Cathy Sultan's Blog, page 20

AN OLD CITY AND ITS OLIVE TREES

East Jerusalem is an exotic blend of ancient East meeting a more modern West. It is older women in chador or head scarves, a younger generation in tight jeans and form-fitting sweaters; it is men dressed in suits and toes; old timers in baggy pants and tarbouche (red cap); it is donkey-driven push carts alongside automobiles on congested, narrow streets; it is the biblical Old City; the Al Aqsa mosque with its golden dome; the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the Western(wailing) Wall; streets lined with graceful umbrella pines, the sound of their fine needles trembling in the light breeze; it is gardens lush with rosemary, jasmine, fuchsia and pink laurel.
It was a place where knowing how to haggle in Arabic–whether over a kilo of tomatoes, a carton of cigarettes or a spool of thread–is a must; it is neighborhoods full of colorful scenery; the merry chatter of street vendors gathered as if for some joyous occasion on the corner opposite the Post Office on Sultan Suleiman Street. It was said that a half dozen women, seated along the narrow cobblestone alleyway of the Muslim Quarter just outside the Damascus Gate, walked here all the way from Jericho to sell their herbs and grown eggs. East Jerusalemites, happy for the rare opportunity to buy Palestinian-grown goods, scooped them up as quickly as the old ladies could unpack them.
The mouth-watering smell of flat bread dusted with thyme and olive oil drifts onto the street from a nearby oven, joining the scent of spit-roasted chickens, of coffee beans toasting, and the rich aroma of Lattakia tobacco burning slowly in nargillas (bubble pipes). It was not yet noon, but on the corner of Nablus and Saleh el Din Street, vendors were already busy grilling cinnamon-scented kabobs and carving marinated lamb which they layered into warm flat bread, dousing the sandwich with a sauce of tahini, garlic and lemon juice.
Naim, our driver, was a resident of Jerusalem. He carried a blue ID card which identified him as an Israeli Arab and gave him the right to circulate in both Israeli West and Arab East Jerusalem. Palestinians living in the West Bank carry orange ID’s and are not allowed to leave their towns and villages without the rarely issued Israeli travel permit. He drove us through some Arab-East Jerusalem neighborhoods and, as we headed south toward Bethlehem, he pointed off to his left.
“My family used to live here,” he said, and began to tell us his story. No one knew how old the hundreds of trees really were, he said. Some of the old-timers swore the olive grove was 300 years old, perhaps even older. The trees probably did not need irrigation because they had been there so long. Their roots intermingled with the rich, dark dirt and delved deeply in the earth. A small village nearby had an olive press, and every day during the season the villagers brought their freshly-picked crop to be pressed for oil.
Naim still remembered the exact location of his house, what time the sun shone through the kitchen window, and where each tree was planted. He remembered because he was the one who scurried up the trees and shook the branches at harvest time, carefully aiming for the sheet spread around the base of each tree to catch the olives as they fell. Now there is no sign of a Palestinian presence. The villagers, if not already dead, had been forced into one of the many refugee camps. As for the ancient olive grove, it was uprooted to make way for Har Homa, a massive Israeli settlement on the southwest edge of Bethlehem.

AN OLD CITY AND ITS OLIVE TREES

AN OLD CITY AND ITS OLIVE TREES

East Jerusalem is an exotic blend of ancient East meeting a more modern West. It is older women in chador or head scarves, a younger generation in tight jeans and form-fitting sweaters; it is men dressed in suits and toes; old timers in baggy pants and tarbouche (red cap); it is donkey-driven push carts alongside automobiles on congested, narrow streets; it is the biblical Old City; the Al Aqsa mosque with its golden dome; the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the Western(wailing) Wall; streets lined with graceful umbrella pines, the sound of their fine needles trembling in the light breeze; it is gardens lush with rosemary, jasmine, fuchsia and pink laurel.

It was a place where knowing how to haggle in Arabic���whether over a kilo of tomatoes, a carton of cigarettes or a spool of thread���is a must; it is neighborhoods full of colorful scenery; the merry chatter of street vendors gathered as if for some joyous occasion on the corner opposite the Post Office on Sultan Suleiman Street. It was said that a half dozen women, seated along the narrow cobblestone alleyway of the Muslim Quarter just outside the Damascus Gate, walked here all the way from Jericho to sell their herbs and grown eggs. East Jerusalemites, happy for the rare opportunity to buy Palestinian-grown goods, scooped them up as quickly as the old ladies could unpack them.

