We are standing on the heights above Byblos, a few steps away from Annaya, the Hermitage of the saint Sharbel, close it seems to the moon and the vault of heaven. There one finds a little agglomeration of “Metwali” in the neighborhood of the monastery and of its belfry, to the sound of which peasants of every confession organize their time. With sunrise it is time for matins, at midday for sext, in the evening for the angelus. Time is not counted on the clock face, for it extends into the spirits of the people and into eternity. Most of the inhabitants are illiterate. The villagers have love for each other and help each other, children of one and the same nature, basking under the same rays of the sun, breathing the dry air of the uplands. Beyond any doubt, there is a certain decisive way of thinking, of believing and of dreaming, but even more decisive is the liberty they enjoy.

In this little village bearing the name of a great Maronite patriarch, Hejoula, the rocks bear the polish of ages, some houses and terraces meet the eye, and trees of every kind raise up their branches. A path leads down to the valley, one that is followed every day by the goatherds. Here one is not pressed for time, for one lives by the rhythm of the sun and follows the phases of the moon for everything that one does, full moon, crescent moon and gibbous, for pruning the trees, for planting and for reaping. The calendar is there above the toilers’ heads, and even for having their hair cut they prefer the last days of the declining moon. The roads of the Romans are still in existence, winding up from the coast to reach Heliopolis in the plain of the Beqaa. Many are the tracks followed by donkeys and the herds and the flocks. In every household a donkey is to be found, together with goats, cows and a flock of farmyard fowl.

There are as yet no taps from which water may flow. Water is drawn from the wells or carried in jars by the maidens who go for it to the village spring. Food is no problem, for the people are sufficient unto themselves, having domestic animals, wheat, vegetables, fruit trees, fig trees, olive trees, almond trees, vines and carob trees. As for meat, before the Lenten fast, in early February, each family slaughters a well-fattened sheep, whose meat finely chopped is conserved in fat boiled over the fire and salted. It is then stored in jars hung in a well or kept cool in some other place, to be drawn upon on Sundays and feast-days to prepare ragouts and other succulent dishes. If there is an unexpected visitor or some special occasion arises, there are always cockerels or chickens to fill the pot. From time to time, perhaps once every couple of months, a mule driver passes with his beasts of burden laden with articles deemed to be luxuries, salt, sugar, fabrics, shoes and various novelties. Luxuries indeed!

Life is enwrapped in light and in love, in continuity from one generation to the next, from father to son, with no pressing demands. Each evening, in every household, a prayer goes up to the Lord, for the pathways of the village lead up to the gates of Paradise. The prayer in the monastery echoes around like celestial music. In the evening all sleep undisturbed in the warm glow of the hearth, radiating tenderness and affection.

The house is one large room with a wide terrace, under which is the stable, the room itself being divided by a curtain separating on one side the reception room and on the other the sleeping accommodation. The kitchen is outside in the open air, for the only fuel employed is firewood, even for making a brew of tea. All day long the house is empty for in the early morning all the family go off to the fields and return only when evening falls. When there is snow or heavy rain, the routine is disturbed. The womenfolk busy themselves with sewing, mending clothes, knitting and washing. As for the men, they put a keen edge on their sickles and axes and hoes and repair the bags needed for the work in the fields and sharpen the saws to repair the house with its windows and doors. There is the stable to be cleaned out and many an odd job to be done. For idleness there is no place.

When a mother is expecting a baby, the whole village knows about it, for it is an event of concern to all. Everyone wants to “share” the newborn, to lend a hand and to show affection for others. Doctors there are none, only some healers and an abundance of old-fashioned remedies. If the condition of the mother is cause for anxiety, she is bundled on the back of a donkey to be taken to the nearest town, in this case Byblos. Gynecology is not yet known, there are only the midwives, one might say the village fairy godmothers, to help a woman in labor.

It is in an open field, in a furrow of beanstalks in the shadow of some egg-fruit, that the newborn Alia lies, a little doll covered in rags in a rural nursery. Deeb, the shepherd dog, stands near her to give her protection added to that of her vigilant mother who works nearby close to her flock, weeding, picking and watering. The air is pure and scented and there is a child, a gift of heaven, come to the world. What could better ease the daily tedium? When Alia cries, her mother comes over to feed her from her breast before putting her back in her verdurous cradle. Hygiene? No question, for here there is no pollution and contamination has not become yet such a curse. People rarely fall ill and when they do so they treat themselves with infusions and herbal remedies. Beyond that they turn to the local healers and to the saints above, each village having its particular holy patron.

