Nouhad adventurer, little sister, youngest our little family, married crime and blood, husband tortured

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Nouhad and the Adventurer

I had a little sister, youngest of our little family, not very clever at study but a little doll, beautiful, mischievous, sharp and wide awake, also artful and playing tricks.

Together we used to play “house of houses”; we had all practically the same age, myself, Nouhad and the children of the neighborhood. The game consisted of furnishing an imaginary house in a corner of the garden, on the balcony or wherever there was some space. We pretended to be father, mother or guests. We received and welcomed visitors, chatted, and offered coffee and refreshments.

Or we played at school; one of us would be the teacher while the others were pupils, sitting on chairs or on the ground, and taking orders from the all-powerful teacher to rub out the blackboard or recite a lesson. The schoolmaster or mistress carried a ruler or a stick, for in those days hitting was still allowed and it was deemed necessary to punish those who were lazy, careless or impolite. One often received a beating or was made to kneel in a corner of the classroom or by the door. We used to play with dolls that we made ourselves with rags and cotton thread and we used to play hide-and-seek or run races in the alleys around the house.

Nouhad, nicknamed Nouna, was of average height with a clear skin and dark eyes and hair, a pretty girl, lovable, resourceful, and preferring fun and games to study.
On returning home in the evening we sat around the table to write our homework and learn our lessons. I would often help Nouhad, explaining to her whatever she could not understand.

My five sisters went to the school of the Sisters of the Holy Hearts, quite close to home. The educational system then was not what it is like now, with little liberty allowed. Severity was the rule, classes beginning at six in the morning and continuing until four-thirty in the afternoon. At five o’clock there was the evening study.

Our third sister, Isabelle, was the most studious and hard-working, helping the others and considering herself as a second mother, for she saw what our mother suffered in order to get us educated.

Almost as soon as she was born, in fact when she was only twenty days old, Nouhad lost her father. I was just a year older than she was. Our father passed away as the result of a medical mishap leaving a family of seven children in the charge of his young wife.

Our mother faced life with courage and love, providing a Christian education for her children. We were very ordinary, simple people and were bound together by love and sacrifice, all for one and one for all, the one who had giving to the one who had not. There was a true Christian family spirit where values were respected, liberty, equality and fraternity.

I remember for example how during the month of Mary, the month of May, we prayed the Angelus together and sang hymns to Mary, with the neighbors joining in. During Holy Week the house was like a cloister with fasting and novenas, nor were other feasts forgotten.

Mater Dolorosa, the Mother of Seven Sorrows, seven children born of a pure and faithful love, one of only ten years during which my father and mother lived together. Widow at only twenty-six or twenty-seven, my mother had made a second promise to our late father: her one care would be the children, their education and their future.

I can assure anyone that my mother did not know what sin was. She lived the commandments of God and of the Church to the full. Brought up by nuns, she was devoted to the Holy Virgin. She fasted every day of the week, Tuesday dedicated to Saint Anthony, patron saint of my brother, Wednesday to Saint Joseph my own patron saint, Thursday to the Blessed Sacrament, Friday to Christ Crucified, and Saturday to the Virgin Mary. As well as fasting she abstained from fruits and sweet things.

Lebanese of every belief venerate the Holy Virgin and pray to her, considering her as an example and ideal for their daughters.

1936 was the year of the decease of my father, born towards the end of the nineteenth century. 1939 saw the opening of the Second World War, and during this period up to peace in 1945 our poor, lovable and devoted mother had worries and troubles without end, with heavy responsibility and many disappointments.

Summer and winter we were together; during the holidays we were together on the beach, in the church and sometimes when vacationing high up at Faraya. There were no major disputes between us. As brothers and sisters we were affectionate, understanding and ready to help one another. My eldest sister married when still young, followed by the next younger and then by Isabelle, the third. Our big family became smaller and smaller until finally I was left alone with my mother.

Marriage in Lebanon is a sacred affair. The couple must be prepared spiritually in order to receive this holy sacrament. The girls prepare their trousseau, which they put on show a few days before the wedding. Inquisitive people come to admire the dresses, underwear, embroidered sheets and tissues, coats, hats and various little oddments.

