A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me

by Youssef Fadel

  I really can’t see his face, but his eyes are sparkling in the darkness. The neighbors who took care of him in the past got tired of him. He has thirteen children, and not one of them agreed to take him in. Children! They forgot him. They ignored him. Do I know why? “Because children are always following their mother. Appearances are deceiving. There are no fathers. Only mothers. That’s reality, the end. Family, it’s a lie from beginning to end,” he says sighing. “There’s no family, nothing. Family, they’re who you keep passing on the street without saying hello. You meet them on the stairs without saying hello. People you never saw before or you saw them once or twice. Everyone else except for children.”

  Why did he go to the hospital? It was just an idea. To get food and shelter. Or to find family. But they didn’t let him in.

  Does that mean he isn’t going anywhere in particular? Does that mean he hasn’t lost anyone in his life? Except for his kids who kicked him out? He might be looking for a brother or a relative. As if still holding out hope, I ask him where he’s going. At that moment, some lights start coming through the windows. The travelers begin moving, making a lot of noise around me. A baby’s crying grows louder. The lights come on inside the bus. People become more agitated and start pushing each other in the aisle, heading to the door. All this happens at once, and takes me by surprise. I think that if I look closely at their faces I’ll seize traces of dreams still floating on their skin. No, their faces don’t express anything in particular, just tiredness or hunger. Even the passenger coming from Razi Hospital seems in a rush. He leaves his seat without saying anything. I notice he’s wearing a thick, worn coat and a wool hat. The driver says: “Half-hour break.” The restaurant and square in front of him are lit up with many colored lights. Young girls, I don’t know where they come from, appear around the bus. Skinny, half-naked girls, begging for water from those getting off the bus. “Water. Water.” They wave their hands holding empty plastic bottles. From the other side, on the curb, other girls run up to the passing cars and buses, yelling like hungry birds. Then they hurry toward us too, shouting out: “Water. Water.” In Shilha Berber and in other languages, thinking we’re foreign tourists.

  I don’t leave my spot. On the back of the seat in front of me there are marks, names, and dates. All the concerns of the travelers in the same place. Scratches or deep carvings. Marks or strange letters. Who wrote them? Men or women? Or both? And for what? A mother or a child mocking his new world? Or an old man whose kids hate him and before leaving the bus to die in the middle of the road, he writes his last will and testament with these obscure letters so no one could penetrate their secret?

  The passengers look over at the restaurant and go back to the bus disappointed. The ones who know the place are annoyed, saying the driver always stops at this restaurant, which serves terrible and expensive food, because he knows the owner. Others say something suspicious links the two. They sit silently frowning, like students in the classroom. Waiting for the driver, who comes back tottering after fifteen minutes, sits behind the wheel calmly, and turns on the engine with one hand while, with the other, he holds the snack he’s eating.

  6

  Aziz

  11:30 p.m.

  1

  I BEGAN MY MOVEMENTS EARLY this morning, looking for a piece of paper or cardboard or wood, anything hard I can write on, because I’m not doing well. A bunch of years have passed during which my mind hasn’t, for a single moment, stopped repeating: I’m not well. I’m not doing well. I began this morning looking for something hard, as soon as the bird let out two tweets. I got up as soon as it let out its first cries wishing me good morning, without me responding. I don’t respond to morning greetings, I replied to him. I don’t talk to anyone in the morning. Even if it’s a nightingale. I lost my confidence a long time ago. And what’s more, I don’t wish any living thing good morning.

  I woke up strangely ready for work. I stopped and thought about the matter seriously, forgetting the bird and his morning twitters. It seemed clear to me: Today, I’ll find something valuable. More valuable than anything I spread my complaints on. I don’t know what this thing is. Its kind, nature, or value. I’ll recognize it when I see it. I’m sure of it. Fundamentally, I’ll know this is what I’ve been looking for when my eyes fall on it. Or my hands. I’m sure of this, two hundred percent.

