The Long Way Back

by Fuad al-Takarli

  As I listened to the old woman’s halting words, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was listening to Midhat’s funeral oration. The Hajji’s demented chanting came from the small room off the courtyard, a soft, uninterrupted burbling, and I had the urge to free myself of this hateful feeling by any means possible. I asked her where Midhat had slept and spent his days while he was staying with them, my voice breaking several times in the course of this short sentence. She and Munira turned to look at me, Munira’s expression fierce, despite the tears glistening in her eyes. As the old woman pointed upwards, Husayn said, “Upstairs. He slept in my bed.”

  Munira stood up suddenly to go upstairs, as if it was settled that this would be her next move. Sana managed to stay close to her one way or another, disappearing among the folds of her black abaya, squeezing in next to her, or hurrying along beside her. We found nothing of interest in the bare room and stood looking blankly around it. Munira went over to the grubby-looking bed and hesitantly turned the pillow over and looked underneath it, then retreated. The floor was covered with dust and dirt. We weren’t looking for anything in particular, except that we had a vague feeling, perhaps to do with Midhat having been in the place previously that we would come upon a sign of some sort. It was then that, out of the darkness and silence hanging over the room, Munira asked, “Did you give my note to Midhat, Abu Suha?”

  Husayn was already embarrassed at having to accompany us to his room and kept apologizing, but when she asked him this question he really looked as if he wanted to run away from us. He lit a cigarette, and a strong smell of sweat came off him. “Of course I did.”

  “I mean, you didn’t forget, did you?”

  “Of course not. What do you think I am? How could I forget?”

  “Sorry. Thanks,” she said. Then she suggested we go downstairs again.

  After that we wandered aimlessly along the dark winding alleys, not knowing what we should be looking for or where to begin. There were a lot of people about, houses with their doors standing open and others in ruins; the cafés were closed and the effects of the uproar and the horror were imprinted on people’s faces. I was bitterly sad, my strength depleted, but I tried not to show it. It was easy to be sad then, and we needed somebody cheerful to be a token of optimism in our lives.

  We went back home shortly before midnight, Sana stumbling along beside Munira. Husayn slipped away from us shortly before we came out of the mosque. We were drained not so much by sorrow or exhaustion or terror of various sorts, as anxiety, a sharp, nagging fear that anything could happen to Midhat and we were powerless to prevent it. My parents were huddled on the wooden bench by the door to the basement waiting for us, with the light on in the distance. Munira and Sana hurried on upstairs without a word, and I sat down next to them. They were wearier than I was, and my father seemed to be on the verge of tears. With a dark wool scarf wrapped round his head, he gripped the edges of his abaya. They interrogated me relentlessly as if I was privy to my brother’s fate and was keeping it from them. I would have liked to tell them my impressions of out search and say that I felt in some vague way we would soon know what the future held for us, but the mass of wrinkles on my mother’s face, deeper in the pale lamplight, her mouth twisted in pain, and the look of eternal supplication in her eyes, made me hold back.

  The gently swaying carriage rocked Sana and Suha’s heads to right and left, and the streetlights accentuated the tiredness on their faces. I was enjoying the cool breezes, not wanting to arrive anywhere. Goals were no longer something I could deal with. All the same, there were secret decisions which deep down I was certain would have to be made. Because the end often lay between two extremes: the infinite on one hand and the fluctuations or the heart on the other. That evening towards the end of Ramadan, when Adnan and Husayn had finally appeared, looking like messengers of doom, I felt in a way that I was confronting the end,

