Half a Lira’S Worth: The Life and Times of Vivronia

By Mick Darcy

Vivronia was born a girl in the male-dominated Eastern/Arab society. Her mother rejected her at birth because she had black moles on her face and neck. Throughout her childhood and youth, her mother convinced her that love and marriage could never be possible for her. So what opportunities were there for a tall, fat, ugly female with the world in turmoil around her as she tried to survive the Lebanese Civil War? She had to create her own opportunities.

Aged twenty-three years, she met a man, gave him half a Liras worth, married him, and obtained a visa to migrate to Australia as his wife. In line with the Eastern culture, sex was his privilege and her duty only. It was a matter of being out of the frying panand into the fire.

In Sydney, five years later, with her two infant sons, she deserted her violent husband to become a single mother on welfare. The welfare system paid for the removal of her facial moles turning the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.

Aged forty-five years, after a singles without partners party, she was seduced by a tall handsome lover who taught her Western culture lovemaking, where women are allowed to enjoy sex. She became belatedly addicted to it.

During the ensuing five years, she climbed up the social ladder and married a prominent recent widower to secure her social and financial standing. But her past life of guilt and shame caught up with her.

The reader is left with the question, was she a conniving female gold digger using her sexuality to obtain more of what she was not entitled to, or was she the victim of her lifelong fractured environment, forced to survive on her own in a male-dominated society?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Mar 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504307178

Mick Darcy

n/A

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 Mick Darcy.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0718-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0717-8 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 03/27/2017

Veritasphobia (Fear of Truth)

Veritas: Latin ‘truth’. Phobia: Greek ‘fear’.

Mazin Qumsiyeh

"Fear is an emotional state produced in human beings and other animals to watch for real or anticipated dangers. An animal that reacts to danger, or even potential danger, escapes to live and reproduce.

Selection favored such mechanisms to be heightened in situations of danger of predation, of starvation of accidental death and so on. But an animal that is exceptionally fearful is also disadvantaged because it can avoid going out to find food or a better shelter or a mate.

Fear is a double-edged sword; useful in moderation especially when accompanied by logical thinking based on real phenomena, but harmful in certain situations. Psychologists call the latter phenomenon of excessive fear as phobia."

In humans excessive fear leads to hiding from the truth. Sociologists have defined such persons as pathological liars.

CONTENTS

1   "What sort of girl do you think I am?

2   "You are in Australia now.

3   take your brother to the medical centre

4   leave me alone and go live with your father

5   a marriage that never existed

6   she realised what she had missed out on

7   He had it all at his fingertips

8   I’ve seen that look in your eye!

9   That’s only a sample of what you can have

10   He wondered what was really behind the mask.

11   You’ve hooked him, now reel him in

12   she was truly an enigma

13   But love is not love unless it is shared

14   the smile that blessed every morning

15   Do your Australia Day ritual thing!

16   the tragic death of the woman he loved

17   Any other woman would have scratched his eyes out!

18   she was bolting the door firmly on him

19   She stopped him with one simple munouchie

20   an idolised picture of what a woman should be like

21   He is only a public servant like you!

22   the lady in black with beautiful legs

23   I will believe whatever you tell me to believe

24   a pill to help you start telling the truth

25   I’m sorry. She is my mother

26   I told her honestly, ‘ta en-tek’

27   And I have a husband

28   She had to choose between her husband and her son.

29   God is punishing me

30   Why do they always compare me to my mother?

31   "Go in first and go in hard

32   He was a tall handsome man in his late fifties

33   "incest relationship

34   Those are the choices

35   I’ve got better things to do with my money

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The names of some people in this book have been changed to afford them some privacy. There are no composite characters.

The circumstances and events described in this book are true. In a few instances some details have been reconstructed for completeness and ease of reading. Literary licence has been used sparingly.

THE MAIN CHARACTERS

Vivronia Kazzy aka Vivronia K Ramzy

She was born in 1960 in Lebanon to impoverished parents. Her mother rejected her at birth because she was a girl and had marks disfiguring her face.

Yousef Toubia Ramzy

Yousef was born in Becharii, North Lebanon in 1956. He left Lebanon when he was eight years. He met Vivronia when he was on holidays in Lebanon in 1983. They eloped and six months later he secured the visa for her to migrate to Australia as his wife.