Even up to now the custom has continued of celebrating marriages in August around the fifteenth of the month, Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, during her month of May and in the week before Lent, preferably on a Saturday. During the periods indicated, in any church there are weddings without number. The bachelor not married before Lent was said to have “received a kick from Carnival”, and he would be obliged to wait until Lent was over, as the Church forbad celebrations of wedding during the forty days of the Great Fast. However, there were always exceptions due to travel, sickness, elopement or other causes. Marriage after sunset was also not allowed.

It was customary to carry away a girl and to place her with relatives, with friends, or in a convent, as any girl leaving home, with of course the agreement of her parents, could only go to her new home after the service in church.

In order to get married, one needed a baptism certificate and the agreement of one’s parish priest and bishop. The bans had to be announced two Sundays running at Mass after the reading of the Gospel and the sermon, so that any objection could be declared. This was called the “whispering” and in certain cases could simply be replaced by a small sum to be paid to the church. Even silence had its price. But now we have said goodbye to much of that. These were ancestral customs that had much charm. The human being felt a certain respect, values, a bond between the individual and his social environment.

My little sister Nouna, so young and innocent, had discreetly made the acquaintance of a neighbor who promised to make her live like a princess in a story book. He was a rogue, a cheat, a liar and utterly false. His sadistic nature could lead him to crime, for he was extremely spiteful, aggressive, without any feeling, in fact scarcely human. All this he concealed. An excellent actor, he showed himself as an angel, full of kindness and sweetness. He declared his false love to Nouhad and she believed him, carried away by his flattery.

One fine morning, Nouhad had disappeared. The police were alerted and they wasted no time, only to find out in a few hours that Nouhad had of her own free will eloped with the damnable satyr. In Lebanon, especially among the Christians, normally there is no forcing and the girl is free to make up her own mind. She has her say and makes her choice. Nouhad said that she had chosen and married freely. The formalities had been complied with in a few hours. The witnesses and the bride and bridegroom were in the chapel celebrating the marriage against the will of the relatives of the former and in particular of that of her mother. This degraded creature, a savage beast behind a deceptive veil, was an enigma unsuspected.

Two or three days passed and then his true nature was revealed and soon made plain. Every form of misfortune came down on poor little Nouhad. The man beat her, trampled on her, showered blows on her, ever thirsty for crime and blood. Nouhad was locked inside the house. She spent two or three days without any food. Her husband tortured her, put out his cigarette on her tender skin, tried to suffocate and strangle her, and showed himself a monster without parallel.

When she was pregnant he tried to make her abort, striking her in the stomach and stamping on her, what torture! Nouhad followed a Way of the Cross, for the man overflowed with hate. How could Almighty God allow such monsters to exist? This one should never have been born! I learned later that his own mother had cursed him and driven him out of their home, wishing to have no more to do with him. Nouhad for her part dared say nothing. When anybody met her, out of fear of his insults and cruelty, also out of pride, she would say she was happy and would not let others know that her marriage was a failure. But a mother’s heart has a sixth sense and her mother felt that Nouhad was living a Calvary of suffering and misery and was being mistreated, while her sister Isabelle also worried about her.

A child was born, Marie Thérèse, Saint Theresa and Holy Mary. While still a baby she was beaten till she passed out; if she cried or wetted her nappies she was treated to blows. Finally martyrdom led to revolt! The situation became worse and worse until it could no longer be borne, with misery, lack of money, suffering and terror, and no support. Nouhad abandoned her husband’s house to take refuge with her daughter in the house of Isabelle, who let us know. Her husband came shouting, demanding his wife whom he loved madly, resulting in nervous collapse and outbursts of weeping, but all to no result. Nouhad found a day nursery where she placed her daughter and after some days with her mother in our house found a job that covered her needs.

When one is naive and ready to believe whatever one is told, one makes fatal mistakes. Everybody who met Nouhad found her attractive and adorable. There was one who fell in love with her, a certain Augustine, owner of a small factory, steady worker and thoroughly competent technician. He went down on his knees before her, swearing he would adopt the little girl and take every care of her. He was really kind and generous but very jealous, which placed Nouhad before another dilemma. She decided to divorce after a year of marriage and swore she would never again be under the control of another man. This she held to. She found another school for her daughter and asked me to look after her, visit her and bring her home to see her grandmother and aunts, while she herself went abroad to work in a factory making trinkets. She made a number of acquaintances and became a resourceful and commanding businesswoman. She carried out her intention of traveling to the United States of America, where she spent some fifteen years working and providing for the education of Marie-Thérèse. When she had time off she would come to Lebanon and stay mostly with us so as to be with her daughter and her mother.

