Papa Sartre: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)

by Ali Bader

  They talked and ate while I looked over their fat faces and the new outfits they wore, with narrow ties and starched collars, a style that was popular in the sixties. They talked with their mouths full, round, bald heads covered with sweat, and glasses continuously slipping off their noses. When their mouths were too full they would push the food in with their fingers. They took turns talking about the philosopher, while I took notes and Jawad ate—he dug in as soon as they invited us to join them. I reproached him and kicked him in the foot, but he ignored me and kept on eating. He shared their food, making sandwiches of kebab and grilled onions. A piece of celery fell out of his mouth onto the table.

  They talked like all those I’d talked to already. I searched for words that would put me on the right path, but to no avail. They embellished the philosopher’s image with made-up stories as if decorating a Christmas tree with random shiny and colorful baubles. They meant well, yet what they gave me were falsifications, perhaps prompted by a desire to hide their embarrassment at having been so long ignored and estranged. They provided me with their information and histrionic comments, played roles, and incongruously arrogated importance to themselves, sometimes obviously, but usually more subtly.

  Their comments about the sixties sounded more like crying over a lost Eden that had cast out the philosopher. Nonetheless, I had no choice but to write down everything, both the noble and heroic motivations that I mutely condemn and the ignoble and sordid emotions that I respect. Such feelings prove that the philosopher was a human being, not a legendary hero, that he was weak, mean, and lazy like the rest of us, not a god.

  Sitting face to face with these two I felt I was dealing with people who organize their lives into a tight system, believing it to be full and complete, the only life worth living. I’m tempted to say that they can’t conceive of the existence of the lives of others who preceded them or others that followed. They’re unable to view things except through their own glasses, lenses of their own making. The men ate nonstop, leaving me little time for questions. No sooner would one stop than the other would start up. I felt squeezed between them. They imparted both valuable and insignificant information, critical and ordinary remarks, and they kept insisting that I consider everything they were saying very important. I thus found myself writing down mostly what they wanted me to record and not much of what I wanted.

  What I was really looking for was the thread that would lead me to the root of the matter. I was seeking highly germane testimonies from people whom I expected to be gifted or endowed with more refined vision than the average person and who could provide me with valuable information that would eliminate the possibility of distortion.

  These two men were not distinct from ordinary people in their view of the philosopher. Their representation of the philosopher was the same I encountered everywhere: among his friends he was seen as an amalgam of virtues, and his enemies saw him as an amalgam of vices. Theirs was first and foremost a moral evaluation. They’d say, “He is the Sartre of the Arab World, and Sartre sent him to save the nation and put an end to the life of banditry brought about by the fifties. His life was complete and pure, a model of greatness and beauty because he did not begin it, as others did, with serious weaknesses.”

  I left the low-ceilinged restaurant with Jawad, who felt happy and satiated, having eaten his fill. A dog loitered outside, drinking water, and two wet cats waited for leftover kebab. Jawad took a photograph as they were eating and was pleased with himself. He smoked a cigarette and blew the smoke from his nose and mouth into the cold air.

  The clouds were getting thicker, and the winter evening sun was sinking behind the minaret. The blue of the sky and the white clouds were tinted with a trace of red. We walked until we reached the royal cemetery with its wet, dark green trees. A patch of red sun covered their tops. It gradually got colder, and walking was becoming difficult. Our fingers were freezing, our faces were turning red, and our limbs trembled from cold. We each took a taxi, Jawad to Hanna Yusif’s house, and I to my apartment.

  That evening I found myself facing thousands of documents, photographs, scraps of information, and commentaries about the al-Sadriya philosopher. They all described an unusual personality, unique in its kind, a personality that represented both the dramatic world of a whole society and the tragic loneliness of an entire nation. It was my task to assess the destructive impact of the imaginary personality that had been catapulted to the rank of the gods, somehow bring this image down from the dizzying heights to which they had projected it in order to fill a huge gap in their own souls, and cope with the bitterness of their failed accomplishment.

