The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

On August 4th, 2020, Beirut’s port explodes. Nearly 3,000 pounds of improperly stored ammonium nitrate goes up in flames, killing hundreds, injuring thousands, and causing billions of dollars in property damage. Raja and Zalfa are on the balcony drinking Japanese green tea when the blast hits, and they are initially unsure what has happened. Madame Taweel is in her element after the blast, doing a brisk generator business. One of Raja’s colleagues loses a family member in the blast, and others lose their homes.

The next night, Raja’s mother organizes for one of Madame Taweel’s employees to cook him an elaborate meal. Raja has no idea why Zalfa would do this, and he is suspicious. His suspicions are confirmed when, later that night, Zalfa tells him that his aunt Yasmine’s apartment was destroyed. Raja dislikes Yasmine almost as much as he dislikes her daughter Nahed, and he doesn’t initially react to the news. Raja doesn’t particularly care if Yasmine has lost her home, but suddenly, he realizes what is happening. He snaps at Zalfa that Yasmine is not welcome in his home. She has been unkind to him for his entire life, and she has three sons of her own.

Zalfa calmly explains that two of her sons live in Saudi Arabia and the third is in jail. She has nowhere else to go. Raja realizes that he does not actually have a choice in the matter, and sure enough, Yasmine and Nahed are waiting right outside the door. Yasmine is on oxygen and looks to be in need of hospice care. Nahed is wearing a face mask. Zalfa explains, to Raja’s horror, that she has Covid. Raja is livid.

Raja recalls his childhood, when he was often the butt of Yasmine’s jokes. He knows that she was also unkind to his mother until she produced a son, and wonders why his mother has so much compassion for her now. With Yasmine and Nahed in his apartment, Raja cannot sleep. He begins cleaning and then goes downstairs to clean the sidewalk in front of his building.

Soon, others join him, and the street is full. When the man who has arrived to install new windows in his apartment quotes an astronomically inflated price to one of Raja’s neighbors, he assures her that his mother can negotiate a better price. He knows that with Mrs. Taweel’s help, Zalfa is unstoppable. All of Lebanon is run by gangsters, he muses, and Mrs. Taweel is like his mother’s personal goon.

Walking through the streets of Beirut after the blast, Raja remembers his high school days. One of his classmates, Kamal, asked Raja to show him his philosophy paper before turning it in. Raja refused, but told Kamal that he would tutor him. Raja began tutoring more and more of his fellow students, and continued doing so when he entered college. Tutoring gave him pocket money and helped him to pay his way through school.

Raja is jarred back into the present moment when he realizes he is at the blast site. He is overwhelmed by the destruction around him. The city has been ravaged, and he knows that because of governmental corruption, there is not likely to be a real investigation, nor will those responsible be held accountable. Raja does not want to see any more of the devastation and shuts his eyes. Then, he begins to weep. He is overcome with the weight of his country’s history and cannot fathom how a nation could be so plagued by ineptitude and corruption. The citizens bear the brunt of their government’s instability, and there is little that anyone can do about it.

He runs into one of his former students and is mortified that she is now bearing witness to his meltdown. She comforts him and then shares that Zalfa recently invited her and her husband over for dinner. Even in his grief, Raja feels his anger rising, questioning why Zalfa maintains her relationships with Raja’s students.

Back at the apartment, Zalfa berates him for crying in public. She has, of course, spoken with Raja’s former student. Again, Raja fumes. He avoids his mother and ends up talking with Nahed. Nahed explains that she knows Raja doesn’t want them there, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. They end up bonding because both have difficulty navigating around the table, and both have been told by their mothers to lose weight. They laugh about having the biggest backsides in the family, and Raja wonders if he’s been too hard on Nahed in the past. Her mother, however, calls Raja a harmful slur.

Raja is surprised by how easily they all adapt to cohabitation. He has long harbored animosity toward both his aunt and his cousin, but he finds living with them bearable. Yasmine, in spite of her angry, bigoted words upon moving in, is too elderly to hurl much verbal abuse his way. Nearing death and battling dementia, she mostly sits on the balcony quietly. Raja initially tries to avoid Nahed, but eventually the two begin to bond.

Nahed is a masseuse and gives Raja a wonderful massage. They reminisce about their childhoods. Although their memories often do not align, Raja has cause to rethink his grudge against her. They are also both queer in a society that shuns both gay men and lesbians, and Raja has to admit to himself that they share the experience of being rendered outcasts by their sexuality.

Raja recalls the early days after his captivity ended. His mother defended his desire to keep Mr. Cat and told his father and brother that if they got rid of the creature, she would move in with her family, and they would be forced to launder their own clothes. As neither Farouk nor Raja’s father had ever so much as washed a sock before, they relented. Zalfa moved into Raja’s room, comforted him, and forced him to tell her every detail of the events leading up to the kidnapping and the months he spent locked away in the garage apartment. Although mortified, Raja remembers knowing even then that his mother was worried about him and still loved him in spite of what he told her.

Nahed remembers Raja as an aloof boy who was quiet even when everyone else in the class knew that he had the answers. She recalls trying to befriend Raja without success. She also tells him that when he finally came into his own as an adolescent, she was awed by his confidence and grace. He would wear unique, sometimes even outlandish outfits with panache. Her father even wanted her to marry him.

Raja had no idea Nahed had ever wanted to be friends with him. He mostly remembers his teenage years as lonely. He was obsessed with Dostoyevsky and had written to Mrs. Murata in Japan to send him Dostoyevsky’s novels in Japanese. Nahed also remembered this: She was impressed by the foreign packages Raja received, as Mrs. Murata continued to send him reading materials in Japanese for years.

Raja returns to a hybrid teaching schedule because of the pandemic and even begins to sit outside with Yasmine in the evenings. Life has a new shape with so many people in his home, but Raja is comfortable with it.