“Naraye kid yursk turk ughli karman shahimi? Naraye kid yursk turk ughli karman shahimi?” sang the Hajji, his face lighting up with childish joy. “We walked, janim, we walked. Oh yes. Sarbul, Karant, Malhadasht. Oh, yes. And Kermanshah. Naraye kid yursk ughli karman sbahim? A big, big city. People on donkeys saying, ‘Dustur. Dustur.’ That means, ‘Make way. Make way’ And the bread—a yard long, janim. A yard long. And there’s great poverty there, janim. Beggars kiss your hands. A sanari there—that’s a hundred thousand dinars—means, janim, a fils, one thousandth of a dinar.” He gave an abrupt laugh, like a gun going off.
The rain came down harder. Midhat thought he heard a knock at the door, loud enough to be audible over the explosions. He exchanged looks with the Hajji and his wife. The Hajji stopped stroking his beard and put his empty tea glass down beside him.
“O God, most merciful of the merciful,” he said.
The knocking was repeated. Midhat stood up, slightly apprehensive. The heavy door squeaked on its hinges. It was two young bearded men with guns. Seriously, without wasting words, they asked him if there was a television or radio in the house. As he answered in the negative, they listened intently, their eyes fixed on his face. The silence in the courtyard behind him confirmed his answer.
“Thanks, comrade.” And off they went.
Midhat hurried back across the yard in the rain, which had slackened off, and told the old couple what the youths had wanted. They began talking to one another in Turkish, a picture of fear. Midhat grew increasingly bored.
“Aunt Atiya,” he said to the old woman, “if there’s something you want to discuss, don’t mind me.”
She looked blankly at him, not appearing to understand what he meant.
“I’m going upstairs so you can be free to talk.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about, son. This senile old fool says everything’s finished and they’re going to kill us.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, son. Sometimes the angels talk to him. I don’t know if it’s rubbish all the same, or what. God is the most merciful of the merciful.”
The Hajji spoke without looking at them: “Peace be upon you.” A torrent of Turkish words poured from him, without a muscle moving in his face, reminding Midhat of the similar fit of garrulousness which had seized him the previous evening. Midhat had left them after eleven on that occasion and gone up to face his solitude, thinking that they must want to sleep and that he could get some rest, too.
The room had been cold and smelly, and not completely dark. He had been unable to see anything when he first went in, then objects had slowly detached themselves from the gloom. His bed appeared to him, and he walked slowly towards it. The window was the source of the pale silvery light bestowing this comfortable dusky glow on the room. He pushed the cover aside and sat on the bed, then felt a twinge in his back and stretched out, flexing his muscles. The explosions continued unabated. No wonder the Hajji was remembering his wartime past. The way they had been led like sheep to the slaughter was terrifying, of course, but in the minutes preceding the attack when the artillery was already blazing away, as the Hajji had said, would that not have been the appropriate time for them to realize that they were embarking on a lethal game, and were about to be involved in a savage operation of mass slaughter, of which they would not be the only victims? Some of them must have been aware of this, but it would have been too late by then to choose peace, like the Muslim Indian who had shown them his genitals to prove that he was one of them and was refusing to fight his brothers in religion. But what an unconvincing sign to give! Sitting on his bed in the sea of half-light where partially visible objects floated, it seemed to Midhat that the silence squeezed in between the explosions was deeper than normal. The roar of gunfire battered his senses, then halted abruptly and was replaced by this strangely profound silence, like a well, or death, then the thunder of the shelling starred up again. This was typical of this era when death and destruction masqueraded as something else, ducking and diving and setting snares. Or was he mistaken in this definition as well? These days death did not bother with masks; it approached with its horrors on show. But still you didn’t believe that you were its target until you came face to face with it.
The room was without walls or boundaries, and with these terrifying echoes of death all around him, a particular kind of fear mushroomed inside him: fear with a sharp taste, as if he was looking at his own corpse, examining his remains. He closed his eyes briefly his whole body shuddering in time with his heartbeats. You couldn’t cease to exist. It was impossible to experience your own end. It went against reason, therefore it couldn’t happen. His lower jaw relaxed slightly. This was just playing with words. It wouldn’t help anyone. She had once said to him, smiling and cheerful, “Everything comes to an end. Everything.” When he had asked her what these things were which were going to end, she had blushed and said with some embarrassment, “Everything.” He had told her that this was playing with words and served no purpose.
