Yvette:

To be without work, to have nothing to do, to be unemployed for lack of available jobs, this great problem of our time was something unknown during the first part of the twentieth century. This has become a serious matter for all classes of society and reached a point where it has ministers, specialists and volumes of statistics devoted to it.

Formerly, every individual had his occupation and work and to remain lazily at home was something uncommon, something about which one never spoke, for it was no social problem. But crises of unemployment started during the nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties. There were plenty of openings, for one could go to various countries of the Middle East, to the Gulf Emirates, to Africa, or to anywhere else in the world. But the demands for work have steadily increased in number everywhere, until at present the number of those out of work, the unemployed, has grown out of all proportion, causing deficits, great difficulties, and crises of a most serious nature.

It is true that there was a wave of emigration towards the Americas during the eighteen-forties, -fifties, and -sixties, but the problems were not of the same order. One form of employment was that of the housewife, a woman who looked after her home and her children, did all the cleaning, provided for the family needs, and kept a watchful eye on everything.

There was no question of having an indoor servant. Only a few well-off, really wealthy families could allow themselves such a luxury. It was possible instead to find a young or an elderly woman, a poor girl wanting to earn her daily bread, anywhere in the towns and villages, and these were treated as members of the family. There were also daily helps who would come for the day according to a schedule spread over the week. I remember in particular an Alawite, Umm Abdallah, who came every Wednesday afternoon to help with the laundry, the linen, the ironing, and so forth. There was another helper, also local and Syrian Alawite, who took on jobs at the building sites and in the fields.

Those who actually lived with the family were often treated as part of the family, doing every kind of job, mixing in with the family and bringing up the children, so having their own opinion about the way things should be done, their importance and their presence.

Although still young, my mother was ill and tired, while my sisters were all married, so she needed help in the house. This came in the form of Umm Abdallah, who arrived at the same time every Wednesday and washed and cleaned and did odd jobs before going off again at always exactly the same time with the precision of an Omega watch. She carried on like this for several years.

This older generation has gradually faded away, and its successors refuse to do the same kind of work. Each individual nurses his or her own dreams and ambitions concerning such things as work and dress. So it became necessary to bring in a labor force from outside, a matter for priests and nuns dealing with certain countries that were once French colonies such as the Seychelles. Clients now had to refer to the Bishop of Beirut if they did not themselves look for Egyptians and Syrians, and these were later followed by Filipinos, Srilankans and Ethiopians.

I myself took in a girl from North Lebanon to look after our children, one whose employers had gone abroad for a year or two and whose father wanted to place her somewhere. She was thoroughly at home with us, and so happy to live with us in town that she had brought her little cousin to join her in our service. But this situation did not last long; a few months later her former lady employer returned and called for her servant Mantoura, a little adolescent, of whom she had need. So a first page was turned.

One day we were having an outing on the heights above Byblos on the Ehmej side. Towards midday we turned into a little restaurant under the trees near a spring of water, and here the children played and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I noticed a young girl from the district about thirteen or fourteen years old who was playing with our little daughter Marina and mixing in with our family. I asked if she went to school and what she was doing. Her mother, who was employed in the restaurant cooking and serving the tables, gave me to understand that she had no objection to her child working for us as she liked us and found us to be a pleasant family. The young girl, whose name was Yvette, ran into her house to pack the clothes she needed into a bag, together with two or three books and exercise-books, her little trousseau! A new adventure was beginning for Yvette that was to last several years and our children for their part were jumping with joy to have Yvette together with them.

