Daily Excerpt: Road to Damascus (E. Imady)

 

The following excerpt comes from Road to Damascus by Elaine Imady.

My father was always the outsider in our family, the one with the funny Missourian

accent, who said “Miz”, “naught”, “bucket” and “skillet” instead of “Mrs.”, “zero”,

“pail” and “frying pan,” who spoke slowly and who moved deliberately. We–Mother

and we three sisters–were the fast-moving, fast-talking, mercurial Easterners who

got impatient with Dad’s phlegmatic, Midwestern ways.

Dad only had his mother, our Grandma Rippey, but Mother, who had been a

Post, had aunts, uncles, first and second cousins galore. In Palisades, everywhere

you turned, there were Posts, relatives all. Actually, Dad’s relatives probably outnumbered

Mom’s, but they were far away in Missouri and we only saw them once when

they came east. So, as I said, Dad was an outsider.

He was also a drinker. At the end of our days with him, drink was more important

to him than anything else in the world. He swallowed it down, and it swallowed

him up. I’m not too sure he was very aware of our presence except when we got too

rambunctious. Then he would take off his belt and strap us.

But before things got this bad, there were some good times and a few glorious

days that shine out undimmed by all the years that have gone by. The first was when

Dad took me to the World’s Fair in 1939 when I was five years old. I remember the

thrill of being singled out for this trip, and though much of what I saw has blurred

in my mind, impressions are left of huge buildings with bright lights where strange,

shiny objects were on display–odd looking things like nothing I’d ever seen before. I

remember the boxes that showed moving pictures, just like tiny movie screens. Dad

said this was “television”. Even at that young age, I caught some of the grown-ups’

enthusiasm for the future and the coming marvelous inventions that were soon to

change our world. We ate hotdogs and drank soda pop (at least I did), and I was enthralled

by everything I saw but most of all by just having Dad to myself for a whole

day.

We got home near midnight, and Mother was worried. I was exhausted, but my

flushed, happy face made her hold her criticism. This day might not be so vivid after

so many years if it had been only one of many such days, but of course it remained

unique. I never again spent a whole day alone with my father.

My father worked for the Bobbs Merrill publishing company at this time, and

all our presents from him as young children were books. Some I still remember, and

some I still have. Best of all were the Richard Halliburton books about the wonders

of the ancient world and faraway places, including Palmyra. I remember being impatient

to learn to read and, in fact, Dad taught me to read at four before I started

school. Since then, I have hardly passed a day without a book in my hand. Dad taught

me to read, and my mother, who also loved books, encouraged my sisters and me to

read.

My half-brother, who last saw my father as an infant, says the only thing he owes

our father is “good genes”. I was thirteen when my father sent my mother back to her

father–and us with her. I used to think he’d given me nothing. My bitterness at his

drinking and abandoning us blinded me for a long time to the earlier, happier years.

Mohammed met my father twice. The first time was in Pennsylvania Station

where we were seeing my sisters, Jo and Jan, off to college in Ohio. It was one of

those infrequent occasions when my parents met after their separation in l948.

Dad said to Mohammed something like, “Take good care of her. She’ll do fine in

Syria; she comes of good pioneer stock.”

Sure, I thought bitterly to myself, “Take her, she’s yours.” It sounded to me like

he was relieved. Now I’d officially be off his hands.

The second time we met in Hoboken, New Jersey, where Dad lived, and Mohammed

took us out to dinner. It was a disaster. Dad was in a provocative mood–

I’d forgotten how mean he could be. He spent the entire evening talking about the

Middle East, praising the Israelis and disparaging the Arabs. Mohammed, ever the

diplomat, was unfailingly polite and would not allow himself to be goaded into an

argument, but I was hurt and saw to it that they did not meet again.

Our first summer came, and Mohammed decided to move out of the apartment

he had been sharing with four other Syrian students up near Columbia University

and move to a place nearer NYU. This triggered our decision to marry regardless

of his family, his scholarship–regardless of anything and anybody. Mohammed reasoned

that if we kept it a secret from his fellow Arab students, the family back in

Damascus would not find out until he was ready to break the news to them gradu12

ally. I wasn’t too happy or convinced about the need for all this secrecy, but I went

along with it.

First, we applied for a marriage license in New Jersey. I had not brought any

proof of age with me, and to my surprise we were flatly turned down. The official

refused to believe I was of age and warned me that Muslims could marry four wives.

I insisted truthfully that I was twenty-two, but he was adamant and told me he could

not authorize such a terrible mistake. We were insulted and decided to be better

prepared next time.

The following day, I brought along my driving license, and we applied in New

York City. Everything went smoothly, and we planned to marry without any fuss at

city hall. But this was before my mother got into the act. She was incredibly understanding

and supportive of our marriage even though she knew from the first–as did

I–that Mohammed would be going back to Syria and that I would be going with him.

