OMAR (From : By the Obsidian Sea 2007)
He was not loud, anyone could see that, even as he sat hunched at the outside barbeque table with Zeus and Justine, who were. The girls danced in one by one and greeted him, Mary last. “Hi Omar, this is Jean”. He nodded politely and slunk back to the shadows of discretion. He fiddled in his brown tweed jacket pocket for a lighter, and quietly smiled as Zeus pontificated, gesticulated and guffawed in Arabic.
“Who is Omar” Jean asked Mary a little later in the kitchen as Charlotte and Lucy quarrelled over dish duty. Charlotte turned from Lucy, “quiet, isn’t he?”. Jean smiled and nodded, “where’s he from”. They all answered together, “Shazarha Knights”.
Jean watches Mary dancing, bathed in translucent blue light, with Fatima and Lucy, undulating her sumptuous belly and generous hips in time to the razoo, a thin strip of smoke spirals into cloud above him, the Arghilla resting between his feet. A group of men sit on cushions and chairs watching from the dark. They could be bandits, Jean thinks comically, but their intense staring silence is discomforting. Every now and then one will speak, barking out a comment in Arabic acerbically, and the others will nod and agree, mumbling and smoking. Mary dances unabashed, her eyes are lit with the power of woman, her mind is in the desert, unveiling her in front of the great Princes who are just waiting for her to shimmy her breasts near their faces and laugh as if she loved them. A great cloud of smoke glows blue and green as the strobe changes its colours on top of the dance floor as if dry ice had been blown over the whole club. Jean wonders when it will be his turn to dance.
The girls had all cornered Omar at some stage, extracting his story, which he was all too glad to give. “Quiet people seem to listen the best, they always have a good story”, said Jean, raising his eyebrows at Mary, remembering Shady sitting close to Mary on the hotel bed, interrogating her about her views, looking up at him, catching him quietly thinking to himself, saying “you are smart Jean, I can tell, because you say not much, you wait for us, yes”.
“He’s nice, a bit lonely, but he buys us all drinks, he can afford it, no one else to give it to”. Jean thought of how Omar pulled his cap over his head to hide his eyes a little in the shadow of the rim, and how still he sat, how his expression maintained its pursed over-rejected blankness, and how quickly he broke into a smile when Zeus spontaneously jumped up on one leg, dancing, with one hand behind his back in the traditional way of the Lebanese. He understood Zeus for they were both organically patriotic to their culture. Omar lived for Lebanon, lived for the Tabouli, the Khippha, the dubka and the beautiful eyes of Arabian women, but he lived in Australia.
Omar had religiously followed the traditions of his family even into marriage, yet in marriage he had found his greatest sorrow. He had met Rosa when she was just at the age of turning, her small breasts just beginning to protrude from the heavy jumpers her mother pulled over her to cover any hint of early growth. Rosa took them off once out of her mother’s sight, and Omar, though she had been promised to him, was glad to notice her blossoming femininity. He was generous, and lavished gifts, on Rosa’s mother as well as her, and learned a trade which would set them up for the future. Rosa was special though, and Omar had no idea because her specialness was a matter of shame to her parents. A rouge gene had bounced around Rosa’s family for generations, appearing only sometimes in the girls. Like Haemophilia, it skipped a generation or two before lobbing up tragically, mostly unexpectedly. The condition did not have a name like Haemophilia because it originated in the Middle East and the doctors usually had no answer save to isolate the victim and sometimes to perform clitorectomys or pull out her complete womanhood in case the woman tried to have children.