When the sun sinks low in the West, the mother takes the child, leaving behind her the other members of the family still at work, and hurries towards the house to light the fire, heat water, prepare the family supper, lay out their beds, take care of the child, and do a host of other small jobs. More remains to be done, gathering up the eggs, milking the cows, scalding the milk, and making cheese. Poor “Metwali” women, whose husbands may have two or three other wives, all of whom must submit to the demands of the man of the house! Even during the night the mother of Alia cannot sleep undisturbed, for there are the children. One may be crying and another tossing and turning uncovered. There are many children and with two or three other women married to the man, there is little rest for any. For the return from the fields, Alia is laid on a sack on the back of the donkey, which carries also jars placed on either side to ensure the steady equilibrium of the burden, with the firewood and all the other odds and ends. It is a trip that is made every day. Time is marked by the sun and the sound of the bells which ring aloud at their fixed hours, calling the peasants to prayer and reminding them of the presence of God.

Alia’s world is both wide and bounded, a furrow in the fields, where she plays and discovers the world, and develops bonds of intimacy with the family goats. Leila the Red is obstinate and is followed by her two little kids, Raad and Najem. Antar with the pendulant ears with a noticeable tear, the Swiss nanny Hoda, like the she-goat of M. Seguin with her two little ones, each considers Alia as a third little kid. All the youngsters drink Hoda’s milk, the kids sucking her udder and Alia drinking from a bowl held in her hand and licking the sweet and nourishing liquid. She dribbles milk down her chin and her clothes so that the baby animals not satiated by their mother’s milk come and lick the clothes and cheeks of Alia. When the time has come to take a nap, Alia and the kids cuddle up to Hoda. For friends Alia has the goats, the cats, the chickens and the ass and for play-pen all nature and the pure open air. There are the butterflies also, after whom Alia runs drawn by their lively colors, and the beetles and the grasshoppers, and sometimes she watches the long columns of ants busy about their work.

When three years old she already knows every nook and cranny of the stable and the hen-house, where she goes all unaided to pick up the eggs and hand them to her mother. When four years old she is the family baby-sitter, looking after her younger brothers and sisters, for in Metwali families the mother is always in child, giving birth to a child nearly every year. In a few words, this is the world that surrounds Alia the little girl of four – but I should have mentioned the dogs, the flowers to be picked and the games in the snow.

At five, Alia has more serious charges. She gathers twigs and branches of firewood for cooking the meals and baking the bread, feeds her little brothers and sweeps the house and the terrace. For a broom she has some branches entwined together and tied round with string. School is not for her, for though there is a small school in the neighborhood it is not for girls.

At six, Alia trots behind the herd in the fields, cows, calves, goats, sheep, only coming home when their stomachs are full, and then Alia has to take them to the water to drink. She spends her days alone, with a rolled sandwich of bread and a flask of water. Each animal has its own name and all obey Alia and protect her. Alia works like any grown-up, for children are an unpaid workforce added to the family, and what is more Alia is a girl and in the unthinking mentality of the family only half a human. She has no rights of her own and must obey exactly like her mother, her aunt, her cousin and the other womenfolk. When she cuts her hands or her feet, she treats them herself, with some oil or salt, some ground coffee or some herbs that she knows. The medicine cupboard of the time is composed of some bags where there is orange blossom, cherry stalks, camomile, the wood and bark of oak trees, almonds, barley, corn cobs, sage and roots, oh so many things! At six she is already a little healer of ills, and likewise she treats the animals for their ailments. She has a wonderful way of speaking their language and they obey her without fear. Then she has to pick up the dead branches and tie them into a bundle to be carried home in the evening to feed the fire. The animals have to be enclosed in the stable, in other words the house, for stable and house are all one building where human beings and animals live together separated only by a barrier of sticks or stone, save where the latter are kept below in a kind of basement. The floor above is one large room called the “upper”, the “aliyeh”. Next, Alia jumps on the back of the donkey to go to a point where she can draw winter to fill the cans; there she has to wait for somebody to help her, but all the country folk are ready to give her a helping hand as she is popular, well-known and liked in the village. Once back home, her parents come to unload the donkey, while Alia sets about other tasks. Since her labor is unpaid, good use has to be made of it. There is the fire to kindle, the bread to bake, the cooking to be done, and the housework demanding attention. Alia generally runs around barefoot, for what use are shoes when a girl is born to serve others with the least expense possible?