  No one among them understood his multifaceted character or the contradictions that produced his positive energy. Nor were they aware of the true nature of his humanity, a distinction of his rather than a defect. I was aware of his weaknesses as I laid the appropriate pieces of fabric to clothe his stripped body and each time I added a new feature to his face. I was searching under his diverse apparitions for the evolution of his personality, the pitches of his wellbeing, and his feelings as they interconnected with those of the world that surrounded him. I was trying to find the rhythm of his childhood and youth and his relationships within the huge social complex. I would not have been able to accept his great value before I had found in it all kinds of meanness, lowness, and vileness, which I considered to be true manifestations of human nature.

  I was not able to trace the outlines of the philosopher’s external appearance and physical form before imposing on his existence a semblance of unity within the order that produced it. In other words, I was looking for the system that provided him with this kind of support, one that exhausted and worried him, in which stupidity played the role of self-effacement, concern with people’s happiness, and a desire for organized reform. Because of my inability—for various reasons—to put all this material into one mold, I had to believe in him and in his philosophy and search for everything: the flowers he loved, the food he ate, the basin in which he washed, the smell of his soap lingering on the wood of the slippery floor. I had to describe his love for gardens, depict his impressions, and examine my own emotions toward those things. I had to look for a series of unusual events that elicited those feelings and moved him as a philosopher. I needed to find his happy, peaceful memories, his love stories—all those anxious feelings connected to events lost in a sea of obscurity.

  At that time I could not find a single person who had retained a genuine memory of him, not one recollection untarnished by forgetfulness that contained a charming image of him. I needed one to place in the appropriate social frame, in its intellectual venue, and in its appropriate location in the biography. Overcome by confusion and distress, I spent hours searching for information. Nadia Khaddouri had disappeared and did not leave a forwarding address, and so had Ismail Hadoub. There were conflicting stories about the philosopher’s disappearance. His French wife had returned to Paris, his father had died, and despite repeated promises by Hanna Yusif to introduce his children to me, I never met them. The only person I was able to meet was Sadeq Zadeh, thanks to Hanna Yusif, who arranged the appointment with him.

  I was walking alone that afternoon, toward a high palace behind the railway station. I had to cross a farm growing lettuce and red radishes. I watched the dark bony-faced peasants working, moving swiftly in the mud and straw near Nadhem Pasha’s small bridge. I could hear the sound of the horses’ hooves on the pavement of the main street, mixed with other sounds. The palace had high balconies, and its upper floors were covered with beautiful tiles. Sloughi dogs were barking in the garden.

  A servant dressed in a colorful Lebanese costume received me. His face was covered with freckles, he had a bushy mustache, and he wore a small cap. He led me to the expensive metal main gate, rang the bell beside the door, and adjusted a thick silver watch that he pulled out of his pants pocket. We walked through a foyer with a polished white marble floor and into a large hall. Black marble stairs led to the second floo
r. The railing was made of wood and stone and overlooked the inner hall.

  I was totally surprised to see Nunu Behar come out of the parlor on the right, while Sadeq Zadeh appeared at the top of the stairs, looking extremely elegant. As he walked down the marble stairs the light from the lamp on the table illuminated his beautiful trousers and the marvelous colors of his necktie. Nunu Behar greeted me with her warm fleshy hand and looked at me with her round face and her slightly full figure. The three of us sat in a room inlaid with precious stones and decorations. A high balcony overlooked rubber trees with dark green leaves. She said to me in a soft, lazy voice, “This is Sadeq Zadeh. You must cooperate with him,” to which I replied, “But I came especially to seek his cooperation.”

  The place had an ambiance of intimacy. Sadeq Zadeh smiled at me with his handsome face and graying hair, while his malicious eyes darted nervously. He explained his position, “Yes, I will cooperate with you, but for my own sake and not for Hanna Yusif.” At this moment I looked at Nunu Behar, whose long black hair fell onto her shoulders. Her sensual face smiled at me. I could feel her humid skin under her thick woolen sweater. “You work for Sadeq Zadeh, not Hanna Yusif,” she explained. “What about you?” I asked, hardly hiding my surprise. “I’m with Sadeq, of course. What do you think? He is the only one financing the project. Do you think bankrupt Hanna is the one with the money?” I continued, “You didn’t say that before.”

