9. Our Tares, Not Their Wheat

A young man has scarcely set foot on American soil and begun work in its broad field, success has scarcely smiled upon him, when he joins the current of forgetfulness and grows conceited about his present condition.

The young Syrian enters the American arena fearful and alarmed by the country’s grandeur and ceaseless motion. Little by little he advances, until, once fully mixed among its many peoples, he imagines himself far removed from his former state.

An Arabic proverb says, “Once a man learns A and B, his nose reaches the sky.”[44] It applies perfectly to many young Syrians. They learn the A of American civilization and imagine themselves its pillars, unrivaled in what they have acquired. If their claim went no further than this fancy, it would do little harm. But sometimes it leads them to deny their origins, because they imagine those origins disgraceful in foreign eyes.

Such was the condition of the young Rafīq al-Mudawwar after he entered the struggle of American commerce and became capable of earning a living. In his country he had worn an ʿabāya and heavy slippers, putting on a fez when he longed for the city.[45] In America he had his clothes made by the finest tailors. Every year his trunk held four suits, each of a different color and cut. Every day he wore a collar and tie, with socks matching the colors of his necktie and shirt.

At home, his companions had been unable to read or write, and in his whole life there he had never dared be alone with a girl. In America, his colleagues were among the handsomest and best-mannered young men, and several beautiful girls loved him and envied one another his company.

But this way of life did not permit Rafīq’s finances to advance. Friends, girlfriends, excursions, entertainments, and what they called “sporting” devoured every dollar left from his wages after personal expenses.[46]

His father wrote frequently, asking God to prosper him so that his needy family might prosper too. He tried to distill compassion from his son’s heart for his father’s numerous household. He reminded him that the neighbor to whom they had mortgaged the house for the fifty liras of Rafīq’s passage money tightened the noose around his father whenever they met. The father feared the neighbor would force him in court to transfer the house if he did not repay principal and interest.

With time, none of this had the slightest effect on Rafīq’s conscience. His answers contained only promises to wait for the better opportunity that was bound to appear. At last his father’s patience was exhausted. He sold the house and came to America with the family. He knew that his son had become Americanized, forgotten his origins, cast off his family, and ceased to care whether his kin lived or died.

When Rafīq learned of his father’s intention, letter followed letter trying to stop him. Conditions in America were bad, he claimed, and their coming would bring misery upon themselves and him. But the father could no longer endure his condition. Despite his son’s warnings, he sold the house, paid the debt to his neighbor, and set out for America trusting in God, hoping to recover what he had lost through the fault of his eldest son.

When Rafīq saw his father’s stubbornness, his heart panicked. He became inconsolable, as though struck by a thunderbolt he had never anticipated. He was forced to conceal his condition and bear the affliction. For a time he had to withdraw from his companions and avoid the paths of his social life, grudgingly saving the money his family would need upon arrival to establish a home, buy clothes, and meet other expenses.

It scarcely needs saying that Rafīq’s patience ended in the first week after they arrived. His chest erupted upon them. He made them hear brutal words and lamented his fate in being their son when they looked like peasants. He was not ashamed to tell them that he felt embarrassed before foreigners when they learned these people were his family.

His behavior grew worse when he failed to convince his father to wear a starched collar and tie and his mother to put on a hat and furs. His father declared that he had not come to America to dress like an American, but to work, recover his loss, and support his younger children. His mother said she was nearing old age and her youth had passed. She did not wish to imitate fashionable ladies in her appearance. She had duties toward her new home, children, and husband, and duty required thrift.

If Rafīq happened to see a family member in the street, he tried either to turn back or cross to the other side lest an acquaintance pass and discover that he belonged to “those people.” He spoke to none of them except beneath the roof of their home.

The father understood that no hope could be placed in Rafīq. He rolled up the sleeve of earnest labor and entered the field of work diligently. So did the mother and younger children. All worked to rise after their fall, caring for nothing in the country where they had settled but work. Once Rafīq despaired of correcting his family’s outward appearance and could tolerate them no more, he bade them farewell and departed for a city in the interior.

Seven years passed with Rafīq far from his family. They had nearly forgotten him, because work left them no time for thought and because he had recoiled from them, treated them badly, and felt ashamed of the very people to whom he owed both favor and debt.

In those seven years, Rafīq’s father made a fortune and bought a house for the younger children. He hoped to purchase a second at the beginning of the eighth year and open a wholesale store supplying his countrymen who peddled satchels. The younger children attended public school, and he concentrated all his care and effort on making them men of the future, free from everything that marked their elder brother.

Rafīq, meanwhile, lived for himself, far from a father whose appearance was unworthy of a distinguished son like His Excellency; a mother whose clothes were cheaper than a Gypsy woman’s; and siblings who sold newspapers at crossroads like beggars’ children.

He thanked God that he lived far away. Otherwise, his beloved Molly would certainly put thousands of miles between them if she discovered the kind of family from which he came.