Matthew Ramzy

Born to Vivronia and Yousef Ramzy in Sydney in 1984. After his parents’ divorce he dominated his single mother.

Andrew Ramzy

He was the second son of Yousef and Vivronia Ramzy. He was referred to by his mother as the girl I never had.

Robert Naoum

He was the Lebanese Consul-General of Sydney from 2004 to 2012. In 2005 he employed Vivronia as his personal secretary.

Simon Metlige

He was the widower who recently lost his relatively young wife. He met Vivronia in the Lebanese Consulate.

Mariam Kazzy

She was Vivronia’s mother who was disappointed that the birth of her first child was not a boy. She rejected her daughter.

CHAPTER 1

What sort of girl do you think I am? I’m a good girl!

The Kazzy family, in the early 1920’s, were small landholders in the village of Ain Ebel, in Southern Lebanon, about two kilometres from the Israeli border and about ten kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea coast. The village consisted of about 40 families spread over several hills with an elevation of 750-850 metres above sea level. It relied on its three natural springs for its water supply. The people of Ain Ebel were mainly farmers producing olives, almonds, chestnuts, grapes, figs, pomegranates, and apples.

At that time Ain Ebel was exclusively Christian, made up of Maronite Catholics (60%), Melikite Greek Catholic (30%) and Antochian Rûm Orthodox (10%). The Kazzy family were Rûm Orthodox who strictly adhered to the original, unchanged Christianity of the early apostles. The word ‘Kazzy" or ‘Assis’ meant priest; so they were, and remained associated with the priesthood.

Until the early 1930’s Lebanon was an agricultural society. The Kazzy families were mostly small-lot farmers. The head of the most prominent Kazzy family was Elias Kazzy. He had six sons; his youngest, Habib, was born in 1932.

Lebanon was at that time under the French Mandate and as such most of the government jobs were allocated on a ‘wasta’ (political influence) basis to the Maronites and the Melikites rather than to the Orthodox. Because the small Kazzy landholding could not support the six sons and their future families, the youngest son Habib had to either migrate to America or to enlist in the newly formed Lebanese Army. These were his only options for employment. Aged only seventeen years, he was immediately recruited into the Lebanese army because he was tall and strong. Over the next eight years he was stationed in most of the army barracks all over Lebanon.

Whilst he was serving in the Zahle army base in late 1958, Habib the virile young dashing soldier caught the eye of Mariam, the daughter of one of Zahle’s Maronite farming families. Her family eked a meagre existence from potato farming and milking their two cows. Mariam was desperate to escape her peasantry way of life. Aged 23 years she was worried she might never get married. She was determined to use Habib to make her escape.

At the ripe ‘old’ age of 23 years she was still fair with soft gentle features and he, at 26 years old, was tall and handsome and walked in his highly polished army boots with an air of authority. But he was Orthodox and she was Maronite!

The brash and confident Habib borrowed an army motorbike, entered Mariam’s home, picked her up and dumped her in the bike’s sidecar. She was more than encouraging. He sped off to the army base where the army chaplain performed the eight-minutes wedding service. An hour later the marriage was lustily consummated in the private hut of his army captain. Mariam knew exactly what to do; she saw the bulls and cows breeding.

Mariam’s family insisted that it was a ‘shalleefee’ and that Habib took her forcibly. Habib’s family argued that it was ‘elopement’. Whilst the two families argued, Habib and Mariam were consummating the marriage. It was not love yet - it was raw lust! It takes time and mutual respect for lust to evolve naturally into love; but they did not have the time to let love develop. Their relationship went directly into need and support because within the first month, or perhaps that first night, Mariam became pregnant.

That was quick, couldn’t you hold back for a few months? Habib’s fellow soldiers joked.

We have been trained to shoot straight and to make every shot count, replied the proud father-to-be.

Habib and Mariam expected their baby would be just as perfect as the many other babies born into the Kazzy family. Everybody predicted that their first child would be a boy because Mariam soon ballooned extra large as she carried her child inside her. Marian gave birth to her first child on 11 April 1960. It was a well-developed girl with unusually long legs. It was not the boy they had expected!

Thank God she is healthy, was the father’s first comment. She will grow up to be a tall beautiful girl, he proudly announced. The mother was not so happy. She wanted a boy, not a dark skinned girl with blotches over her face.

