I was living in Cairo when Leon Uris’s The Haj was published. As a result of the timing, my days were inundated by Arab traditions and the Arab mindset as I was reading the novel. Coincidentally and irrelevantly, I was living in Singapore when Crazy Rich Asians came out, which was amusing because my Singaporean friends loved that book—and it, as with The Haj, was exactly spot-on.
This quote describing the middle-eastern hierachy, taken from the closing of the second chapter of The Haj, was so purely and accurately blood-chilling that it’s stayed with me all these years:
“It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world. And all of us against the infidel.”
To think that people live with this chain of antipathy as their truth is horrifying and heartbreaking. Suspicion, selfishness, corruption, and animosity; criticism, derision, scheming, and manipulation. How stressful. As to the quote, I imagine this concise summary of an entire culture is underlined in the Kindle version. If you haven’t read The Haj, I highly recommend it.
So. Negativity.
There was a woman who came to Mahjong for a while. She played well and we were glad to have her. She took the game seriously, which is fine to a point; but this seriousness was the foundation of her personality—she had no sense of humor, and when she did laugh it was at someone else’s expense. She was quick to assign culpability and always seemed to be planning revenge for some small slight or perceived lack of respect. Her realtor had cheated her. Her doctor had done a poor job of a repair. When she moved to the area her neighbors didn’t come over and welcome her and so she never shared a friendly wave with them or acknowledged them in any way. One time she arrived at Mahjong furious with her brother. I asked her what he’d done to draw her ire and she replied, “He said he’d call me and he didn’t.” For this infraction she punished him by not speaking to him for six months, a punishment he likely enjoyed. She must be a horror to live with. She dropped our group a couple of years ago. I doubt she liked any of us.
A couple we occasionally socialized with in Holland only got along with one another when they had a common enemy—a family member who’d behaved badly in a business deal, a friend who hadn’t been complimentary enough about their new car, a neighbor whose dog sometimes barked. When they had no target for their antagonism, they turned on each other, screaming at one another for hours, letting loose words that should never be said; and then entering a cold silence that could last for weeks. When I pointed this pattern out to the wife she laughed and said, “Oh, I know. When I get tired of fighting with him, I get him all stirred up about something someone else has done.” She seemed satisfied with the dynamic.
Where did the pleasure they found in rancor come from? Are some people born sour? Do they crave the drama found in severe nastiness? Or is it a state that started small and expanded with each failure, each broken heart, each disparagement?
I’m pretty sure this is the way it happened with Trina. Her memorial service was last weekend. Fifteen people were there, and, with the exception of her boss, we all loved her. The friend who had taken care of her during her last days stood up to speak. She started crying almost immediately, but it soon became apparent that the source of her emotions wasn’t the loss of my sister; it was a reaction to the trauma she’d experienced during the few months she’d cared for her. With words riding on sobs, she described how hypercritical and exhausting Trina had been, how difficult she was to please, how rigidly she went through her days, how oppressive her presence could be, how she belittled everyone who didn’t think exactly as she thought. Though this was not traditional or appropriate for the setting, I could identify. I, too, had been traumatized by Trina—her rage, her jealousy, all the hateful blame heaped on me again and again through a period of many years. When it was my turn to speak, I told of what a happy child Trina had been and how she’d enriched my teen years. I didn’t share that our relationship had slowly morphed into a Bette Davis/Joan Crawford situation, and how vicious my sister had acted toward me the last time I saw her—though, to the other mourners, I did admit that her constant bitterness had caused me to walk away. If not for Trina’s actions, I would’ve been there to see her through her second and last battle with cancer, but I didn’t even know she was sick until the last week or so of her life. Her friend had been there and her sister had not. So now another negative emotion has been added to the dark basket I carry—guilt. A hell of a legacy, sister.
We attended another memorial service yesterday morning. It was similar in style in that people stood and told stories about their experiences with the deceased. But these were upbeat anecdotes about how generous the departed had been, how her laughter cheered others, how she took joy in her work at her church and in the community garden. It was all about how much she gave and how much she’ll be missed.
I wish there were a deeper takeaway from this other than grouchiness bad, joy good. Why is it that a circumstance that lowers one person into permanent gloom causes another to rise up and move forward? I guess, for me, the lesson here is that we each have a choice in how we treat others. We have the ability to control our actions, our thoughts, and what our tongues set free into the world. It’s what our brains do and it’s why God gave them to us. And I see that once again I’ve revealed my intolerance. I need to work on that. As to Trina and her tragic end, I am putting that behind me. And how will I do that? Well, every time a bleak thought enters my mind, I’m going to turn away from it. Control.
Dunes on Lake Michigan a couple of weeks ago.
