I, the Divine by Alameddine Rabih Read Free Book Online Page A

air.
    The sand burned our feet through the sandals. “I know this place,” he told me. He led me running to the waterline, where the sand was wet and cool. We walked hand in hand, the first time in a week. We walked until we reached a small hill jutting into the sea. As we climbed across he said, “In Norway, they have steep hills that fall straight into the sea. The bays these hills create are called fjords.”
    “Who do you think you’re talking to, dummy? I know about fjords.”
    “We’ll go there someday,” he said, looking ahead, away from me. “I’ve seen pictures. It’s beautiful and very, very romantic. You’ll like it.”
    We jumped down on the other side, a secluded area. “Are you sure this will work?” I asked. “Some people might come and if someone walked on the top there, they’d see us. I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
    “We’ll hear them coming. Anyway, we’re not doing anything. We’re just kissing.”
    We kissed and caressed until we heard people climbing the hill. It was another couple, older. They were shocked to find us there. She smiled. He glowered. They jumped down and sat facing the water with their back toward us. They whispered. They were obviously engaged to be married. Finally, she had the courage to reach over and hold his hand.
    I reached over, slipped my hand under Fadi’s swimming trunks and encircled his penis. His face registered shock. “I want to do it,” he said.
    “Not till we’re married.”
    He kissed me and ejaculated silently.

I grew up infatuated with Sarah Bernhardt, having been named after her by my grandfather. My stepmother considered this obsession, for that is what it was, to be dangerous. She objected to my grandfather filling my head with stories of the great actress, thinking they would lead me astray.
    I did not realize when I was younger how much anguish my being a tomboy caused my family. The first day I returned from school wearing makeup—I was fifteen—I was greeted with mouths agape and eyes wide, followed by effusive compliments. I ran into the bathroom and cleaned myself.
    My initiation into total femininity was conducted by Dina, my best friend. She took a wardrobe consisting of jeans and sweatshirts and converted it to fashionable dresses and eye-catching skirts. She took a face that had never had a dab of makeup and trained it to accept powdered and creamy intrusions. She took a girl who was notorious for being the best soccer player in school, better than the boys, and turned her into every schoolboy’s fantasy. In my stepmother’s eyes, Dina was a goddess.
    Dina’s arrival at school set a new standard of sexual tension among the boys. She was only the second girl in my class. I was one of the first five girls to enroll in the school when it was integrated. That first day, she was fully made up, wore a disturbingly short skirt and an even tighter shirt, which accentuated her cusped breasts. By the first day of school, she had earned a nickname that would stick: Crotale, after the French missiles.
    It did not take long for us to become friends. She shattered my misconceptions about her within the first week. I had not known anyone who dressed like her. Because of the way she presented herself, I had mistakenly assumed she was dumb. Her grades displaced mine as the second highest. The highest belonged to my boyfriend at the time, Fadi, but his should not be considered because they were the product of a rare intelligence. I also thought she would be a tramp. She was not, of course, since she did not care for boys at all.
    Dina and I grew ever closer. I was transformed, both by her example and by her free-flowing advice. I had always associated concerns about personal appearance with frivolity, and I had no role models to speak of. Who would want to look like Indira Gandhi or Golda Meir? In reality, the only true model of a successful woman was the Divine Sarah. Dina came into my life, intelligent, ambitious, and beautiful in a