Books and pencils and paper she has never seen, known or used. In the village school there are only little boys, the children who are destined to carry on the family name. The girls are deprived of everything and there are some fathers who even demand a price before giving their daughter to a anyone asking her hand in marriage. Nobody asks her opinion before marrying a girl off, and she does not even see her future husband until after the marriage contract is signed. Sometimes a girl is promised to a cousin of hers the very day she is born. It is the father, brother or uncle who decides the destiny of the gracious little creature; for her part she has simply to obey and submit. Questions of love, feeling, sharing and understanding and the whole field of sex, sympathy, pleasure, agreement or refusal, sentiment or affection, all these human and individual problems do not exist for her or are forbidden her. The girl must simply submit and it is any dominant male member of the family, perhaps her brother, who decides. She dare not even speak and can only go to sob enfolded in the skirts of her mother, who also has been crushed under male domination. These are ancestral traditions that have not yet entirely disappeared.

If by chance Alia encounters her seven-year-old cousin when in the meadows or fields near the spring with her flock, if she exchanges some words, even a smile, if she watches him from afar, she is spied on by her brothers and straightaway scolded or even roughly handled. Play is out of the question for little Alia and dolls are something she has never known. All her affection is centered on the little ones of the household, brothers and sisters, lambs and kids, calves and baby donkeys, chicks and birds. She picks flowers, climbs trees, eat the wild berries picked in the fields, the nuts and the almonds. As for milk, which flows in abundance around the house, she drinks it all day. Nature is her school, with its environment, its seasons its elements, the sun and the stars. She sees little girls like herself from the Christian localities carrying their bags as they hurry towards the parish schools.

A little sister is born, an encouragement for her, a consolation, for it is Alia who will bring her up and look after her, joyous and happy to have a little companion so she will be no more alone, a little sister who will share the same destiny. Alia however is growing up and her brothers as well, while her parents are getting older. She is now almost eleven years old, a lovely girl, slender, lively, naive, simple, and full of force and energy.

How was it that I came to know her? This must be understood before I continue my narration. I made her acquaintance in 1980, some thirty years ago. She entered into our intimacy and became a member of the family. It was during the sad events that passed over Lebanon, when I came to settle in Eddeh in the region of Byblos. I needed someone to work for me, and at that time there were some Indians and a group of Metwali women, active and conscientious. They came by car from around Amshit and were paid once a week or a fortnight according to the number of days, Um (Mother of) Ibrahim, Um Abdallah, Um Youssef, and so on. Two of them only were addressed by their own names, Najibeh (the Clever) and Alia (the Proud or Noble).

There was one who was quite different from all the others by her character and bearing, Alia, bent under the burden of her years, her fatigue and her worries. Speaking little and an excellent worker, she was like the ant. I knew her only as old and for thirty years she kept the same features and the same expression. She had the body of a grown-up and the soul of a child. Alia still was living her childhood, never grown up, and calling me “Master!” Very soon a friendship was formed between us. She was in charge of the party that was weeding and cleaning the garden, picking up the stones, planting and harvesting. At that time it was above all necessary to gather the fruit of their toil, for they had been planting vegetables. Dozens of women worked day after day to bring in tons of haricot beans, tomatoes, small marrows, peppers and egg-fruit, every day for twelve months of the year. Alia in particular had come into family circle, taking care of everything and giving orders, for she felt herself responsible for the land, watching over every detail, seeing if the harvest was plentiful and if the olive trees bore a rich harvest of olives, if it was time to bring in the orange blossom, if the poultry and goats were thriving and if all around the house was neat and tidy. She was a living conscience, a person who labored with love. My children drew close to her and she loved them as she had loved her own brothers and sisters.

