The Last Exile

This morning’s 4am started with the fact the cat was hungry and for whatever reason I didn’t have any cat food or even a tin of salmon or tuna in the cupboard. I discovered this right after I set the coffee to perk. This isn’t a big deal to people who live in normal neighbourhoods but I live in the downtown east side of the Centre of the Universe. There is a 24 hour variety store less than a 100 feet away but it means I have to run the gambit of crackies, their dealers and other sundry ‘night’ people all in various states of distress to get into the store. Besides, they usually stand like an army of deranged sentinels just outside the variety store doors.

Years ago,I wouldn’t think twice of running out the door, but if anything, the last few years have taught me the lessons of human fallibility. Of course, years ago, I could have just woken up Glen and told him to run to the store to get some cat food and avoided the inner monologue. Now I have to two large sons who would have gone with me but it would mean waking them up and asking. They would not have refused me but I would have to admit my unease. Since I am the only official ‘adult’ in the household;I find I am still reluctant to show or acknowledge any form of weakness. I will have to soon enough but does it have to be today?

So the cat is demanding food rather vocally and swatting at my feet. The coffee is ready and I am debating with myself if I can sneak in a coffee before going to the store. Most normal people would have a coffee first but I live under the burden of my grandfather’s morality which requires all animals to be feed and tended to before yourself. As he would say – what is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. I decided against the coffee. Besides not being caffeinated makes me mean, as in real mean. I grab my coat and walk out the with my back steeled with meanness against the ‘hostile’ others who go lurk in the night.

but there is no one anywhere. I walk into the variety store mumbling a Blessed Heaven under my breath for deliverance when it hits me. The overwhelming smell of Turkish coffee in the air. I put it down with the universe screwing with me. I get the cat food and walk up to the cash just as a middle aged male clerk who looks as rough as I feel is pouring himself a cup of coffee.

He looks me hard in the eye and says, ‘Shalom, do you want a coffee?” in a French accent. The little girl voice quips up a desperate – yes, please. As he pours me a cup I ask, ‘Beirut?’ And he smiles with that wishful look all exiles possess when they are reminded of home, and asks how did I know. The answer is simple. He was obviously Arab and spoke English with a French accent – that and the fact he knew to say ‘Shalom’. But then it occurs to me to ask as he loads me up with sugar; how did he know to say ‘Shalom?” He gives the universal shrug and says it was your necklace. Ah, the ‘Jew-ry’ as my youngest call it. I usually wear a silver circular medallion around my neck with the words of Shema prayer inscribed in Hebrew.

We spent a few minutes more chatting pleasantly as I paid for the cat food. I try to pay him for the coffee but he refuses. I insist; he just as adamantly refuses. He tells me the pleasure is all his for serving such a beautiful woman so early in the morning. I laugh, given my state and wonder how it is that Lebanese men never lose their ability to flirt so graciously even as they age or under any circumstance.

I come home and as I approach the door I can hear the cat howling immediately on the other side. It makes me wonder if Lebanese tomcats are gracious too. As I feed the cat I am struck once again about what I wonderful country I live in where he and I can converse in such a civilized fashion. But it saddens me too that it so rarely happens where Lebanese and Israelis are in fact neighbours. And the cat, he eats a quarter of the bowl of food and walks away to play with his mouse toy.