I, The Divine

~ ~ ~

Mark Twain said there are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses — and then there is Sarah Bernhardt. To paraphrase him slightly, there are five kinds of stories: bad stories, fair stories, good stories, great stories — and then there are Sarah Bernhardt stories.

I was brought up on all kinds of stories, but my favorites were the ones about Sarah Bernhardt. Those stories shaped and molded me. When I examine my life, I am amazed at how much they penetrate every aspect of it.

My grandfather named me for the great Sarah Bernhardt. Like so many men before him, the aforementioned Mark Twain, D. H. Lawrence, Marcel Proust, Henry James, Victor Hugo, and none other than Sigmund Freud (to name only a few), my grandfather was immoderately smitten by The Divine Sarah.

After having already named two girls, my parents had not prepared a name for a third. My father had a name for a boy. He was not to use it. I was born with a little tuft of red hair, direct from my American mother. When my grandfather saw me for the first time, noting the red wisp, he greeted me with, “Welcome to the world, my little Sarah.”

My destiny was written.

I have begun to see my grandfather again, in the most inappropriate places. He has been gone for over twenty-five years, but now I feel him more clearly than ever. I see him with his white hair, the slight comma across his forehead, the black-framed, Clark Kent glasses, the dark tie and pressed white shirt — short sleeves in warm or hot weather, but still a dark tie. I see him in my living room when I am alone, usually sitting across from me, smiling, happy, a smile which, if worn by someone else, I would have considered patronizing and condescending. For lately when I am with him, I am not the anxious, strange, and morbid adult, not my habitual self, but the child he taught to love the world.

I was running from my nemesis, my sister Lamia, across the hallway in our apartment in Beirut. Lamia, a heavy sleeper, had been napping on her bed, deathlike, looking solemn. I talked to her but she would not wake. I breathed on her face but she would not wake. I lit a candle, waited anxious seconds, tilted it, and allowed a tear of wax to drop onto her forehead. She woke. She screamed. I screamed. She lunged at me. I eluded her and ran across the hallway, screaming and laughing, she, screaming and threatening.

My stepmother came out of the kitchen to see what the racket was. I had reached the foyer when the door opened. My grandfather came in and scooped me up in one motion — he lived in a cavernous apartment two buildings down from ours and never knocked or rang the bell when he dropped in. He lifted me up in the air. I yelled with joy. Lamia stopped in her tracks, her eyes boring viciously into us.

“What’s my little troublemaker been up to?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I didn’t do anything.”

My stepmother, pregnant, about to deliver her first child, stepped into the foyer. She moved slowly, purposefully. She looked at my sister Lamia standing rigid, tiny fists balled up, eyebrows bunched together, nitroglycerine about to explode. “What happened, Lamia?” my stepmother asked.

Lamia kept staring at me. Her fiery eyes should have burned me to cinders. She rarely responded quickly or rashly, always deliberately. “Nothing,” she said loudly. “Nothing happened.” She turned around and stormed off to her room. If there was one person she despised more than me, it was my stepmother, the usurper. She could not complain to my grandfather. She hated him because he loved me. She could not even complain to our father, whom she blamed for making our mother vanish into thin air.

“I’ll take care of this rambunctious little scamp,” my grandfather said, carrying me into the living room.

“Please, don’t fill her head with wicked stories.” My stepmother’s requests fell on inattentive ears. She walked back to the kitchen, looking as if she had already lost a major battle.

My grandfather sat in his dark ultramarine chair — even though he had a home of his own, he had an armchair (with its own taboret) in our house, which no one was allowed to sit on. I sat on his lap and played with his white hair, sparse, smooth to the touch. He jiggled, adjusted himself to a comfortable position.

“The great Sarah Bernhardt was just like you. She was a troublemaker, always a scamp. Even when she grew up, she was known for her winsome, sweet, playful ways. But when she was a little girl like you, she caused a lot of trouble. Just like you. At school, oh boy. She was a firecracker. She drove the nuns crazy. Big troublemaker. She could curse with the best of them, make the nuns blush every time she came up with a doozie.”

“I bet I can curse better than her. Your mother’s vagina is plugged with a thousand donkey dicks.”

My grandfather roared, his head jerking back, his glasses almost falling off the tip of his nose. “That’s a good one.”

“Yes. My dad says I have a tongue like a sailor on leave.”