She told me about her past life with all its personal side. If by mistake I introduced her as “Madame Alia”, she would get angry, explaining that she was Miss Alia, maiden still, without sin, never having been intimate with a man. All day long she kept saying, “Ya Adra”, “Oh Madonna”, “Oh Virgin Mary”, “Ya Yassouh”, “Oh Jesus!” The Holy Virgin was the feminine ideal for her as for all the other young girls in Lebanon, whatever their religious community. Every girl in her subconscious wishes to be pure like the Virgin Mary and to have Mary as her model, that is to say to be free, to share, to be present with her Creator and to depend only on Him.

Sometimes she scolded me, I was going to say called me names, for having neglected something or other, for having kept out of pity some laborer who did not work, or for having not bothered too much about some olive tree or plant. She would come into the house and give orders all around, to my wife Andrée, to my children, to the servants. I always smiled and let her be in the right. She introduced me to a knowledge of wild plants, edible or medicinal. She picked tasty herbs to cook them for us. She was strictly vegetarian, eating neither meat nor butter, but eggs, yes, they entered into her diet together with dairy products, vegetables and olives and jams and other sweet things that she loved. She came and worked whenever she so wished or took the day off and spent the day at home with us in order to relax and to rest. I used to buy her whatever medicine she needed and also the sweet “halawa”, which she loved. This I should explain is a paste of sugared sesame cream with an aromatic root, widespread throughout the Middle East and often served after meals. The hermits and even the cenobites living in small monasteries mortified themselves by abstaining from it but tasting it however on the feast of St. Anthony the Great in January, a tradition that the monks still maintain.

Alia told me how when she was already eleven she worked harder than any man, doing her work without rest or pity. Her day began before five in the morning; she helped her mother to milk the animals and to prepare breakfast for her brothers and her father before taking to the fields to gather in any harvest. Haricot beans go dry if they are not picked in time; Alia used to pick them and then leave them in the sun to be stored for the winter. She had to think of everything, picking the figs to make jams or to be dried, pulling up the onions and garlic, digging up the potatoes, harvesting the grapes, boiling the wheat before crushing it as “borghol”, basic like rice is elsewhere for all the meals, and gathering the chickpeas, nuts and almonds. She also helped her mother to make “kishk” with fermented milk, then drying it and grinding it to make a flour rich in proteins and fats and consumed in winter like gruel.

At eleven, at an age when young girls begin to mature and open up to the spring, to love and to life, Alia would converse with the bubbling stream, telling the brooklet of her pains, her sorrows, her suffering. and confiding her secrets to the rocks that were like so many sphinxes guarding the mountain. At eleven she was up at five and slept only late at night so as to serve her brothers without any break. She avowed to me that at that age she had once greeted a boy of her own age whom she found likeable and that day received a beating from her brothers. She was trodden on, beaten and bruised. She swore never to say hello! to anybody again and every time that a suitor presented himself, a cousin or second cousin since marriages were within the same family, she was slapped, beaten, struck, had her hair pulled and was in every way humiliated. She was born only to be a servant for her brothers and in due course for her brothers’ wives and children. “You ask me, Sir,” she said once, “ why I am still unmarried and a virgin. I lived in a house where my brothers and my father were my jailors; neither I nor my sister Najibeh were ever married.”

Later I came to know her brothers and their many children and their wives, who all abused the kindness of Alia, for Alia worked for them in their homes while she was working for me and the money she earned was taken away from her. What injustice!

Alia, a Shiite Muslim by birth, was a Christian in her soul and in her life. The Shiites of Lebanon form a large community, strongly attached to the soil and to Lebanon, and they live close to the other groups. Those of Byblos, Kesrouan and Baalbek are known under the denomination of Metwali, while those of Jebel Amel in the South as Shiites. Alia used to say to me, “Master, it is you who are my father, my brother and my friend, you the Virgin Mary and Christ.”