  “Everything in due time,” she explained.

  “Why didn’t Sadeq Zadeh contact me first?” I asked.

  “This matter does not concern you,” said Sadeq Zadeh, who seemed slightly upset. He added, “Look at all these files, they’re yours. They are the files of his true biography. This is what you’re looking for. I have them, not Hanna. You should only be concerned with the money and the files, and both are with me, naturally. I’ll provide you with everything, and we’ll end the project together. You’ll finish it up with me, not with Hanna.”

  “I’ll do that, but what if Hanna asks me for the conclusion ending the work?” I asked. “Nunu and I will work things out,” he explained. “But I’m obligated to share the conclusion with him, since he is the one providing me with the money,” I replied, slightly upset. “It is Nunu’s money, and Nunu works with me, not with Hanna,” explained Sadeq.

  “Why this insistence on the conclusion of the finished work?” I asked. When he heard my question, the expression on his face changed. He was smiling and so was Nunu, who was looking at him. He left his desk, brought two glasses of whiskey, and asked if I cared for a drink. Upon my negative reply, he gave the glass to Nunu and explained, “In reality there are things that do not concern you as you write. I won’t prevent you from writing the truth, not at all. I won’t ask you to write things that are not mentioned in the documents. The problem, however, is with the philosopher’s death. People don’t agree on the circumstances of his death. There are many versions. All I want is to choose one of the various endings and ask you to adopt it. I don’t want to do what Hanna is doing, which is to involve you. All I want is for you to present me with all the plausible endings, and I’ll choose the one I want.”

  As a matter of fact I was very pleased with this meeting, since making such a choice would be inescapable. And we might even agree on the same ending. If one of the versions were acceptable and then adopted, I wouldn’t mind choosing it. I took the documents and left the house.

  That evening I began writing the first words of the biography of the existentialist Iraqi philosopher nicknamed the Sartre of al-Sadriya.

  The Writing Journey

  1

  The big clock in al-Sadriya souk chimed seven, waking Abd al-Rahman from his sleep. The sound was mixed with the shouting of street merchants selling vegetables, poultry, and fresh fruits, while the butchers, bakers, and fighting beggars gathered at the entrance of the souk. He was feeling sick. He slowly got out of bed and looked at a photograph of Jean-Paul Sartre hanging on the wall facing him. It was a gray photograph in a beautiful golden frame hung above shelves holding a selection of philosophy books, prominent among them were the French editions of Sartre’s books, organized carefully by title and content—L’être et le néant, Le Mur, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, Les chemins de la liberté, Les mouches—and some volumes of the journal Les temps modernes.

  Abd al-Rahman’s house was located at the far end of Dr. Simon Bahlawan Boulevard, overlooking the open section of the aluminum-roofed souk. It was an extremely tidy house, elegant and beautiful. The rugs were thick Kashani, the high walls were covered with Indian wood, and the comfortable chairs were encrusted with silver and precious stones. Paintings and small pictures hung on the walls in a harmonious and orderly fashion. The outside entrance was made of polished marble shaded by the branches of old eucalyptus trees.

  Abd al-Rahman pushed aside the muslin curtains and peered through the large balcony that overlooked the souk and saw women selling radishes, vegetables, and fresh figs from large baskets wrapped in checkered black scarves that they carried on their heads. Their children, with shaven heads, were breastfeeding. Customers, men and women, were moving among piles of lemons and oranges in huge wooden bowls, baskets of onions, green peppers, apples, and boxes of pressed dates. At the far end of the souk there were cages of ducks, hens, and small birds piled atop one another. Sheep were jumping at the railing of a bushy garden, a mysterious looking thicket where pots of basil and flowers were covered in shade.