The mouth-watering smell of flat bread dusted with thyme and olive oil drifts onto the street from a nearby oven, joining the scent of spit-roasted chickens, of coffee beans toasting, and the rich aroma of Lattakia tobacco burning slowly in nargillas (bubble pipes). It was not yet noon, but on the corner of Nablus and Saleh el Din Street, vendors were already busy grilling cinnamon-scented kabobs and carving marinated lamb which they layered into warm flat bread, dousing the sandwich with a sauce of tahini, garlic and lemon juice.

Naim, our driver, was a resident of Jerusalem. He carried a blue ID card which identified him as an Israeli Arab and gave him the right to circulate in both Israeli West and Arab East Jerusalem. Palestinians living in the West Bank carry orange ID���s and are not allowed to leave their towns and villages without the rarely issued Israeli travel permit. He drove us through some Arab-East Jerusalem neighborhoods and, as we headed south toward Bethlehem, he pointed off to his left.

���My family used to live here,��� he said, and began to tell us his story. No one knew how old the hundreds of trees really were, he said. Some of the old-timers swore the olive grove was 300 years old, perhaps even older. The trees probably did not need irrigation because they had been there so long. Their roots intermingled with the rich, dark dirt and delved deeply in the earth. A small village nearby had an olive press, and every day during the season the villagers brought their freshly-picked crop to be pressed for oil.

Naim still remembered the exact location of his house, what time the sun shone through the kitchen window, and where each tree was planted. He remembered because he was the one who scurried up the trees and shook the branches at harvest time, carefully aiming for the sheet spread around the base of each tree to catch the olives as they fell. Now there is no sign of a Palestinian presence. The villagers, if not already dead, had been forced into one of the many refugee camps. As for the ancient olive grove, it was uprooted to make way for Har Homa, a massive Israeli settlement on the southwest edge of Bethlehem

WAR STORIES

WAR STORIES
No one is ever prepared for civil war. It begins without warning in the city you now call home, a city that has worked its way into your soul like great lovers do. And when you are blessed in so many ways, you do not hastily pack up and leave just because there is machine gun fire at the end of your street. You persuade yourself that the fighting will stop, that the warring factions will come to their senses. Why would they not when the very existence of their city is at stake? You are naïve. You do not understand how hatred builds up when there are no wise leaders to repair the social ills that fuel this kind of discontent.
When the first mortar shells rain down on your street you know enough to run frantically for cover. But you quickly learn that civil war is not about a single round of mortar fire. It begins in one neighborhood and spreads like an invasive cancer. Bombs begin falling at random for days and sometimes weeks at a time on more and more areas. Eventually civil war invades every neighborhood.
You learn to deal with water shortages. You awaken in the middle of night to wash your clothes when water finally begins to flow. You fill buckets for doing dishes, watering plants and flushing toilets. You find ways to surmount the daily power outages. Your children finish their homework by candlelight at the kitchen table while you prepare the evening meal. In spite of the night-long battle in your street you have your children dressed and fed in time to catch the school bus at 6:45 A.M. And when schools close because of war–sometimes for months at a time–you hire a tutor to keep your children’s minds usefully occupied.
You stock up on sugar, flour, rice and canned foods. You no longer walk your streets casually stopping at the green grocery and the bakery. Instead you dodge behind overturned shipping containers in order to avoid the lurking rooftop sniper. You pray a lot for your family’s safety and for the courage to hold it all together. You retreat to your kitchen. Cooking is like taking a tranquilizer. Most days your table is full of people engaged in lively conversation, which is good for everyone’s morale, particularly your children’s. You strive to create an atmosphere of connectedness, of community with great food and wine. This helps alleviate the fear. It wards off despair and becomes a therapeutic act of resistance.
Months pass; the senseless killings and kidnappings increase. Explosions become an integral part of each day. You try to ignore them. You must carry on. You run your errands, send your husband off to work and your children to school. Young men from the neighborhood, whom you have known as children, become militiamen. They set up roadblocks and round up unsuspecting civilians. Fresh corpses turn up daily in every corner of the city. Your husband disappears on his way home from the office. Hours later he reappears miraculously to tell how he was robbed, beaten and left for dead. The grocer across the street whom you have known for years suddenly becomes the enemy because of religion. The taxi driver whom you regularly use can no longer come to your neighborhood for fear of having his throat slit.
The war begins in the spring of the year. You are convinced that by winter the warring factions will come to their senses and resolve their differences. Winter comes and they do not. When an opposing militia muscles its way into your neighborhood and tries to take control, you adopt a kind of psychological ownership of your street and you think protectively about it. When your own militia takes up arms your husband joins them. You stay put, intent on fighting for as long as it takes to regain control of your streets. You are convinced your rights will prevail and that sooner or later you will win.
Your love affair with the city affects your judgment in totally irrational ways and, as in any unhealthy relationship, you ask to be fooled. However mad, the lover-city is clever enough to entice you back each time you think of straying. A credible rumor or a visit from some foreign dignitary lulls you into the false hope that the horrors will stop. When a truce is announced you are the first to cheer, “See, I told you,” particularly when it lasts a long time and life seems to return to normal. It is only after you have become acclimated into the habit of war that you are suddenly hooked. All logic deserts you and you abandon any notion of leaving the city you love.
Excerpt from A Beirut Heart: One Woman’s War