  It’s not the first time I find myself on these kinds of solitary adventures. In my previous explorations, I’ve found a nail that looks like a needle and a rare butterfly. Back then, I was at the beginning of my time in this kitchen and I knew nothing about it. On that distant morning, I didn’t mean to look for anything at all. It wasn’t one of my hobbies yet. I didn’t know there were valuable treasures abandoned here, waiting to be uncovered. I was sitting, that morning, recently arrived in this place with its long nights that daylight doesn’t differentiate, staring at the strange world around me: The blackened clay on the walls and the black wooden supports under the ceiling, with the stenches of people and cattle that have passed through here, stenches of never-ending suffering. I was listening to them. All of a sudden, I saw something moving on the wall. I went up to it. I thought, that’s a butterfly. I tried to remember the shapes of the butterflies I had seen before, to remember all the butterflies I knew in my previous life. I got closer. It wasn’t a butterfly. It was two drops of blackened blood on the wall. Old blood. It didn’t have the shape of a butterfly or its joy. It didn’t have the butterfly’s scent. I put my nose on the wall and inhaled deeply. No, it didn’t have a butterfly’s scent, not an old one, not a new one. I sat back down, frustrated, almost hopeless. The dear solitary butterflies that my mind rejuvenated, all of a sudden their wings were fluttering again. Fluttering gently, as if they knew how hopeless and confused I was. Whenever I looked at the two of them closely, life flowed from them as if they were about to fly. I felt that life was pulsating on the wall. I said, as the northerners say: “Good is this life I see on the wall.” A little life, in this kitchen that’s like a forgotten archaeological site. But it’s a life nonetheless and it deserves consideration.

  I went up to it, sure I could read its mind. I don’t like talking in the morning, as I said, but more than that, I’m not good at arguing with people. But I can read the mind of every flying being and I’m good at listening to them. All living things that fly: butterflies, cockroaches, and bats. But not human beings, because they don’t fly. I don’t know how to have a conversation with someone, I don’t know how to respond to his questions, as he’s naked without wings. But it’s something different with a butterfly or a bird greeting me in the morning, even though I always mean to ignore its greetings. I have a special relationship with the flying animals. I understand their language completely.

  I got close to the wall again. Two drops of blood. There wasn’t any doubt as I got closer and closer. If it was a butterfly, if there was one atom of a butterfly in it, it would have greeted me as the bird does every morning. But it doesn’t. When I got back to my spot again, the two drops that knew they were only two drops of old blood stopped playing with my mind. Their wings weren’t on my mind anymore. But afterward, I understood something essential: This place contains treasures, including what I’ll discover today, even if I don’t know what it is yet. I only have to keep going. I forget the piece of paper and keep going. I forget I’m not well and keep going. Setting out from the memory of the two drops that weren’t a butterfly. But they’re a beginning for something I’ll understand at the right time.

  2

  As I said, there are things I discovered after that, after the butterfly that wasn’t actually a butterfly. Once, we were in the middle of a winter so horrible it was like nothing we’d seen before. The rainy season had started a while before, turning the kitchen into a pool of icy mud. The cold burned my joints. It stung my ears more than in years past. You could feel it whistling inside your brain. With the passing of time and the falling temperature, it seemed that what I was searching for had some conn
ection with the cold, with winter in general. With this exceptionally cold season in particular. That’s extremely important. When I found this thing whose shape I didn’t know and that wouldn’t be a snail or lizard or butterfly, but had some connection to the rain or the cold, I’d be able to make it through this season, however harsh it became, with less damage than previous seasons.