We were wondering how Yvette could really make herself useful. She was only a little bit older than our own children. It was necessary to give her some help and we for our part did not employ minors; one who shares our bread and our family life becomes one of us, whether king or servant. We came to love Yvette as we did our own children. She was a brunette, rather small, simple, one might say even naïve. She had no idea of lies, wickedness or sin. She was full of affection and kindness and overflowing with enthusiasm. She was extremely fond of our children. I entered her in the school nearest our house, the central school of the town. In the evening when she came back and had homework to do, our daughter Marina would help her with her study and written work. Once the homework was finished, it was Yvette’s turn to go to work, helping to bath the children and having supper and playing and praying with them. When the children were tucked up in bed, Yvette took her needle and pieces of cloth and sat down close to my wife Andrée, showing her the sewing she had done. She was very ambitious and wanted at any cost to master some craft, preferably needlework.

In any village the seamstress is a center of attraction, an important person much in demand, highly regarded, respected, and popular. A woman tailor who is clever and who can make patterns for clothes, cut, measure and show good taste is like a village mayor occupied with administration.

But not all the problems were solved, for there was much work to be done in the house and there was not enough labor available. Friends in West Beirut then introduced me to an agent, a mukhtar or official representative of a district, who was busy in public relations. He suggested I should employ an Egyptian girl, capable, friendly, clean, and so forth. Several days passed by and then a certain Samia arrived accompanied by the agent, brown, good-looking and with a ribbon binding her hair. She spoke with a singsong voice and her walk was a dance, for she was as supple as a butterfly. She was full of charm and feeling, always smiling, never complaining, courageous and understanding. In Egypt she had been married with children, but like so many women there she had been divorced, being at the mercy of the decisions of her husband. Being divorced meant that she had been driven out of the house, poor woman!

Now our house went on an Egyptian diet. The children began to speak with a real Egyptian accent such as one hears when watching Egyptian films. They learned Egyptian songs, dances, dishes and the way to fry fish with cumin.

Samia brought life into the house, animation and joy. The house was well run, the cooking was good, and the children were well looked after. This enabled Yvette do her homework well, to sew, to learn much and to reflect a great deal. In fact she spent more and more time thinking things out, with every day another question to ask me, especially on religious subjects, such as the Virgin Mary, the saints, nuns, the Good God in Heaven, death and resurrection, religious vocation and certain people mentioned in the Bible. Who were Noah, Abraham, the prophets, Tobias, Jacob, and so on? She always had in mind that she had a vocation and one day would be a nun and even a saint in due course. Her mother often passed by, to be warmly welcomed and invited in. She would chat with Yvette before receiving her salary. She was glad for Yvette to have been sent to the central school, receiving a proper formation and even being better treated than her own children. Samia for her part fitted in well, was in charge of the household and was obeyed by the children out of affection and love.

We often went on outings to various places and were sometimes invited by the parents of Yvette, going to their village which was like an eagle’s nest on the heights above Byblos, not far from Annaya, where thousands of pilgrims and faithful came to pray to the great saint Sharbel. I noticed that in the family there was a sickly child, an unfortunate boy. Also that Yvette was simple and natural, that her mother sometimes had bouts of nerves and even of hysteria, that the father and mother were first cousins, that the boys and girls all had work to do, and that the family was a big one, with a dozen children. So we carried on for a couple of years.

One day Samia said to me that she wished to go to the market place in Jounieh to buy some shoes, so I gave her a banknote telling her to buy whatever pleased her. A good-looking young woman, slender, and attractive, is bound to draw the attention of the inquisitive. It is said jokingly that, if a man has a brain, a woman has half a brain. Who said this? Is it true? I don’t believe so. But the fact is that Samia bought white dancing shoes and that she had given her love and affection to the man selling them, overwhelmed by emotion. The situation changed between morning and nightfall, with telephone calls, long conversations, demands for permission to leave the house, and work left unfinished.

One day Samia said that she wanted to leave us, that she was overtired, which was not true at all. I understood that she was going to get involved in an emotional relationship. I told her that I respected her decision, that I understood her, and that she was free to go. So it was that the Egyptian regime came to an end. Yvette decided to take over, telling me that she was going to leave school in order to devote herself to the children, to the household, to sewing, and to reading. In particular she often asked me to buy books for her, Arabic ones, for she could read well and devoted herself to calligraphy. Honesty, politeness, respect, self-sacrifice, could be taken no further.