“And your dad’s right.”

“The nuns liked Sarah, right? They all liked her because she was special.”

“You bet. Even though she was a troublemaker and was hysterical most of the time, they knew she was a good girl. She was a star. Everybody could tell that. And stars are quite passionate. She had uncontrollable passions. At school with the nuns, she also became devout because she was extremely passionate. She wanted to be a nun.”

“But she didn’t, right?”

“Right. Because she grew up and she was smart. Remember, Jesus is only for children and people who never get smart. And anyway, she became passionate about the theater. She had her first play with the nuns at Grandchamp. How old was she?”

“She was thirteen.”

“That’s right. She was thirteen. At first, the stupid nuns didn’t put her in the play. They didn’t think she could do it. This big archbishop was coming to the school.”

“The guy in a dress.”

“Yes. The fat guy in a dress came to the school and they staged a play for him. But Sarah was not in the play. She watched and watched all the rehearsals. She didn’t want just any role. She wanted the lead role. She knew she could be the star. Then when the guy in the dress came and he sat down to watch the play. ”

“He lifted his dress to sit.”

“That’s right. He lifted his dress to sit. The girl who was supposed to be the star got scared. She started crying. Stupid girl. The girl said she was too scared to go on stage in front of people. She was shaking and crying. The nuns didn’t know what to do.”

“So Sarah said she’d do it.”

“Yes. She came out of nowhere and said she could do it. Sarah said she knew the role. She had memorized it. So the nuns didn’t have a choice. They let Sarah be the star.”

“And she was great.”

“Always. She was the Divine Sarah. She came on stage and the guy in the dress cried and cried like a little girl because Sarah was so good. Now, people from all over the world, from Brazil, from China, from Africa, they all go to Grandchamp just to see the school where the great Sarah went on stage for the first time. Nobody remembers the stupid nuns or the guy in the dress. They just want to see where the Great One began. It’s a pilgrimage. You know what a pilgrimage is?”

“Yes. Like Mecca.”

“Yes. Like the silly Muslims who go to Mecca and walk in white dresses.”

I still hear him to this day. I hear his sonorous tones when I take walks. I hear his silly laugh when a crow caws. I hear his collusive whispers in the passing breeze. Don’t tell your stepmother. She can’t know about this. He had a heavy Druze accent, stressing his Qs. Whenever I hear a mountain Druze speak, I am reminded of him.

“Tell me about the time she fell in the fire.”

We were at his house, in the family room, a room covered with books and bookshelves, and the little wall space not covered was painted a striking yellow-green. I sat on his lap as usual.

“Her mother sent her to live with a nurse in Brittany, in the northwest of France. Her mother was a bad woman. She didn’t want Sarah around when she was seeing all those men. So she kept sending Sarah away to live with other people. Her mother hated Sarah because she knew Sarah was a star of the greatest magnitude and her mother was envious because when Sarah was around, nobody looked at Sarah’s mother. Poor Sarah. All her life she tried and tried to make her mother love her, but she couldn’t. Her mother couldn’t love her because she loved all those men. Sarah liked Brittany because she stayed on a farm and she played all day with a lot of animals and the animals loved her. Why did the animals love her?”

“Because she was the great Sarah and everybody loved her.”

“That’s right. And when she grew up she had lots of animals she loved and they loved her back. What kind of animals did she have?”

“She had lots of dogs and cats and a cheetah.”

“That’s right. And more too.”

“An alligator from America. Ali Gaga. Not Ali Baba. And a parrot. His name is Bizibouzou. And a monkey called Darwin.”

“That’s right. So one day, while her nurse was in the garden gathering potatoes, and the nurse’s husband was drunk in bed, sleeping, baby Sarah was sitting in her highchair watching the beautiful fire in the hearth. She unfastened the little tray in front of the chair and now there was nothing in front of her. All of a sudden. ”

“Baby Sarah fell into the fire.”

“When she screamed, the nurse’s husband was quick. He ran and snatched Sarah up and he dunked her in a pail of milk and then he covered her with butter. All the peasants came from all over Brittany to give Sarah butter to heal her burns. Then a week later, her mother came with her man and she brought doctors too. And then Sarah’s aunts, the bad women, they came too with their men. They kept saying, ‘Poor Sarah. Poor little Sarah,’ but then they got bored and left and didn’t take poor Sarah with them even though she begged her mother to take her. And she cried and cried and poor Sarah was all alone without her mother.”

