4. Home for the Afternoon

Our house was large and imposing. In fact, it was large enough to house a missionary family, some of the lecturers, the women’s dormitory, Dad’s office, a lecture room and dining room for the Lebanon Bible Institute (LBI) students. It was built out of golden sandstone and, to a critical eye, was a little ramshackle here and there. To me, it was our chateau, a grand house by which all other houses were measured. There was a flight of stone steps at the end of the hallway going to the first floor. We all learnt to crawl up these steps. An open door into a room used for storing unused cupboards and chairs was called ‘the dark room’ and we occasionally used this as a hideout in scary games. The men’s dormitory was in a nearby building, and another small stone structure was the home of Mr. Tufic Khayat, translator and lecturer for the LBI.

On this particular Saturday, as I returned from the village square and entered the bottom gate, the scene was full of students clearing up the volleyball court. 

Dad had been very impressed by the emphasis from his own Bible College on training for life. This included cooking, gardening studying the Bible and doing practical outreach. Now, as Principal of the LBI, he included these aspects as part of student life. The piles of collected weeds and cuttings were taken by wheelbarrow to the rubbish dump in the top corner of the garden. The atmosphere was happy and full of lighthearted comments and teasing. Eventually everyone went up to the dining hall to enjoy the midday meal together, which Selwa, under Mom’s direction, had put together.

Someone had been to the market early, bought and boiled a chicken or two, cooked the rice in the delicious broth and served the shredded chicken and rice mixed with toasted pine nuts from the trees behind the house. The djez bi riz made a delicious meal for the students and staff and was accompanied by yoghurt, salad and olives. With the main meal over, we each had a piece of sweet, juicy watermelon, grown in the Bekaa valley. There was a lot of noise during the meal as staff and students joked about their gardening skills and work capacities. Sometimes conversations became animated and intense, while at other times they were somehow serious and full of wonder. I was not able to follow all the dialogue but our midday meals with the students were always surrounded by colloquial Arabic conversations that enhanced the sense of homeliness. Our home always had a sense of community to it.

A student gave the final thanksgiving for the meal and those on duty helped Selwa wash and dry up and put the dishes into the pantry. Visiting the kitchen after all the clean-up duties had been completed, I was aware that the smell of soap bars equated with cleanliness. That same soap was used to wash cloths, aprons and pretty well everything else.

In our family rooms it was time for us all to have a rest whether we felt like it or not. When I was younger, Dad would counter my various objections to the exercise, by lying down next to me, instructing me to close my eyes and go to sleep, warning me not to open my eyes. It must have worked initially but in time it became ineffective. I was not persuaded that I always needed a sleep. As I got older, I needed to develop a strategy, to avoid having to spend needless time lying still.

I would obey Dad’s instruction for what I deemed to be enough time, at least while Dad evidenced alertness to the situation, but then it seemed reasonable to bring about changes which would better meet both his needs and mine. With apparent submission, I lay on the bed and after a suitable time, as far as I was concerned, I got up quietly and tried to leave the room but Dad noticed me. He would get up with irritation clearly expressed and take me back to bed, lying next to me, as was his usual practice, with muttering and threats. I lay still with eyes closed until I heard his steady breathing and felt his body relaxing. Allowing him to relax completely, breathe regularly and deeply, with the onset of snoring being a real signal that the time was near, I would be able to slip away without let or hindrance, to get on with real life and living, leaving Dad to complete his beauty sleep in peace. Both his needs and mine were thus fulfilled to mutual satisfaction.

Re-emergence into the real world outside the bedrooms was met with the to-and-fro of students walking around outside reciting the sermons which they had prepared for the following day, walking around talking together, or merely sitting in the sun, relaxing. Since I could not relate to those things, I climbed the fig tree, which leaned on the men’s dorm roof, enjoying the ripe figs.

Later in the afternoon, Graham came jolting down the steps, herding an active Howard along from behind. They wanted to get on the swing, which hung from the bay tree. This was a round seat on a long rope, which had to be held tightly between your legs. Once Dad was pushing Brenda on the round-base swing. I don’t think Dad realised just how weak Brenda’s muscles were, and she was unable to hold on very well with her legs, so on one of the outswings, the swing came back without Brenda on it. Badly shocked, Dad went rushing off to look over the wall to see where Brenda was and found she had simply slipped off the swing, gone over the wall and landed on the volleyball court, fortunately, not too much the worse for wear. Dad was white and trembling and extremely contrite as he carried Brenda inside to Mom.

