The Last Rectangle Read online

  One would have expected Farid to be the main complainer about Mireille’s widening reputation but he was not. Once again, it was science that was humble and religion years away from humility. Vague rumblings started coming her way that the parish priest, Father Butros, was upset with her. She did not even know why. She did not even bother to ask why. Even Farid came to her rescue and told her, don’t bother with these pagans. They envy your hold on their congregation. Yet, one could see Mireille was upset. She was an essential believer and whether there was a relationship between the clergy and God or not, for the time being, these black clothed persons represented her God. She did not know what to do until one day, a cousin of hers, someone who almost never came to her balcony, walked in with Father Butros. Samira lived in the village and had little access to Father Butros so Mireille wondered how the two had connected. Father Butros walked in with the customary grace of a clergyman, put on or otherwise. Samira trailed behind him. They weaved through the balcony chairs and entered the main living room. After greeting Mireille, they both sat down, close to one another. A few casual remarks about the garden and the state of the house broke the ice. All was well. Yet Mireille was concerned as Father Butros had not visited them for a long time. Farid always suspected that his anti-religious beliefs were the cause. Mireille said, no, the clergy regarded such attitudes as challenges and tended to rally with more strength to combat them. Father Butros broke the ice once again when the coffee came asking Mireille with a mean twist if she were going to read his fortune too. Mireille had the chance to respond, she felt like saying what Farid would have said, but restrained her self. She still had a lot of respect for the clergy. He continued and stated in very clear and strong terms that such behavior was against the church’s principles and that it should stop. His temper was rising and his face was flushing. Samira would comfort him every now and then by a small rub on the shoulder. He finally took out a bible from his pocket and pulled Mireille’s hand onto it and said: “Swear by this bible that you will not be part of such activities again”. With abated breath, Mireille swore the same. Father Butros left without further discussion, followed closely by Samira who hardly said good bye to Mireille.

  Things don’t change that fast. Mireille’s friends still came to her. Of course, very few of them knew of Father Butros’ visit and Mireille did not want to mention it. Some asked her to read their fortunes. She would not. She would then look at the colorful tiles of the balcony and follow their intricate geometric design tracing lines through triangles, squares, pentagons and many pointed stars.

  House 4 - Salwa’s Distance

  Murad lived alone. He never married. When he was 40, his mother and father died. He stayed on in the house which he retained the way it was when they were alive. The house was right on Marie Curie Street. It was made up of one floor and was right in the middle of a squarish garden. You entered the garden from the street through a low wrought iron gate. A walk on a concrete path took you to the couple of steps that led to the balcony. On each side of the concrete path was a wide garden, left unkempt but beaming with shrubs and lined up with Ficus and Eucalyptus trees. All around the wall Murad had kept a large number of cans full of flowers: petunias, geraniums and begonias. You could also walk to the back of the house from either side of the balcony. At the back of the house, Murad had a little plot planted with carrots, lettuce and mint. The soil was dark and rich. It was almost impossible not to grow things in it.

  He was 10 years younger than his middle brother who lived in America while the eldest brother had stayed on in the village to manage their land and hardly ever came to Beirut. Although Murad’s father had willed the house to the three brothers jointly, his brothers agreed to transfer their share to Murad as they felt that without a family, he deserved to live in it. He was very happy with that decision and never failed to express his gratitude to his brothers. Of course, they hardly visited him, not due to their wish but because Murad was a bit of a social recluse. He taught history and geography in a nearby school and though he was loved by his colleagues and students, they almost never visited him either.

  Few people knew why Murad shunned society. Many were sure that he never married because he was a social recluse. The truth was different and was probably only known to Murad. He had met Najwa during his university days and had loved her dearly. Najwa was a lively and a vital person and probably never noticed him. On several occasions, he would prime himself with enough courage to invite her to a coffee or a tea just at the moment when she would be swept away by a group of her friends who circled around her, picking her up in their talkative whirlpool and walking on. A few years later, Najwa got married to a merchant from Tripoli and moved there. He never saw her again. She remained in his thoughts for a few years and slowly became a faint callous.

  For house help, the family had taken Salwa in. She was the daughter of one of the families working on his father’s farm in the village. As a child, she used to play with Murad and the other children on the farm. She was the tomboy of the group and was always found climbing the tallest tree and jumping the highest walls. As she grew up, she changed into a raw beauty. She was the ideal a man could wish for: a woman who did not know how beautiful she was. And men, there were many around. By the time she reached 17, her father started worrying about her and it was then that Murad’s father suggested that she work for them in Beirut. This was good for both families and she became part of the family. Murad’s mother treated her like the daughter she never had. There was always an ongoing conversation between the two. When Murad’s parents died, no one questioned whether Salwa would stay on or not. She continued caring for the house as she always did. Yet, without Murad’s mother and Murad being what he was, the conversation died. Salwa had sharp eyes. She understood everything. She knew Murad inside out. She managed to take care of him well without intruding into his solitude. That did not change anything on his side. Fewer and fewer friends came to see him and he led the life he had always led.