Alia told me that when she was twelve she liked to take care of her appearance, for example to comb her hair. She was not without charm, was lively and slender, but she did not dare show it; she covered her hair and let only her hands and the soles of her feet appear. She said, “I did not dare to go with my brothers to the village feast of Our Lady on August 15th. I was shut up at home with only the donkey in the stable to talk to, while my brothers went off strutting like peacocks and showed off to the girls and rang the bell of the village church.” As was once the case in the West before it lost its soul, every hamlet, every cluster of dwellings, in Lebanon had, and still has, its patron saint, invoked when one was ill or for the success of a venture, in whose name some sacrifice was made or an offering given. There are more saints than there are days in the year. Some are resorted to for a grace or a favor, Saint Nohra for the eyes, Saint Rita for impossible cases, Saint Anthony for an ideal fiancé, Saint Doumit for paralytics. For sterility, for the ears, for sight and for hearing, and even for the animals on the farm, there is Saint Shallita. And why not? In ancient times on Greek Olympus were there not gods and goddesses for prosperity, music, the fine arts, war, hunting, love, poetry, heaven and hell, harvest and wine-making. In Roman times there were as many gods and goddesses as there were objects. Each person could create a god according to his needs, and the girl getting married took also the god of her husband, and everybody was happy and lived in peace. There was misunderstanding when people believed in only one God and each wanted to take Him for his or her own. Little Alia had a broad mind and allowed for freedom of belief, with each individual saving his soul in his own way.

At thirteen years of age and then fourteen, Alia with her good looks walked alone surrounded by nature, in her daily work in the fields, and had no friend other than Jesus and the Holy Virgin. She would have loved to run to adventure out in the wild, dreaming of getting far away, away to horizons where she would no more see her brothers or cousins or uncles, anybody of the male sex.

At fifteen Alia suffered an unforgettable beating. She was bleeding all over, the pretext being that she had not properly served her brother’s wife. So she was ill-treated and unhappy. She had more and more work to do. Now she had to work for her brothers’ wives and their countless children, feeding them, washing for them and doing countless other jobs. She had to bring up her brothers’ children, she and her sister, of course, but the latter was younger, obstinate, selfish, ill-willed and crafty, and did not let herself be imposed upon. What difference did it make for Alia whether she tended a plant, tomato, cucumber, cabbage or lettuce, or a child? All start small and need care, love and constant attention. All grow better for light, water and air. All want to grow and to have something to show. Alia as a baby had slept in the bean furrow, with the snails, beetles, dragonflies and butterflies. For Alia it was a task she had performed with conscience and love. Devoted to every kind of work, she was overwhelmed in this hell, with turbulent and unsupportable children who as they grew up began to steal the savings of their aunt which she had hidden in odd corners of the house.

Rest was something that Alia had never known. But ironically enough, Alia and her sister inherited a plot of land in the village. What could property mean for Alia? Absolutely nothing, for she enjoyed no freedom either for her person or for her decisions or for any choice she might make. She belonged entirely to others, beaten, maltreated and ignored as a human person. This inheritance she had received made her brothers think hard; how, they wondered, could they take advantage of the simplicity of Alia to use it for their own ends? As the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth years of her age passed by, her only consolation lay in the Virgin Mary and Jesus, the only belief to which she could hold on. Her brothers harassed her night and day, urging her to sell the land and put the money in the bank. “You will get the interest and that will be a guarantee for your old age, your final years.” She was still young and was still in her best days, she who could decide nothing for herself without receiving blows without end on her lovely young body. She and her sister agreed to sell their property and to place the money in the Byblos Bank. This was in the early nineteen-sixties. The money from the sale was deposited with interest and Alia, who knew neither to read or to write, was given a savings book which she hid, only she knew where, to keep the sum for troubled times, for her old age, she who was born old and had known nothing of life and existence outside. In a word, her brothers had obtained their commission, God knows how much, and the sum registered in the bank in Alia’s name was just seventy thousand Lebanese pounds, a goodly amount in those days, one that Alia put aside untouched for her final years.

I saw her then at our home every day. Since she and her sister had left the upland, they had been living just outside Byblos on the coast. Now they enjoyed a certain independence, with a little plot of three acres on which they built a couple of rooms with a bathroom. The two rooms each of three meters square left a little space for planting some flowers around. A vine covered the terrace in front of the house and a couple of trees lent some shade. It was a little doll’s house, very clean and well lit. What need had they of anything more? One room each was enough for them, because all during the day they were away, returning only at night for sleep. When they were at home the terrace provided more amusement, for a road passed in front of their door and they could chat with their neighbors, greet passers-by and see something of the world.