Why were these simple things she had said coming back to him now? Phrases whose meaning you couldn’t grasp, probably because they were meaningless. Perhaps she had wanted to say something specific and hadn’t had the nerve. The thought brought him up short. She, with him, saying something specific to him. She was with him, and he was with her. They were together in the same place and time. She was talking and he was listening. And if he wanted, if he had the urge to touch her, he would feel the warmth of her soft hand. A series of explosions nearby startled him. They seemed to come from the next door house. He jumped up and went over to the window. He felt like going up on to the roof. The sky was clear and light. A hurst of gunfire sounded in the distance and was answered by another a few moments later. Such a destructive dialogue! He turned away from the moonlit window and stood motionless, confronted by the vague outlines and dark smudges of the objects in the room. Suddenly he felt his nerves tingle, his scalp prickle. She was beside him. He felt her resting against his left shoulder, on the point of saying something as she gently touched him. He felt the weight of her invisible arm on him. If he moved his head slightly her hair would brush against his cheek. He turned around. The stars were shining brightly in a clear, dark blue sky. His childish excitement was marred by feelings or humiliation and dejection. He recalled fading thoughts and memories, but it came to him in an instant how distraught he had been and how lost, and how he had insisted on remaining lost, on running away; he remembered his hollow pride, his wasted emotion, his masochism, his defeated, tarnished love. He leaned against the wall by the window, feeling completely bewildered and shattered. From the struggle to deny to himself that she was still part of him emerged the single, overdue question: what should he do?
There wasn’t much left that he could do; the number of options open to him had narrowed considerably. He felt his legs go weak and was afraid that he was about to faint or throw up. He went out of the room and downstairs and noticed the clock’s shining hands pointing to one in the morning. He stood hesitantly in the yard. Perhaps they weren’t asleep yet. He heard what could have been murmured conversation, went up to the door, and gently pushed it open. In the light of the small oil lamp he saw the Hajji sitting on his bed in a tattered black headcloth, telling his prayer beads and talking to the old woman Atiya, who was lying in her own bed. When he saw Midhat he halted his discourse and the old woman sat up.
“God be with you,” said Midhat. “I couldn’t sleep. What are you doing?”
The Hajji chanted something in Turkish, swaying his head slowly from side to side in time with the words, which were like a song. He looked from Midhat to the old woman, as the lamp cast waves of red light over his lined face.
“Come in, Mr. Midhat,” said the old woman. “We’re not doing anything. This is your home. Your uncle here is just remembering the men in his regiment. God rest them, they died fifty years ago, but see, when it pleases God, he remembers all their names.”
“Mariush Abd
al-Hasan Jafil,” the Hajji began.
Midhat went in and sat on a chair facing the old woman’s bed. Once he had shut the door the explosions sounded fainter, and their importance was further diminished by the Hajji’s strange roll call of his comrades’ names,
“Shall I make you some tea, Mr. Midhat?”
The Hajji had his eyes closed and was swaying in time with the words as if he was singing, his features immobile in his old man’s face. Midhat shook his head.
“Peace be upon you . Glass Abu Battush, Minshin Gagula.”
The old woman laughed unconcernedly.
“Sahan Maya, Hamid Hannun.”
The sight of the Hajji shocked him. What was this decrepit old man doing? Why, now of all times, was he evoking these reminders of death? Was it because he thought there was no escaping it, and it was prudent to train yourself to accept it? Why should anyone accept death, nothingness?
“Rahi Isned, Tahban Mir’id.”
Was not man’s response to extinction always as clear as the sun: a categorical refusal? Even when things were bad, when a man fell, chose to fall, turned his back on life, was he happy to become nothing? How could he be? It was against nature, against a man’s fundamental makeup, Extinction was something that happened to you, not something you willed. It attacked you out of the blue, this terrible thing, and defeated you when you were off guard. You needed to examine the concept closely and understand the nature of your enemy,
“Shall I make you some tea, Mr. Midhat?”
“Goter Madhush, Rekaan Shidhr.”
The old woman was sitting up in bed, clothed in black, looking at him, the light from the lamp playing on her wizened face. In her tone of voice and intent gaze he detected a fear which she wanted to hide and was ashamed to reveal to him.
“Thank you, Aunt, thank you. There’s no need for you to make tea at the moment.”
There was a loud, muffled explosion as if the earth was shaking and grumbling beneath them.
“Oh God, most merciful of the merciful.”
However, the absolute abiding principle was survival, not a brief shining, then extinction. You had to survive, however high the price. There was no substitute for life. It was the priority.
“Maadi Nadwan, Durdush Wawi.”
“Do you know how it will all end, Mr. Midhat? Is the Almighty going to spare us?”
The Hajji’s chanting slowed down, and he stopped moving his head from side to side as if he was waiting for Midhat’s answer. Midhat looked at the old woman, wanting to communicate to her the idea which had become clear in his mind, about life and survival. He felt it may have imparted new strength to him, strength which he had been lacking for some time.
“Don’t be afraid, Aunt Atiya,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. It’s nothing.”
“Shabbut Smari, Kharayyis Mishkil.”
“There’s nothing we can do, son. There’s nothing for us in this world. All the same—praise God—life is beautiful!” She pursed her lips. “Oh God, let us live the time remaining to us as well as possible, for You are the most merciful of the merciful.”
Midhat did not know how to talk to her, what words to use to reassure her.
“God willing, Aunt. God willing,” he said, then was silent.
They continued to exchange glances, and he felt they had reached an understanding on some basic issues, without knowing why. The sound of shelling filled the darkness around them, shrieking, growling, thundering, howling. She understood that they were in a crazy situation whose outcome was impossible to predict, and that life was too precious to waste on matters you couldn’t always comprehend. He was about to say something to her, tell her about his idea and ask her what she thought of it, when the sound of the Hajji’s snoring drowned out the shells. He had dozed off as he sat on the bed, his head bent forward on his chest. The old woman quietly got up, made his bed, then laid him down and pulled the cover over him, having taken his prayer beads from him and put them under his pillow.
