Loom: A Novel

21

111 Joseph i n e is a ngr i er t h a n sh e shou ld be. She wishes she were still in the kitchen, stringing beans or slapping seasoning onto the leg of lamb and irritating Salma. Anything to avoid calling as she promised she would. Yet here she is, rehearsing the words she will soon speak, and here is her hand reaching eagerly for the phone. A high-pitched voice answers after the first ring. Without delay she is connected to Eva’s room. Eva sounds sleepy, as if the call has woken her. Josephine remembers her cousin’s mood swings, the way she never knew what to expect next. She listens patiently while Eva complains about the breakfast she was served at the restaurant. “How does it look on your end?” Josephine asks. “Like it’s the damned North Pole.” The novelty must have worn off since their last conversation. When in doubt, always ask about the “situation,” the Lebanese’s euphemism for the war and, later, the general collapse that ensued. “Everything’s obscenely expensive, but we get by,” Eva replies. Like always. Josephine bites the words back. The feeling returns that she has escaped something vile. She looks at the immaculate fields. In one of her talkative moods, Salma said that, at heart, Josephine was really an American, with her love for independence, her wanting to be left alone. Cold and selfish is what she really meant to say. A woman of leisure for once, she thinks, stretching on her bed, lighting another cigarette, going to the window to see what Loom has been up to since the last time she looked. “We have a neighbor. Marie has named 112 him Loom,” Josephine says. “I’ll tell you all about him.” She wants to talk about Loom to someone her own age. “Time was all we had during the war,” Eva says. Obviously, Loom hasn’t made an impression. Or else Eva is playing one of her games, teasing Josephine and thwarting her attempt to lure Eva back with shared secrets. “We’re getting old.” Josephine imagines her cousin propped up against the pillows, surrounded by nail varnish and makeup boxes, and smiles. She can’t stand the fragrance, and Eva will do her best to keep a bare face, but will make it a point to repeat how naked she feels without her makeup, without even a trace of lipstick. Love, still, after all these years. And the other side of love, the unrequited, slighted part. It was always like this with Eva: her damned confidence. Wherever did she get her boldness, her ensnaring ease, as if she knew things no one else did? In her presence, Josephine’s lips unsealed, new ground was broken , thoughts she never knew she harbored sprung out. When they were children, Eva would sit on Josephine’s father’s leg and wind his watch and glide her hand down his forearm to watch the hair rise under her touch. Perched on the other thigh, Josephine gave her dark looks, silently ordering her to release her father, who should have been worshiped from a distance, like a god or a blinding light. But Eva ignored her and, one day, seeing that her father was amused rather than annoyed by all the frolic, Josephine put a hand on his cheek and pinched, pulled his nose and ears and continued her groping even though he was now looking at her with surprise, while Eva, having stopped her own explorations, smiled mockingly. Josephine’s cheeks burned, yet she was unstoppable, growing bolder to hide her awkwardness. She took his glasses and ran away with them, stumbling against the furniture. Without his glasses, her father could barely see, but it was as if she were the one deprived of sight, blindly reaching for a hiding place, shrieking with false joy, wishing he would hurry up and catch her. It was Eva who caught her and locked her in her arms and pushed her kicking and screaming toward him. Josephine felt her cousin’s hot triumph singe the back of her neck. She released her father’s glasses into his hand where they fell limply. Without taking 113 his eyes off her, he ordered her to her room where she lay sobbing. Later Eva came to her and rocked her in her arms. “Silly!” she said. “You should have known...