Alia had never been ill, being healthy, robust and active. I knew her only when she was advanced in years and during the thirty years of our acquaintance there appeared no change in her expression or in her ways. One day I had to take her to her home and she insisted on my paying a little visit and seeing her house. I was quite curious to see her sister and herself in their private domain. There was just a bed, a sofa, a cupboard and a little table, all the furniture they possessed. The kitchen was out on the terrace with the bathroom. The walls were papered with photos of the Virgin Mary, Jesus and various saints, among them Saint Sharbel, for their family lived close to the monastery and their father had himself known the holy hermit. This was her world, her idea of the paradise where Jesus and his mother and the saints were enthroned. Perhaps she regretted not to have been born into a Christian family where as a woman she would have enjoyed greater equality with the men where freedom and custom were concerned. It must be clearly understood that the Shiites live in perfect harmony with their Christian neighbors. Alia and her sister Najibeh, still celibate and virgin, welcomed me warmly that day, offering me coffee, chocolate and candies.

One day Alia came to me, clearly with something important to say. “Master,” she declared, “I want to show you this savings book so you can tell me what I should do!” She told me about the sale of her property and about the sum put in the bank and lying there since the ‘sixties. At that time it had had the purchasing power of fifty thousand or more dollars. I made a quick mental calculation of the interest due over the last forty years and found the figure I arrived at was no more than a couple of hundred dollars, for in the meantime there had been devaluation and the Lebanese pound had only one thousandth of its former value; the savings book therefore was worth almost nothing and Alia had suffered loss through the money dealers called a bank. How many others like Alia had so lost the money put aside for their old age! I made Alia understand that the savings book had lost all its value and that she had lost everything! Then she said to me, “Master, for my last days I have only you left to me on earth! And many friends in heaven!”

Her sister had been swindled in another way. Her brothers had persuaded her to lend them her money under the pretext that they would pay her twice the interest, which was much more advantageous than leaving it in the bank. Najibeh had done as they suggested, but the money was never returned to her. There are many ways of losing money, but Alia had strong morale. The goods of this world were of little interest to her and all that was Caesar’s she gave to Caesar. She was concerned only with Mary and Jesus, whose names she repeated all day long. One day I was overtired, overwhelmed, and burdened with work and I let out a deep Aie! in front of Alia. She was quite overcome. She could not bear to see me suffering, sad or in trouble. “Master, you are a lion, a tiger, and I don’t want to see you suffer. Never give way like that in front of me again!”

It was now autumn and the village was almost deserted. In Lebanon many people reside in winter on the coast near their work and their various activities and many among them cannot support the harsh mountain winter with its cold and snow and the coming and going on perilous roads. Then in the springtime the village people go back to their homes on the heights, which they put in order for the summer.

I watched Alia closely. She fasted all through Lent with the Maronites and all through the month of Ramadan as well. Religion for her was shared, with all roads leading to heaven. One day she showed me a watch with a chrome-plated bracelet, saying, “I found it in the field, and somebody must have lost it. But nobody goes that way.” I jokingly said it must have fallen from a plane as there were many of them crisscrossing the sky. In her simplicity she believed me and gave me the watch. In fact it belonged to one of the Indian laborers who were working on the land and I was able to return the watch to its owner.

Alia lived almost a century, throughout the twentieth, and in all that time she had never possessed an identity card. With all the hundreds of checkpoints erected by the militias and the security forces, she always managed to get through by scolding and by imposing respect. But in order for her to sell her plot of land, a certificate of nationality had been obtained from the Census Office bearing a passport photo of Alia, perhaps the only one ever taken of her. I was almost thunderstruck when I saw the photo at the time when I wanted to get her into hospital. It showed an independent young woman, proud, with a clear brow, a piercing regard and eyes of great beauty, in all a young girl far more beautiful than the princesses who have bored us with their decadent behavior, their adventures and their sex over the last fifty years. Alia, this beautiful girl, sublime, honest and wise, lived unnoticed, which is why I have wanted to tell her story. She always refused to sit for a portrait: “I prefer to be like the hidden violet that embalms the fields,” she used to say, “so there is no point in your going to the trouble.” Despite her refusal, I have been able to make some sketches and fix her expression from memory, wishing to bring her out of the shadow under which she always lived.

For perfume she used rose water, or water of various other flowers, jasmine or gardenia. She would cut a stem of basil or thyme or some such aromatic plant. In point of fact in this unique country of Lebanon, this garden of Eden or of Adonis, smaller than a French department, there are more than 3,800 species of plant cataloged by botanists, whereas in the whole of Europe, from Siberia to Portugal, there are no more than 4,500! To explain this phenomenon one must go deep into the mysteries of the Creator.