“Poor little Sarah.”

One time, my stepmother, Saniya, came into the kitchen and found me naked, having covered my whole body in butter, both salted and unsalted.

These days, I also hear my mother cursing him, calling him all kinds of names. She has been dead for some years now, but I hear her curse the son of a bitch — her favorite name for my grandfather — for the things he put her through. “He worked and worked until your father was forced to divorce me.” My mother cursed him till the day she died. “He was evil, evil incarnate. Everybody thought he was the nicest man, but the things he did, the things he said.”

On the terrace of my grandfather’s summer house in the mountains sat my grandfather, my grandmother, my father, stepmother, uncles and aunts. Under the grape arbor, which provided shade all the way from the terrace to the driveway, protecting the cars from the despotic sun. I stared at the grapes, my mouth watering. They were still sour, a ways from being ripe, what we called hosrom. These were my favorites — eating the sour grapes with salt was a veritable taste explosion. While the adults were chatting, I climbed the pergola until I reached the vines and began moving slowly across the arbor, suspended high in the air, hanging on with one hand at a time.

“Oh, my god.” My stepmother jumped up, ran and stood right underneath me with her hands held up to catch me. “Sarah Nour el-Din. Get down here this instant.”

“I want to get some grapes.”

“What are you doing up there, Sarah?” My father asked me this while I hung ten feet from the ground. I noticed he still sat in his seat. My grandfather was chuckling.

“Let go, Sarah,” my stepmother said. “I’ll catch you.”

“I want to get some grapes.”

“I’ll get you some. We get them by using a ladder, not by climbing the vines. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Now, just let go.”

“You look like a little monkey, my little Sarah,” my grandfather said.

I let go and dropped into my stepmother’s arms. “Don’t you ever do that again,” my stepmother chided. “You can get killed. Girls don’t climb trees.”

“Are you going to get me some grapes?”

She shook her head in despair, still unsure what to do with me. “Okay. I’ll get some for everybody.”

By the time she came back with the ladder and a pair of shears, I was in my grandfather’s lap. I knew the story he would tell. I had climbed the pergola. I was called down. There was only one story he could tell now: The Prince of Believers.

“Who was the boy that climbed trees?” he asked me.

“The Egyptian boy.”

“What was his name?”

I racked my brain, but could not remember. I knew the story, but the medieval Arabic names were completely foreign to me. “The Caliph,” I said.

“He was the Caliph, but that was not his name. A caliph is like a prince. It’s not a name. Don’t worry, my little one. I’m sure even your father and uncles don’t know his name. That’s because they don’t care where they came from.”

“I know his name,” my father interjected.

“Al-Hakim bi-Amrillah,” one of my uncles said.

“See. I told you they wouldn’t know because they don’t pay attention. Not like you. His name was al-Mansour. He was only eleven. This was a long, long time ago in Egypt. During the great Fatimid dynasty. The Caliph was going from Egypt to Syria to fight the bad Byzantines who wanted to come and take over our lands and make us all Christians. So the Caliph stopped in Bilbays because he felt sick. He knew he was going to die. He felt bad because unlike those Christian emperors who sat in their castles and told people what to do, our Caliph was going to join his army and fight alongside his men, but now he knew he wasn’t going to make it. So he lay in bed and he called al-Mansour, who was playing outside. The little boy came and he saw the Caliph in bed. The Caliph called him over and kissed him and hugged him like this. And everybody was there and saw the Caliph hug him. And then he told the boy, ‘Go out and play. I will be all right now. I know you’ll be a good Caliph.’ So everyone knew that al-Mansour was going to be the next Caliph.”

“And he was a star.”

“That’s right. So the little boy went out to play. After a little while, an intendant from the court, whose name was Barjawan, came out looking for the little boy. He looked and he looked, but he couldn’t find him. All of a sudden, he heard the voice of al-Mansour saying, ‘Hello, Barjawan.’ Barjawan still couldn’t see our boy. So the boy said, ‘I’m up here.’ And Barjawan looked up and saw al-Mansour playing in a sycamore tree. Barjawan said, ‘Please come down from the tree, your highness. The Caliph has gone to heaven. You are now the Prince of Believers.’ And the new Caliph came down from the tree. Everybody saw that he was an emissary from God. Then they all returned to Cairo, which the Fatimid had built. And the boy Caliph walked in front of everybody and all the people came out to see. The people realized at the same time that they loved the boy Caliph. He sat on a throne of pure gold. All the people came to pay their respects. They saw a confident Caliph with piercing eyes that could see the truth. They saw a beautiful boy with the face of a wise and learned man. They saw that the new Caliph was touched by God and his angels. The boy looked at them all and smiled upon his people. They felt his grace. And he said, ‘My name is now al-Hakim bi-Amrillah.’ You know what that means?”