Rafīq loved Molly, and love advanced to infatuation. They had met by chance and exchanged words. Seeing her another time in the street, he lifted his hat and she greeted him. When they next met, he shook her hand and obtained her address. Then he invited her to lunch. He began writing love letters until she became his sweetheart, to whom he gave presents and whom once a week he took to moving pictures or the theater.

All this time Rafīq pressed her to marry him. She refused, saying she would consent only to what pleased her father. If he learned she loved a foreigner, he would surely kill her. Once Rafīq asked permission to visit her home and request her hand. She stopped him and frightened him with the warning that her father might become angry with both of them and the consequences would be grave.

When he invited her to run away, she rebuked him and nearly grew angry. He appeased her, withdrew the words, and apologized. Then Molly declared that although she loved him, her father was everything to her and his satisfaction her goal. Whatever happened, she would consider his feelings first and last. A girl who ran away with a young man was not of good stock; honorable people did no such thing.

Rafīq concluded that his beloved belonged to the upper classes and therefore would act only with her family’s consent. He remembered his own family and compared their condition with that of her people as he imagined it. The matter appeared immense and terrifying. He became certain that if Molly learned about his family, she would leave him and regret her love.

His passion increased until he could no longer bear it. He wrestled with the thought of going secretly to her father. Perhaps he could persuade him to approve the marriage and finish the affair.

At last he said, “Let us throw this lump of clay against the wall and see if it sticks.”[47]

One night his feet carried him to his beloved’s home for the first time. His heart throbbed as he went, imagining he approached the palace of a prince or king. How great was his surprise after a long walk and nearly an hour asking passersby and police officers for the street where Molly’s people lived! When he reached the number, the house before him gave the lie to his fancies. He reread the number several times, thinking himself mistaken. Once certain, he entered, already beginning to feel disgust.

He knocked. A terrifying old woman leaning on a cane came out. He asked for Mr. Fritz, Molly’s father. She said he had not returned from work and would not be home until after midnight, but she invited Rafīq in to learn who he was and what he wanted.

He entered a room containing only a crate by the door; a four-legged wooden table in the middle covered with dirty plates; a cooking stove in one corner; and, further inside, a bed whose mattress was covered in filth.

“Who are you, mister?”

“I am Rafīq Mudawwar. I came to see Mr. Fritz on a matter.”

“You cannot see Mr. Fritz this evening. If you wish to tell me what you need, you may. I am Mrs. Fritz.”

“You are Mrs. Fritz, Molly’s mother?”

“Yes. Are you the young man who wants our daughter?”

“That is not what I came to discuss. I merely wished to become acquainted with you.”

Rafīq had scarcely finished when Molly entered. When their eyes met, her heart danced and nearly leaped from its place. She subdued it by gathering the strength that bewilderment lends a person in such an hour. Her face turned yellow, her lips white, and her eyes flamed red.

He rose. His condition was no better, but he wished to end his mission in the most becoming way. He said he had been obliged to visit her family because he was leaving for New York that very night. News had reached him that his father had disinherited and renounced him; he had therefore come to say farewell until his return.

Rafīq left that house with one hand over his nose and the other lifting both trouser cuffs to keep them from the abundant filth. He hopped until he reached the broad street, then walked on to where he could breathe freely.

In truth, he did go to New York that night. That was the only true thing he had told the woman who, until that hour, had been his sweetheart. He remembered the story of the Prodigal Son told by Christ in the Gospel and resolved to return to his father and mother’s embrace.[48]

When Rafīq returned, his family celebrated. His mother asked what he thought of marriage and whether he preferred an American or Syrian woman.

“Mother,” he said, “our proverb says: ‘The tares of your own country before the stranger’s wheat.’ If I marry, your opinion of the bride must come before mine. And before she sits beside me, I must first make sure that she knows how to fill your water pipe.”[49]

NOTES

[44] Arabic: man taʿallama al-alif wa-l-bāʾ balagha anfuhu al-samāʾ. The rhyme of bāʾ/samāʾ disappears in English; the raised nose signifies conceit.
[45] The ʿabāya is a loose cloak; the madrās is a heavy traditional shoe or slipper; the fez (ṭarbūsh) was urban Ottoman dress. Rafīq’s wardrobe charts the social meaning he assigns to Americanization.
[46] The Arabic transliterates an English-derived immigrant expression, sbūrtins, probably “sporting” in the sense of fashionable leisure and entertainment.
[47] A Levantine idiom for acting decisively and accepting the result—roughly, “let us give it a try, come what may.”
[48] Luke 15:11–32. The Arabic calls him al-ibn al-shāṭir, a regional Christian usage for the Prodigal Son; shāṭir in other contexts can mean clever or capable.
[49] Zawān is darnel, the “tares” of the King James Bible (compare Matthew 13:24–30). The proverb prefers even one’s homeland’s weeds to a stranger’s wheat. Haddad’s ending deliberately turns Rafīq’s reconciliation into a reactionary demand that a wife serve his mother.
