Dutch Cheese

To torture him all the more, the wooden box of Dutch cheese had been placed on the tray before any other work on breakfast had begun. That meant he would have to wait while his mother made the tea and fried the eggs and filled the plates with makdous, labneh, olives and cheese from all the jars that crowded the various corners of the kitchen. Had she sliced it and put it on a plate, he might have managed to steal a piece and let his eager taste buds enjoy its legendary flavour. But his mother, most likely on purpose, had left the cheese in its plastic wrapper, so tough it couldn't be opened without a knife, inside the wooden box that had a bird painted on it, perhaps a penguin. And if he wanted to open it and tear the plastic, he would have to take it out of its long wooden box, which meant that everyone, his mother above all, would notice him. And even if no one noticed, everyone would learn of the assault when they discovered the wrapper torn open and that great block of cheese smaller than the size everyone knew. And if they did notice him, the shouting, at best, would rise from every direction demanding he take his hand off the cheese, if no one caught him with a slap or hurled a slipper at him. In any case, he wasn't even considering it, knowing it was impossible; he was content to keep watch at the rim of the aluminium tray, letting his eyes feast on the beauty of the Dutch cheese box, waiting for the banquet to begin so he could pounce mercilessly on its delicious slices.

His mother came with a knife, and hope stirred within him. For a moment he thought his meeting with the Dutch cheese was about to happen, and his mouth watered a little, but he quietly swallowed it. Yet the tomatoes his sister brought made him realise he would have to wait longer, and because of that he felt a little hatred for tomatoes, then for the cucumbers that arrived later to share the plate with them. When his mother finished chopping the tomatoes and cucumbers, his eyes were fixed on the knife she kept holding, looking around as if searching for something. She must be looking for a plate to slice the Dutch cheese on, he thought. His mother herself had no idea what she was looking for; she got up and went to the kitchen, leaving him to watch the bitter struggle of waiting.

The plates began to arrive one after another: his second sister brought the makdous, licking the oil from her fingers; his older brother brought the olives; and so the dishes multiplied on the tray until it was nearly full, and he didn't notice who brought them, since all his feelings and senses were fixed on the box of Dutch cheese. At last came the frying pans of eggs, still sizzling. All that was left was the tea kettle, about to be ready on the kerosene stove; his mother would bring it, and while someone poured the tea into the glasses, she would slice the cheese and the celebration would begin, he thought. But his mother, having left one of his sisters crouching beside the kerosene stove waiting for it to boil, defied his expectations and brought a plate and a knife, and it was clear this time it was to slice the Dutch cheese, especially as his mother took the block out of the wooden box and was about to tear the plastic. But a violent pounding on the iron gate of the house, and clamour and shouting outside, made everyone jump in terror, and his mother went out to open the gate and found their neighbour warning her, a bag in his hands:

"Quneitra has fallen, Umm Walid! Leave everything and save yourselves."

All he remembers is his mother hysterically pushing them outside to join the caravan of people who had just begun their flight, telling the older ones to hold the little ones' hands. And while his older brother dragged him by the hand, he looked back, hoping to see the box of Dutch cheese, but saw only the tea kettle, its foam pouring from under its lid dancing with the boil, and no one paying it the slightest attention.

Despite all the hardships of that bitter road of flight, the cheese box never left his mind, and how he regretted not having thought to take it in his hand before leaving, wishing he could go back for it. It never left his mind, not a single day afterward. He always searched for a cheese whose taste resembled the Dutch cheese, but never found one, to the point that once, as he stood on the pavement of the country of displacement, where not only had he not seen any Dutch cheese but had met no one who had seen it or heard of it, a bicycle carrying two men passed, and a conversation was going on between them of which he heard only the end, when the man on the back seat said:

"Brother, since the displaced arrived, a man can't feel easy taking off his slippers outside."

And he found himself, humiliated, shouting at him, not knowing whether the man heard:

"We eat the Dutch cheese you've never heard of! We don't steal slippers!"

He was never able afterward to taste that legendary flavour, as he likes to call it now. And when he asked his mother about the source of that cheese, she admitted she didn't know. As for his father, who used to bring them that Dutch cheese, he never came back from the war; it was said he was captured and it was said he was killed, and in any case he most probably no longer existed above the earth. But most of his resentment, over being deprived of that cheese on that ill-fated day, was directed at the military spokesman who announced over the airwaves of Radio Damascus that Quneitra had fallen, after which people were heard whispering that the city hadn't fallen until two days after the spokesman's announcement. He tried in vain to find a reason for the spokesman's haste; the military spokesman customarily exaggerates victories and understates losses, but announcing a city's fall two days before it fell was something he could not understand:

"The scoundrel! If only he'd delayed announcing the fall of the city by just two hours, the bitter taste of the Dutch cheese wouldn't have stayed in my heart forever."

He said this every time he failed to find an explanation for that idiotic announcement, and then added:

"Damn him. Whom is he even a spokesman for?"