  They arrived without advance warning, making an exaggerated amount of noise. On the brink of despair, we were ready to grasp at the most trivial signs relating to Midhat. they wanted to see Munira. She came out of her room on the first floor, not knowing who was asking for her. They were sitting on the wooden bench outside the smaller basement room, exhaling cigarette smoke ferociously. I hurried ahead of her. Madiha and my mother were already with them. I noticed straightaway that Adnan was wearing khaki and appearing somehow inflated with pride. He looked intently at me, then shook my hand indifferently My mother was talking to them in her inexplicably humble, imploring tone of voice. I didn’t know what they wanted exactly, but guessed their presence had something to do with my brother. They were silent, not answering my mother’s incessant questions. As far as I remember I asked Husayn whether there was any news, and he gestured towards Adnan with a jerk of his head. I turned to look at him, then heard the sound of Munira’s feet at the bottom of the stairs. Adnan stood up suddenly. He was tall and broad-chested. He crushed his cigarette nervously underfoot. She approached us wearing a loose blue dress, with an inquiring look in her eyes, but when she recognized Adnan she stopped a few paces away and said nothing, her face pale, her right arm frozen in front of her. None of us spoke for what seemed like a lifetime. Then Adnan addressed her. “How are you, Aunt?”

  The tremble in his voice, it seemed to me, betrayed some fear. Her large eyes shone and she blinked rapidly, but didn’t answer him.

  “I’m sorry” he said, feeling around in his pockets. “I haven’t come at a good time. But I wanted to help under the circumstances. Husayn came to sec me the day before yesterday and we went, I went with him,” he took a little card out of his pocket, which he kept in his hand, “I went with him to—the important thing is we don’t forget out relatives.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry Aunt Munira, but I think Midhat.. .” he hesitated again. “This is his ID card. I got it from some friends of mine. they found it in his pocket. I’m sorry. My condolences.”

  My heart beat violently. Madiha’s wails, followed shortly by my mother’s, did not stop me observing Munira as she leaned against the wall and put her hand up to cover her eyes. From that moment—when I was surrounded by them all, but alone with her in a world where only she existed, as they exchanged expressions of condolence and she collapsed on to a nearby chair and they clung to Adnan, asking him for details of the killing, the body, the burial, and my father came down and the children were shouting—from that moment, all I could see was the end, as clearly as could be. There were two different routes to it: one began that evening with Fuad’s face in the sunset, when I was swept away with him into the dark abyss and he remained in my soul, his death imprinted on my life forever; the other began with the red dusk when she filled the sky around me. But I hadn’t allowed myself to be swept away with her, because of my cowardice and stupidity I had escaped with the loss of some limbs and reached this second death still carrying the first within me. And so I became aware of the fact that endings always repeated themselves, and that was true hell.

  The carriage with its tired old horses dragged itself along the street with us silent inside it, and I marveled how everything came to an end and people saw that and did nothing to stop it and still went on living. We buried my brother Midhat with our imaginations and didn’t let out sorrow inconvenience anyone. Until the end we remained embarrassed and bewildered, unaffected by myths of martyrs or heroes. Relatives and a few friends came shyly to offer their sympathy. Husayn sat with my father in the alcove, and I sensed he was happy with this new feeling of belonging, his untidy beard, and all the little duties he rushed to perform. Adnan also visited two or three times with his parents, and on each occasion he wanted to see his Aunt Munira, but such conduct did not fit well with the traditions, and his wish was not granted. At night when they were all asleep I felt that she wanted to bring my life to yet another ending. I was unable to talk to her, and her pale face aroused unparalleled emotion in me. Even enveloped in black she shone out, and each time I tried to look at the world around her I failed and my eyes re
mained locked on to the hair falling around her thin shoulders and the resolutely closed mouth.

  As the carriage turned the corner we were all thrown to one side. The two little girls laughed and Madiha scolded them. The lights in Kilani Street were a faint red and the noise there was at its height. The driver stopped a short distance from the entrance to out alley, and we got down and walked. I lagged behind them and they soon became no more than shapes moving ahead of me. The desire never to arrive was still strong in me.

