The Witch of Portobello

"Not necessarily. But in your case, until you touch that hand, your, shall we say, calligraphy will not improve."

"I don't see why I should bother to look for someone who never took the trouble to love me."

She closed the car door, smiled, and drove off. Despite her last words, I knew what her next step would be.

SAMIRA R. KHALIL, ATHENA'S MOTHER

It was as if all her professional success, her ability to earn money, her joy at having found a new love, her contentment when she played with her son--my grandson--had all been relegated to second place. I was quite simply terrified when Sherine told me that she'd decided to go in search of her birth mother.

At first, of course, I took consolation in the thought that the adoption center would no longer exist, the paperwork would all have been lost, any officials she encountered would prove implacable, the recent collapse of the Romanian government would make travel impossible, and the womb that bore her would long since have vanished. This, however, provided only a momentary consolation: my daughter was capable of anything and would overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.

Up until then, the subject had been taboo in the family. Sherine knew she was adopted, because the psychiatrist in Beirut had advised me to tell her as soon as she was old enough to understand. But she had never shown any desire to know where she had come from. Her home had been Beirut, when it was still our home.

The adopted son of a friend of mine had committed suicide at the age of sixteen when he acquired a biological sister, and so we had never attempted to have more children of our own, and we did everything we could to make her feel that she was the sole reason for our joys and sadnesses, our love and our hopes. And yet it seemed that none of this counted. Dear God, how ungrateful children can be!

Knowing my daughter as I did, I realized that there was no point in arguing with her about this. My husband and I didn't sleep for a whole week, and every morning, every evening, we were bombarded with the same question: "Whereabouts in Romania was I born?" To make matters worse, Viorel kept crying, as if he understood what was going on.

I decided to consult a psychiatrist again. I asked why a young woman who had everything in life should always be so dissatisfied.

"We all want to know where we came from," he said. "On the philosophical level that's the fundamental question for all human beings. In your daughter's case, I think it's perfectly reasonable that she should want to go in search of her roots. Wouldn't you be curious to know?"

"No, I wouldn't. On the contrary, I'd think it dangerous to go in search of someone who had denied and rejected me when I was still too helpless to survive on my own."

But the psychiatrist insisted: "Rather than getting into a confrontation with her, try to help. Perhaps when she sees that it's no longer a problem for you, she'll give up. The year she spent far from her friends must have created a sense of emotional need, which she's now trying to make up for by provoking you like this. She simply wants to be sure that she's loved."

It would have been better if Sherine had gone to the psychiatrist herself, then she would have understood the reasons for her behavior.

"Show that you're confident and don't see this as a threat. And if, in the end, she really does go ahead with it, simply give her the information she needs. As I understand it, she's always been a difficult child. Perhaps she'll emerge from this search a stronger person."

I asked if the psychiatrist had any children. He didn't, and I knew then that he wasn't the right person to advise me.

That night, when we were sitting in front of the TV, Sherine returned to the subject.

"What are you watching?"

"The news."

"What for?"

"To find out what's going on in Lebanon," replied my husband.

I saw the trap, but it was too late. Sherine immediately pounced on this opening.

"You see, you're curious to know what's going on in the country where you were born. You're settled in England, you have friends, Dad earns plenty of money, you've got security, and yet you still buy Lebanese newspapers. You channel-hop until you find a bit of news to do with Beirut. You imagine the future as if it were the past, not realizing that the war will never end. What I mean is that if you're not in touch with your roots, you feel as if you've lost touch with the world. Is it so very hard then for you to understand what I'm feeling?"

"You're our daughter."

"And proud to be. And I'll always be your daughter. Please don't doubt my love or my gratitude for everything you've done for me. All I'm asking is to be given the chance to visit the place where I was born and perhaps ask my birth mother why she abandoned me or perhaps, when I look into her eyes, simply say nothing. If I don't at least try and do that, I'll feel like a coward and I won't ever understand the blank spaces."

"The blank spaces?"

"I learned calligraphy while I was in Dubai. I dance whenever I can, but music only exists because the pauses exist, and sentences only exist because the blank spaces exist. When I'm doing something, I feel complete, but no one can keep active twenty-four hours a day. As soon as I stop, I feel there's something lacking. You've often said to me that I'm a naturally restless person, but I didn't choose to be that way. I'd like to sit here quietly, watching television, but I can't. My brain won't stop. Sometimes I think I'm going mad. I need always to be dancing, writing, selling land, taking care of Viorel, or reading whatever I find to read. Do you think that's normal?"

"Perhaps it's just your temperament," said my husband.

The conversation ended there, as it always ended, with Viorel crying, Sherine retreating into silence, and with me convinced that children never acknowledge what their parents have done for them. However, over breakfast the next day, it was my husband who brought the subject up again.

"A while ago, while you were in the Middle East, I looked into the possibility of going home to Beirut. I went to the street where we used to live. The house is no longer there, but despite the foreign occupation and the constant incursions, they are slowly rebuilding the country. I felt a sense of euphoria. Perhaps it was the moment to start all over again. And it was precisely that expression, 'start all over again,' that brought me back to reality. The time has passed when I could allow myself that luxury. Nowadays, I just want to go on doing what I'm doing, and I don't need any new adventures.