The baby was washed, wrapped in a baby blanket and handed back to the fatigued mother. Mariam looked into the wrinkled face of the baby and frowned; Habib looked at his daughter and beamed with genuine happiness and said, We will name her ‘Vivronia’ after the famous martyred Spanish virgin princess.

What are those dark blotches on my baby’s face? Mariam asked the doctor. He explained that the baby, because of its extra long legs, had bruised itself as it was tucked tightly in the womb. He told the mother that the dark blotches would disappear soon.

Three months later the facial blotches had not disappeared; they had become a series of dark spots, more like black moles.

Mariam started to develop a deep post-natal depression and a rejection of the child. However the father Habib unconditionally and instantly loved the baby. I love her because she needs us, he explained to his wife. There can never be anything more wanted in life by a child than to be loved unconditionally by its mother, to be cherished for exactly who she is. But Mariam, who had not been graced with that sort of love in her heart, could not understand her infant daughter’s natural need. She was more concerned how her five sisters-in-law would tut-tut and snigger behind her back.

A soldier’s roving life is never easy, especially with a wife and a one-year-old daughter born whilst he was serving in Tripoli. So in 1962, just after the birth of their second child Elie, a most welcomed and beautiful boy, Habib resigned from the army to take up a permanent position in the Beirut police force. He rented a cheap apartment in the suburb of the Dekwaneh, close to the Tal el-Zartarr Palestinian refugee camp.

Over the next ten years Mariam gave birth to another daughter, May, and another son Samir, both perfect in their mother’s eye. However, the eldest daughter Vivronia, who was relatively tall, overweight and awkward for her age, was the ugly duckling of the family, but nevertheless her Daddy’s favourite. As Vivronia grew and developed, her mother started to become envious because of the love her husband freely showered onto his elder daughter.

There is never enough money for me to buy fabric for a new dress but you buy her whatever she wants! she would often enviously scream at him. The more Habib loved his eldest daughter, the more Mariam reciprocitly resented her and favoured her second daughter May who looked more like her. Although May was four years younger than Vivronia, her mother dressed her and groomed her to look more glamorous than her older sister. May was Mariam’s beautiful daughter; Vivronia was Habib’s tall, overweight ugly daughter.

A feeling of abandonment and disdain by her mother marred Vivronia’s early childhood. She never remembered her mother picking her up and carrying her, as she did when Elie or May let out the smallest squeal. That feeling of abandonment gravitated her towards her father.

Vivronia’s childhood was spent at the local Rouda catholic convent school. The three months summer holidays of each year were spent in either Ain Ebel, Southern Lebanon, in her father’s mountain village with her paternal grandparents, or in Zahle on her maternal grandparents farm with its large flat landholding. She preferred going to her Zahle uncles and cousins who were much younger than those in Ain Ebel. There she would explore the area on her bicycle with her many cousins.

Ya Jineeyee! (Little she-devil), her grandmother Salome would scream at her because she could never remember her strange sounding name, girls should not ride bicycles! You will lose your virginity. Vivronia, shy and confused, would run to her grandfather Tannous for protection. She feared and disliked her bulky and overpowering grandmother who treated all her granddaughters with great disdain. At that time girls were regarded as troublesome liabilities on the family whereas boys were fêted and treated as worthwhile long-term family protectors.

But Vivronia loved her gentle, puny, toothless grandfather Tannous; he shared his food with her. His wife Salome had dominated him since he married her when she was a strapping strong sixteen-year-old girl. She is strong and healthy and will work all day for you in the potato farm, his father advised him. And indeed she did: working all day lugging 20-kilo potato bags on her shoulder back into the storage shed, and in the evenings milking the three cows and also lugging the milk pails back home. Giving natural birth at home to nine children didn’t slow her down, in fact it made her more resilient.

Life in Beirut for Vivronia in the early 1970’s was confusing. Her mother desperately wanted to distance herself from her peasantry background so she clumsily tried to become a French-speaking Beiruti elitist. That resulted in her being despised by her village relatives whilst at the same time not accepted by her Beiruti neighbours. No matter how hard she tried she still had the Zahle accent and bow-legged walk and mannerisms. Her children grew up in a state of permanent confusion not knowing where they belonged or who they really were: Zahle or Beirut? Maronite or Orthodox. That’s what happens when there are two heads of the one family: competition and disunity between the father and the mother – ‘a house divided on itself’.