Graham and Howard moved towards the unique swing we had hanging down from a thick, high branch of the Bay tree. Once Graham managed to lock his legs around the rope properly and hang on tenaciously, he was set to go. I pushed him on the swing and Howard tried to follow only to be flattened by the back swing. He demanded a turn rather too soon for Graham’s liking, and a battle of wills ensued, with me trying to push and co-ordinate my younger siblings. When the scuffle quotient became too high, I wandered off with our dog, Skip, towards the cypress tree outside Dad’s office and on into the ivy hedge on the southern perimeter wall and hid inside the foliage as Skip whined to be included. I could usually find places to escape the demands of organising siblings, though this did not make me a reliable babysitter, as Mom often remarked.

Mom and Dad then emerged with Graham and Howard in tow, with little Joan in a pram and Brenda with Dad carrying her tricycle. I slid out of my hidey-hole in the hedge to meet them and joined them for a walk. Brenda was on her tricycle and pushing her legs for all she was worth, moving along with us at a good rate. We walked, pushed and rode together past the terrace with all the stone pines, past the Hitti’s long house. Our walk took us to the corner where Aubrey and Elsie Whitehouse lived. Aubrey was a lecturer at LBI and they were soon to retire. From that corner we could see Cliff House, which we had to pass when coming home from Beirut by car. Going up the road towards the next bend was an effort, particularly for Brenda who needed a little push for some of the distance. It became a little easier as we crawled along towards the distant Cliff House, a restaurant. This was not a place we ever visited, but it was built in a prominent position overlooking the valley.

Above the terraces in front of the Whitehouse home, the village shepherd, who also looked after the rubbish removal arrangements, came down the road towards us followed by his bleating and butting charges. He and Dad had a short conversation and on he went past us drawing knock-kneed Graham and bow-legged Howard after the small herd. His flute was in his jacket pocket and he wore his kifeye with a black and white band holding it on his head.

Arriving just above the terraces, Howard began acting as if his greatest desire was to throw himself off the side of the road to see what might happen in consequence. In stopping him from so daring a feat, the decision was also reached to return home steadily and resolutely before the venture turned disastrous. Back at the roadside just before our home, we all sat on the wall, drinking in the beauty of the panoramic view before we turned round to face the camera. Dad loved to make a photographic record of our lives.

The evening was fast approaching. Focusing on the sandstone sided front gate, we were all bundled through, in by the kitchen door, down the slabbed stone floor towards the bathroom. Howard tried to escape and I had to chase after him. He was washed first and I remember things like energy, yelling, soap flying and water everywhere before he was enveloped in a towel and manhandled into the bedroom to be wrangled into pyjamas.

Graham’s washing was a more subdued affair with deliberate and careful application of soap. He would dry and dress in the bathroom, carefully brush his hair and walk through to his bedroom in a purposeful fashion. My wash was usually over in a flash and I had to be checked behind my ears by Mom before I could get out and jump into my pyjamas. Brenda and Joan had their wash separately and hair combing and a kind of preening followed it.

Our family ate supper together and this usually consisted of a thick soup and bread, followed often by cake covered with custard and bits of jelly. A Bible story came from Mom. We loved the way she told a story and captivated us all. Dad closed the meal with prayer and the goodnight procedures began. “Where’s Howard?” was an oft repeated phrase which rose to a crescendo, until he emerged from behind a cupboard or from the recesses of the dark room with a wicked grin on his face. Graham climbed into bed like someone who did not wish to crease the sides of the envelope he was getting into. Crooning sounds came from Mom with a slowly drifting Joan who she finally put in her cot in the corner, while Brenda kept aware from her bed, calipers propped up on a nearby chair.

Dad had built a partition between Brenda’s room and our room. He built a three-tier bunk bed for us with me on the top, Graham in the middle and Howard on the bottom bunk. As we all began to settle, shutters were closed, lights switched off and quietness was allowed to do its unseen but vital work of renewal as we slept. Mom and Dad seemed content at last as my eyelids closed and my other world of sleep, dreams and visions in the night began.