WAR STORIES

No one is ever prepared for civil war. It begins without warning in the city you now call home, a city that has worked its way into your soul like great lovers do. And when you are blessed in so many ways, you do not hastily pack up and leave just because there is machine gun fire at the end of your street. You persuade yourself that the fighting will stop, that the warring factions will come to their senses. Why would they not when the very existence of their city is at stake? You are na��ve. You do not understand how hatred builds up when there are no wise leaders to repair the social ills that fuel this kind of discontent.

When the first mortar shells rain down on your street you know enough to run frantically for cover. But you quickly learn that civil war is not about a single round of mortar fire. It begins in one neighborhood and spreads like an invasive cancer. Bombs begin falling at random for days and sometimes weeks at a time on more and more areas. Eventually civil war invades every neighborhood.

You learn to deal with water shortages. You awaken in the middle of night to wash your clothes when water finally begins to flow. You fill buckets for doing dishes, watering plants and flushing toilets. You find ways to surmount the daily power outages. Your children finish their homework by candlelight at the kitchen table while you prepare the evening meal. In spite of the night-long battle in your street you have your children dressed and fed in time to catch the school bus at 6:45 A.M. And when schools close because of war���sometimes for months at a time���you hire a tutor to keep your children���s minds usefully occupied.

You stock up on sugar, flour, rice and canned foods. You no longer walk your streets casually stopping at the green grocery and the bakery. Instead you dodge behind overturned shipping containers in order to avoid the lurking rooftop sniper. You pray a lot for your family���s safety and for the courage to hold it all together. You retreat to your kitchen. Cooking is like taking a tranquilizer. Most days your table is full of people engaged in lively conversation, which is good for everyone���s morale, particularly your children���s. You strive to create an atmosphere of connectedness, of community with great food and wine. This helps alleviate the fear. It wards off despair and becomes a therapeutic act of resistance.

Months pass; the senseless killings and kidnappings increase. Explosions become an integral part of each day. You try to ignore them. You must carry on. You run your errands, send your husband off to work and your children to school. Young men from the neighborhood, whom you���ve known as children, become militiamen. They set up roadblocks and round up unsuspecting civilians. Fresh corpses turn up daily in every corner of the city. Your husband disappears on his way home from the office. Hours later he reappears miraculously to tell how he was robbed, beaten and left for dead. The grocer across the street whom you have known for years suddenly becomes the enemy because of religion. The taxi driver whom you regularly use can no longer come to your neighborhood for fear of having his throat slit.

The war begins in the spring of the year. You are convinced that by winter the warring factions will come to their senses and resolve their differences. Winter comes and they do not. When an opposing militia muscles its way into your neighborhood and tries to take control, you adopt a kind of psychological ownership of your street and you think protectively about it. When your own militia takes up arms your husband joins them. You stay put, intent on fighting for as long as it takes to regain control of your streets. You are convinced your rights will prevail and that sooner or later you will win.