  One of the difficulties Salwa faced was the infrequent occasion when Murad would fall sick and not go to teach. One or two visits by doctors always resulted in instructions being given to Murad which she strained to overhear so she can carry them out. Murad was careless and never felt the need to communicate these instructions to her. So she managed to prepare the right food, remind him of the right pills to take and ensure that the doctors’ orders were being followed religiously. In one of these bouts, Murad fell into a deep fever. She managed to get him to stand in a wide basin and washed him, wrapping him in a large towel while she changed the sweaty bed sheets. A few years later Murad had some throat problem and he would wake up at night with violent coughing. She would make him a hot chamomile tea and have him drink it slowly. This went on for a few hours and as Murad always slept on the right side of the large bed, she found it natural to sleep on the extreme left side, near the door of the room. A few nights later Murad got better but Salwa stayed on sleeping in his bed and keeping her distance. Murad probably never noticed as she slipped in after he finished reading, turning off the table lamp and she slipped out around 6, one hour before he got up.

  After a while, so stable was this arrangement that Salwa converted her own room into a little store where she kept the winter munitions.

  Murad was approaching retirement age. He walked into the house one Saturday and asked her to come with him to the market. They went around till he found a ladies shop. He asked the attendant to get a white dress for Salwa. She tried it on and even at 60, Salwa was still a very attractive woman. Salwa knew. The attendant did not know. Murad and Salwa went back home. On Sunday, he woke up early, asked her to put on the white dress. They went to the church in a horse drawn carriage. He asked the priest to marry them, which was done in a hurry and without much ceremony. Finding no carriages, they returned home walking, Murad walking briskly and Salwa trailing behind, not being used to the tight dress and high heels she was wearing. When they reached home, she p
ut on her regular home dress and went about her day as usual. Murad did some reading. That night, she lay next to him while he read his book, turned off the lamp and went into a deep sleep.

  House 5 - Dalal’s Spirit

  Dalal grew up in a happy home, an energetic, talkative and spirited child. Sadly, her mother passed away by the time Dalal was 4 years old. This devastated her father who closed down his business, took Dalal with him and left Lebanon heading towards Brazil. They stayed there till Dalal was 21 when he felt the need for both of them to return to Lebanon. To reconnect with his friends and family, he started a stream of visits to their homes. This he found tiring and inconvenient. So, he moved into a hotel and invited them all to a gala dinner. Out on the large balcony, under the clear cover of the night, Dalal met Moussa, the son of one of her father’s best friends. Moussa was 24, a sprightly and handsome young man. They talked for two hours and felt the kind of pull they should have felt as teenagers. This was honey to their fathers who considered this a re-enforcement of their own friendship. Soon after, Dalal and Moussa were married, in the same hotel and with most of the people who had attended the gala dinner. Underneath all of the comings and goings of the wedding her father was savoring the release from the sadness he had always had since Dalal’s mother died.

  But Moussa gave Dalal a hard time. His exploits were many and he was known to push his luck with all women. His male friends would say: skip this one, she is loyal to her husband. His wry smile would show that he had already converted the warning into a challenge. He was indefatigable. Dalal knew all of this and never really managed to handle it. There was always a small part of her heart that said: you love him, so let go. Initially, it was very difficult to bear. She faced him with it and got nowhere. Later on, she tried having lovers but that meant nothing to her because it was only out of tasteless revenge that she did it. In time, she accepted him but at a distance. She started living her own life without him. But not for too long, as by the time she was 31 and still childless, he died in a bizarre set of circumstances. Most people knew very little about the details of the accident but a close friend gave her the precise details. Moussa had been with the wife of a military man, secure in the knowledge that the Colonel was stationed in a camp in the north. Late one evening, while they were in bed, they heard the wheels of a carriage crackling on the cobble stones. It stopped in front of the house. Then they heard abrupt commands given by the Colonel to his aides so Moussa wrapped himself in a sheet and rushed onto the balcony. He braved a jump to the roof of the house next door but he only managed to hang on to the edge of the roof. He struggled to get over the edge for a while but as he got entangled by the sheet, he dropped down to the ground. It was never clear whether he had died of the fall or if the Colonel had completed the job himself. The body was wrapped in the sheet and bundled off to the nearest hospital.

  Dalal was taken over by a deep grief. It was not over the death of Moussa as much as with the knowledge that she was now all alone. Her father had died a few years earlier. She started living a slow and a secluded life which lasted a year or two. But there was a slow change taking place. It was possible she was going through a cleanup period, like a snake shedding its skin. One day, she woke up feeling excited and energetic. She had managed to undo her malaise, grief and uncertainties reverting to her initial spiritedness. Had her father been there at that moment, he would have recognized the Dalal he knew at four years of age.

  She had to do something. Even if the decision felt wrong, Dalal was always determined. She walked around the town until she found the house she had in her mind. It stood there, silent, mighty, erect and secluded. The house had no balconies. It had three floors topped by a red pyramidal roof.

  The house was built on the right hand side at the end of a long and a narrowing street. The street led to a large and a noisy public square. In spite of its imposing presence, it was always easy to miss the house while walking. As walkers reached the end of the narrowing street, their attention was refocused on the bustling square and the house receded in silence.

