Free Yalo by Elias Khoury Page B

explain the story of the prophet Jonah, who spent three days in the belly of the whale before returning safely to the shore?”
    Ephraim said that the story of the prophet Jonah was simply a symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection. But even the symbol would not have been possible without the special connection between God and the sea.
    â€œIn the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God moved over the waters.”
    The cohno went to the sea with his small family for the sake of the spirit that hovered over the waters, believing that the miracle could occur only on that date in January, when the spirit met the salt water and became sweeter than honey.
    However, Yalo had not seen at his neighbors’ or friends’ the anointing of this Spirit that radiated through his house the next morning as his mother prepared cakes with milk and fried doughnuts. It was only in that little house in whose garden seven acacia trees were planted, shading the place and clinging to a huge China tree that stood like a sentinel at the entrance, that the miracle took place and the shadow of Christ’s hand anointed their heads with honey and gold.
    Yalo remembered nothing of the return from the beach to the house, as he returned asleep, wrapped in the woolen blanket. He got up in the morning and smelled the fragrance of oil and sweets, and saw the cohno sitting chewing incense before going to the church.
    Yalo did not see the anointing of the Spirit on his comrades, nor did he ask them about their trip to the beach; whether they too had gone and drunk the salt water that became fresh water. When his grandfather cupped his hands and gathered the seawater, and raised it to his mouth, he said, “It’s like honey.” Yalo drank, trembling in anticipation of the piece of sugary nougat, which he ate sitting on the woolen blanket covered with the clips removed from his mother’s kokina .
    Was this a tradition common in Beirut, or just a private family tradition the cohno had brought with him from his faraway village?
    Yalo didn’t know the answer, and it did not occur to him to ask his grandfather. He relived the scene now, in the silence of prison, where voices reached him like vague murmurs without words while he tried to write, to end this story that had lasted too long.
    He saw the scene on the beach, where dozens of women stood on thewhite sand, spreading their hair out over their backs. Behind each woman stood a middle-aged man with a comb, and with each stroke of the comb the locks of hair turned golden. The combs slid downward, dozens of combs glistening gold, and the spirit of God hovered over them all.
    Yalo felt a cold that crept into his bones and heard the cohno ’s voice preaching and telling him that the reason he always felt cold was because he was tall and skinny. “You have no meat on your bones to protect you from the wind.”
    Yalo felt the wind blow through him, as if his body were full of holes. He shivered and clung to the woolen blanket, and the hair clips bored into him from every side.
    Dozens of women were being combed golden, were drinking seawater, then carrying their sons and daughters home in woolen blankets to prepare cakes with milk and doughnuts to celebrate Christ’s baptism in the Jordan.
    â€œFollow me in half an hour and don’t be late for mass!” his grandfather told him in the morning before going to church. “And you better not put a thing in your mouth, my boy. It’s forbidden to eat and then take the sacrament, it’s a sin. I know everything, and God knows everything.”
    But Yalo stole the cake from the pantry and ate it, then brushed his teeth to get rid of the scent before accompanying his mother to church, where he fell into a deep sleep. Yalo had never once gone to church on his own; the moment he entered the church, his eyes got