Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation) (16 page)

"Don't you think longing and loneliness are
inseparable?"

"Not always. You might feel lonely when you're
around strangers, but you wont be swept toward longing as a compensation for your loneliness; alternatively,
you might encounter longing for your people and your country but still be happy and contented in the place
where you live."

"They are inseparable for me."

"That's because you are unhappy and discontented
in your current situation."

"Can you imagine? I was burning for relocation, and
now I feel as though I'm going to be uprooted; that's why
I feel depressed."

"In that case, I'll give you a pass on reading poetry in
particular today."

"No, reading poetry is another issue."

"On the contrary. If you are not at peace with yourself, you won't be able to express the meaning of what
you read."

"I don't think about being at peace or not when I
read, and, honestly, poetry itself helps me to overcome
my moods, even if only temporarily."

"Okay, let's get started with poetry; then I'll play a
new melody."

DESPITE THE NAGGING CONTRADICTORY IMAGES
floating through my mind, I fell into a deep sleep that
night from which I awoke horrified. In my dream, I had
seen Nadia searching through my things; she'd pulled
out her notebook, then stood in front of me and ripped
it up, just like the last time, but this time she had been
without her two wings. And before exiting, she had
thrown an angry look at me, leaving behind tiny shreds
of paper that flew and floated in the room's emptiness.
These shreds had transformed into a chain of steel that
had fallen to the ground, making a loud sound like a
woman's scream.

I was in a panic when I awoke. I thought that I had
had this nightmare because I was reading her diary,
which was an assault on her personal life and perhaps
would do harm to her soul. But what should I do with the
diary? Should I avoid it? Tear it up? Or take it to the cemetery and bury it near her head? My throat was dry, and
my bones were trembling. What was torturing Nadia's
soul? How could I reach it? And how could I prevent
these dreams and nightmares? I shouldn't have read her
secrets. I had enough to deal with myself.

I told Samih about my nightmare. He said that
there was no way to relate dreams to reality and that,
in general, dreams were future oriented rather than a
storehouse of the past. I asked him to explain further,
so he said, "I don't know exactly, but I once heard on the
radio about Russian research that found that, astonishingly, more than 7o percent of our dreams forecast future
events in our lives."

By now, I didn't feel awkward asking him how he
saw dreams. He told me that he found it hard to explain
the things he saw, that he sensed things more than he
could describe them in terms of specific structures and
figures, and that the colors that people talked about had
no place in his dreams. He did not give the matter much
importance, and the moment he woke, his dreams disappeared. He advised me to train myself to forget the things
that were disturbing me because time would erase them.

SIX DAYS PASSED. I spent that time trying to run away
from Moosa's face, which was following me like a question mark. Tomorrow we would meet as we had agreed,
but this time I would have to have made a decision.

What was I going to do if I was still undecided? I was
both drawing him close to me and pushing him away. I
feared losing him and was running from him. The last
time I had seen him, he had made me face myself, and
tomorrow it would be up to me to say my final word. I
searched for a clear reason for my confusion. Why was
I so headstrong regarding my heart? What was making
me afraid of giving things a try? I had originally justified
my indecision by saying that my rejection or acceptance
of Moosa would be determined by the rejection or acceptance of my refugee status. It had been a test for my feelings; I hadn't wanted to say yes just because I had been
rejected. I had told Moosa, "Let me think; give me time
to make a decision. What you don't know is that I'm stubborn when the situation calls for me to say yes. Unfortunately, I did not say it when I was in Baghdad." He had
told me that what happens in politics does not apply to
the heart and suggested that perhaps I was running away
from him or didn't want to hurt his feelings. What would
I tell him tomorrow?