Your love affair with the city affects your judgment in totally irrational ways and, as in any unhealthy relationship, you ask to be fooled. However mad, the lover-city is clever enough to entice you back each time you think of straying. A credible rumor or a visit from some foreign dignitary lulls you into the false hope that the horrors will stop. When a truce is announced you are the first to cheer, ���See, I told you,��� particularly when it lasts a long time and life seems to return to normal. It is only after you have become acclimated into the habit of war that you are suddenly hooked. All logic deserts you and you abandon any notion of leaving the city you love.

Excerpt from A Beirut Heart: One Woman’s War

TWO LIVES, TWO CULTURES-BOTH INSPIRE ME AS A WRITER

I lead two lives. I know two cultures and both inspire me as a writer. My chance to walk in two worlds came forty-nine years ago when I met a handsome young Lebanese doctor. When I accepted his proposal of marriage, I also agreed to move to his country. A rebellious and restless young twenty-five year old, and by then already mother of two, I said good-bye to my homeland and in 1969 moved to Beirut, Lebanon. While I now live in Wisconsin, a refugee from Lebanon’s fifteen year long civil war, which began in 1975, my heart still beats to the daily rhythms of vibrant, chaotic Beirut. I tell people I cannot help myself, but the truth is I do not want to give it up. I continue to speak French and Arabic. I love the sounds as they come out of my mouth. They make me feel like I’m back there talking to my friends. Every time I fix hummus and baba ganouge, savoring the nuttiness of chickpeas and the smoky eggplant with tahini, garlic and lemon, I feel as if my feet are firmly placed in the culture and country I continue to call my own.
In Beirut I found my place to grow, my place for inspiration. My commitment to stay there during the war was a consequence of a deep love affair. I had married into a family that was for the most part loving and accepting and it was exciting to wake up every day as a foreigner embraced as a Lebanese. This is the kind of love which develops a Beirut heart, one which never dissolves.
Here I am some thirty years later, a frequent visitor to Beirut, and still filled with this love for a city that continues to struggle to recover from civil war and which, by its dysfunction, its political intrigues, its assassinations, religious conflicts, regional menaces and skulduggery, inspire me as a writer.

TWO LIVES, TWO CULTURES-BOTH INSPIRE ME AS A WRITER

TWO LIVES, TWO CULTURES, BOTH INSPIRE ME AS A WRITER

I lead two lives. I know two cultures and both inspire me as a writer. My chance to walk in two worlds came forty-nine years ago when I met a handsome young Lebanese doctor. When I accepted his proposal of marriage, I also agreed to move to his country. A rebellious and restless young twenty-five year old, and by then already mother of two, I said good-bye to my homeland and in 1969 moved to Beirut, Lebanon. While I now live in Wisconsin, a refugee from Lebanon���s fifteen year long civil war, which began in 1975, my heart still beats to the daily rhythms of vibrant, chaotic Beirut. I tell people I cannot help myself, but the truth is I do not want to give it up. I continue to speak French and Arabic. I love the sounds as they come out of my mouth. They make me feel like I���m back there talking to my friends. Every time I fix hummus and baba ganouge, savoring the nuttiness of chickpeas and the smoky eggplant with tahini, garlic and lemon, I feel as if my feet are firmly placed in the culture and country I continue to call my own.

In Beirut I found my place to grow, my place for inspiration. My commitment to stay there during the war was a consequence of a deep love affair. I had married into a family that was for the most part loving and accepting and it was exciting to wake up every day as a foreigner embraced as a Lebanese. This is the kind of love which develops a Beirut heart, one which never dissolves.

Here I am some thirty years later, a frequent visitor to Beirut, and still filled with this love for a city that continues to struggle to recover from civil war and which, by its dysfunction, its political intrigues, its assassinations, religious conflicts, regional menaces and skulduggery, inspire me as a writer.

CATHY SULTAN’S NEW BOOK, THE SYRIAN, A POLITICAL THRILLER

Words Out of War

EC writer uses knowledge of Mideast to pen thriller

by Barbara Arnold photos by Andrea Paulseth

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES. Cathy Sultan hopes her debut novel, The Syrian, which is set agaist the backdrop of the Lebanese Civil War, helps readers understand the complexities of Middle East history and politics.

