Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation)

by Hadiyya Hussein

  On February 26, 1991, troops had headed down a wide desert road. They had returned in failure and defeat. On the road, they had been a target of the enemies' planes despite the withdrawal order, which many commanders hadn't believed, knowing the president's stubborn insistence on putting them in one hell or another. They had been returning home, frustrated. Under fire, they had melted into their vehicles' steel, and their bodies had been carbonized. The fortunate ones had walked hundreds of miles, torn with hunger and humiliation, and many had fled to the Saudi border, looking for escape.

  The feeling of humiliation was shared among the army and the people, who had no hope of relief except through revolt. The first spark started in Basra and spread to the other provinces. The defenseless people were moved by despair, isolation, bitter defeat, oppression, and the widening gap between them and their ruler. This is how it was: vanquished people and angry, demoralized troops who had left behind them burned corpses and damaged machinery came together. Statistics say that thousands of troops had chosen captivity and that 65 percent had deserted from the army; ten thousand troops had fallen dead on the road in retreat.

  Police stations, ministries, and party organizations fell into the insurgents' hands. Some of their occupants ran away, and others joined the uprising. The starving people broke into the government stores of grain and food and took everything they could carry. Wounded soldiers sought refuge in houses where they were not asked for their names. Names had no importance in those horrible hours. Nadia wrote in her diary how she rushed to assist the wounded. On her way back, she saw a fallen soldier near their house. At first, she didnt recognize him. She held his hands to help him stand up. His clothes were covered with blood. Then she heard him whisper, "Nadia, don't worry. This blood is not mine. I'm hungry and don't have the strength to walk."

  She couldnt believe that it was Emir. His face was soiled with mud, and his eyes were hollow. He fell into her arms, almost fainting.

  "Try for me, my darling. Please. Hold on."

  At home, she offered him some water and wiped his face. Her mother rushed to give him some of Nadir's clothes.

  "Take this, my son, and I will prepare you something to eat. As for your clothes, I will burn them."

  Emir recovered after two days and joined the insurgents. The provinces fell one after the other. Emir did not return to Nadia's house. She thought that he had gone to Hiyania to reassure his family, but he never reached them. Instead, he met an officer and a sergeant from his unit. They suggested that he travel to Karbala to support the insurgents there. By the time they entered Karbala, before dawn, the holy city had already fallen into the hands of the authorities.

  Everyone who has survived remembers the events of the uprising and how helicopters circled the city. Houses, factories, and stores were demolished. Armored cars entered the city, burning gardens on both sides of the street so that no one could take refuge in them. Those who attempted to escape death via the outlying roads were trapped by helicopters that poured white oil on them and then threw firebombs, reducing them to ashes. At the same time, American helicopters hovered in the skies, watching the events of the new battle of Karbala, where children were exterminated along with their mothers and the elderly. Those whom the authorities caught were transported to unknown places from which they never returned. With horror falling upon the houses, Karbala became a ghost city filled with the smells of decay. Its streets were empty except for tanks, the regime's armed men, and the bodies that no one dared to bury. The authorities had forbidden their burial so that they would serve as a warning to others. The corpses remained disfigured and rotting for many days until they were buried in unknown mass graves. The same thing happened in other districts as well. Highlevel officials or their friends attended execution ceremonies. On a video smuggled to many humanitarian organizations, the president's cousin Chemical Ali could be seen beating many young men to death with his shoes and the butt of his gun.

  Emir vanished, like many others who died, escaped, or disappeared in secret prisons. Nadia had written in her diary, "One friend told me that Emir didnt fall into the hands of the regime, and the last time he saw Emir, Emir had said to him that he intended to return to Basra. But he never returned, and I have no news from him now."

  This was how so many lost touch. Fathers didn't know anything about what had happened to their missing children and were unable to search for or ask about them. Perhaps they accepted their fate, for the missing ones never returned. Family, wives, and lovers convinced themselves that there was no way for them to meet each other again. But Nadia had kept flirting with hope, believing that Emir might have left the country, like those who succeeded in fleeing through Kurdistan or through the desert to Saudi Arabia.

  EVERY TIME I went to the Refugee Office, I would see new faces. Since it was too early to let us in, the policeman at the door asked everybody to withdraw to the sidewalk. Some listened, and others grumbled. When the officer finally opened the door, everybody rushed in. I pushed my way through the crowd to hand in my appeal application. The policeman shouted, "Don't push!" A man asked about his residency permit renewal, and the officer pointed at the announcement board.

  "Brothers! Please read the posted announcements. There are new instructions. There is a day for general consulting, another for residency and renewal-of-residency applications, and specific days to pick up renewals."

  The man who had asked about residency said, "It is best like this."

  The officer didn't reply, and others went to check the instructions on the announcement board. The women waited on the sidewalk or leaned on the fence while the officer admitted some families. I didn't know who was standing behind or next to me, and my body was becoming tense. I handed in the application and moved away with difficulty. Before I left, I noticed the young man from the other day, the one I had been suspicious about. Why did I slow down? He greeted me, and we walked together, almost as though we had prearranged it. Our steps were slow and rhythmic on the asphalt.

