BooksBarbecue
Back The Brothers
Chapters (17)
  1. Title Page
  2. Epigraph
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. ALSO BY MILTON HATOUM
  16. GLOSSARY
  17. Copyright Page

Omar, gnawed by jealousy, never uttered his brother’s name. Zana, desperate with worry, said that a son who leaves home a second time never returns. Halim agreed, but without the worry. He was dreaming of a glorious future for Yaqub, and that was more important than his return and stronger than the separation. Halim’s grayish eyes lit up when he talked about it.

I saw those eyes many times, not lit up like that, but not dim either just tired of the present, and with no future of any kind in their sights.

2

2

Around 1914, Galib opened the Biblos Restaurant on the ground floor of the house. Lunch was served at eleven, a simple meal, but exotic and delicious. Galib himself, a widower, did the cooking, helped serve, and looked after the garden, covering it with a veil of tulle to protect it from the burning sun. In the Municipal Market, he would choose a fish, a tucunaré or a matrinxã, stuff it with farofa and olives, roast it in a wood-fired oven, and serve it with a sesame sauce. He came into the restaurant with the tray balanced on the palm of his left hand; the other was around his daughter Zana’s waist. They went from table to table and Zana offered guaraná, sparkling water, or wine. The father talked in Portuguese with the customers: street peddlers, skippers of small boats, river traders, and workers from the Manaus Harbor. From its inception, the Biblos was a meeting point for the Lebanese, Syrian, and Moroccan Jewish immigrants who lived in Nossa Senhora dos Remédios Square and the streets giving onto it. They spoke Portuguese mixed with Arabic, French, and Spanish. Here, all kinds of voices mingled together, as people passed through and their lives crisscrossed; one thing after another—a shipwreck, black fever in a village on the river Purus, a swindle, a case of incest, distant memories, and burning emotions: a pain still smarting, a passion still smoldering, grief over irreparable loss, or hope that a cheat might eventually pay his debts. They ate, drank, and smoked, drawing out this moment of communion, and putting off the siesta.