I was confused and split into two women: one attached to the past's bitterness and the other taking me
into an unknown tomorrow. The first one was bound
by faded threads to her grandmother; the second carried a sharp knife and was cutting those threads. But
my grandmother would come to me in the crevices of
night, her face pale and clear, her body like the trunk of
a palm tree; she would begin by whispering and then
would scream with her natural instinct that was never
mistaken, "You are lying! You are leaving for a faraway
place, far from al-Najaf!" She would then die down like a
flickering candle, patting me on the shoulder and saying in a soft voice, "Youssef no longer has a place in your
heart. Have mercy on yourself and have mercy on your
memory of me."

The other woman cried out, "I'm tired of the smells
of a bed where one body has succeeded another and
too many desires have been shared." Then she took me
to a future wrapped in thick fog, in which I desperately
searched for the beats of my paralyzed heart. The question of what would be next in my life was hurting me.
It became even more painful: what had become of me?
A woman in her thirties trying to be in control of her
life, fighting for a place in this world, but feeling a fear
that inhibited her steps; every time she got close to hope,
despair plagued her, and every time she decided something, the decision would be extinguished by hesitation.

"Why do I look only at the dark aspects of life?" I
asked myself. "Things are not so bad. I shouldn't close the
doors of hope, only to peer out, like a spectator, through
windows that let in smoke that blinds me."

During that long, cold night, I held fast to my feelings. I stripped them of hazy illusions and discovered
that Moosa's grip on my affections had become lighter.
My feelings for him were like a slow-moving stream
when I was longing for a strong, overflowing river. A
voice echoed from far away, "Was Youssef an overflowing
river?" But I didn't halt to remember those feelings that
had been broken just by crossing the homeland's border.
I was still chasing Moosa, trying to find a way to reshape
my feelings toward him. My God, what was so mysterious about this man? I was unable to steer my own ship,
so why shouldn't I let another captain steer it? What was
it that I really wanted?

Outside the room, the wailing wind played with the
trees, making fearful sounds. The impetuous rain first
pounded on the door with violence, then knocked quietly. My toes stiffened, and the cold spread to my bones.
The smells of the bed, which I had gotten used to, pierced
my senses once again. The other woman was forcing her
way into my mind, firing my memory so that the past was
rising like hair on my skin. The past was attacking like a
thief, striking me fiercely.

My heart burned as little things glimmered in my
memory: my home's furniture, my grandmother's stories,
and my mother's spirit, which would roam through the
house despite her eternal absence. Oh, God, what was this
spiral in which I was trapped? I was constantly returning
to the point from which I had begun. The night's hours
were shapeless, agonizing, lonely, anxiously bringing
forth both dark and luminous images. I was like a blind
person fumbling through eternal darkness. I could see
a playing child nibbling barefoot on red mulberries. I
reached my hand toward her, but she slipped away, and
her features faded behind thick black smoke that enveloped me as I ran from it. I plunged once more into memories that mercilessly stripped off my skin. The Factory of
Hope crossed my mind. I remembered Shafiqa scourging us with her commanding voice. I longed for the
arguments between Mother Khadija and Salwa. Aziza
appeared before me with her lofty looks and refined temperament. I wondered if she still dreamed of marrying
a man in order to escape poverty, siege, and the land of
wars, as she had called it.

The clock's ticktock knocked at my head. I washed
away all the pictures and cleared a path for the other woman, who had returned from the depths of my soul,
crying, "Moosa, open a clear way for me with your stick
and wipe away your secret mystery. You, creature whose
riddles I'm unable to decipher, why do I wander with you
in a vicious circle? What do you hide behind your deep
eyes? Show me how to determine my way and pass into
yours without being wounded. I wish you had revealed
to me the secrets of your life so that I could know what
kind of man I might be journeying with, but you say little
when it comes to specifics, as though you are fleeing from
something you want to forget and clinging to whatever
will grant you forgetfulness."

The wind was still swirling outside, but the rain had
stopped. I didn't think I would sleep before dawn, but
then I woke up and remembered that I had dreamed of
Nadia. She had been walking a spiral, her arms folded
over her notebook, which she had hugged to her chest.
I had been following her without her knowing, and
when she noticed my footsteps, she became frightened
and began to run until she disappeared behind a door
surrounded by barbed wire. As I caught up to her and
stepped to the entrance, a thick fog had rushed upon me
and then cleared, revealing endless emptiness.