Worldly goods did not interest Yvette; she wished to have access to the doors of Paradise and to devote herself to prayer and meditation. She asked me to promise her (and to make a promise is a serious business) that one day I would take her to a convent, to the noviciate, where she might follow her vocation.

Many of my pupils had become priests and some of them had even become bishops. As soon as Yvette saw a cleric in our house, she would drop everything in order to ask him questions, some of which were quite silly, about sin, purgatory, Satan, eternity, and so on. The visitors found her kind, sympathetic and naïve, while she on her side was satisfied because the answers she received in this way were the same as those she received from me.

Meanwhile, Yvette was maturing, ever more skilful at her sewing, her cooking and her running of the household. More than that, she was becoming more cultivated, one might say sometimes pedant, for she listened to every discussion about a work of art or about a problem of any sort. I let my wife Andrée know that my promise to Yvette would soon have to be fulfilled, for it was a question of honor before God. I said to Yvette clearly: “It is up to you now to decide your destiny and your future. On my side, I have contacted one particular order of nuns for them to take you in. You are free to enter the order this very moment.” She made up her mind to leave us in two weeks’, allowing enough time for us to find somebody to replace her. I told the father and mother of Yvette about their daughter’s decision and they raised no objection, saying she was free to decide her own future.

At home there was now a new order of things, a new universe, going back to the Queen of Sheba, an Ethiopian regime. A young girl from Ethiopia landed upon us, who was gentle, intelligent and quiet, although poorly nourished and under-sized.

Ethiopia is twice the size of France with an ancient past of high civilization. I have noticed that the Ethiopians are not of black African race. Their cheek bones are not prominent, nor are their jaws. The color of their skin is milk-chocolate but the form of their skull is more like that of the whites. Even their language is of Semitic origin, and many of its expressions are like Arabic ones. At the time I am talking about, Ethiopia was plunged into poverty, misery, and famine, but there had been a time when it became one of the first kingdoms to be converted to Christianity, the people becoming Copts with their own typical style of churches and ritual.

Now it was Zenobia who told our children about the traditions, customs and ways of life of her country, the clothes and the feast-day costumes. She plaited their hair the Ethiopian way and brewed the coffee with seeds of cardamom. On Sundays Holy Mass was sacrosanct and she herself took our children to church. She told us that in her country the churches were bare, with neither pews, nor chairs, nor carpets, such was the state of destitution afflicting the country. She spent four years with us until she was replaced by another girl who for ten years brought further new ways into our home, those of Sri Lanka.

This girl had her own traditions and customs, for despite the present poverty of her country the people there have a civilization and culture, to be seen in their cuisine, their food, their view of life, which is often truly philosophic. Those whom I employed from Sri Lanka were vegetarians; they never ate meat and refused even to crack open a chicken’s egg, fearing perhaps to kill the embryo inside. In due course we met another tradition this time from the Far East, that of Nepal on the southern side of the Himalayas, perched on the slopes of Mount Everest. I have not had the opportunity to get to know the Filipinos, although these are to be found in their thousands here, alongside Somalis, Eritreans, Madagascans and Afros of every description. Lebanon has attracted all the unemployed and destitute of the world, people of every description. What is certain is that there is no longer a single Lebanese ready to do the kind of work that they do, or if there are any they are paid more than a government minister. This is a rapid and disorderly evolution likely to ruin the country, for people are spending more than they earn.

And what became of Yvette? I was always kept up to date about her, for from time to time she gave us a ring to tell us that she was still alive and that she was praying.