  "Things are slow in the Refugee Office," he said. "Some will now desperately try illegal immigration. What about you?"

  "I just appealed. What about you?"

  "I'm accepted. I'm now waiting for an interview with the Australian delegation. I'll join my brother there. Where do you live?"

  "On Mount al-Hussein. And you?"

  "I live with a roommate, my friend Faisal, in al-Jandawil."

  I waited for him as he bought cigarettes from one of the kiosks. He returned with two bottles of strawberry juice, and we sat on a bench. I looked at him while he was lighting up a cigarette. His face looked different, but his features were difficult to forget: mysterious black eyes, a coffee-colored complexion with the trace of a healed wound above his left eyebrow. This time his features inspired confidence, and I didnt feel suspicious about him, but I was still uncertain. I felt that he was concealing something, and this impression would be confirmed in subsequent encounters.

  When the bus came, he wrote his cell phone number on a piece of paper. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to contact me."

  I took the paper, looking at him as though promising him an appointment. When the bus started moving, we waved to each other, each of us hiding something confused deep inside.

  EVERY TIME I dialed the number for home, I was disappointed. Baghdad preferred to keep silent, as if punishing me for having abandoned it. Every time I asked myself questions, I developed a headache. Days and months passed slowly, and I felt like a desert sojourner lost in a mirage that was failing to quench my thirst. I was unable to change the map of my exile, and I couldn't return to Baghdad.

  I climbed the long stairs to my room, and before I reached it, I had to sit down on the last stair to catch my breath. Umm Ayman came out to tell me that she was about to rent my room to someone else. The carpenter from the downstairs shop needed wood storage; otherwise, he would have to find another place for his growing business. She apologized, trying to look sympathetic as she explained the situation
, and said that she would give me until the end of the month to look for a decent place. While she was rambling, I thought about the burden of looking and bargaining for a new place.

  At that moment, my hand felt the paper in my jacket pocket. I immediately thought of calling him; then it occurred to me that I didn't know his name and that he hadn't written it under his phone number. He hadn't asked me my name either. What would I tell him? Should I say I'm the girl from the Refugee Office? It was amazing that neither of us had asked the other for a name.

  Umm Ayman continued, "You will be fine. I know a nice woman in Mount Amman; I think she has a vacant room much better than this one."

  All day long I felt an emptiness inside me. I looked at Nadia's books on the table. They were inviting me to read them, but my head had become like a balloon, and I was so deprived of all energy because I forgot to have lunch.

  After a while, Umm Ayman came back and gave me Samiha's address. I didnt miss the opportunity to see her the next day.

  ON THE RIDE from Mount al-Hussein to Mount Amman, the bus passed through streets I hadn't seen before, filled with grocery shops, restaurants, and clothing boutiques. I didn't notice the din of the bus passengers; my head was still feeling empty. I got out at the last stop. I read the address that Umm Ayman had given me and soon found myself standing at Madam Samiha's door. When I rang the bell, a woman of indeterminate age and with severe features opened the door. She was wearing flowered cotton pajamas and a transparent blue head scarf.

  "I'm Huda. Umm Ayman sent me."

  She admitted me to a small salon, inviting me to take a seat as she sat facing me. Between us was a small, square wooden table with a Formica top. She spoke in a soft voice. "Welcome. Umm Ayman talked to me and gave me an idea about you." (I wondered what idea she'd given her about me.) "I just have one condition."

  I looked at her inquiringly. She continued, "I need someone to help me at home, and in return I will waive the rent and will add ten dinars monthly."

  I felt humiliated; I hadn't left my country to be a maid. I was going to say that I was a university graduate, but as though she read my mind, she explained with a smile, "I don't need someone to clean the house or to wash the dishes, as you might have thought; I already have a maid. I need someone to look after my blind brother because my job takes a lot of my time."

  I felt better, and I accepted immediately. How could I miss this opportunity when I was about to find myself penniless?

  "Come, I'll show you your room."

  From the kitchen door, we walked out to a small garden. "My name is Samiha, and my brother is Samih," she said, leading me down a narrow stone staircase. We walked past small budding plants and others from the Indian fig family and under a grape tree whose entangled branches reached out to iron trellises. After two or three yards, we came up to a green iron door.

  "You'll feel comfortable with us, and I'll provide you with what you need. This is the room."

  I followed her in. The room was wider than the one on Mount al-Hussein, with a large window overlooking the small garden. It was furnished with a wardrobe, a bedside table with two drawers, and a wooden bed covered by a faded but clean blanket. On the floor was a wine-colored carpet. In a corner, there was a small stove, and a hallway led to the bathroom. "This is a gift," I said to myself, for I had never lived in a better place than this.

  "I forgot to mention that Friday is your day off," she added.

  I didn't wait until the end of the month, the time limit that Umm Ayman had given me. I went ahead and gathered all my belongings in a big box and put my unfolded clothes in a bag. As I was packing, a leather wallet that was among Nadia's belongings fell out. I wanted to browse through it but refrained. "I have no time," I thought. "I'll look at it later on," and I buried it in the folds of my clothes.