  The eastern side that gave onto the street had small windows: no doors. On the northern and southern sides of the house, leading in from the street, there were identical path ways. They led to the back of the house, or its western side. The pathways were covered with thick and bushy Melia trees. At the end of each pathway and on the corner of the house, there was a set of semi circular steps leading to a small patio and a gate. The gate led to a spiral staircase going up to the three floors.

  What attracted Dalal to this deserted house was the way it fit her plans. She sourced the owner and even before seeing the house from the inside, expressed her wish to buy it.

  Each floor was made up of two independent back to back flats. There was a vertical wall right in the middle of the house separating the flats which were mirror images of one another. Each flat was accessible through one of the two staircases. The door of each flat led to a little entrance. Right after the entrance, there was a longish living room. At the end of the living room, there was a dining room separated by a small wall from the kitchen which gave out on the main street. On the side of the living room, there was a door leading to the bedroom with its back to the central wall. The bedroom had its own independent bathroom.

  Dalal was fascinated, eyeing every detail while the owner blathered about silly financial and contractual issues. Nothing really mattered. He said that he needed an answer before two weeks as he was traveling. This was good enough for Dalal.

  She bought the house and soon, workers were coming in and out, Dalal bossing them like no other foreman they had ever had. In the back to back bedrooms on each floor, Dalal had them break the vertical wall and fit a two way door, one that could be opened from the two opposite flats. This had to work.

  Very soon, she started connecting with her lady friends. Individually and over an innocent coffee, she stirred their interiors with a soft poker. Are you happy? Is there excitement in your life? In most cases, the questions led to streams of confessions and intimate revelations. Invariably, her lady friends were bored, mistrusting of their husbands and afraid of stirring up trouble. She tried the same with men. They were also bored, mistrusting of their wives and worried that any excursion outside the marital bed would lead to the disruption of something which, though not the love of a lifetime, still, precious enough to preserve. This fit her symmetric house.

  She suggested to Zeina, one of her very close friends, that being with another man, even for a very short non-committed period, would recover the passion in her life. But Zeina had some concerns. She wanted a special man, someone that she can relate to, as she was not interested in renting bodies. She wanted someone from her own class. She was also worried that people would know. Dalal resolved these issues in one go. She told Zeina about the new house and how she would introduce Zeina to a man that Dalal would choose for her and who would suit her. Zeina would not have met him before and he would have the same concerns and would not wish it to be known that he was visiting another woman. It meant that the two would both avoid the wish to recognize each other elsewhere. To re enforce this, Dalal told Zeina that the rooms were so constructed as to be totally dark.

  To enter the house and avoid recognition, Zeina would have to dress up like a man and come into the northern entrance. Dalal told her which floor to go to and gave her a key to the flat. She gave Farid the same instructions. He would have to dress up as a woman and use the southern entrance. Once inside the bedroom of his flat, Farid would have to knock on the two way door so that Zeina can allow him in. In complete darkness and unseen by one another, the two partners would connect.

  Zeina and Farid’s trial proved a success. Each one alone came back to Dalal beaming with excitement. Nothing they had ever tried before was as sky reaching as a woman and a man, both being willingly together without any build up or games and better still, without the need to complete the game afterwards. Dalal contacted more friends.
Initially, she started with those she felt would go through the adventure because of their frustrations. She then widened the scope and approached others who had no reason to leave the golden cage.

  In return, Dalal did not demand anything from her friends as she felt that bringing the factor of money at any stage of the dealings would taint the excitement expressed by all. However, nothing is really free and without knowing (nor asking) who had ordered these services, all of a sudden Dalal started seeing workers painting the outside of the house, others changing the carpets at the entrance while some came early in the morning to sweep the Melia leaves and pips from the passages. Even electricity and water were being settled by someone, silently. Soon, the grocer next door stopped accepting payments from Dalal while continuing his deliveries as before. Once, a carriage driver simply ignored Dalal’s hand as she offered him the fare.

  No mention was ever made of any of the activities in the house. During dinner parties, whenever someone, ignorant of the whole process, ventured into a discussion or told a story that had parallels with the goings on in the house, someone was always there to change the subject and discuss horoscope, foreign politics or dreams. The new subject would erupt violently and the odd mention of anything that might have exposed the house would be forgotten.

  Dalal went on with this for several years. With time, she started having the same malaise as before. Instead of being excited driving the whole town as she pleased and as she thought she had planned, she found out she was being driven by the town. And this was not the first time she was being driven. Her father and Moussa had been on that road before. She was in her late fifties now and was going nowhere. In her own dark bedroom, she often felt like climbing up the walls with her fingernails. One day, she asked Zeina to find her a man. No military men, she said admonishingly, shaking her forefinger at Zeina with a smile. Finding a man that Dalal did not know was not a simple task but Zeina succeeded. Dressed as a woman, he went up the stairs and into the flat. He opened the door of the bedroom and found the two way door already open. This was not accordingly to plan, where the man had to knock on the door for the lady to let him in. He walked into the second bedroom to find Dalal on her bed, stone cold and gone. She had left him and Zeina with the unenviable task of explaining how they found her.