When Vivronia started university, where she mixed for the first time with the opposite sex, she had to plead with her mother to be allowed to wear a brassiere and make-up. She’s vain and wants to attract the attention of the young men there, Mariam complained to her husband. However, May was encouraged to wear training brassieres at high school.

May is the slim fair one like me; Vivronia is the darker one with the moles on her face, Mariam would often describe her daughters to her neighbours. Vivronia further gravitated to her father, as May became her mother’s favourite. The two sons grew up loving their elder sister just like their father did. The ‘Kazzy House’ was divided.

That was the confused undisciplined environment Vivronia grew up in. She had experienced the dysfunctional ‘divided house’ lifestyle with her grandparents and then again with her parents; she knew no other way. To her it was normal family life.

The Lebanese civil war started abruptly in mid 1975. Vivronia, who as a fifteen-year-old teenager at that time was just starting to develop her own individuality. On 16 June 1976 Palestinian militia assassinated the US Ambassador in Beirut. The Lebanese Christian Forces and the Government Army on 20 June attacked the neighbouring Tal el-Zartarr Palestinian refugee camp. It became a battleground between the Christian Forces and the Islamic Militias. The Kazzy family and all their neighbours spent many long days and nights in hunger and fear in the crowded basement bomb shelters.

In early August 1976 the bombs temporarily stopped. Vivronia and her much taller twenty-year-old girlfriend went up to the flat rooftop. Vivronia had to stand on her tiptoes to peer over the rooftop boundary wall; but her taller friend’s head was well above the perimeter wall. They were there only a few minutes when Vivronia saw her friend lying on her back on the concrete roof. Bending closer over her, she noticed a small trickle of blood coming out of her friend’s head just above her left ear. Her friend was dead, killed by a sniper’s bullet from a rooftop in the refugee camp.

That sniper’s bullet ended Vivronia’s innocent childhood. She was suddenly flung into the adult world of mistrust, hate and determination for survival. The fierce fighting in and outside the refugee camp made the Kazzy family refugees themselves. During a temporary ceasefire they were herded into the back of trucks and driven from Beirut to the remote North Lebanon Mountains, the Shmairel region. They found shelter with a distant relative in Tannourine. On 12 August 1976 the Israeli tanks, backed by the Christian Forces, moved in to completely demolish the Tal el-Zartarr camp killing and scattering the 100,000 Palestinian refugees who had lived there since 1948.

Habib’s monthly salary still came in from the Police Department. This allowed the four children to continue their education in the local Catholic school in Tannourine.

A year later there was a glimmer of hope as the fighting in Beirut stalled and restarted around another Palestinian refugee camps near the international airport. Unfortunately for the Kazzy family, when they returned to their Beirut apartment they found it had been totally looted.

The children’s school and her university were in the Christian sector so life returned to some sort of perverted normality. At last In 1978 Vivronia was able to finish her high school baccalaureate certificate. Depending on the intensity of the fighting between the many militias, she started her on/off law studies in the University of Beirut. At that time the children of men serving in the Police Force received free education. In between university classes she was offered an English teaching position for the primary school children of her old convent school. Her 300 Lebanese liras monthly salary was a welcomed addition to her father’s 800 liras.

Slowly Vivronia’s shattered and confused life started to improve even though the civil war was still raging.

In late 1982, at the start of the Christmas holiday season, the headmaster of the convent school, Father Charbel Ramzy summoned Vivronia into his office. A worthy young man, who is an engineer in Australia, is visiting his family in Becharii. He is my cousin Toubia’s youngest son and is looking for a young lady to marry and to settle in Australia, he announced to her.

Vivronia was caught by surprise. The continuing civil war, her overweight figure and the moles on her face had caused her to put any ideas of marriage completely out of her mind. And the idea of migrating from Lebanon would be impossible; her father just would not tolerate that! But the priest, persisted, He is a good man. I know his family well. He will take you away from this war, which will never end. You are already twenty-three years old and should seriously consider getting married before it’s too late for you. With your facial disfiguration the men are not lining up to seek your hand in marriage! he pressed the point bluntly.

Father Charbel used his position at the convent to broker girls for marriage to the sons of his many relatives. He was well rewarded financially. On this occasion his cousin, whose two sons and two daughters had migrated to Australia in 1972, asked for his assistance to find a suitable girl for his youngest son.