Rosa’s parents knew she was a chance and one day, just after she had turned, they went with her to the doctors for a check up. What the doctor told her parent’s shocked them into silence. “She will not be able to have children, you understand, no way. If she has children the sickness will take hold, and grow. She will deteriorate quickly and become a cripple, hunched up and shrinking like an old woman. She must not have children, you must make sure she can’t”. Their shame was palpable, but not detectable, to Rosa. They told her nothing of her diagnosis. Rosa was elated and started planning her life of love and marriage. By not telling Rosa they also gave up the option of hysterectomy and this sealed Omar’s fate. Rosa’s mother began to believe the doctor was wrong, refusing his diagnosis to her partner, “how does he know, this could only be proved if she conceives anyway?” she would exclaim when Rosa’s father protested, imploring her to tell their daughter the truth.
Rosa and Omar were a happy couple, they didn’t pause at the altar wondering ‘should I?’. They kissed each other with warmth engendered with the bright beautiful future. They settled immediately into work and performing their place and tasks within the Maronite community. Rosa stayed close to her parents and they visited often, never giving her a hint of the secret that ate away their peace, especially her father who would often sit close to Rosa, breathing heavily, always on the verge of confessing. One day Omar came home from a neighbouring village, his hands black from concrete dust having laid a pavement for a wealthy diplomat, and Rosa greeted him flushed and excited. He knew he now had to build the nursery and with passion began that night to plan the extension to his little house on the outskirts of the village. Rosa paced the floor, she couldn’t wait to tell her mum, and her dad. The doctor had been certain she recalled, but when he looked into her records he had looked up at her strangely, but then smiled. She told Omar of this strange look, but Omar was confident nothing could go wrong.
When the child arrived the terrible truth started to poke its way out of the dark cupboard it had been locked in. Samire was beautiful, full of baby life, but Rosa seemed to be suffering. Some dark germ was gnawing away at her soul and she became visibly shorter only months after Samire’s birth. Omar took Rosa off to the doctor again, but the doctor continued to re-iterate “she is suffering from post-natal depression, that’s all, it will pass in time.” Instead she became worse, and soon she was barley able to stand up. Omar managed to get her a wheelchair despite their expense and rarity in Lebanon. The whole village scratched their heads and wondered what was happening and if Rosa would ever get better. Some in the village knew the family and knew what Rosa was going through, but they would not tell, they thought it was the business of Rosa’s parents. Rosa’s mother began to grieve as soon as she saw Rosa deteriorating. Rosa’s father began breathing even heavier and would often shake when Omar came into the room. Omar thought he was grieving, but wondered why he would sweat as though he were afraid and look at Rosa guiltily. Perhaps Rosa’s father did know something and was hiding it from everyone.
Omar’s speculations came to an end abruptly when Samire turned one year old, for Rosa suddenly appeared to get better. She got out of her wheelchair and began to walk for the first time since Samire’s birth. She even began to take on the tasks of motherhood, cleaning, cooking, visiting her family. They all welcomed her and told her how glad they were she had overcome her depression. No one could explain why she had become smaller in stature, but put it down to the debilitating condition the doctor had pronounced. All except the few that knew her family history, and Rosa’s father and mother. Within two more years Rosa was pregnant again, and again her troubles began. The child was born without complication to the child, but Rosa found herself one morning being unable to walk at all. Omar grieved darkly, wondering how he could save her, and Rosa’s mother could no longer hold back her grief and guilt and began to chastise Omar. “It was your seed, your seed, you are not blessed, you are, your family line is cursed, cursed”.