  We pushed open the big door, which stood ajar, and went along the dark passage. The yard was silent except for some intermittent twittering of birds. Madiha and the girls went upstairs while I sat on the bench by the little basement, I was tired, but not only because of this sad, upside down way of life, or the dearth of openings ahead of me, or the poor flawed creatures I lived with; I was weary of my own impotence and confusion, of the way things slipped through my hands. She was my only concern. This had been the way it was since Midhat’s death; she had begun to take up more of my attention with each passing day, and everything that concerned me and her tired me out, everything.

  I heard someone calling my name. I thought it was my mother and was amazed to discover that it was my father, his voice soft and broken.

  “Karumi, why are you sitting down there? Come up and be with us for a bit.”

  “Yes, all right,” I answered, getting to my feet unenthusiastically.

  I found my mother lying on the couch in the alcove, swathed in black, with a ragged piece of black cloth tied around her forehead, and Munira’s mother smoking quietly beside her. I inquired how they were and they answered noncommittally. I sat at my mother’s feet, taking hold of them and squeezing them gently through the cover.

  “How’s Husayn, Karumi?” she asked. “Why didn’t Madiha tell us anything? She disappeared into her room with the girls.”

  “He’s fine. Very well. He said Abu Sarmad came to see him. His old boss.”

  “Why? Is he going to give him back his job?”

  “If he gets better, why not?”

  “Praise God,” commented Munira’s mother.

  “Are you saying he doesn’t drink any more?” persisted my mother.

  “God knows, Maybe not.”

  “Praise the Lord.”

  “May God hear you. Perhaps he’ll go back to his family and sort his ideas out.”

  “About time!”

  My father came out of his room. “Why are you sitting in the dark?” he said, switching on the lamp, then sat down with us.

  I heard the sound of light footsteps, it was Sana in her short black dress, looking like a bird whose feathers had been dyed.

  “Sana dear,” said Munira’s mother. “Where’s Munira?”

  “She might be in her room. Shall I go and see?”

  “Not now dear, in a bit. I want the bottle of sleeping tablets. She took them the day before yesterday and hasn’t given them back yet.”

  “Where’s your mother, Sana?” my mother asked.

  “She’s asleep, Bibi.”

  “What do you mean, asleep? Why?”

  “She feels a bit sick from the carriage, Bibi.”

  “There is no power or strength but with God!”

  “How do you mean sick, dear?” my father asked Sana.

  “I don’t know, Grandpa. She said she felt sick and her head was going round.”

  “Maybe she’s tired,” said my mother, attempting to get to her feet. “Let me go and see to dinner for you all.”

  “How’s Husayn, Karim?” my father asked me.

  “Fine, Dad. He’s getting better.”

  “Let’s hope so. He deserves it. He’s a good lad.”

  “If he was such a good person, (rod wouldn’t have abandoned him,” retorted my mother, looking for her sandals.

  “Where are you going, Bibi?” asked Sana.

  “To the kitchen.”

  “Can I come, too?”

  “No, you go and see your mother, Sana.”

  I was anxious, weighed down by random disturbing thoughts. I needed to see her; she was avoiding me just as I was avoiding her, but something had to happen between us.

  “I’ll go and see how Madiha is.” I said, getting up.

  “Relax,” my father commanded my mother. “There’s still plenty of time before dinner. Madiha’s probably recovered by now. Let her make the dinner.”

  The sky was clear as I passed Munira’s door and caught sight of her through the window, sitting in a corner. I found Madiha sitting with her head bowed and her hair disheveled, but when I asked her what was wrong she looked at me hollow-eyed, gave me some vague reply, then got up calmly and went out.

  I stayed on my own in the gray, bare room. The world was falling apart around me but I felt disconnected from it, the chaos inside me making me indifferent. I threw myself down in a chair to relieve my agitation. As usual they were making a racket outside. They would never change their eating and drinking habits until the end of time.