It was seven in the morning. I looked at Nadia's
notebook on top of the books and began to reflect on the
dream. She had been angry. She was still angry with me. I
had fallen into confusion; she surely was attacking me, as
if I had committed a great offense against her. Oh, God!
What might it be?

WE WERE SITTING on a green wooden bench near hundred-year-old stone pillars. I was staring at the columns that mocked our lives, which were nothing in the scale
of time.

Moosa put a leather satchel on his lap. I could hear
him saying, "I missed you. I didn't sleep last night."

"Me either," I said, still looking at the stone pillars.

A light, chilly wind was playing with the cypress
branches, and children were shouting and playing ball
near us. Noisy families busy with their own concerns sat
on other benches. It was Friday, and everyone was free of
duties. People were walking slowly as they entered and
exited the Roman amphitheater, eating sandwiches, drinking juice. The tea vendor was carrying his teapot, hawking
his merchandise. I didn't need anyone to point out the Iraqi
faces; they were easy to find in Amman, sharing feelings
of homesickness. Plus, Iraqis use a singular dialect that
doesn't resemble other Arabic dialects. I heard Moosa saying, "I feel as if I haven't seen you for ages."

I didnt know what to reply. It was the first time that
he had talked about his longing for me. I kept quiet. I
was looking for something lost inside me, wondering
how love springs from our skins to become a hurricane
that upsets the soul's balance and plays with the heart's
rhythm. How far I was from that! Why wouldn't love
flourish in exile? Why were its embers dying and failing to warm the limbs? Was love mistaking the time and
place? Where was the warmth of things around us? Was
I heeding my grandmother's warning to hold the stick
from its middle? How could I explain my longing for
Moosa every time I retreated to my room? Did I just need
him? Did I need a man's company, separate from passion
and desire? Moosa lifted me from my chaotic feelings as
he broke the lengthy silence.

"Maybe I failed in the way I expressed my feelings;
perhaps I should have asked, 'Are you engaged?"'

Although his question didn't surprise me, I defensively replied, "No!"

His eyes didn't believe me, so I went on, "I was
engaged."

He lit a cigarette and began smoking slowly. "And
now?"

"I'm free."

"Can I know more?"

"It's finished and doesnt worry me. Out of sight, out
of mind, as they say."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Many things abide in us without our acceptance. For
example, do we accept being here? More than three million have left Iraq since the Gulf War, scattered all over the
world; hundreds of them died while they were dreaming
of another country. Do you think they accepted it? Our
feelings, too, rust with time's passing, and we need to
make the effort to polish them."

"Feelings don t rust if they are made of solid materials. What we lose and what we miss leave their traces in
the heart."

"What about you?"

"I was in a relationship. But years of flight, absence,
life in the camps, poverty, and the passing of years, all
that has made me another man. My views about life have
changed. And since I have forever lost the woman I loved,
I've reconsidered things in light of the circumstances in
which I've found myself."

"We desire, but only fate draws and plans."

"But we shouldn't leave things to fate."

"Tell me about that woman, if you don't mind."

He threw away his cigarette butt. "She was extraordinary in every way. You remind me of her, but I'm not sure
how-perhaps your calm or the way you talk or something else."

"Is that why you chose me?"

"No. When I saw you, I felt I needed you, and that
need grew with time. When I saw you in difficulty, I
made that offer."

I shrank into myself. He hadn't said he loved me.
He'd said he needed me, but love is not a need; it is a
feeling that overturns our thoughts and changes our
lives' trajectories. Love is like a fever inhabiting our
bones, a delicious fever, whereas need is dictated by circumstances, and in our case it was dictated by exile. I
couldn't blame him for it when I had the same feeling. I
needed him; I needed anybody who could tie down the
loose thread of time.