On the Weave of the Sun Read online

  I never saw the woman’s face since it was protected behind the veil, but I felt as I watched her walk away that she had become more light-hearted and gentler. When the Hajj came, he sent me to buy him coffee, and on my way, I stopped by Mister Jumah and asked why he had done what he had done with the woman. He shook his head, while offering me half of his bean sandwich, and said,

  “God provides for birds in caves, not to mention human beings, Filfil.”

  A boy suddenly came from nowhere with a copper incense-burning tazza and let the clouds of incense fume and the smell wander into the shop. As soon as the Hajj saw the boy, he shook in violent anger and shouted at him,

  “Get out, you tar can!”

  Only fifteen minutes later, the Quran reciter came in. Adjusting his caftan 1, the reciter sat on the chair, and started reading whatever he managed of the Quran chapters, while his chubby body was still vibrating from the abrupt movement. When he finished, the Hajj gazed at him with eyes fueled with hashish, saying,

  “Tomorrow. Money did not change hands yet!”

  I looked at the plaza. The circle of merchants was almost complete, and Mister Jumah’s head was hardly noticeable among the crowd. My mind was swirling in my head like a rotten egg, but I managed to say to the Hajj,

  “I’ll go to the store to bring some goods that have run out.”

  He shook his head in agreement, and handed me the key. On my way, after two side streets, I met Fawziyah, and I asked her,

  “Where are you going?”

  She knew me, but she was silent for a moment, and then said,

  “I want some money from Dad. I need to buy some Falafel 2 for my family.”

  She was holding a plate and looking at the tall minarets in awe. I asked her,

  “Can you just wait, and I’ll walk back with you?”

  She nodded, and gave me a smile, young and bright like a sun shining for its first morning. I kept her waiting at the entrance of the house where the store was on the first floor. I carried the shoeboxes down and found her still waiting for me. I asked,

  “What’s the time?”

  She innocently laughed.

  “I have no watch!”

  Feasting my eyes on the dimple on her chin, I told her,

  “What if we save money, then we can buy a watch and take turns with custody, one week with me and one week with you!”

  She very much liked the idea, and even put her hand in my free hand, and I felt an overwhelming happiness ravishing my insides. I saw her pupil glisten in joy, and my heart leaped out of its cage. Fawziyah had a beautiful countenance and had dark brown eyes, sweet, so sweet and delicate. The boxes nearly fell, but she managed to lean toward me in time to carry half of them without saying a word. We headed back to the shop, and I was a few steps ahead of her when the Hajj saw us. He watched her while she was putting the boxes on the chair next to the glass window. When she had left, the Hajj snorted and said,

  “Where were you, Boy?”

  I answered back immediately,

  “At the store.”

  Sarcastically, he replied,

  “Alone!”

  I nodded.

  “Yes.”

  He made me sit facing him and looked me in the eye,

  “Hey, don’t you take me for a fool, Boy. I know all the tricks of silly boys like you.”

  I left the shop in anger and went straight to Mister Jumah. I sat on the sidewalk contemplating and looking at the worn-out shoes that seemed to be multiplying, filling the sky, and nearly blocking the sun. I saw them moving in the space toward the Hajj. I wished that I could work with Mister Jumah, but I knew that my mother would absolutely not agree. That made me very sad.

  1 Marketplace in an Arabian city.

  2 A title for one who performed pilgrimage to Makkah.

  1 A loose, usually black cloak worn by Muslim women.

  1 A full-length garment for men.

  2 Spiced mashed chickpeas formed into balls and deepfried.

  One(s)

  Written by:

  Jubair Al-Melaihan

  “Let’s go!”

  I casually told my friend. The road looked wide as a stream, with trees swaying and swinging on both sides, and heavy clouds at arm’s reach. The dew was sauntering on the trees and slowly dancing its way to young Palm trees and villages.

  “Can you see?”

  He turned around, and with gloomy dust seeking refuge in his face, he said while enduring more pain,

  “This route is winding and difficult. The trees of this march are short, there are no green leaves, the sky is dull, the desert stretches like oppression, and they are all running away from the magnificent storm that’s coming. Look at the desolate dirt biting at the faces.”

  He was frequently shifting his vision, as lost people would do. I told him,

  “Can you see? This is our road, and what’s left for us of a dream is ahead of us. Look ahead to see, look ahead.”

  He looked around in panic, and as words seemed to evaporate atop his head, his wailing continued,

  “The dirt … the dust … the storm … where is the road?”

  We had come close to a festival. The people, crowding in the court, were busy erecting the palms of their gaiety, bygone joys, or the ones yet to come. Sweaty faces but jubilant, the court was wide and the floods of arrivers advanced persistently. I dragged him toward the trail of the festival. I could see the clouds of the dream looking upon us, sprouting, growing, and singing for the clamoring and roaring people. The leaves of the dream were dancing over the heads with streaming colors.