  I heard a door open and close. She had been in the next room and had just come out of it to share out life with us again. I say again, because she had systematically withdrawn from the daily routine. She had begun to cut down the amount of time she spent with other people. She didn’t talk to anybody. and nobody talked to her, either out of fear or respect for her sorrow. In my case it was because I was terrified of breaking down in front of her. She no longer helped with the housework; she went to school two or three days a week and stayed at home the rest of the week, sometimes claiming to be unwell. What was she planning to do? What was there left for me if she vanished? I was overcome by my fears, incapable of understanding anything.

  The darkness enveloped me, making me feel relaxed and secure, far away from everything, as if I had realized my wish never to arrive anywhere. I stretched my legs out in front of me and closed my eyes for a moment. There was a sequence of structures, which I did not understand, but which shaped my life in some way. A sequence composed of my past and the characters in it, what I had done or not done, my regrets and my hopes. If I thought of it—this sequence—as an abstract concept, it would destroy me for sure. But I simply felt it. I neither understood it not denied its existence. Like this sense of foreboding which had been gnawing at me for some time, an insane feat lurking in a corner which I could neither take hold of not banish. Lord, what was the reason for it? Was it a warning to me that I was going to die soon? And did the fact that I was continually haunted by this idea mean that it would come true?

  I had a hand up to my cheek and was staring into the semi-darkness, not really convinced by any of the thoughts passing through my head. I was letting my apprehensions and obsessions run away with me, but in order to avoid this, I should at least know the reason for the damned things. I was always thinking, but I never formed a definite idea. The mind’s eternally flowing spring took me here and there, on excursions both happy and sad, but I never worked out where I stood. In the course of these intellectual-spiritual sallies, I was prone to being misled by an idea which would push me into a destructive act. I was a weak person, unable to make a decision because I was driven by inclinations which I didn’t understand. Was everybody this twisted?

  Someone called me suddenly. I jumped to my feet but couldn’t work out who had called me because they were scattered all over the house. They were all busy with something, rushing to and fro. All except her. My father was sitting cross-legged on the couch in the alcove. Perhaps it was he who had called me; he was strangely afraid of being alone. I went towards him, passing her door, which was shut as usual, then paused at my door, changed my mind, and went into my room. Again I heard my father calling me but I didn’t answer. I wanted to be by myself for a few more minutes. I lay down on my bed and reached out to touch the wall. This was what was separating me from her. This stupid agglomeration of matter was keeping us apart. Except that it wasn’t like that, as I very well knew. It was impossible to separate two people if they wanted to be together
. The opposite must also be true; and if no power in the world could join two people’s hands, what was to be done?

  Of course I was sad as I lay there, letting my thoughts run on and affect my mood. This year, if I failed in my classes I would be thrown out of the university and give the family something more to be sorry about. But they wouldn’t blame me; on the contrary they would find every possible reason and excuse to justify my failing again. So I would be saved, but would the torture be over?

  The door of my room opened slowly, and my father’s form appeared tentatively in the doorway. “Karumi, son. Are you asleep?”

  I answered him, got up off the bed, and went out.

  What was death? To lose someone dear to you, lose their physical presence and not be able to see them again, what did that mean?

  Nothingness was inexplicable. Like infinity, it was impossible to accept. This was why religions developed, possibly But why was death so painful to the living? Was it because it brought home to them the eternal contradiction between the present and the absent? Because their loved ones lived on inside them when they were physically no longer there.

  Take Fuad. I knew that he had gone forever, but he would die a second time when I died. And again when his father died. Then the pain in our lives would be at an end, the contradiction over.

  I was walking in the darkness near the stairs on the far side of the first floor. The sky was clear as crystal, lit by the invisible moon. They had gone quiet for the past hour or two, since supper, and I had spent the time wandering alone in the gloom. Then the lights went out one after the other, except for a very faint light in her room. I was examining my life, trying to shake off the anxiety which had dogged me for so long. Some mysteries had suddenly presented themselves to me. why did I feel an obscure sense of guilt about my brother’s death? How had I contributed to Fuad’s death? Was I some warped creature who fluctuated between evil incarnate and the innocence of a new-born babe?