I used to look and not see, but I wouldn’t say. Now I see, but what am I supposed to say?
Get up and look at the face of the moon! Do you see your wife? Do you see my father? Certainly you will never see my mother, and even if you saw her, you would never know her. Even I have forgotten her, forgotten her voice and her tears. The only thing I remember is the taste of the dough she used to make in the clay oven in front of our house. She would put chili pepper, oil, cumin, and onions on a piece of dough and bake it. Then she’d make tea and eat, and I’d eat with her, and we’d look at the moon. That burning taste is still hot on my tongue and in my eyes now when I look at the moon; I drink my tea, I look at the moon, and I see.
My mother told me that in my father’s village they didn’t sleep. When the moon grew round and sat on its throne in the sky, the whole village would wake up, and the blind singer would sit in the square and play on his single-string fiddle, singing to the night as though he were weeping. And I am weeping with drowsiness, and the taste of hot pepper, and what seem to be dreams.
The moon is full, my swimmer in white sheets. Get up and take a look and drink tea with me. Or didn’t you people in Ain al-Zaitoun get up when the moon was full?
But you’re not from Ain al-Zaitoun. Well, you are from Ain al-Zaitoun but your blind father moved to Deir al-Asad after the village was massacred in 1948.
You were born in Ain al-Zaitoun, and they called you Yunes. You told me that your blind father named you Yunes — Jonah — because, like Jonah, you’d beaten death.
You never told me about your mother; it was Amna who told me. She claimed to be your cousin on your father’s side, and had come to help you set the house straight. She was also beautiful. Why did you get angry with me that day? I swear I didn’t mean anything by it. I smiled — and you glowered, rushed out of the house and left me with her.
You came in and saw me sitting with Amna, who was giving me some water. She told me she knew everything about me because you had told her, and she asked me to watch out for you because she couldn’t always come from Ain al-Hilweh to Shatila. I smiled at you and winked, and from that day on I never saw Amna at your house again. I swear I didn’t mean anything. Well, I did mean something, but when all’s said and done you’re a man, so you shouldn’t get angry. People are like that, they’ve been that way since Adam, God grant him peace, and people betray the ones they love; they betray them and they regret it; they betray them, because they love them, so what’s the problem?
It’s a terrible thing. Why did you tell Amna to stop visiting you? Was it because she loved you? I know — when I see a woman in love, I know. She overflows with love and becomes soft and undulating. Not men. Men are to be pitied because they don’t know that softness that floods and leavens the muscles.
Amna loved you, but you refused to marry her. She told me about it, just as she told me other things she made me swear I’d never mention in front of you. I’m released from my oath now because you can’t hear, and even if you could there’d be nothing you could do. All you would say is that Amna was a liar, and the debate would be closed.
Amna told me your whole story.
She told me about your father.
She said that Sheikh Ibrahim, son of Salem, son of Suleiman al-Asadi, was in his forties when he married, and that for twenty years his wife kept giving birth to children who would die a few days later because she was stricken with a nameless disease. Her nipples would get inflamed and collapse when the children started to nurse, and they’d die of hunger. Then you were born. You alone, Amna told me, were able to bite on a breast without a nipple. You would bite and suck, and your mother would scream in pain. So you were saved from death.
I didn’t believe Amna because the story seems impossible. Why didn’t your mother get medicine for her breasts? And why did the children die? Why didn’t your father take the children to the women of the village to nurse?
I didn’t believe Amna, but you confirmed what she said, which made me doubt it even more. You said that you were the only one to survive because you managed to grip a nippleless breast, and that your mother never failed to remind you of the pain she suffered. And when I asked you why your father didn’t marry another woman, you put up your hand as though you didn’t want me to raise that question — because your people, you told me, “marry only one woman only once, and that’s the way it’s been from the beginning.”
I imagined a savage child with a big head and eager lips gobbling the breasts of a woman in tears.
Then you told me that the problem wasn’t the absence of nipples. Your brothers and sisters died because they had a mysterious disease, which was transferred to them from their mother’s inflamed breasts.
I see you now, I see that child, and I see its big head — its face within a flood of light. I see your mother writhing in pain and pleasure as she feels your lips grabbing at the milk. I can almost hear her sighs and see the pleasure fermenting in her drowsy, heavy eyes. I see you, I see your death, and I see the end.
Don’t tell me you’re going to die, please don’t. Not death. Umm Hassan told me not to be afraid, and I’m not. She asked me to stay with you because no one would dare to break into the hospital to find me — even Umm Hassan believed I’ve turned your death into a hiding place for myself. Even Umm Hassan didn’t understand that it’s your death I’m trying to prevent, not my own. I’m not afraid of them, and, anyway, what do I have to do with Shams’ death? Plus it’s not right that that story should get in the way of yours, which is mythic.
I know you’ll say, “Phooey to myths!” and I agree, but I beg you, don’t die. For my sake, for your sake, so that they don’t find me.
I’m lost. I’m lost and I’m afraid and I’m in despair and I’m wavering and I’m fidgety and I’ve remembered and I’ve forgotten.
I spend most of my time in your room. I finish my work at the hospital, and I come back to you. I sit at your side, I bathe you, massage you, put scent on you, sprinkle powder on you, and rub your body with ointment. I cover you and make sure you’re asleep, and I talk to you. People think I’m talking to myself, like a madman. With you I’ve discovered many selves within myself, selves with whom I can maintain an eternal dialogue.
The thing is, I read in a book whose title I no longer remember that people in comas can have their consciousness restored by being talked to. Dr. Amjad said this was impossible. I know that what I read isn’t scientific, but I’m trying, I’m trying to rouse you with words, so why won’t you answer me? Just one word would be enough.
You’re either incapable of speaking, or you don’t want to, or you don’t know how.
Which means you have to listen. I know you’re sick of my stories, so I’m going to tell you your own. I’ll return to you what you’ve given me. I’ll tell them, and I’ll see the shadow of a smile on your closed lips.
Do you hear my voice?
Do you see my words as shadows?
I’m tired of talking, too. I stop, and then the words come. They come like sweat oozing from my pores, and rather than hearing my voice, I hear yours coming out of my throat.
I sit next to you in silence. I listen to the rasp of your breathing, and I feel the tremor of tears, but I don’t weep. I say, “That’s it, I won’t come back. What am I doing here? Nothing.”
I sit with death and keep it company. It’s difficult keeping death company, Father. You yourself told me about the three corpses in the olive grove. Please don’t forget — you’re a runaway, and a runaway doesn’t forget. Do you remember what happened when you got to Ain al-Hilweh after you were released from prison? Do you remember how you fired your gun into the air and insulted everyone and they arrested you? When they’d set up tents that the wind blew through from both sides, you said to them, “We’re not refugees. We’re fugitives and nothing more. We fight and kill and are killed. But we’re not refugees.” You told the people that refugee meant something specific, and that the road to the villages of Galilee was open. Bearded and filthy. That’s what the police report from Sidon says; you were carrying your rifle and muttering like a madman. The Lebanese officer wrote in his report that you were crazy and let you go. You listened in disbelief, but he bit his lip and winked before ordering you out of the police post. That day you screamed that you’d never leave jail without your rifle, so they forced you out. And you forced your way back in at night and got your rifle back, along with three other rifles from the guard post. With those rifles you began.