You may well wonder how it was possible to marry twice in Lebanon without first getting a divorce. Those who wish a civil marriage or divorce can go to Turkey, Cyprus or Europe. In fact there used to be in Lebanon certain priests of non-Catholic churches who would allow themselves to get around the law by letting a person change his or her religious obedience and remarry in their church on the pretext that marriage in the previous rite had been null and void, and so they arranged matters for a little affair of fifty dollars or so, marrying or divorcing their fellow citizens at their request. These false procedures were forbidden by the civil authorities, which recognized only the first marriage, and those who practiced deception were punished and even imprisoned. But in those days it was possible for a Maronite to join the Orthodox or Muslims, who did not recognize the previous contracts. At present, a Christian who has made a Church marriage cannot marry again in another religion without the agreement of his or her existing partner.
To come back to Nouhad and her sadistic spouse, the latter turned to the religious tribunals and the clergy. Every day priests in their cassocks would come one after the other to our house in the hope of settling the quarrel and, as they said, saving a home. But all this was in vain, the decision had been made, and all these efforts were fruitless.

The monster – and I say well the monster – traveled through France and America trying to get back his innocent victim and in the process getting involved in espionage, drug trafficking and contraband. One day I saw his name in the newspapers together with accusations made against him by the French authorities. He was sentenced to prison, where he died. No tears were shed for him and he was forgotten.

Nouna and I remained very close to one another; she wrote me long letters full of spelling mistakes and her turbulent and unsettled life became one of greater success, sometimes calm and sometimes agitated, but in any case one of personal development, freedom and many friendships.

In America Nouna had many suitors who adored her, but she did not wish any more to think of marriage bonds. She worked and made enough to live well. She finally got to know a man who truly loved her. Their affection was mutual and intimate, and this was the true love of her life, but she refused marriage despite her friend’s insistence. He for his part wished to present her to his family as his legal spouse but nothing came of it.

They traveled much and stayed in America, France and Germany, coming less and less often to Lebanon. When making her will my mother had asked me to take care of my brother and sisters, and especially Nouna. Her wishes were answered. The last time Nouna came to Lebanon it was to take Marie-Thérèse her daughter to stay beside her so she could fulfill her duties as a mother.

Marie-Thérèse married a likeable and charming Brazilian musician and lived in Toulouse, where I went twice to visit her, taking with me little souvenir gifts from Lebanon. Reaching Toulouse provided an opportunity to take the train to Tarbes and visit Our Lady of Lourdes. While waiting, I received news from my sister Isabelle, as she and Nouna often chatted by telephone.

Nouna was still quite young when her health began to suffer. She spent her time between clinics and hospitals. Her friend never abandoned her, remaining always by her side. A skeletal tumor tortured her, causing her suffering from which treatment brought no relief. But she lacked nothing, expenses, hospital treatment or love. Isabelle, who considered herself Nouna’s second mother, went to visit her two or three times in France and Germany. At the end, Isabelle stayed beside her till her last breath. She wept, prayed and attended the funeral, watering the soil of Germany with her tears and placing a rose on the tomb before coming back to Lebanon. As for Marie-Thérèse, she mourned her mother who had endured and suffered so much.

If anybody would like my opinion, I would say that I agree with the Declaration of the Rights of Man in his freedom, emancipation and right of decision-making and so on. We are all born under the same blue sky and Paradise has plenty of room for everybody. I would add that every union made in God’s name should not be sundered by man in divorce. There is at present too much divorce because there is too little true marriage.

Unions that lack serious intent and the element of sanctity are bound to be dissolved, but if education is formative of character, full of love, of sacrifice and humanity there will be fewer problems.

I believe too in love, something every being is capable of. Every being can love other beings and should love and pardon enemies and that is why I say to this adventurer who caused so much suffering to my sister: “You are only a poor devil and may God extend to you his pardon.”