“The ruler by God’s command.”

“Yes. And even though he was only a little boy, he became the greatest Caliph of all time. He was the star. He was generous and just, wise and judicious. Three months after becoming Caliph, he sent missionaries to herald the coming of a new age, which was to start when the time was ripe. In this new age, truth will be revealed and the knowledge of God was to be disclosed. That was the Call.”

“The Call for the Druze.”

“It was years later when the time was ripe and the Druze were born. Al-Hakim bi-Amrillah was older and even wiser. But even when he was a little boy, all the people could see he was special. That boy is the reason we are all here.”

“So I am the Prince of Believers.”

“You’re the Princess of Believers.”

“You keep putting these strange tales in her head,” my stepmother said, as she placed the large straw tray filled to overflowing with bunches of the sour white grapes on the table in front of all of us.

It was spring, in May, some years ago. I was visiting my sister Amal at her apartment in Beirut. A lazy afternoon, her kids playing in the den, while she and I lounged on a huge sofa. We sat facing each other, massaging each other’s feet, a favorite pastime of ours since we were children.

“I don’t understand why he loved you so,” she said wistfully, reminiscing.

“Neither do I, but I am grateful he did.”

“Are you? If you were Hitler’s favorite child, would you be grateful for his love? I’m not sure I would be.”

“He was not Hitler. I know most of you remember him differently than I do, but he was not evil. Grandfather was just quirky. He was not a bad person.”

“He was a Machiavellian asshole, prejudiced as hell, xenophobic and bigoted. You just don’t remember him well. With you, he was all kindness and warmth; with the rest of us, he was a manipulative bastard.”

“He wasn’t that bad. He just didn’t care for you as much as he did for me. I can’t explain why he cared for me so much, but he wasn’t bad with you. He just ignored you.”

“You’re so naïve sometimes. He was a misogynist. He hated all us girls. He thought all women were whores. He beat Grandmother up on a regular basis. You were just too young to remember. In any case, what he did to our stepmother alone is enough.”

“What we all did. We were all unkind to Saniya when she arrived.”

“We took our cues from him.”

“We took our cues from Father.”

“Nope. Father was willing to forgive Saniya’s inadequacies. After all, he picked her. He chose an uneducated peasant girl for a wife. He knew what he was doing. It was Grandfather who started the attacks. He turned all of us into the jeering audience. You should talk to her sometime and listen to her stories about him. It’ll give you goose bumps. He was a horrid man. He even told Lamia to her face that she would never find a husband unless she had plastic surgery. He hated women.”

“He loved Sarah Bernhardt.”

“He did not. He loved the myth, the unattainable myth of what a woman is. He had no clue who Bernhardt was. He apotheosized her. Her mother he called a whore, but according to him, Sarah lived la vie galante. Fuck that. She started out as a prostitute, like her mother, like her aunts. No metaphors, no euphemisms. She had to be a prostitute like her mother. There was no other way a woman could survive. But your grandfather probably thought she died a virgin. At least he wanted to believe so. She was born a star. Bullshit. Like any star in any age, she made it by sleeping her way to the top.”

“I can’t think badly of him, though. He meant so much to me.”

“I know that. It’s a good thing for you he died when he did. If he had waited until you reached puberty, he would have turned against you.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“I am,” she said emphatically. “Do you ever wonder why he always told you the story of the Prince of Believers, but not the story of Sarah?”

“He always told stories of Sarah. What are you talking about?”

“Not Bernhardt, dummy. Sarah, the first woman sent out on the Druze Call. You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? You don’t know who your real namesake is?”

“No idea at all.”