Omar took over the role of mother as much as he could, and Rosa became increasingly sullen and despondent, at times wickedly bitter when she spoke to her mother. She had guessed what her mother and father had done although she wished deeply to believe they had been mistaken. Omar grieved for his hard life, for Rosa and loved her still, and gave no thought but to give her and his new family every comfort he could. One day, whilst in the village, shopping, he chanced upon an old lady Mrs. Charloui, who knew the history of the village back to the crusades. She looked at him sternly and asked “ so Omar, you have asked your Mart-Ama yet about her family’s curse?”. Omar was a modern man, not given to believing in the old-folks magic talk and smiled inwardly. He had heard this before, on a number of occasions, and it always amused him. “No Mrs. Charloui, why? Should I have?”. She gave him a sly look, as if to say - what’s wrong with the boy-, “yes, achwid, of course, are you silly? I remember Rosa’s grandfather’s mother Fadja, she was once a tall woman, dead now, God bless her soul.” She signed the cross and looked down. “What happened to her?” Omar’s question brought a strange response from the old lady who tapped her walking stick on the ground then pointed at Omar’s groin grinning, “ you should not fear for your seed. Fadja was healthy once and a good woman, not so her seed. You should talk to your mother in law about her Marta-Amo.” She tapped her stick once more then moved on, leaving Omar standing, a statue in contemplation, not wanting to go home, yet now sick with the desire to confront Rosa and her mother with this new revelation.
When Omar returned home Rosa and her mother were washing the leaves of parsley preparing to make Tabouli, stripping the poor ones and lining up the bunch to be cut, tying them together with a parsley stalk. He stopped at the door pensively before repeating the story Mrs. Charloui had told him. Once he had finished Rosa looked to her mother, a tear falling slowly from her eye. Her mother rose from her seat shaking, took a deep breath and stepped forward toward Omar, her eye fixed, her hands waving in front of her as if she were wailing at a funeral. “What is this you say? You listen to her, that sharamutta, dubba, about my Marta-Amo, she knows nothing. She die, but she was old, she lived a good life, god bless her soul. You blame Rosa for this?” She waved aggressively back toward Rosa pointing toward the wheelchair, and half suppressed a cry that struck Omar in his heart forever. “Blame your own seed that has cursed our child, chittone, curse yourself not our family. She has given you two healthy children you ungrateful jahash, and this is how you repay her?” Omar saw that Rosa’s mother was not going to concede any wrong and backed down, never bringing her Grandmother into the conversation again and steering clear of any accusation, however he knew in his heart that she had not been honest and had not told Rosa of her condition and of how she would suffer once she conceived. This was the way things were done here, no matter the bad fortune, this was the price of love and the pitfall of culture. Rosa, too, realised she had been tricked tragically, but could make no amends for her situation but to grow stronger and do what she could for her children. She never spoke of her pain and anguish to her parents and became tough as if the scar inside her had grown to encase her whole body.
Their situation became obvious to the whole village, and much was said that followed in the traditions of misunderstanding and fear surrounding the disease and its consequences. Omar and Rosa tried as hard as they could to live within the shame the townsfolk expressed daily toward them. Omar himself took the main brunt, being the target of Rosa’s mother who’s guilt knew no limit, and found its outlet in the village as she defended her self and her family from any blame. Omar drank late into the night and into the day to escape his daily torment, and soon Rosa realised her husband was losing control, unhappiness sleeping uneasily within him, anger and frustration slowly bubbling into his every action and thought. She grieved too, but had hardened herself knowing her fate better, and implored Omar to leave her and the children, get away from the shame that had inexplicably fallen on them and find work where he could support his family. She knew that Omar loved her, but she knew, too, that she couldn’t ever give him her body again. Omar had to agree, he could see no future in the village for him, but knew his family would be safe without him.
As the drifting moon lodged itself within the mountains as if the Earth were cradling some florescent infant coddled on the milky snow, Omar left his home, kissing Rosa on each finger that his tears fell, and held Samire and Solomon as if he were waiting for God to merge them with him somehow. He went quietly, and remained that way.
When Charlotte, Mary and Lucy had met him he had been in Australia for almost 12 years and he had prospered. He saw how the girls banded strongly together, dancing, singing, laughing, fighting, and missed his own family with a passion. He saw no prospect of returning to them, and seemed doomed to always feel the curse which had dogged his life. When Jean remembered Omar reclining into the shadows, his hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket, smoking his stubby rollies, he felt all his loneliness, courage and hopelessness. He wondered if Omar ever himself wondered when it would be his turn to dance.
