SITTI IMM YOUSIF

Sitti Imm Yousif.

When my mother passed away, I was four years old. My sister was only one. Our maternal grandparents took us into their custody to raise us. They lived at the western end of Bliss Street, known as the Manara area. My grand mother, whom I would sometimes be referring to as Sitti Imm Yousif took charge of raising us.

Sitti Imm Yousif had the face of a saint with a halo around it. She looked very much like mother Teresa. A pure thin radiant white face adorned  with the beautiful white wrinkles of age, on an apparently frail but resilient body. She never allowed herself to be photographed. That was against her religious convictions. Seeing mother Teresa in pictures and in the news  always stirs  my emotions for my grandmother.

Sitti Imm Yousif took care of the house, cleaning, cooking, hand-washing, planting  the Garden with vegetables. She taught me and my sister how to sweep the floor. Tile by tile she would instruct (blata blata.) And for the time of the day that was left, and that was plenty,  she dedicated to praying and reciting the Quran to herself. 

One of the arduous house chores of those days was the preparation of bread at home. There always was a big sac of flour in the house. Brown flour. Sitti would haul a certain amount oh this flour into a metallic tub, mix it with water, add some yeast to it, knead it with her fists, and roll the dough into pita loaves. The local bakery  delivery boy would pass by the house on the morning of two appointed days of the week to take the rolled dough to the bakery, and deliver it back in the afternoon as bread ready for consumption.

Her only indulgence was a "kazooza" from time to time. This is what would be carbonated sweet soda. They used to come in green bottles shaped similar to that of present "Perrier" bottle. Sitti would open one and immediately cover its top with her thumb to keep the gases trapped inside, and keep it trapped  in-between gulps. From time to time she would release a subdued burp and feel pleased about it.

For her, a warm glass of milk with a spoon of sugar was a cure for all ails. Headache, stomach ache, backache, nausea, insomnia, give him/ her a glass of milk. That's how I grew to love milk.

My Mother with the Red Cherries imprinted Dress

From time to time, I would watch her sit cross-legged on the floor, spread a bundle of my dead mother's  clothes, her daughter's, raise them to her face, press her face into them, draw a long  breath of air passing through them, and then exhale with a sigh mixed with silent tears flowing down her cheeks. She would do that for ten to fifteen minutes, then wrap the bundle and put it back in its place. One of the items in the bundle was a white dress with small imprints of red cherries that I remembered seeing it before on my mother. Eventually, I got to associate small  imprints on blouses and dresses with my mother. Later when I married, I found myself always favoring dresses and blouses with miniature imprints for my wife. 

                                              

Sitti Imm Yousif never used eau de cologne or perfumes. She would rather pick fresh roses and jasmine and "fill" flowers from her garden and stuff them into her bosom, in-between her bedsheets or inside her pillow cases. She went for the real thing. How I loved to slip in-between the sheets of her  bed and savor fragrances like I was in the garden of Eden.

Other times I would, see Sitti Imm Yousif sitting on the floor cross-legged. I would, crawl up to her, lie down and burry my tiny head in her lap. She would then gently stroke my hair.

How can I describe paradise.

Later, and to live those moments again, I would lie down by my sitting wife and try to burry my head in her lap. Doesn't work. My head is too big for that. Wouldn't sink.

Please..... No misunderstanding....... I am passionately in love with my wife. It's just that my head is now too big to sink into her lap.

My grandmother's lap??

Paradise lost.

Sitti Imm Yousif would leave her house to visit two persons only. Her neighbor Imm Najib and her daughter Ridha. Otherwise, relatives would come to visit her, kiss her hand and ask for her blessing. To visit her, a female had to be decently dressed. Long sleeves, collars up to the bottom of the neck and skirts way below the knees, otherwise she would be sent back.

Whenever I walked with her to make one of those visits, she would make me pick up from the pavement every piece of paper with writings on it, and squeeze it into a niche  in the joints of a nearby wall. Her reason  was that the name of God might be written on this piece of paper, and somebody is liable to step on it. If not the name of God, then the Arabic letter of Alef, or the number of one, both being representations of God.

She would also make us wipe our plates sparkling clean with a morsel of bread before we are finished eating, to make sure that none of God's bounty was wasted.

The dish I loved most was simple hot over-boiled  humus. My grandmother would pour it hot into a deep plate, melt into it a spoon of ghee then add some salt and pepper. That's it. We would crush a mouthful into a morsel of bread and haul into our mouth. A royal taste worthy of kings. I taught this to my wife, replacing ghee with butter, then with corn-oil, and dubbed it Hummus Sitti Imm Yousif. We mostly recite the Koranic Sourat  al- Fatiha for her soul before starting to eat it. 