“Al-Muqtana sent a messenger to Wadit-Taym to reconfirm the vows of the followers of a heretic called Sukayn. They tortured and killed the messenger. Al-Muqtana decided to send a woman messenger because she would not meet the same fate. Since the new faith felt that men and women were equal in the eyes of God, he sent the most faithful, a woman by the name of Sarah. You didn’t know that, huh? She led a congregation that included her own father. Her own father. Can you imagine what an amazing woman she must have been? She was unbelievably successful. She reconfirmed the vows of most of the followers, men and women. I loved the fact that your grandfather used to say that the boy was the reason we are all here. Sarah was the reason we are here. We are the direct descendants of the people she converted. Don’t you find it strange that he would not mention her? He preferred to fill your head with stories of the Divine Sarah, but not the Druze Sarah.”

I was in bed, sleeping over at my grandfather’s house. He tucked me in and began another story. “A long, long time ago, all the Christians in the world got together and decided to invade our country. As always, they couldn’t stand the fact that not all the world was Christian like them. So they got together and decided they wanted to liberate our country from the infidels, which meant us. They wanted to liberate us from ourselves. They called themselves the Crusaders. When the Crusaders started coming, we fought them all over this country. But they kept coming and coming like ants and we kept beating them and beating them. One day this big ship of Crusaders landed in Sidon. They didn’t know what to do because all the crusaders were losing everywhere. So there was this young Crusader who was smart and evil and he had lots of plans. His name was Richard Nixon. Nobody liked him because everybody thought he was up to no good, but they always listened to him because he was smart. So Nixon looked around when the Crusaders landed and he decided he knew why they always lost. It was because all the seashore was flat and the mountains were so close that we always won because we attacked them from up high. So Nixon told the Crusaders they had to climb the first hill and build a fortress and they had to do it quickly before we arrived. The Crusaders listened to him because they knew that Nixon was devious. They climbed the hill and started building the fortress. They built and they built, they cut down trees, our cedar trees which were ten thousand years old. That’s why we have fewer than one hundred cedar trees left. It was all because of Nixon. They used wood and they moved rocks, and then they got tired when the night came. They were almost done so they thought they would finish it the next day. Well, at night, our birds and animals got together and they decided they didn’t like these foreigners coming over here and cutting down our trees. So while the Crusaders slept, the birds flew over and began taking each piece of wood and each stone, the donkeys put the heavy stuff on their backs, the foxes directed traffic, the rabbits dug holes under the walls so they would come tumbling down. The birds and animals worked until daybreak when everything that Nixon built was broken down on the ground. When the Crusaders woke up, they saw that all the work they did had been in vain. Nixon stood up and told them all was not lost. He told them they had to start all over again before the infidel army came. He told them they would win the war but all they needed now was a little more effort. So the stupid Crusaders began building the fortress again. They worked and they worked until they got so tired and it was night and there was only a little bit left to do so they went to sleep and decided they would finish it the next day. Again, that night, the birds and animals came and they were laughing. The birds laughed as they carried the wood. The donkeys laughed as they carried the stones. The rabbits laughed as they dug holes. The foxes and the turtles laughed. Because the Crusaders were stupid. When the Crusaders woke up the next day they saw again that the work they had done had been in vain. So Nixon got them to start working again. Same thing happened the next day and the next. Our army arrived one day from the mountains. The general looked down at the Crusaders and started to laugh. He said those stupid Christians think they can stop us with a small fortress like that. They won’t finish it in time anyway so we’ll attack them tomorrow after getting a good night’s sleep. The Crusaders did not see our army so they worked and they worked until night came and they got tired and went to sleep. The next day, when our army woke up, they saw that there was no fort at all. They saw the Crusaders begin to build the fortress again. The army wanted to attack, but the general said no. He said the army should wait until tomorrow because the stupid Crusaders were getting tired of building and they would never finish it anyway. They would attack them tomorrow when the Crusaders first woke up. So they went to sleep and when they woke up, the general saw that there was nothing there again. He laughed and he laughed when he saw Nixon telling the Crusaders they should build the fortress again. So the army sat down and watched the stupid Crusaders build the fortress again and again and again. Years and years passed and the Crusaders got tired. They started leaving one by one. Nixon got upset and he wanted everybody to stay and build the fortress because he thought it was a great idea. But the Crusaders stopped caring about anything. They were now old men. Then there were only twenty Crusaders, then ten, then five, then only Nixon. Every day, he would build a little bit of the fortress and every day it got taken down. Now, you know what they say. If you go to this little hill above Sidon, you will see this little old man trying to build a fortress. Nobody talks about it, but we all know he is still there.”

