ABSTRACT
It took me a few days to find my bearings. My parents had refurbished my old bedroom with new furniture and curtains with a Lebanese version of Mondrian motifs. My mother had chosen them with the help of younger women relatives with European tastes, even though she had a better taste herself. My father had the oriental, squat toilet replaced with a modern, Western one. The kitchen was the same; since I wouldn’t be using the kitchen, my father had seen no point in fixing it. I was happy that the rest of the apartment had not been tampered with, since I had come to appreciate it even more after four years of absence. I was touched that my parents had gone to so much trouble.