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES. Cathy Sultan hopes her debut novel, The Syrian, which is

set agaist the backdrop of the Lebanese Civil War, helps readers understand the

complexities of Middle East history and politics.

After I turned off the lights on Halloween night, I was transported to another light ��� of the Mediterranean ��� ���the turquoise sea��� ��� ���its waves sparkling like diamonds in sunlight as they caressed the shore��� in Beirut, Lebanon ��� a city that had been known as ���The Paris of the Middle East��� prior to the 15-year civil war that began in the early 1970s.

Nadia, a Lebanese attorney for the United Nations, is eagerly anticipating the arrival of her fianc��, Andrew, an American physician, to her family���s home for an engagement party when she receives a call from her friend Sonia, a Lebanese journalist, who informs Nadia that her husband, Elie, a Lebanese university professor who disappeared during the civil war and was declared officially dead, is alive in a prison in Syria.

That���s just page six of local author Cathy Sultan���s newly released novel, The Syrian, whose title refers to Jaafar, the former head of the Syrian military police, who has carried a torch for Nadia since before the war. When she is summoned to meet with Jaafar in secret, he threatens that he will own her for life if he allows her husband to be released.

���After writing three non-fiction books about the Middle East, I thought it was time to write a novel to educate readers about the Middle East in perhaps a more palatable way and hopefully encourage them to learn more about the area and why what���s happening there now is happening.��� ��� Cathy Sultan on her debut novel, The Syrian

Four hours and 293 pages later, I finished the not-to-be-put-down, James Bond-style thriller, filled with romance, sex, violence, war, and political intrigue, just in time for my interview with Sultan. The Eau Claire author is already well-known for her stunning memoir A Beirut Heart: One Woman���s War (2005), and two other non-fiction books: Israeli and Palestinian Voices (2003 with a second printing in 2006), and Tragedy in South Lebanon: The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006 (2008).

When I enter her dining and living room with one orange and several apricot-colored walls, I feel as if I have been conveyed back to her family���s home in Beirut. The walls are filled with maps of Lebanon, including one dating to 3,000 BC, when the Phoenicians ruled, and another from the Napoleonic era when Lebanon was a French colony. Tables of clustered, framed photos of her family are displayed with artifacts and objets d���art.

Many of these items arrived in 52 cartons from war-torn Beirut lovingly packed by a cousin after Sultan���s family became refugees while in the United States when they were not allowed to return to Lebanon. They lived on the Green Line, or ���no man���s land,��� between East Beirut and West Beirut, the dividing line between Christian and Muslim areas of the city. They experienced bombings, broken glass, separation, and the shell-shock that one who has lived through it knows.

Sultan, a Washington, D.C., native, who met her physician husband while he was in residency there, came to Eau Claire in the mid-1980s with her husband, Michael, and their two then-teenaged children. She started her writing career in 1989, when her son, on a break from Harvard University, said: ���Mom, maybe it���s time you start writing about our life in Lebanon.��� So she did, having kept journals throughout. She won a contest for a chapter of her memoir from The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis which gave her the chance to pick a writing mentor. She chose Ian Graham Leask largely due to his British accent and the fact his wife had lived in Beirut. Writer and editor have stuck together since.

The Syrian is Sultan���s first foray into fiction, and not her last as a sequel is already in the works. ���I wanted to see if I could do it,��� she shared. ���It was a challenge for me after writing nonfiction, which is more like journalistic writing, where you have facts and interviews to rely on.

���I laid out the entire plot, initially 24 chapters, on a long piece of paper ��� a very long piece of paper,��� she said, spreading her arms apart the length of her dining room table and beyond. ���The characters developed themselves, and the dialogue came rather easily,��� she continued. ���Nadia and Andrew are fairly predictable characters while Sonia was a surprise. I don���t know anyone like her ��� at all.���

Four years in the making ��� three years practically full-time ��� The Syrian was released in early October, published by Calumet Editions, a relatively new publishing house co-owned by Leask.

���After writing three non-fiction books about the Middle East, I thought it was time to write a novel to educate readers about the Middle East in perhaps a more palatable way and hopefully encourage them to learn more about the area and why what���s happening there now is happening,��� she said.

