The smell of cedar wood. Then fresh cashew. Was it Father’s wood that was singing over my head? These were parts of the mosque I hadn’t seen before. The surface of the prayer-hall ceiling was adorned with small, oval glass windows that looked like a flying wild duck, its crystal wings outstretched. Other small glass windows were shaped like red plants, with generous branches so weighed down with fruit that they could fall on my head at any moment. The molding with its green writing encircled the hall like a soothing headcloth wrapped around the head—the ninety-nine beautiful attributes of God. Its green color was calming, causing you to let out a deep breath. Would I be able to make amends with it someday? I wasn’t aware of the two tears that fell from my eyes until they came to rest on the edge of my lips. Two salty drops. I began to weep as I broke into a run, leaving the mosque’s courtyard behind, bolting through the endless domes, afraid that it would come down on my head. Essentially afraid that the voice would emerge. Because the singing I heard wasn’t that of the wood, or the gypsum, or the crystal. The voice was hers. The singing was hers. I turned all the way around as if to regain my balance, drawn into her singing. The colors of ivory fields and copper intertwined before my eyes and mixed with the singing that was resounding in my head as I went around behind the mosque. I walked along the stone ledge that separated the mosque’s wall from the ocean, like we used to do before—Kika and I. I hadn’t yet freed myself from the effects of the images that the mosque’s serenity had placed in me—its fatal beauty, gilded lobes, smooth bricks, polished marble, rose-shaped ornaments, and calligraphy done in gypsum—when I saw the coffin’s panels floating across the water’s surface. It was being tossed by the furious waves and crashing into the rocks. Farah’s red cats disappeared underneath the waves, then reappeared on the water’s surface, rising and falling before coming back to crash violently into the rocks, as if banging on a locked door.
I gathered my pain and went down to the beach. Behind me the gazelle appeared. It was Karima playing with her gazelle kite. The gazelle rose and dipped erratically. Sometimes it would scrape the sand until you’d think it had fallen for the last time, only to rise up a little, enough to make you think it had returned to life. The child ran along the sand raising her hand to the sky. The gazelle was happy with its new life, as if it hadn’t been expecting everything this child was doing. She moved her hand and it did a half-turn as if evading the wind, and she laughed. The gazelle danced and stared at us, its bright colors even more brilliant under the azure sky. The child’s laughter resembled the laughter of the colored gazelle that followed her, trembling violently because of the wind and the running and the string that pulled on it whenever it seemed to behave of its own accord, in a constant back and forth. Then the gazelle opened its wings and flew high, without the slightest effort. Its colors were vivid—light green, pink, and yellow. These resplendent colors would have made me laugh if it weren’t for the pain that had come back to afflict me. This time it was pounding deep inside my head. This was where Kika and I had sat, Kika throwing rocks at the old seagull that couldn’t fly. Farah wasn’t too far away. She was sitting someplace underwater, looking at the mosque. Half human, half fish. I’ll leave the matter of the mosque’s destruction to her. She’ll do her part, underwater, eating away at its foundations little by little, like an army of trained sea mice gnawing away at it pebble by pebble. After a while there won’t be anything left. The beautiful blue water was calm on the surface, but the work will be done from below, from deep down.
48
Farah
Tonight, I’m going down. I am sinking little by little. There’s nothing in my head except for where I am now. My thoughts wend their way toward every beautiful thing. A sinking that feels like going up. I’m not sure if I’m sinking or rising. All I know with crystal clarity is that my eyes are open and my head is clear. As if I’ve finally found peace and there’s nothing more that will keep me up at night. There’s no longer any need to hurry. There’s no longer anything that will drive me to despair. My heart is still beating—thump thump thump thump. Splendid memories accompany me. The heart always remains beating because that’s where all that is beautiful is kept. I try to find the bad things that have happened, but I can’t. Life is neither long nor short. I took my time and crossed bridges. I saw the cities I had to see, and I made my voice heard to whoever wanted to hear it. Whoever doesn’t know anything about life will never know that it was a beautiful life, filled with whatever any life could be filled with. When night fell, I went down. At this hour my mother and two sisters will have gone to bed. Have they fallen asleep? My father doesn’t sleep; hasn’t slept since he came back from the Western Sahara with a missing leg. Is he looking for me? No one is looking for me. Father won’t come. He has enough good reasons not to. His amputated leg being one of them. How could he go from Azemmour to Casablanca with this missing leg, his money stolen, while waiting for an extinct fish to appear?
