As Though She Were Sleeping Read Online Free

first age already. But I haven’t reached the second age yet, and now I’ve found you.
    The driver was right, Milia whispered. You are mad.
    In the car had come love. Milia closed her eyes and searched for the tarbush that her uncle Mitri had worn so that she could put it on Mansour’s head. She found it in the hollow that held her dreams. She saw Mansour draping her uncle’s white silk qumbaz across his shoulders, tipping a red tarbush forward on his head, and chasing after her with a slender reed cane. The cane brushed Milia’s brown feet and the man wearing the qumbaz shouted at her to eat her arus el-labneh . Milia in her short pants leapt and danced under the blows of the cane, fire inflaming her feet. The cane receded and the girl sat on the ground, swallowing her sandwich of labneh and olive oil, tasting the white onion and green mint.
    Milia eats but the sandwich lasts and lasts. She turns to her uncle Mitri and invites him to share her food. The man comes nearer and devours thesandwich in one bite. Milia snatches the cane from the man’s grasp and runs, and he hurries after her. Milia is in a garden of lush greenery, springing over hollows filled with water. The man’s voice pleads with her to stop and give him back the cane. She falls to the ground. Above her, the uncle breathes heavily. She opens her eyes. The uncle fades from view, the tarbush vanishes, and she finds herself in the car encased in the white shroud of fog.
    The uncle has disappeared but he has left behind him the play of a smile on the woman’s lips and a red tarbush tilting forward on the head of a man she has decided to love. He has left a woman lying on the backseat of an American-make taxi. Milia gives herself up to this woman as she allows herself to sink into a shadowy dream from which she does not awaken until they reach the Hotel Massabki. Nor does she see Mansour’s darkly blue face – the blueness brought on by the cold blending into his dark skin color – until they are at the hotel, just before midnight. Mansour shakes her by her upper arm and she hears a voice. Yallah , we’re here!
    Milia comes to as if emerging from a coma. Shu . . . wayn? What’s . . . where are we? It takes her a moment to remember that she is a bride arriving for her honeymoon. The car door opens and Mansour stands there waiting for her, hoisting the suitcase. He points to the hotel entrance and she walks beside him, then turns back and sees the bald head of the driver, who droops over the steering wheel, his hands slack, as though he is sleeping.
    And the chauffeur? she asks.
    We’ll see about him later, said Mansour, and led her to a high wooden door. He knocked for some time before someone appearing to be the hotel owner opened the door. George Massabki was in white pajamas covered partially by a brown abaya. Khawaja George’s small eyes peered at them, marks of astonishment reshaping his face as if it was completely beyond him to believe that this strange pair had landed here at his door, and at this hour of the night, for the purpose of savoring the honey of marriage.
    Ahh, you’re the newlyweds, said the hotel owner then, trying with the sleeve of his abaya to mute a cough that swallowed half his words.
    Mansour nodded before swiveling to indicate the car parked in front of the building.
    Welcome, welcome! Hamdillah a’s-salameh , praise God you’re safe and sound after your journey. I told myself you wouldn’t be coming in this cold and snow. Please come in, welcome! The room will be ready in a few minutes.
    He left them at the door, disappearing inside where they heard him shouting. Wadiia! Wadiia! The bride and groom are here. He rubbed his hands together in front of the glowing stove and said, as though he were speaking to himself, What a night! Then, louder, he called, Where are you, Wadiia, light up the stove in the newlyweds’ room and come here. You know, monsieur . . . He turned to Mansour but did not find him there. He saw Milia