The nuns who had admitted her had several convents in Lebanon, one of which was their noviciate in Byblos, where she made a good start. She had to pass through a period of formation before taking vows and wearing the habit, a year of study, trial and discipline. The nuns in charge noted that Yvette was simple, childlike and naive, and that studies did very little for her advancement and maturity, so they decided to direct her to another kind of work which was not intellectual at all; she was put to peeling potatoes and onions, cleaning the vegetables, helping the cook, cleaning the corridors, staircases and windows, and watering the flowerbeds and vegetable patches around the convent building. Such menial tasks can also be offered to God as a daily prayer, and obedience in a religious order according to the vow is something that is not to be despised. Yvette had to obey and not complain and she did tiring work in the place of others.

The nuns of the convent for their part found that Providence had sent them this simpleton Yvette for their benefit and relaxation, as she agreed to do anything in their stead. I was told and properly assured that the nuns allowed themselves to bring forward or advance the times for prayer so as to be able to watch the episodes of television serials that they did not want to miss. I myself have heard some of them discussing excitedly about these serials, whether Mexican, Brazilian or Turkish, that now invade the screens of our TV sets.

Yvette, a pedant without knowing it, wanted to show all her ability and knowledge in her needlework. In the evening, when the sisters were seated before their TV set, Yvette sewed, repaired, embroidered, knitted, took care of the linen, did the ironing and set the cupboards and the beds in order. She was responsible for all the laundering and washing up. She had no more time to sleep, read, pray, meditate and consider; all that was forgotten, buried in the past.

I for my part am sure that God and the Holy Virgin accepted the efforts and good will of Yvette in her vocation. I knew that she had many problems in her family at home. Her mentally deficient brother was in a deplorable state, her mother was close to a nervous breakdown, her father very much in the background was out at work, and her brothers and sisters were getting married one after the other. The house was almost empty, Yvette’s father was getting old and somebody was needed to look after the household.

One day I received a formal notification and a ‘phone call telling me that Yvette’s mother had passed away. I went to the funeral and on the next day I visited the home, where all the relatives were gathered. Yvette came and sat beside me. I asked her questions about her life in the convent, her vocation, her future, and the other sisters. She admitted to me that there was nobody left at home to look after the house or her father or her mentally defective brother and that she could very well do the same work at home as she was doing in the convent.

She was now becoming more aware of what she was doing. “I wanted to devote my life, my existence, my activity, to the Lord, and I shall do so.”

“Yvette, dear,” I said, “These nuns will never let you take vows in their order for you to become one of their number. They simply wish to take advantage of you. The years you have already spent in the convent are enough. Go back home and look after the house, your father and your sick brother.”

“That’s just what I was thinking of doing,” she answered. I thereupon left the gathering.

Two weeks later somebody rang at the door and there was Yvette come to see us. She spent the whole day with my wife Andrée discussing tailoring and patterns before asking me in the evening to take her home, for she had left the convent.

Some six or eight months later the sickly brother passed away. Every day Yvette prayed in silence. For her relationship with God she needed no intermediary. In all my life I have never met anybody so true, honest, transparent and simple as little Yvette, and now she had mentally the same age as when I had first known her. She was an eternal adolescent. It was her great good fortune never to have known evil and sin.

With old age, her father began to suffer from Alzheimer and was looked after by his daughters each in turn, until placed in a suitable home. Yvette came to see us and I suggested she should come back and live with us, or otherwise to go to the house where her father had worked for very wealthy people who were keen now to employ Yvette.

So it came to pass. From time to time, she opens her old home for the weekend to receive her brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces. With her employers, she is in full charge of their house, with all she needs for her livelihood and expenses. Her vocation now is fulfilled by her love and sense of duty. Our friendship has undergone no change, marked by short visits to one another and telephone calls. Yvette is a daughter of our family whom we knew when she was yet young and whom we brought up like one of our own children. We need her prayers, her heart of gold and her innocence.
In these times we do not meet many people who have the qualities, the beautiful soul, the nobility, the fine personality of Yvette. I would not go so far as to say her holiness, for that is a domain that is not for us of the world to judge, being something that only the Lord can decide. There are very holy people around but the day is not yet come when we shall know who they are.

Joseph Matar
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Translated from French: K.J.Mortimer