my room. He didn’t wait around for me to ask after his wife Zahra, but demanded to know what had happened at school. He listened intently and questioned me closely about Nada, Hala, Ghada and other girls. He reassured me and said, ‘Keep