  Then this terrifying question, which I’d been avoiding until then, brought me to a halt: If I don’t find this thing, how will I pass the winter? I’d already tied my jaw with a cord so my teeth didn’t crack from the intense chattering. Worse, my eyes had already cried from the bitter cold. This is something shameful I haven’t mentioned before. It hadn’t occurred to me a human being could cry from the cold. A cold piercing the skin like a sharp needle that breaks bones. A cold like sharp daggers. I didn’t cry from pain or injustice or frustration. I cried from the cold. Yes, it’s possible. I don’t want to squeeze myself again into this disgraceful position. That’s why I did everything possible to search. And after one attempt, my hands fell upon something hard. And sharp. And cold. I pulled it out and laid it down again on the edge of the washbasin so I could catch my breath a little. An oddly shaped nail. I didn’t know who put this nail in the hole in the wall or when. A nail like a needle. I didn’t know it was there before my hand came down on it. The hand didn’t know. Nor did the fingers or forearm. The hand didn’t move forward at this exciting moment, with fingers trembling slightly, knowing they were on the verge of a new sensation. It was as if hidden hands filed it, sharpened it, and made a hole in the right end.

  I put it aside for when I’d need it the most. I went back to the basin, looking closely at this unusual piece of iron, not noticing that my hands were pulling a string out of the blanket and putting the end through the hole of the needle, sewing something without knowing what. The hands didn’t know what the string was making and neither did I. Then, without any sense of surprise, I saw a hat in my hands. At that moment, I realized I needed it. Needed this kind of hat designed in my hand’s mind before its memory recognizes it. I thought, my teeth won’t chatter this winter. I won’t cry this winter. I won’t need a string to tie my jaw so my teeth don’t crash against each other, causing a catastrophe I can avoid now.

  I knew once again that this place was full of things more valuable than the spots of blood of the people who’d died before me in this kitchen. More than a butterfly, which is invaluable.

  3

  I sit counting the pulses of my toe, as I’d counted the raindrops falling from the ceiling before. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak. Eleven and a half pulses during the night. Pain weaves its net. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak tak. Tak. Eleven and a half pulses during the night. How many pulses until the cycle of pain is completed? But it’s a pain that doesn’t deviate from the circle of habit. I keep being amazed, asking myself how all this wonder happens in a kitchen of six square meters. Is it really a kitchen? The wooden rafters are black. The smell of burning lingers. And the clay gives the impression it’s part of a wing of an old casbah. Abandoned. The ground is dug up with furrows and gives out the stench of human feces. After a series of pulses I didn’t count entirely, I realize I haven’t moved past my desire to get a piece of paper, which has occupied me this morning. I think about resuming the search and say to myself, where am I going to begin? The east side, where the door is? Or the other sides, where there are walls with this strange geography and curious history?

  This experience is always new for me. With a kind of apprehension, I begin. As if in the woods, I have a kind of doubt. There’ll always be a place my hands won’t reach, as in any forest. There’ll always be a strange place your eyes won’t see as long as you can’t go in all directions at the same time. Condemned by the single line. By the single path. And you have to choose, to take a risk. Either this direction or that. You might gain things and you might lose others. You might lose everything. Waste your energy and return empty-handed. You’re not a chameleon so you can’t see every angle at the same time. You’re not the snake of legends so you can’t stretch your seven heads to move forward in all directions. The darkness is intense around me, above all this. I’m only strengthened by my previous experiences. The butterfly. Then the nail. Then the hat. All my experiences are crowned by unexpected success. I begin with the closest place I know. The wall connected to the washbasin where I sleep. The wall connected to the basin doesn’t require a lot of effort. I can cover its twists and turns even if I’m sitting on my knees. I won’t need more than a half hour for my fingers to cover it all. I don’t find anything in this direction. Hope always begins like that, with a little dashed hope giving you the necessary optimism to go further.

  As for the other directions, they’re still untouched. My ignorance of them hasn’t diminished since I discovered the butterfly, the nail, and the hat years ago. I still don’t know much about them. I often fell into this trap. The trap of moving away from the basin. Whenever I moved away from it, I’d delve into the topography of the kitchen and feel a deep frustration. But I’m calm tonight. Optimistic. I’m a step away from some kind of end. The place is full of ends. I come across copper hidden inside the clay. I’m not interested in it. I don’t wonder at that moment what a piece of copper was doing in the clay. But it’s a good beginning. Encouraging. I keep going. My hand falls on something small, round, nice to touch. It’s a snail. Yes, we’re in a warm month, maybe the darkest moment in it, but the snail is a winter animal. Does its presence here at this time have some meaning? I only pause at this question long enough to understand something else. After two hours of searching, I wonder: Does what I’m looking for require all this trouble? Should I retreat and go back near the washbasin so as not to use up all my strength in the exhausting process of searching? But what if what I’m looking for has a connection with the rat bite and the ruin it produced in my foot? This question encourages me to keep going.