Next to the humus came the Mulukhiyyeh. For Sitti Imm Yousif, the infusion of some hot pepper into the Mulukhiyyeh pot while simmering was an integral part of her recipe. Not very hot, but discernibly so. To induce our young budding palates to this, she would start with a small doze and with time increase it until we were able to tolerate the doze of her recipe. But there was another way by which I was induced to tolerate hot pepper. Whenever I cursed religion, and to curse religion is an  Arabic idiom, She would punish me by administering a dose of hot pepper straight to my mouth. Her version of an IV infusion therapy cum punishment.

Still, Sitti was not without a sense of of humor. A story she related to herself was as an innocent young girl playing outside with a piece of candy in her hand. A boy passed by, pointed to the piece of candy and said, "if you give me this, I will show you "my thing."" Not knowing what he meant, and out of curiosity she obliged. He took the candy and ran away. She went back home crying and reported it to her father, who in the fashion of those days, and much to her consternation, gave her a good beating. "Curiosity killed the cat," they say.  

 At the age of four, It was time for me to be sent to school. My father, being a liberal AUB educated person, enrolled me in one of Ras Beirut's non-denominational kindergartens. To Sitti,  a none- denominational school stood out as a none- Moslem  school. She objected to that. How would I be educated in my religion she would ask. Nevertheless, my father's stature in the family was such that his opinion was always respected, and often sought after.

So, Sitti Imm Yousef took it upon herself to  teach me how to pray and to memorize some of the short Koranic verses by heart. She put the fear of God in my heart with the moral values that come along with it. A fear that with time metamorphosed to a strong faith not out of fear but out of  a  personal conviction.

Santa Claus is coming ....With a bottle of Coca Cola in his hands

It was not long after I was enrolled into the kindergarten that the Christmas Season started. Santa Claus posters were all around the school.  That big, burly, large bellied  old man with a long white beard, wrapped in a bright red tunic was a novelty to me. For me, somehow, he epitomized  my first personal image of God as I imagined Him to be. (by the way, that character image of Santa Clause was invented by the Coca Cola Company in the early 1930's. Before that, he was St. Nicolas to all. As frail a person as you would expect a saint to be. Otherwise, how could he fit himself to slide down a chimney. A logistical detail Coca Cola did not bother to take into consideration)

                                                  

"Santa Claus is coming, is coming, is coming......." we would sing at school.

 I carried this song home with me, and would sing it again and again. Sitti Imm Yousif asked what was this I was singing. I told her it was about Santa Claus. And what is Santa Claus she asked?

He's a big large old man with a long white beard and he is the God of the Christians.......... 

Wow ........... Unbeknown to me then.......... I had planted a time bomb  inside the heart of my grandmother.

Not long after, I fell ill and had to be kept at home. The school principal, Miss Eleanor Qamar, missed me. Evidently, she worried about me.

As a note on the side...... what school principal nowadays would miss a student and worry about him/her.

Being the good Christian that she was, God bless her soul in heaven, miss Qamar came to the house of Sitti Imm Yousif to visit and enquire about me.

She knocked, and from behind the closed door identified herself.

That was when the time bomb I had planted earlier inside the heart of Sitti Imm Yousif detonated and hell broke lose.

She refused to open the door and screamed back

"Infidel ..........

go back to where you came from..........

You eat pork meat ............

You go into your church with your shoes on ..........

And you call your God ..... Santa Cloz  Skaymleh....."

(that was how she heard me sing Santa Claus is coming)

Silently, and without any further exchange, Miss Qamar  deposited a wrapped present at the doorstep and left. It was one of those beautiful colored hardcover children books printed in America. Titled "The Golden Dictionary." One page for every letter of the alphabet with colored pictures of animals and things whose words start with the that letter. A feast to the eye.

I felt that my grandmother had committed a grave injustice towards Miss Qamar and I also felt vaguely that somewhere along the way, I was to blame. I was very apprehensive about facing Miss Qamar again.

So when I went back to school, there was Miss Qamar, the first to receive and greet me at the school entrance..

"Welcome back Ziad.......... how are you now....... hope you are well......... we all missed you."

She held my hand gently and led me to my classroom.

I'll never forget this.

May God forgive me and have mercy for both Sitti Imm Yousif's and Miss Qamar's souls in heaven.