“Grandfather,” I said, “Richard Nixon is the president of the United States.”

“That was a different Nixon.”

“I’m ten years old now, Grandfather,” I said. “Don’t you think I would know the difference between the Crusaders and the president of the United States?”

I had always wanted to believe it was my grandmother who schemed to get my parents divorced. She was the one who constantly badmouthed my mother after my father divorced her. Even on her own deathbed, my grandmother still spoke ill of my mother. My assumption was understandable. My grandmother was the one whose plotting was visible to the naked eye. She was always mean-spirited, angry, and resentful. I do not think she liked any of us girls. When my stepmother had her first boy, my father’s sixth child, my grandmother was not happy like the rest of us. She bemoaned the fact that her husband was not alive to see my father’s first boy. I do not think she liked my half-brother either. While he was growing up, she made fun of his childhood stuttering and accused him of being a momma’s boy.

It took me years to accept the truth. When I finally heard what my grandfather told my mother at my birth, I was converted.

“The Americans are so stupid,” he told me. “They all grow up in barns. They’re cow people. Even now, they all have money and things, but they still are stupid. When Sarah went to America, the Americans loved her because she was the greatest star in the world. But they didn’t understand her at all. Sarah was a hard worker. In America, she was doing play after play and she was extremely tired. One time, she got so tired in the middle of the first act of a play, she fainted. The director brought down the curtains to see if she was all right. Being the trooper that she was, when she woke up she wanted to go on with the play. She said she was ready. They raised the curtain, but there was no one in the audience. Thinking the play was over, those dummies had left. The stupid Americans didn’t understand a thing.”

Amal was right about one thing. My grandfather told me so many stories of Sarah Bernhardt, of her awe-inspiring acting, her wonderful sculpture, her devilish tantrums and hysterical rages. He talked of her beauty and charm, of her eyes that borrowed color from the changing light. He talked of having met her as a young boy of eleven and her kindness toward him. He talked of her presence on stage, the brilliance of her personality. He could not stop talking about her infatuation with death, her sleeping in caskets. How she was the only actress in history to have been a success as both Hamlet and Ophelia. He never talked about Damala, the gorgeous, abusive Greek she gave herself to. That I had to find out on my own, how obsessed she became with the man twelve years her junior, their tumultuous marriage, how she let a man with no talent convince her to let him become her lead actor. He never told the story of the Prince de Ligne, the Belgian who seduced her when she was still a young girl, who showed her a different life only to withdraw when she told him she was pregnant. He never mentioned all the men she toyed with, who were so in love with her she kept them on a leash for her entertainment. He never said anything about her pattern of falling in love only with men who could not love her back.

He never once mentioned her son, not how he was born out of wedlock, not how much she loved him.

“She was so skinny at a time when girls were fat,” he told me as I sat on his lap. “You could see her collarbone, just like yours.”

“She’s just like me.”

He traced the jutting collarbone. “You have exactly the same collarbone, deep and capacious. I’m going to start drinking my soup from here.” He bent down wanting to lick my neck and I laughed like crazy.

I was visiting my mother in her New York apartment. She lay back on her divan, enigmatic and morose. She was in a talkative mood for a change.

“Your grandfather was an evil man,” she said without any hint of emotion. “He made my life miserable. Whenever no one was around, he would whisper things like, ‘You may think you have him because you spread your legs, but all vaginas go sour after a while.’ He even called a couple of times and I picked up the phone and bang, he’d call me a whore or a slut. What could I do? I tried telling your father, but he didn’t believe me. There was no one I could talk to. He did not relent, kept going after me again and again. You know, when I heard your father remarried, I was so hurt at first. I wanted his new wife dead. But then I thought, you know, there’s no worse fate I could wish on someone than having that devil for a father-in-law.”

“He did treat her very badly.”

“The worst was after each of my deliveries. Did I ever tell you what he told me after you were born? He and his fucking wife were in the hospital room with me. Your father was in the waiting room playing host with all the visitors. Your grandfather picked you up and said, ‘You know, Janet, I love this girl so much. Do you know why?’ Like an idiot, I asked, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘I love her so much because she’s the reason I am going to be able to return you to your fucking country.’ ”