Sultan describes the genre of the novel as ���historical fiction.��� The novel has a you-are-there quality with visual, graphic details of geographic locations, streets, nature, clothing, and even food. Her intricate weaving of historical events and information into the plot and dialogue is James Michener-esque. And while you might be tempted to take some notes as you read or even pull out a map, things keep happening so fast that you simply want to keep reading rather than stop.

She has actually visited all of the locations in the novel, including the Khaim Prison, where atrocities were committed. When touring the prison, after it had been shut down, one of the Lebanese Army officers who arranged the tour asked that she ���tell our story.��� The novel is dedicated to the ���17,000 people who were disappeared during the Lebanese Civil War, and to their families who continue to live suspended lives, unable to put closure on their suffering and loss.���

The Syrian is available at The Local Store, 205 N. Dewey St., and on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle editions.

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A LESSON IN AFFECTION

A LESSON IN AFFECTION

Caterina’s dark brown hair is long and wavy, her face oval, her skin fine as bone china and her eyes, violet-blue. Her personality lights up a room when she enters it as does her contagious smile. A vivacious almost-twelve year old, she generously distributes hugs and kisses to those she loves. I’m one of those lucky people. I’m her grandmother.

My Lebanese husband, Michel, and I share the month of August each year with Caterina who comes from Rome, Italy with her parents and our other two grandchildren, Ceiba, six, and her brother Mishka, age two, who arrive from Oaxaca, Mexico with their parents. The arrival of seven extra people turns our normally peaceful abode into a boisterous one, full of merriment and chaos. Regardless of day-time activities, we gather at dinner time to share good food and great wines. We converse in English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Italian, sometimes all at once, reflecting the international flavor of our family.

As our days together turned into weeks, I began to notice Ceiba coming to us with more hugs and kisses and “I love you’s. While Mishka isn’t totally verbal yet, he joined in, blowing kisses and offering his cheek to a caress and a hug. After everyone returned to their respective homes I had a conversation with Caterina. I complemented her on teaching a lesson in affection to her cousins. Her response startled me. “Nonna,” (my name in Italian) I did that on purpose. I wanted Ceiba and Mishka to show you as much love and affection as I give to you and Nonno (grandfather).”

The power of love–given, s

ABOUT MY UPCOMING BOOK due out January 2015:

The Syrian by Cathy Sultan

The Syrian is a powerful contemporary novel of passion and betrayal, set

against the brutal and bewildering outbreak of the Israeli-Hezbollah war in

Lebanon, 2006.

Nadia, a woman who has waited 13 years for a husband who was ‘disappeared’

by Lebanon’s occupier, the Syrians, finally decides to declare him dead and

allow herself happiness with an American physician, Andrew Sullivan.

Nadia’s best friend, Sonia, a well connected foreign correspondent, is out

to get Andrew for herself and draws in the powerful head of the Syrian

secret police, Hassan Jaafar, to help her in her Byzantine manipulations.

Professionally, Sonia is also on a mission to discover who really murdered

the popular Lebanese prime minister, Rafic Hariri, the discovery of which

would hugely embarrass the Americans and their main Middle East ally.

Hassan Jaafar has loved Nadia since she was a student at the American

University of Beirut. She discouraged his attentions because he was part of

the Syrian occupation of her country. His love for Nadia has not dissipated

in the 15 Years since she rejected him and married her professor, but now as

Syria’s Intelligence Chief he is very dangerous and influential. Sonia may

or may not know what she has unleashed upon her friend.

The novel opens when Nadia, relaxing at her parents’ Beirut home, excitedly

awaiting the arrival of her fiancé Andrew. In the middle of her happiness Sonia rings

and tells her not only that Elie is still alive in a Damascus prison, but

that Sonia has set in motion the possibility of a meeting between Nadia and

Jaafar. From here the reader turns the pages furiously as the plot twists

and turns, becoming increasingly dangerous and bloody, as the border

conflict escalates with the book’s protagonists having retreated to the

south of Lebanon for safety.

In her commitment to the verisimilitude learned from writing three

non-fiction books about the Middle East, Cathy Sultan is not willing to fall

into cliche or easy endings: prepare for unforeseen surprises!