Father Charbel, my youngest son Yousef needs to find a good girl to marry, Toubia Ramzy said. He is twenty-five years old and has been causing his brother and sisters much trouble in Australia with too many Australian girlfriends, drinking beer, going to the races and smoking drugs. We must find him a suitable family girl to marry and settle him down or he will be lost to the Ramzy family.

Vivronia’s mother had continuously told her daughter that no man could ever be interested in her whereas her father told her she was beautiful and deserved the handsomest of men. Father Charbel, I am very surprised and confused. I have never thought about getting married. I could never leave my family.

Trust me my daughter, I am a priest! You cannot help your family by staying here. You have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a visa for Australia to escape this dammed country, Father Charbel pursued her. Think about it and tomorrow we will talk again.

She walked out of the priest’s office pleased with the idea of escaping the misery and uncertainty of war-torn Lebanon. She was afraid that if she asked her father he would be furious and would demand that she never go to that Maronite convent again. That would give him more reason to support his hate for the Maronites. It’s too hard, so it’s best to ignore it, she decided.

What did your parents say about our conversation yesterday? Father Charbel asked.

I didn’t want to worry them with something that I know they will immediately refuse, she timidly replied to the priest.

But my daughter, this is a perfect opportunity for you. Trust me, the priest persisted as he stood closer to her and gently took her two hands in his. I want you to meet him before you decide anything. If you still are not interested then I will not interfere. It is your choice. I have invited him to have coffee with me tomorrow morning. Talk to your parents tonight and invite them to join us.

Father Charbel wanted Vivronia to meet the young handsome engineer from Australia; he knew she would be impressed. Father Charbel had already assured Yousef, She is tall and healthy and will give you many sons. She’s from a good family and would be a good wife, just like her mother.

Vivronia kept her conversations with Father Charbel to herself. She knew that the Ramzy family was a very influential family in Becharii, and it was the determination and bravery of the Becharii men that kept the Muslins of Tripoli from overrunning the country.

The next morning the convent’s Mother Superior escorted Vivronia into Father Charbel’s office. Vivronia sat alongside her. Within a few minutes a middle-aged woman and two men walked into the office. The usual pleasantries were exchanged. One of the men was introduced as ‘Engineer Yousef Ramzy.’ Vivronia saw that he was tall, handsome and well dressed; about the same height as her. He stood directly in front of her and extended his right hand towards her. Dutifully she shook his hand. She felt its smoothness, signifying he was not a manual worker. He sat alongside Father Charbel.

Yousef was dressed in a white shirt, tie and suit; he looked comfortable and natural in them. She had always dreamt of marrying a doctor or a rich handsome businessman from America who had come to rescue her from the horrors of the war in Lebanon, just like she heard had happened to many beautiful, cosmetically modified Lebanese girls.

The usual coffee was served and duly sipped politely by all. Yousef tried to make eye contact with Vivronia but she kept her eyes firmly looking down at the floor in front of her. Eventually the visitors left. Father Charbel persisted that Yousef Ramzy was the right man for her; he was offering marriage and a visa to Australia.

She liked the handsome, tall, well-dressed engineer from Australia.

Late in the afternoon of the first Friday of January 1983, Vivronia received a message requiring her in Father Charbel’s office. She had already made up her mind that she wanted the Australian visa. As she walked into Father Charbel’s office she noticed Yousef Ramzy was already there.

Come, sit down my dear, Father Charbel invited her as he guided her by the arm next to Yousef Ramzy. Talk to each other while I get the coffee, he said as he left the room.

Yousef smiled warmly at Vivronia. She relaxed as she looked at his clean-shaven face. He was a handsome man with a neatly trimmed moustache, more like a city man than a peasant. She liked that.

I’m sorry to barge in without calling you first, he apologised.

I would have worn something nicer to impress you, she smiled back at him as she smoothed and pulled the hem of her dress down in an attempt to cover her not so pretty knees. You look nice in that suit, she shyly added.

After the usual small talk about the cold rainy weather, they relaxed in each other’s company and chatted about many different subjects. He was only eight years old when he migrated to Sydney. She questioned him about his life in Australia and was pleased to learn that he was well established there and well connected with many friends and relatives. I’ve heard that Lebanese men have many girlfriends there, she remarked.

I am not a monk, he replied. She smiled back at him.