I noticed how scrupulously Alia did the washing up and set about cleaning the house. If she was not pleased about how some job had been done, she ordered the servants to do it all over again. Our house has all the usual labor-saving devices, but in her own house Alia did not want to have anything to do with electricity. She boiled water, cooked and warmed herself over charcoal and wood. Now we have been inundated, with detergents and all the other modern products, but our ancestors used the ashes from their hearths, mixed in a reservoir with a large quantity of water and then left until the water became clear. This water was put on the fire with soap of olive oil and the clothes once boiled was rinsed several times before being put out to dry in the sun, The ashes were rich in caustic soda and beneficial salts.

If Saint-Exupéry had ever made the acquaintance of Alia, he would have imagined her accompanying the Little Prince on his travels, for Alia was a little princess who had never grown up but had lived in a dream world where one gathered up stars on fairyland trees, where sin did not exist, and where people were all clad in beams of gold, in sparkling lights and in love.

Alia was born during the First World War, in 1914, -15 or -16. I learnt this thanks to an old woodcutter who spent three weeks cutting and pruning a small clump of oaks that I protect and conserve, and made me a grindstone to obtain charcoal to be used for grills and for narguilehs. He was a relative of Alia and confirmed the date by saying that she had the same age as his grandmother, who had an identity paper going back to 1916. In the past, particularly under Ottoman rule, registers and the various formalities were unreliable or non-existent. What was worse, the officials of the Sultanate wrote down whatever they wanted, for there was no checking and no responsibility. There was nothing to prevent them writing 1902 instead of 1916. In the Christian communities things were a little more exact and the margin of error considerably less, for there one could refer to the parish registers of baptisms. Here the dates were correct and the margin of error not more than a week or two. The newborn was often baptized just after birth.

In those days the holy sacrament of baptism was purely a Christian religious act and an occasion for family celebration, with a fine repast to which relatives and friends were invited . I remember attending Mass in a village about the year 1950, when I was just on fourteen. A woman entered with her baby on her arms and asked the parish priest to baptize it. There was nobody else in the church so the priest asked me to be godfather! I still remember it all clearly, even the name the baby was called, Theresa. Now when rich Lebanese families baptize a newborn child they make a feast of it which costs thousands of dollars, but in this way the event loses its poetic, mystical, spiritual, religious side to become simply a social occasion.

One day, I found Alia, this child of eighty-five or more, in despair, even weeping, she who had been so often misunderstood being now broken and wretched. Wishing to know how I could help her, I let her tell me that her sister Najibeh, who must have been about eighty, was a coward, unfaithful, dishonest, and not worthy to be her sister. She thought of all the worst things possible to say about her. “Najibeh wants to get married and leave me. Does one marry at her age? Master, dear, I cannot believe it.!” Najibeh was getting married in her old age, worn out though she was! I learnt from the local gossip that just south of the picturesque little town of Amshit, where one can find the vault of Renan, a little north of Byblos, there was an elderly Shiite man, well past ninety, who had been left a widow; so, needing somebody to look after him, he married Najibeh. As the old fellow was quite rich, the brothers of Najibeh thought they could make a good profit out of the business by in effect selling their sister! They virtually laid siege to her and managed to persuade her to take the old man on. “Instead of being a servant,” they said, “you will be his wife, mistress of his house, and he will offer you six million Lebanese pounds, equivalent to four thousand dollars.” A good piece of business! They could make something in the course of the negotiations and, what was more, they were the only heirs of their two sisters. The marriage was celebrated in a ceremony which intrigued all those with a curious mind. The honeymoon was spent in Egypt, where the old satyr had already contracted three marriages, and his children living in Egypt were practically as old as Najibeh. Once back home, Najibeh put up with her husband for whom she was an unpaid servant all day long. He was not long dying, in fact after less than a year. Nejibeh found herself alone again and obliged to return to live with her sister Alia in their little room. Alia the proud, Alia the sublime, was deeply hurt by her sister; to her way of thinking one does not sell one’s soul, one’s honor, for all the money in the world. Alia the little girl with her kind heart pardoned. Her heart was candid and harbored no resentment.