Her only objection was to an impersonal city hall wedding. She told me she hoped I

would not be the third generation in the family to marry without any friends or relatives

present. My mother and both grandmothers had eloped, and all three couples

had found some minister or other to marry them. In each case, the minister’s wife

was the sole witness.

“Why not get married at home?” said my mother.

Mohammed and I loved the idea and felt that this would be a much more auspicious

beginning to our life together. We set the date for August 24th and, in contradiction

to all Western wedding traditions, we went shopping together to buy my

wedding dress. Instead of a traditional wedding gown, we chose a simple sleeveless

red and white silk dress from Lord and Taylor. Mohammed would be looking elegant,

as always, in his best suit.

Mother prepared a festive wedding dinner, but Mohammed and I couldn’t eat

a bite. I remember someone asked him to make a toast (with juice.), and he said

some romantic and poetic words in Arabic and then translated them to the delight

and merriment of my two younger sisters. My grandmother was present, as well

as Margaret and Jim Anderson, good friends of ours. Margaret made the wedding

cake, and she and her husband were our witnesses. We were married in the parlor,

and Mohammed put his unique touch to the service. Every time Judge McCormack

asked Mohammed a question, he looked at me lovingly and said “Surely” instead of

“I do”. At the end of the service the judge asked him if he would say “I do” just once,

and he said yet again “Surely.”

The moment the judge pronounced us man and wife, my youngest sister, Jan,

said, “I don’t believe it. Do it again.”

Then my grandmother cornered Mohammed and told him how lucky he was to

get the best catch among her three granddaughters, as if his only choice of a bride

could be from the Rippey sisters. I’m afraid my sisters overheard, but they were used

to Grandma Rippey and her tactless tongue.

Finally, it was time to go. My sisters showered us with confetti, and sister Jo offered

to drive us down to the George Washington Bridge. We got a lot of friendly

stares and smiles that night on the subway since our faces were radiantly happy and

our clothes were sprinkled with confetti.

So, I had no elaborate wedding, no wedding gown and no honeymoon. What I

did have is the most important thing for any bride–the right man. For eight days, I

was the happiest woman in the world.

But nine days after our wedding, Mohammed set off with four of his friends on

a car journey to Oklahoma. I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was no joke. I

bitterly called it his “bachelor honeymoon.” The five young Arabs drove off to attend

the annual meeting of all the OAS chapters in the United States, which was held in

Stillwater, Oklahoma that year. I’d known for months that Mohammed planned to

make this trip, but when the departure date turned out to be just a few days after our

wedding, I thought he would change his mind and not go. But he went. He said if

he didn’t go it would look very suspicious to his friends: they would guess we’d been

married, and then the news might filter back to his family. The trip was supposed to

last ten days but turned out to be fifteen days, some of the longest days of my life.

At the time I was very upset, but, in retrospect, I can see how important this

convention was to Mohammed. It was a great opportunity for meeting and sharing

ideas with other students from various Arab countries. These Arabs studying

in America were the elite young people of the Arab world and would, in the future,

form an “old boy” (and “girl”) connection. Many of them would become prominent

leaders in their countries: cabinet ministers, bankers, doctors, engineers and businessmen,

and the friendships formed when they were students would endure.

The meeting only lasted three days, but the trip there and back by car took

twelve. Mohammed’s friends were determined to see everything they possibly could

along the way. They told me later, after they found out that Mohammed had just

been married when the trip began, that they finally understood his strange impatience

on the way back. They say he sat in the car with a map on his knees and a ruler

and a pencil in his hands, plotting the shortest route to New York City from wherever

they happened to be. They claim he hardly looked at the scenery and couldn’t

understand his odd behavior. “What’s your hurry,” they would ask him. “Do you miss

your studies so much? Enjoy the trip.”

Every day he sent me a postcard with quaint romantic and flowery messages addressed

to “Lulu”, his pet name for me to this day: “Lulu, my darling, I am remembering

you in every step and wishing you were with me. – Lulu, my beloved, I am coming

in a few days with my half heart to find the other half. – When I saw this waterfall

I remembered your love which is flowing like this water from your golden heart.

– Don’t think that I forgot you for one single minute. – Ask the silver moon about

me, the man who loves you forever and ever. – I swear that I love you, and believe

me that I wish I didn’t go on this trip. Please forgive me, I was really wrong. – Lulu,

my spirit, heart and mind, I am trying to make my friends drive quickly so I can see

my love soon. Last night I couldn’t sleep, not one second. I missed you and your blue

eyes. – My beloved Lulu, I hope I will be in New York with you as soon as possible.

All have become angry at me because I have tried to make them drive back fast.”

Today the messages sound very loving, but they didn’t mollify me at the time.

Four days before he got back, he telephoned, and I cried. I also said some angry

things, but my anger evaporated when he walked in the door.

First Runner-up, Eric Hoffer Award

For more posts about Elaine and her book, click HERE.

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