  The next day I was sleeping in another bed, tossing and turning, smelling the odors of other people who had slept there before me, the bed creaking at every move. I needed a few more nights to become used to the place.

  HE WAS PERHAPS THIRTY-FIVE, elegant and pale skinned. His eyes didn't seem like those of a blind person; when you talked to him, you felt as though he were looking at you. He had been born with only four senses, and when he was six, his mother had placed him in a school for the blind. There he grew up, studied, and developed a fine taste for music, specializing in playing the lute. He had graduated with honors from the conservatory and taught at the same institute. He spoke quietly, but when he laughed, his laughter resounded through the air. He asked many questions whenever he couldn't understand something or when he wanted to know more about something. He knew the layout of his room, and he could walk to the living room without stumbling over the furniture. His clothes were always clean and elegant. That was Samih.

  As for my job, I started at four o'clock in the afternoon after Samih returned from the school and took a small rest. My job was to read the newspapers for him, do some of his correspondence, and look after his library, which consisted of literature and art books and some cassettes and tapes. Samih was fond of poetry and interested in contemporary poets. Every day I would read more than one poem for him. I had needed some time to get used to the way of reading that he felt most comfortable with. More than once he would stop me, asking me to give him some time to think so that he could absorb the meaning and capture the image in his mind. He would repeat to me that slow reading helps to charge the words with feeling and that poetry is more about feelings than about mere words. He recited many poems from memory for me, and I was amazed at his control of the language. He had a profound stillness in his voice, as though it came from the depths of history. Words flowed from between his lips as if they were living creatures. He was fond of poems by al-Sayyab, and his lute never left his sideio

  One day Samih played for me the poem "A Stranger by the Gulf" with a melody different from the one sung by Sa'doun Jaber. While he played, I imagined al-Sayyab's pain in his exile. My tears flowed silently, hot and burning. After Samih finished playing, he said that he had never found a poem that depicted exile as al-Sayyab did in this poem. I didn't say anything for fear of betraying my emotions, but he sensed the state I had fallen into.

  "You're crying."

  "I remembered my family."

  He put the lute aside and began talking about beautiful things hidden in our souls and how we fail to see them. "These feelings are like buried ore. We only need patience and a little drilling to find them, like those who toil for gold in the mines."

  While he was talking, I was wondering about the limits of his knowledge of archaeology and relics-he who never saw the outer face of life. Despite these limits, I felt as if he were trying to open a window for me to a world that I wasn't able to approach, the world of the innermost feelings that we usually ignore or lose sight of in life's clamor. But those feelings soon vanished at night, when my sorrows flourished and I realized that time was slipping away. Every night I tried to recollect my soul as if to reconnect it to its original womb. But anxiety roamed through my body, squeezing me and snapping at my flesh until I felt I was shrinking. Alone at night, I murmured, while memory, like a naughty child, dug up the past, uncovering the details I had buried. I lay in wait for obscure voices-voices infused with the darkness that crept under the blankets and clothes to reach my bones.

  Samiha turned out to be a very kind woman. In my mind, her severe features smoothed into calmness and softness. In the mornings, she would drop Samih off at the conservatory and then go to work at one of the banking companies. She would insist that I eat breakfast with them, and on holidays she would invite me to lunch. From time to time, she would ask me about my situation in Amman and about my family back in Baghdad. We would often find ourselves drawn into conversations about politics, and I found out her bold and frank opinions about the miserable reality of the Arab world. Within a short period, she was able to break through my psychological reserve toward strangers; I felt so comfortable that I confessed my problems. She was very sympathet
ic and told me, "The place is yours; you're safe here-and don't hesitate to ask for anything." I was almost in tears from the emotions that this fine woman stirred in me. Later on I would learn that she'd dedicated her life to her brother and had never married. On another occasion, she would confess to me that she'd had a single love affair and that at the end of it she had closed the door on her feelings.

  WE GATHERED EARLY in front of the Refugee Office. As usual, some women sat on the sidewalk. Through the bars, we stared at the courtyard. I was looking at the newcomers, but I was also looking for a black-eyed young man with a dark complexion and a well-proportioned body. I didn't find him.

  A cold wind played with the branches, and the rain drizzled onto faces and sidewalks. The officer appeared with a bundle of papers, and everybody stretched their hands out and clung to the bars, getting ready to go in. He handed out a few small numbered cards, letting in those with numbers up to fifty. Since it was the consulting day, I asked about my case.

  "Nothing for you for now," he said. "Give us a call if you cannot come."

  I began scanning the faces again, looking for the brown-faced man. Something told me he wasn't coming that day, but his shadow walked with me to the bus stop, accompanied me on the ride home, and bade me farewell at my door. I couldn't breathe as I sat alone, thinking about my status. It occurred to me to contact him. I looked for his phone number in my purse pocket and walked out to the closest phone booth.

  I think he had been asleep, for his voice was soft and hoarse. "Yes? Who is it?"

  "It's me. Sorry. I'm the girl that you met at the Refugee Office."