About half an hour later a maid brought in a tray with a ruqwee (traditional coffee pot) of Lebanese coffee with only two cups on it. Vivronia understood the subtle message that they were purposely being left alone. Leave the tray, Vivronia ordered the girl.

About an hour later Father Charbel knocked on the door and walked back into his office. Sorry I was busy with some visitors that came in unexpectedly, he lied diplomatically. Dinner is being served in the dining room, please join us, he directed his invitation to Yousef Ramzy. The invitation was respectfully declined.

But I’d like to come back tomorrow afternoon to invite Miss Vivronia to lunch, Yousef said as he looked across at her. He took her smile at him as tacit approval. Of course we would like you to join us, Father, he hurriedly added to the priest.

The next day Father Charbel acted as chaperone as they dined in an exclusive downtown restaurant. Vivronia was impressed.

Over the next week Yousef Ramzy picked Vivronia up from outside the convent school as soon as classes finished. She knew which parts of Beirut city to avoid so as to maintain her secret from her family; she directed him to the bustling restaurants at the Christian held Kaslik area. He took her to the best restaurants there and she was further impressed by his generosity.

At that time of the year darkness came early. That suited Yousef, as he was able to park his car in a quiet dark seaside spot. It also suited Vivronia because the darkness hid her facial blemishes. He was experienced and she was more than encouraging. After a week of teasing she allowed him to move his hand up along her thighs. She had never had a man touching her there; it felt wonderful and wanted him to continue. The fear of losing her virginity overcame her. But she allowed him to safely suck her raised nipples as she squirmed and pulled his head against her perfumed breasts. The feeling was wonderful. She lustily wanted more but was more scared of losing her precious virginity than being caught by the police.

That’s enough! You’ve had your half a lira’s worth, she would declare with feigned modesty. What sort of girl do you think I am? I’m a good girl! she convinced herself and him. You can have me completely after we are married, she teased him. In the dark, in his car along the coastline, he fell hopelessly under her spell.

At dinner the next day he advised her that he must return to Sydney about mid February 1983 and that they should get married before he leaves. After much discussion between the two of them, she decided not to let her family know about the affair. Let’s keep it quiet and simple, she suggested to him. Let’s just elope. She had become obsessed with the idea of getting the visa to escape with him to Australia.

Yousef agreed. Father Charbel will arrange everything, but I know that he would want my family with us. Just let me and father Charbel talk to your mother and father. I’m sure we could convince them that it would be for your good.

No! No! I know my parents! They will lock me up and never let me see you again! she screamed in fright. The intensity of her fears surprised him. She had just had a vitriolic argument with her mother who had started to become suspicious.

The marriage was celebrated a week later on Friday 28 January 1983 at five o’clock in the evening in the Patriarchal Cathedral of Lebanon in the historic and ancient Valley of the Patriarchs of North Lebanon. Yousef’s elder sister, as her bridesmaid, dressed Vivronia in a borrowed white wedding gown. Over fifty Ramzy family members were there to witness the marriage of Yousef Toubia Ramzy to Vivronia Habib Kazzy. The guests tut-tutted because not one single Kazzy family member was there to support the bride. The official photographs were taken to prove to the Australian Embassy in Beirut that Vivronia and Yousef were married ‘in the sight of God’.

Yousef and Vivronia returned to Becharii where the celebrations with his many cousins went on all night.

Later that night and all the next day, the marriage was repeatedly consummated in a private bedroom of one of the Ramzy family houses. She didn’t know what to do and relied on Yousef to guide her. She lay on her back, closed her eyes and let him do the rest. In the two or three minutes he was on top of her she only felt pain, but she was pleased that she was doing her duty by satisfying him. They agreed she shouldn’t get pregnant until she was securely in Australia. Yousef supplied the necessary protection.

When she stepped out of bed the next morning she noticed a large spot of blood on the sheets where she had slept. She recalled the tradition of displaying the bloodstained sheet to prove her virginity to her mother-in-law.

That afternoon, in the clear light of day and after the excitement and the anticipation of the moment of her deflowering, doubt started to set in. She started to panic. She was scared that she was to be alone with a virtual stranger. But she was not scared enough to want to flee. Anyway, what was there to flee to: an uncaring mother, a country racked by civil war with no end in sight, no prospect of anybody wanting to marry her in Lebanon with her blotched face and overweight figure. She was 23 years old already! Anyway it’s too late; she had already traded her most prized and protected possession, her virginity, for a visa!