  In the festival, the buoyancy widened across several lapsing years, and others coming yet. I glittered and radiated the joy of the dream to my friend, but he was not with the people. He was there. I saw him far away, dull eyed, straying alone in different directions and carrying his ever-falling head. He was fleeing people like a cloud having no rain. He got away, further away, my heart flowed with sadness on the ground, and he cried. I saw him withdrawing away from the light of others, killing himself. I ran to him, he was carrying his corpse, veiling it, and the shadows of joy were approaching. I dragged him and pleaded to his dull eyes and falling head but he continued to get away like a mirage.

  There were so many clouds pouring their emptiness instead of the rain—clouds of people from so many different lands. They all resembled him, and all started carrying their carcasses and, like night, leading their way to the burial ground. Like a bleeding cry, I stopped where I was.

  From far away, some women appeared, like scattered trees. They, too, were holding their carcasses and walking in the shadows, mostly walking solo, but only one, and maybe another one, and perhaps still another one, too, was curling up her hands on a swelling pouring cloud in her belly, and sitting waiting.

  I raced my way to the eyes of the children.

  Snow in Damascus

  Written by:

  Nabil Hatem

  At the end of every year, new flowers grow and blossom, but the flowers of the year before continue to be livelier and more glittering and radiant.

  • • •

  The windows roused one after the other in the village that was getting up on its small hill. By the time it fell in the hands of sleep, the high above white clouds of the first hours of the night had already begun knitting its white dress. At early dawn, the village dressed up in white snow that extended to the furthest western fields.

  The pale yellow light that was feebly trying hard to escape through Gazalah’s window had vanished now, leaving it behind, lost in the whiteness along with other windows that were still enjoying the warmth of a delicious sleep. Gazalah realized that the lantern had breathed its last oil drop, a mere soot stain on the little window. The rays of the new dawn lit the blurred glass from the outside. Gazalah sprang up, standing, when she saw the snow reaching up to half of the window, and she hurriedly opened the door. Whiteness was everywhere, up to the last turn in the twisting road before her eyes. The trees closer to th
e door were about to embrace the ground with their snow-burdened branches, showering it with beautiful whiteness. She was about to scream in awe, Oh my God, but she remembered that her mother was sleeping in a corner of the room. She closed the door quietly and went back to her bed, sat on its edge, and pulled the quilt over her entire body. Could she confide in her mother? She looked at that sleeping rosy face and smiled when she realized the link between her mother’s white hair and that beautiful whiteness that covered the earth outside and the sky above it.

  Theib once told her,

  “In Damascus, snow rarely falls!”

  Once, when they were told that her father was last seen on a ship leaving from the port of Beirut, her mother hugged her tightly and whispered in her ear, “ God help us.”

  Ten years of frost passed by her and her mother, and then Theib came and claimed a piece of her soul and all of her heart. Her mother used to cry in the night, hugging her and murmuring in a voice close to being joyful,

  “One day, Theib will take you away from me.”

  Faking sleep on her mother’s knees, she heard her moans. Yes, the day had come when Theib would take her. She was still shifting her sight from the snow outside the window to her sleeping mother’s white hair. She closed her eyes and her recurring dream returned. In the morning, she would have a new life. Theib’s promises were numerous, but the apartment in Damascus was the worthiest of all—a kitchen, and an elevator that climbs to the highest floor. She knew better than to bring up the subject of Theib with her mother. She realized long ago that she was an integral part of her mother’s body, and the blood that ran in her heart passed first through that of this white-haired woman.

  The only way was for her to leave in silence, much like her father who left without an advanced notice and without the pain that preceded goodbye. And like Theib told her the day before,

  “An hour’s pain is less grievous than a lifetime of agony.”

  She was too weak to look at her mother’s face, which seemed very sad and in pain. That is how parting is, but it was a matter of time, and time would mend everything. She heard faint knocks on the door; it was Theib. She had already packed her bag and an old photo of her mother and her father with her in between, holding both of their hands. She left a note on the windowpane—three words only, “Forgive me, Mother.”

  She stood in the middle between the bed, which was decorated with her mother’s white hair, and the door that locked the Damascus’ apartment beyond it. The knocks repeated, faint but not persistent, and the bed remained motionless all the while. She came back inside, dragging her feet. She suddenly turned her face toward the door for a brief moment only, and then lifted her mother’s quilt and slipped in next to her. The warmth inside overwhelmed her. It was like she was feeling it for the first time. She hugged her mother and pulled her to her chest. And so did her mother, and so they remained long after the knocks on the door had vanished.

  Zehra

  Written by:

  Nabil Hatem

  Seeing him on the corner of the street everyday used to fill my heart with fear, send a shiver down my spine, and confuse my steps on my way back home from school. He looked like a scarecrow, possessed by the soul of a long-dead man, venturing away from its pole with ragged clothes, tossed hair, and freshly grown hands and feet.