  I stop again after the effort I made to find the appropriate question. That’s because I heard the bird again. Three tweets. This means in bird language that the cook is coming. I hear the sound of his shoes. I stop searching. As if giving myself an additional moment to think, waiting for him to pass. I don’t know his face but I know his eye, which he looks through the door crack with. Not all eyes look alike. I don’t know if it’s his right or left eye, just as I don’t know it he’s white or black. Is he a soldier or a cook in the casbah or a night guard with no rank? This is the second time he’s come today. After the third, I’ll know it’s past midnight. I’m getting ready now to stop him behind the door. Ten pulses. His eye doesn’t blink. I count how long it’ll stay behind the door looking into the kitchen without blinking. The eye stares at the darkness I’m swimming in. The man coming at this time and his eye still doing its gratuitous investigation gives me a chance to go over the difficulty of my search. To think about the possibility of backtracking. It’s not too late yet. I hear his eye breathing behind the door and my hesitation increases. Should I keep going or stop? With the same heavy steps, as if trudging through mud, the man’s eye leaves the hole in the door without blinking.

  I go back to my search. I’ve gone far away from the basin, with no place to backtrack. My goal seems clear to me after the cook’s visit, in a strange way and for the first time since I woke up. Suddenly I begin to see, as if a lamp was lit. I can’t explain what was happening. It’s nothing to do with lamp light, but it’s another kind of illumination. If I wanted to express it in a different way, I might say it’s internal. Like what happens when you close your eyes and see an entire life pulsating under your eyelids, not knowing where it is exactly. But there are glowing lamps, making an uproar with what looks like black light. I see now the bulges of the walls. And the holes. An endless stream of water. And endless spots of humidity. Green as in the spring. We are at the beginning of a heat that’s announced its severity prematurely. Or the end of a winter. The scent of the walls is strong. A scent of clay, chaff, s
weat, urine, and feces. I touch a long shape that feels like a thighbone. It’s not the first time I’ve discovered the bones of people buried in the wall. That’s why my fingers touch the bones without getting too excited, and keep going. Small streams, mountains, and rivers. Uncovering the clay on this side. More bones of someone buried in the wall emerge. I’m not on the wrong path. The path to what? I don’t know yet. Despite the bones that the water falling from the ceiling uncovered. Many people passed through here. They formed part of the structure’s clay. I know I’m nearing my goal when sweat begins pouring from my entire body. I don’t feel the passing of time. So I begin to listen to my panting. A strange sound coming from me like a whistle, as if I’m climbing a tall mountain. My heart beating. My toe ringing, tak tak tak.

  My index finger heads to another hole. A piece of cloth. The clothes of the buried man were tattered. They became the color of clay. Very carefully, I pull on their ends. So they don’t fall apart. I think about all the men buried next to me. In the walls. In the clay. How much time has passed since they were here? Did they spend their time counting raindrops? Or pulses of pain? Did they put on hats like the one I put on when the cold of the southern nights ate away at their bones? I’ll think about them in due course. As for now, I wonder whether I should stop at this point or keep going. Is what I found enough for today? My hand doesn’t care about these questions. Speech isn’t among its customs. It doesn’t concern it. My hand plays with the piece of cloth. I don’t want to intervene in what it’s doing. As if I’ve released a hunting dog in the woods. It won’t go farther than the prey. Without surprising me, it comes back with a gold ring. I didn’t know I was holding gold at first. I didn’t know I was on the verge of unprecedented wealth. I go near the door cracks to inspect the piece of gold and I think about it in light of this last observation.