  Abd al-Rahman got dressed in front of the long armoire mirror in his warm bedroom. He tied his slim blue tie and slipped on his square eyeglasses with black plastic frames. He compared his reflection to Sartre’s photograph hanging on the wall and was overwhelmed with sadness. What if I were one-eyed? The two of us would have looked alike! Abd al-Rahman had shaved his mustache and styled his hair like Sartre’s. His handsome oval face reflected all of Sartre’s features: a slim nose, slightly rounded cheeks, and a small mouth, all resulting in a similarity that fell short of being complete as long as he had both eyes. What would happen if he became one-eyed and turned into another Sartre? Abd al-Rahman felt at this moment the cruelty of existence; he thought that life was not fair. Had life been fair he, Abd al-Rahman, would have been born one-eyed, God would have made him so, like Jaseb, the vegetable seller of al-Sadriya souk. This illiterate, one-eyed man was not aware of his eye’s Sartrian genius, the philosophical greatness of his imperfect eye, and the place of this imperfect eye in the history of philosophy. Jaseb preferred his good eye to his imperfect eye, unaware of the commonness and vulgarity of his good eye. He was usually sad, ashamed of his physical defect, living in a world where most people had two eyes, a world where everybody sought perfection.

  Abd al-Rahman was well aware of the value and greatness of being one-eyed, but he knew that a metaphysical condition like that achieved by the god of knowledge, Sartre, was unattainable. He lost all hope of ever reaching that condition and felt his existence incomplete and dull. The sight of Jaseb tortured him, and he quarreled with him whenever he saw him. He swore at him, threatened him, and at the top of his lungs shouted at him, “By God, if it were not for that one eye of yours arguing in your favor, I would have smashed your head with my shoe.”

  Jaseb did not understand the philosopher’s position toward his one eye and considered his words a bitter mockery of his physical defect. Abd al-Rahman would swear angrily at him, saying, “Damn your father and your father’s father and Suhail Idris’s father too!” Jaseb had no idea who Suhail Idris was, but realized that the man was responsible for the state of madness and loss that overcame people at that time. Jaseb listened carefully to the comments made by Shaul, the Jew who plotted against Arab existentialism. He was the source of the insults that Jaseb threw at his enemy, Abd al-Rahman, when he stood with his cart close to Shaul’s shop in al-Sadriya souk.

  Abd al-Rahman was haunted by his own binocular condition even while he was in Paris, the capital of existentialism, at the Sorbonne working towa
rd his doctorate in existential philosophy in the late fifties. But he failed in his studies and returned home without a degree in French existentialism. Instead, like all Iraqis who seek knowledge overseas but return without a degree, he brought back a blonde French wife. Trying to console an Iraqi whose son returned home unsuccessful in his studies but lucky in love, Nouri al-Said commented to him, “Short of acquiring knowledge, at least marry someone from among the knowledgeable people.”

  No one at that time knew that Abd al-Rahman had very good and sound reasons for marrying a Frenchwoman. He would not have married Germaine had she been an ordinary woman with ordinary qualities. He did not marry her simply because she was blonde. He married her—and this very few people knew— because she was Sartre’s compatriot.

  Late one night Abd al-Rahman got lost in one of the dark alleys of Paris on his way home from a bout of drinking in a bar. He stood on a corner of the alley by a telephone pole in the pitch-black night as a cold wind whistled through the streets and a heavy fog settled softly over the city. He put his hands in his pockets, rolled up his coat collar, wrapped his scarf around his neck, and was trembling from cold, feeling the humidity seep through his shoes. He suddenly saw a young woman leaving a high-rise building. He stopped her to ask for directions home. She walked with him to his apartment.

  Germaine was a modest young lady working as a babysitter for a weekly wage. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was fair skinned, blonde, and green-eyed. Abd al-Rahman was relieved when they reached the street that led to his apartment, and he asked her about her origins; it’s a common practice among Iraqis upon meeting a foreigner to inquire about his tribe.