The House of Jasmine Read Online Free PDF

job as supervisor in the town workshop was enough for everything we wanted.
    Bab al-Muluk was the commercial street. My mother and her neighbors bought leftover pieces of cloth from the Clock Square in Karmuz for themselves and their husbands and bought new clothes for us children. They would make joyous trips to Bayyasa to buy meat and seafood. We used to eat the shrimp like peanuts. Sardines were salted in the summer for the winter. We children enjoyed teasing the crabs with little wooden sticks.
    On the day of ‘Eid al-Adha, the men used to go to the nearby sheep market in the Tubgiyya hills to buy lambs and goats. The women dressed in black and went to visit the dead at the ‘Amud al-Sawari cemetery. I can still smell the narrow alleys that we used to cross to get to Bab al-Muluk, the soapy water dumped from the windows onto the streets, and the sheep in the hills. I can still hear the gossip of the one-eyed broker. My father once said that, every morning before going to the market, the broker swore never to tell the truth all day. “This is how all brokers are, my son. Their only pledge is to lie!” my father said. I can still see the crowds at Bayyasa laughing and arguing, the women giggling obscenely as the mutton sellers pointed the sheep’s balls at them.
    But one day the whole place changed. The vacant lot became a field for soldiers training to use artillery. Barricades and anti-aircraft guns were everywhere. I came home one afternoon and said happily, “They gave us a holiday, because of Eden.”
    â€œDamn Eden, and these bad times,” said my mother.
    Later that day, my mother caught me with Kawthar, Hani’s sister. I was not a little boy anymore. I was ten and was kissing Kawthar behind one of the doors. Kawthar always smelled nice and her blond hair hung loosely over her shoulders. She often came to visit our apartment. All the children were welcome in any of the apartments at any time. The doors were usually open, and stray cats went in and out as well. I was especially welcome in the neighbors’ apartments because I was dark and my parents were both very white. That day I found myself moving closer to smell Kawthar’s scent, and I didn’t leave it at that. My mother slapped me for the first and last time that I can remember. I was her only son. She kicked me out of the house, so I went down to watch the soldiers who were standing by the anti-aircraft guns, constantly watching for any airplanes that might appear among the clouds.
    As soon as the lot became vacant again, we went back to playing in it, with new memories. We played brave young soldiers firing anti-aircraft guns at airplanes that shone like distant stars. We had been brave during the actual war, and generous as well. We regularly offered food to the soldiers.
    But things had changed. The grass was no longer soft and green. It was withered and patchy. The asphalt roads had lost their luster. The years went by in a dull monotony, and we soon became too old for games in the alley. My father started coughing.
    â€œI have often found myself looking in the direction of the hospital,” he said. “Now I know why.”
    My mother clapped her hand on her breast to show her shock.
    â€œI can’t help it,” he said.
    She crouched in a corner and wept. I realized that the hospital was more than tall trees, and that it had a door.
    â€œHow much have we saved?” he asked her.
    I saw her pull out a small rolled-up cloth purse from inside the frame of their copper bed, and I noticed him looking at me. Twice I had had a strange fever strike me right before the final high-school exams and not pass until the exams were over. I was not a bad student, despite my occasional trips to the cinema with Hani and Rashid. Now Hani was in the military academy, Rashid in the school of medicine, while I was studying the same lessons for the third time, and fearful of another attack of the fever.
    During the