“Excuse me, Aunt,” whispered Midhat, rising from his seat. “You go to sleep, too. Have a rest. Everything will turn out all right, God willing. I’m going up to bed. If you want something you only have to call me, Good night.”
Her features were full of resigned misery, the misery of accepting the inevitable. She flung her arms wide. “God willing, son. God willing. Sleep if you can. If you want anything to cat or drink, come down here, son. I’m not going to sleep. Don’t worry about us. Good night.”
Her tone and manner of speaking saddened him. The air was cold in the courtyard, and gunfire reverberated continuously. He was afraid of sad, despairing people because they robbed him of the strength he needed for his idea, the idea which he had to live by.
He went slowly upstairs. Sometimes the logic of events was such that you were not given the chance to test something you believed to be of central importance in your life. Everything ran smoothly, easily, with no complications, as it always had done for him, until . . . The room still smelt repulsive, the darkness and light mingling and canceling each other out. Again he did not switch the electric light on, but went over to the moonlit window and stood by it... as it had done for him until Munira came into his life. The sky was smooth and glittering, glittering. He felt disturbed and his heartbeat quickened slightly. Was he having another crisis like the one a day or two earlier, when it had become clear to him that he was standing at a crossroads and had nothing to show him which way to go?
His guts were in turmoil. He spread his arms and gripped the window frame. Why was he making Munira this cut-off point in his life? Why had he made her the deciding factor in his future, in a crucial choice he was not ready to make? Was she really this fragile creature, with no strength or value or significance?
He rested his throbbing forehead on the cool wall and closed his eyes. That felt better. What confused him, and made him have a circumscribed view of things, was that he mixed up thoughts and feelings, but this was inevitable. There were some basic truths which escaped him. He was acutely aware of them, then suddenly they slipped away. If he was able to grasp the fine thread which presumably connected these truths together, this would be a good start.
Supposing he took his current situation as a starting point—where did he stand? Besieged, driven out of home, at the end of his resources. That would get him nowhere. He felt annoyed by the presence of vague trains of thought which he couldn’t avoid: for a start, he was running awav from her; that was the basic fact. Running away from the slim body wrapped softly round him, from her warmth, from his love for her. Fleeing from his beloved, his wife. From the kisses and smiles and affectionate glances. From his happiness. But he shouldn’t be doing it. It was for appearances’ sake only, and at the end of the day it was meaningless. But it was also . . . was there something else behind these superficial tokens? The other sense of Munira, always there behind her radiant image, those aspects of her which scared him to death, mysterious, complex things in her which seemed to have grown into an independent entity and absorbed her, then been bent on destroying him. This was the true nature of the death now surrounding him, It had first appeared to him in his beloved’s face and was announcing its presence through the savage sounds of war. But this was not all. His limbs were trembling; he was unable to stand steadily by the window and confront the uproar of the night. Munira, who had bestowed upon him her shame and tragedy, had not chosen to be dishonored. His Munira, soft and serene as the sky, had not wanted her shame. It had happened to her. She was pure as the morning star, and she had chosen him and nobody else, because she wanted to be his. This was what gave her her true significance. The other concerns had nothing to do with her soul. They were the false masks of death, which he had finally been able to tear off.
He clung to the bed beside him. He fancied that the sound of gunfire had receded into the distance and that the night had gone quiet for his sake. He was in a state of high emotion, not knowing what was going to happen to him. She was survival then, his beloved, sh
e was the essence of life.
Joy overwhelmed him and he shouted out loud, rocking the bed violently, unaware of what he was saying. Calling her name perhaps, declaiming his love for her. He burst into tears as he laid his weary body down on the bed.
He wept at length, the feeling of overpowering joy never leaving him, certain that in the darkness of this small, smelly room of his, dawn would break, the dawn of his new life. Then he was submerged in a sudden rush of sleep and slept as he had not done for years, the deep, untroubled sleep of childhood.
The thunder of guns did not waken him until around eleven on that sad Saturday morning.
He had said nothing to them when he joined them shortly before noon. He found the old woman in the kitchen preparing lunch for them and the Hajji sitting on his bed wrapped in the green blanket, sending hostile looks into space and refusing to speak anything but Turkish. They ate the dry, moldy bread soaked in gravy in gloomy silence.
Then the dismal rain had begun to fall, shortly after noon. He drank his tea without a word, having made up his mind to leave them at nightfall. He felt no obligation to let them know this. What commitment did they have to one another, leaving aside the intimacy of those last few hours? The two of them belonged to this place in one way or another and might manage to survive here. Also, he felt that from now on he had something which separated him from them. The world and its little details had become secondary to him. Even fear itself, within his new conceptual framework, was no longer any more than an obstacle of a specific nature that he had to overcome. The one person in the world whose presence with him now might mean something wasn’t there. His regrets in this sphere only made him feel more desperately drawn to this absent person—to Munira.
The Long Way Back Page 37