At the start of this night, a desire I was unable to resist overcame me, as if it was preparing to become a final memory. My nipples gently hardened, even before he lay down next to me. I closed my eyes so he wouldn’t get scared and back off. His agitation moved into me. His fingers were rough. I pictured fingers that had worked with wood for a long time, having mixed many colors. His thigh was cold as it touched my side. Would he move now? His hands were as rough as granite. The granite passed smoothly over my belly. I closed my eyes as if sleeping. I don’t know his name. I didn’t ask him his name. What would have been the use? His palms are the same size as my breasts. Big enough. The hand continues to rub and rub. Then I feel his lips getting closer, little by little. They lick my nipples greedily, the first, then the second. Gently, like two well-trained lips. Should I wake up or follow my dream to its end? The granite goes down between my thighs and I become wet. My muscles soften as his tense up and harden. I feel a delicious wave washing over me. I think he’s going to lie on top of me. Then he gently lies down, as if afraid that I’ll break. When he rises, he feels lighter rather than heavier. My eyes are too drowsy to see what the body perched over me is doing, where he’s taking me. My bones pop with happiness as he enters me. A light sting that’s closer to a tickle. My legs are spread open as if to receive the water of the ocean that resonates next to me. His penis slips in and moves slowly, warmly inside me, like a sweet, rare fruit. His penis slips confidently inside me, easily because I’m moist and ready. I hold tightly to his arms in order to keep him inside me. I pull him to me as if afraid he’ll run away. My thighs open wider, grabbing onto his back to keep us from leaning to the side from the violence of the movements and convulsions and the rising and falling. Little by little his colors invade me. I don’t want them to stop before my body has restored its form, and he doesn’t stop. I’ve always needed something good to hold on to. His eyes are closed. The smell of the moon is in my mouth, as is the smell of wood and everything good. He moves up and down calmly, gently, lovingly, while I hold on to his sweaty shoulders. I’m sweating as much as he is. My thighs are open wide enough for me to embrace the waters of the ocean, and to let them drip their honey into my womb and veins and mouth and every part of my body. It’s as if I’m falling into an abyss. My skin heals. Little by little I go back to how I was before, beautiful, with shining skin and no disfigurement. Yearningly, I scoop the water of his life, drinking one mouthful at a time before his well dries up. As if apricot-flavored ice has started to flow from between my thighs.
Life is what it is. Neither short nor long. Tears of joy come to my eyes. The smell of wood shares in my joy. I don’t know how I was swept so suddenly into loving this smell. There’s a light shining all around us. The red cats laugh. I wonder if God can see us right now, and I’m comforted by the thought that God sees all of this, and that He will know how to put our affairs in order. I cry out to keep the pleasure going, even though I don’t know that it’s my ship that will take me to the other shore, healthy, clean, calm, healed, satisfied. Life surges inside me. A ri
ch life perfumed with the fragrance of other lives. This tumult fills the small, arid field inside me. I’m lying down, relaxed, on the water’s surface. New smells surround me—the smell of nighttime seaweed—as well as some old smells. The smell of paint. The smell of wood. And between the cracks in the boards, the night’s light enters. As I sink, I carry enough provisions with me for the road. Every traveler needs to carry provisions. A lot of cats, first of all. So that their moonlike faces can light up the night of my new home. The dark sky takes on a purple hue. Dawn. It’s time to go. Slowly I rise up. A second soul takes the place of the first. A small, happy cricket’s soul. That’s right. Humans will turn into crickets when they die. Their lives dedicated to singing. The only pleasure that will remain. They’ll sing all the time. With their legs and their wings and everything inside them. They will realize how much singing they have missed. Singing is life.
Who do you want to return with in the darkness of the road?
You haven’t lit a fire and you don’t have a friend . . .
All of this brings much joy to my heart as I sink. I rise. Alone, naked, accompanied by the moonlike cats, the young lover without a name, and the eternal voice that is no longer sad—the cricket’s voice.
I wish we could have lit the old lamp in El Kantara
Maybe someone would have found their way.
Selected Hoopoe Titles
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me
by Youssef Fadel, translated by Jonathan Smolin
A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me
by Youssef Fadel, translated by Alexander E. Elinson
Velvet
by Huzama Habayeb, translated by Kay Heikkinen
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A Shimmering Red Fish Page 38