One day she told me that she could not see any more. so I took her to see an oculist, who said her eyes both needed to be operated on for cataract and have lenses inserted. Twice I took her to hospital. Her two eyes were operated on and recovering her sight made her younger. She prayed all day long for God to take me under his protection. “My brothers,” she said, “did not even enquire about me, they did not visit me and they offered me not a candy.” As for myself, I felt that I ought to help this outstanding little person as a sort of duty. Although completely illiterate, Alia knew the story of Lazarus the rich man who had no pity, in fact she knew many of the New Testament stories and she lived what she believed. She said to me that all beings were equal before God. Everyone was born free before God and had the right like others to receive education and help, but she had been born prisoner of the customs and traditions and laws of her brothers and her whole milieu. Little Alia reasoned rightly.

She wanted to carry on working until the end of her days, but she was now wearied. She wished always to make her living by the sweat of her brow and never to have to depend on others. From time to time I brought her to my home to pass the day from morning till evening and would give her a week’s provisions together with the medicine she needed to calm her ulcer. She spent her time in front of the two little rooms of her home under the vine with the road close by. She would wait for me, for every week I would stop by her, assuring her medicine, some bread, some cheese, some eggs, some sweetmeats and a little money to spend, all of which she accepted from her “Master” with love. Sometimes my son William took her for a ride in the car, buying her ice-cream cornets or chocolate as if she were a child, which in fact she was, a little revolutionary child in an old, old body.

Whenever there was some emergency or she needed anything, or was ill or laid up with the ‘flu, she would ‘phone me up from her neighbor’s and ask me to pass by, always repeating, “I have only you, Jesus and the Virgin Mary.” Then I would take her to the doctor’s or to wherever she needed. Alia was not of a nomadic nature. She had spent her whole life between her village in the upland and her room near Byblos. She told me that she had on occasion been to Beirut and just once to Tripoli. Apart from, that she did not go wandering off and did not like to be far from home.

She often asked me whether fairies and magic wands and sorcerers really existed. She knew all the fairy stories about princesses and the legends picked up here and there. How had she learned all these things? Was Cinderella not a wretched servant? And as for the others? She admitted to me one day that she used to see the little children, the little girls, in particular, going to the nearby monastery and from time to time a little girl of her age, Rafca (Rebecca), would come and pasture the flock with her. Rebecca was a little Maronite and would recount to her what the priest of the parish or the monk in the monastery taught in the catechism lessons to prepare the children for their First Communion… More than once Alia slipped in with the children to listen to what the monk had to say while Rebecca acted as her accomplice by looking after the flock. If somebody came looking for Alia, Rebecca would say that she had gone to fill a bucket of water somewhere around. Alia knew the story of Joseph and Pharaoh and of Tobias, the Parables including the one about the Prodigal Child, the Sermon on the Mount, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, the story of the Good Samaritan and about the miracles. She used to dream and very much liked reading the grounds in the coffee cups. After having drunk up her cup, she would swish it around in the saucer and give it to me saying, “Master, have a good look at my cup and tell me what you see.” I found this amusing and it made Alia happy.

It is said that in a certain village there was a country guard who knew all the people, all the trees, all the rocks, in fact every detail. Every time there was a funeral he would be there in the village square standing before an urn, into which he would put a pawn as a kind of census. The day came when there was an important event and the guardian was not to be seen, and when people asked what had happened to him the answer came that he was in the urn, passed away.

Najibeh the younger sister had died about six months previously. Alia was all alone in her little room with her sorrows, age and suffering as her sole companions. One day I passed by and sounded my horn, but found the place deserted and learned from the neighbor that Alia had died just three days previously> Nobody had got in touch with me so I could attend the funeral and say my farewell to Alia. I then went to the house of Alia’s brother to express my sympathy. I must admit that her brothers and nephews and nieces were much changed. While I was there I heard on all sides the sound of pocket radios, while some had motor scooters or even cars and, very New Age, wore sunglasses and jeans and left their hair long, hippy style. In short, they somewhat aped the West as far as they knew it from TV and lived emancipated in virtual freedom.

Next day, I was in Alia’s village near the monastery of Saint Maroun in the Shiite cemetery, where the soil had been freshly turned over and where now little Alia sleeps eternally. I put some flowers in memory of this little soul so beautiful, so human and so unique.

Joseph Matar
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Translated from French: K. J. Mortimer