The tear drop from his right eye had reached the side of his upper lip. Any minute now he would reach in his pocket and take out the big white handkerchief all squeezed into a big ball and wipe the tear away, I thought. And waited. His head was still shaking lightly from the effort and there were little signs of perspiration on his forehead. From time to time he would change the position of his hands on the cane. Right hand on the cane, left hand on top of right hand. Then he would venture back into the depths of his memory to find the right words to say out loud so I can write them down in the notebook he had given me. His poems. And I waited. A deep long breath signified that he was having problems today. He would then ask me to read what I had written down so far, and I would gladly do so. And wait. I was not sure where he went when he was silent. From looking at his expressions, it seemed to me that sometimes his mind went somewhere other than where words and verses are found. I was not sure though. I never urged, prompted or suggested my presence to him when he was thinking. Time did not count when I was copying down his poems as he was creating them in his mind. Painstakingly, lovingly, and with humor. I waited. I couldn’t think of anything else I rather do at that moment.
Dede was very thin and fit. His face reflected the years he had lived. The anguish. Every millimeter on his face was active. If eyebrows could talk, his would. They were white and thick and when he had not shaved his head or face for a couple of days, it showed more on his red face, the tiny white hairs sticking out all over. His eyes were set deep. They were blue but couldn’t see much. Only shadows. His ears were big but couldn’t hear much. Only loud noises. We all had to speak out very loud for him to hear. Thus, conversations were concise and to the point. Only very important questions or answers would make the topic. The process of his guessing the identity of a visitor was a source of great excitement for him.
I took great pleasure in talking to him because that is when I could hear my own voice clearly. Joyfully and perfectly pronounced words would come out of my mouth and project far, far into the future, the present, to ask "where is it now?" or, sorry, but I have to say it "can you hear me now?".
His poetry, poems of praise and in jest about the latest most popular member of the extended family were kept in a notebook. A new baby, someone getting engaged or married, a relative paying a visit from another city or country. I had noticed that the country’s distance was in direct proportion with the amount of time it took to complete the poem. For example, if the relative came from France, our poem writing session would take less than 15 minutes. His high spirits helped accelerate the speed of creation. I had to also re-read it more times over and over again for his enjoyment and mine. He would say “astonishing thing” each time I finished the reading. Others took too long. Some remained unfinished. From time to time he would ask me if I was getting tired. God forbid. I wasn’t. But he apparently was. Couldn’t understand why he was stuck. No one told him about writer’s block I suppose. Then he would bend towards little me and with a very contained laughter would tell me the following secret: “We will continue some other day.”
He finally took the handkerchief and wiped the tear off his face, wiped his forehead and while he was at it, his head too.
He was my maternal grandfather. We called him Dédé. His favorite sentence, zarmanali pan - astonishing thing, also describes him. He was quite an astonishing man. We were always overjoyed to see Dede in the street, walking with his cane as if he was 20 years old. Not blind and not deaf. He had the demeanor of an individual without physical affliction. He had mastered the use of the cane to such a degree that it was hard to tell if he was indeed using it to direct his steps or to give him some decorum. Dédé was so familiar with the neighborhood that it was the cane which had started following him.
When I saw him walking in the street, I would run to him and make him guess my identity. He had eight grandchildren all of whom called him “Dede”. He narrowed the probabilities down by process of elimination. He could tell if the voice was a male’s or a female’s and he could see our heights. When I reached the height of my mother, it became more difficult for him to recognize me. I had to identify myself and hear his “astonishing thing”. We all loved to give him our arm and walk with him.
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Solitaire |
I rushed across the tracks and held him in place as the train passed. I looked at his face. He was doing his best to contain his laughter and saying zarmanali pan - astonishing thing. After the train passed my sisters and brother ran to meet us on this side of the tracks and everyone was jumping from joy. Dede was laughing. He had realized his good fortune at that moment. He was also happy to see us. We surrounded him and his cane and we started walking home to present our miracle of a Dede to our mother. On the way, we must have been making so much noise that neighbors came out of their houses to see what was going on. We explained to everyone what had just happened and some people joined the procession home.
My mother’s face, upon seeing him, seemed to say “My dad’s being here could be a hallucination, but my children are with him.” Her gaze would go from him to us and back. We sat him down, gave him water, coffee, a cigarette, and the questioning started. How did he manage to accomplish this trip? How did he know where to get off the bus? Did my grandmother allow him to take such a trip? We later found out that she didn’t but he came anyway. I must say that even for a person whose eyesight and hearing are normal, it would be impossible to find our house without at least a guide or lengthy directions. We were not in the center of the village but on an adjacent hilltop. He himself could not believe how he had managed to travel 15 miles and find us.
Dede did not live too far from us in the city. Just a few short blocks. So visits were frequent. I also read the newspaper for him. Out loud. He would first ask for the headlines and, depending upon his interest of the subject, would make me read first a few lines, then the whole text. If he wasn’t interested or was annoyed about a subject, he would say “pass”. At 8 years of age I knew everyone’s name in the world. Eisenhower, Khruchev, Dag Hammersheold, DeGaulle, the Arab leaders plus the Lebanese ones. It bored me to death to read about politics but I knew who was who in the world. I also tried to make it interesting for me by changing my intonation and respecting all punctuation marks. The front page of the newspaper was always about politics and after reading one headline to Dede I would pray the good Lord for the word “pass”.
On warmer days, we would sit on the big balcony and I would read the news knowing full well that everyone within a bloc was hearing it. I took a secret pleasure in doing this. I think I even read it louder to have a larger audience. I loved to think that besides Dede, I had another audience listening to the news and admiring my perfect diction.
"Can you please read a little bit from that?" he would ask, not sure if he is really interested. Invariably, it would turn out to be so boring that he would say "that's enough."
I still love to read out loud to whoever wants to listen and I have a suspicion these reading out loud sessions with my Dede were the formative years before my entrance into the world of theater and the stage in general. Is it any wonder that from all the columns I read to him, one in particular has remained in my memory because Dede made me read it three times. Marilyn Monroe Gives Exercises For Healthy Eyes. One of them was about looking as far away as possible and then looking as close as possible and continuing to do so ten times, as fast as possible.
Dede did not even know who Marilyn Monroe was, let alone what she looked like and I was not going to take chances and tell him. But there he was doing those exercises and trying to contain his joy for the small ray of hope coming his way as I was thinking that of all the news and stories, this small paragraph made the biggest difference in his life.
Zarmanali Pan.