Later that night she looked at him as he slept soundly alongside her. She smiled smugly and congratulated herself on such a good catch, and securing a visa to Australia.

She did not consider her elopement without her parents’ consent as betrayal of them. She convinced herself that it was right for her, just like it was right for her mother to elope with her father twenty-four years earlier. Her family was shocked that she had betrayed their thrust, especially her father who had worked throughout the civil war in extremely dangerous conditions to earn a wage to support her education. He had been her most ardent supporter since the day of her birth. He took her betrayal very personal.

On the Thursday evening of 3 February 1983 Yousef Ramzy kissed his bride before he boarded the Middle East airliner bound for Sydney.

Over the next few weeks, in her loneliness in Yousef’s family home in Becharii, Vivronia again started to doubt whether she had done the right thing. A feeling of insecurity overwhelmed her. In her determination to get her visa she knew that her father and brothers would desert her. She imagined her mother arguing with her father:

See, I told you she is an uncontrollable, selfish child! She betrayed our trust. It’s your fault! You spoilt her. Forget her! We have three other children to consider. Then Vivronia imagined her father responding in his army-swearing manner: Kis immik ya binte sharmouta! You have never shown her any love from the day she was born, you useless, loveless binte sharmouta! Anyway she is doing exactly what you did to force me to take you from your peasant life in Zahle! You couldn’t wait to open your legs for me!

Why won’t they just call me? Have they abandoned me? Should I call them first?

Life for Vivronia in Becharii was secure and comfortable compared with her life in dangerous Beirut. But she wasn’t comfortable to go unaccompanied outside the Ramzy compound in which five families lived. Gradually she became closer to her elderly grandmother-in-law. I was only fifteen years old when I married my husband. He died when I was only thirty-two years old. I was the youngest of six girls and two boys in my family. Your Yousef is a good man, in time you will learn to love him and he will love you, she reassured her.

It took three months before her father and her brother Elie went with Father Charbel to visit her in Becharii. She appeared happy with her hair well groomed and wearing a new outfit that Yousef had bought for her.

She convinced her father that she didn’t elope with Yousef Ramzy, but that it was a ‘shalleefee’ just like he had done to her mother. Unlike his father who blindly loved his daughter, Elie was more pragmatic. Anyway you’ll get your visa to Australia.

In Sydney, Yousef Ramzy had to declare on oath to the Australian migration authorities that his marriage to Vivronia Kazzy was a ‘bono fide’ marriage, based on love and respect for the sacred marriage vows made in the sight of God in one of the most sacred Christian cathedrals of Lebanon. He had the photos to prove it.

It took him over six months to get her the visa. He spent over $9000 in Migration Department fees, airfares, migration solicitor’s costs and spending money for Vivronia. He had spent all his savings on his trip beforehand so the extra, unexpected costs had to be borrowed from his bank on his business overdraft. He worked twelve hours a day just to catch up. Whichever clothing factory ‘beeped’ him for sewing machine repairs he attended to them the same-day no matter how late into the night.

CHAPTER 2

You are in Australia now. You have your rights.

It was 10 AM of 23 August 1983 and Vivronia was sitting alone in the arrival hall of Sydney Airport, after her long, tiring twenty-two hour Air India flight from Beirut. She had already collected her two suitcases and completed the Immigration and Custom’s formalities without any problems. She had freshened herself in the ladies facilities in anticipation of meeting her husband. Silently praying to St Charbel to help her to be a good wife, she anxiously waited for her husband to collect her as they had planned during the telephone call just before she left Beirut.

She waited anxiously as she watched crowds of people coming in and leaving with new arrivals. She waited and watched. But after two hours she became scared; the horrible childhood feeling of abandonment returned to her. Everyone on her flight had already left the airport, except for one Muslin family she had befriended during the six-hour stopover at Bombay Airport. They were returning home after holidaying in Lebanon. The middle-aged father, his wife and their two teenage daughters were genuinely concerned for her who was crying quietly in fear.

I only have this telephone number. I’ve been calling it for the last two hours but there is no reply, she said to the kind man. He looked at the handwritten number and name on the well-worn sheet of paper.

I don’t know the name, but the number is from around our district. You can’t stay here by yourself. Come with us to our house and from there we will sort things out for you, he spoke so authoritively that it made Vivronia feel comfortable. Three cars of relatives were at the airport