  For as long as I could remember, I had been warned about Riyadh Alakhwath, but oddly enough, no one knew why he was not placed in a mental hospital. He looked like a bag of dirt, walking down the streets with tin cans dangling from the rags he called clothes. He cursed and evil-wished when the boys bullied him, and winked and smiled at the girls, who intentionally avoided him. One time, I vented my growing annoyance of frequently bumping into him on the street and asked my father why he was not in a madhouse. Obviously irritated, he said,

  “And who is going to build hospitals to house all of those people?”

  I tried to keep out of his way, walking alongside shop fronts on the opposite side of the street whenever I saw him. He used to look me straight in the face, smiling and tilting his head until it touched his shoulder. He would raise his hand, signalling me to come to him, making my heart fall to my feet and shatter. I would hurry my walk, while stealing looks over my shoulders to make sure he was not following me.

  My friend, Ameera, told me once,

  “Riyadh loves you.”

  And I quickly answered,

  “May he fall in love with a frog!”

  Eventually, I discovered a new narrow path, which neatly twisted around the houses, to go home, away from the fear he instilled in my heart, and I took it for the whole year.

  It was my senior year in high school. The day was the very last before the exams, but that day was different and left a lasting mark in my life. As usual, I took the sinuous path, thinking of the lurking exams, and daydreaming of college life. In one of the turns, just before I reached my house, there he was with his rags, tin cans, stinking smell, and that radiating look in his eyes that penetrated my bones. He was only a meter away from me and the road was completely deserted at that hour of the afternoon. I could not comprehend how he appeared all of a sudden in my twisted route that I thought was completely safe! I stuck to the wall, blown back by fear, and was about to faint. I wanted to scream, but my voice failed me. I was completely paralyzed and the wall behind me hindered my escape. He came closer to me and looked at me with a stupid smile on his face. I raised my hand to my face to push him away, thinking he was going to touch me. But instead, he threw himself on his knees, his hands covering his face, and began crying. He murmured through his tears,

  “I love you, I love you, Zehra. I swear to God, I love you, Zehra.”

  I froze, still bound to the wall and trapped in my fear and astonishment. He was at my feet weeping. Through my blurred vision, I saw him like a hungry child, merely a crying hungry child, and all my fear vanished in an instant. I reached down gradually with my hand and touched his tousled hair. I wanted to say something, but the words came out so slow and garbled. He raised his head, tears streaming down his face, and crawled back, while still on his knees to give way for me to go.

  I walked away slowly, occasionally glancing back at him. All the while, he stayed on his knees, looking at me with glittering tear-welled eyes, his hands extended toward me, like I was a goddess ascending to heaven.

  I never saw him again since then. Some rumored that he had died, while others gossiped that he was last seen on a truck going to Damascus. That day remained everlastingly etched into my heart, and left me, ever since, wishing that my name had somehow been Zehra.

  The Courtyard

  Written by:

  Leila Al-Ehaideb

  The house was sound asleep along with its walls and water faucets. The dark night presided over the entire place, as I crept out of my sullen obscurity into the wide courtyard.

  The night drew its heavy curtains over everything—no lights, no sounds, and no one around. The trees swayed like vicious monsters ready to pounce on me, as they seemed to advance toward me. I whispered my prayers and hastily passed through the courtyard, only to find myself in the middle of pitch darkness, surrounded by trees that were spreading their humidity around my nose. The tree trunk was at the far side of the courtyard, behind the seven palm trees and just before the large Sidr 1 tree. I felt it with my hand until I found that wide opening in its body. Raising my feet quietly, I centered myself inside the trunk and waited just about seven minutes before it started shaking and rising. It rose until it almost touched the fronds of the large palm, and then matched the height of the rooftop and the light poles. It rose, and rose, and rose more, until our house looked far off in the distance and fused with the rest of the houses. The air was refreshing, aromatized with the scent of the palms and the mist of the trees. The city was calm and the rooftops seemed connected and full of deserted stuff. The lights were shimmering from a distance, but the streets looked like large black snakes, spotted with lazily passing big trucks.

/>   These trucks never appealed to me for they always headed toward the outside of the city, and besides, the trunk could only maneuver within the city proper. I started looking around in the streets for a car that better suited the trunk and me. And there it was, in a faraway and calm street—a black car with curtains that blocked the view to the inside, marching slowly like a bride. I followed it from one street to another. The streets stretched eternally, and the road got longer and more barren looking, and the houses were becoming extinct. The car crossed a high bridge that spanned over still, black water with a rotten smell. I was still persistently following the car, but had to ascend higher to escape the smell. I raised my eyes to the sky; it was black like it was covered with black clouds. Burdened with the thought that the trunk would fall into that rotten blackness, I felt dizzy and nearly lost my balance. I held on to the trunk firmly, exasperated at my luck that had caused me to follow that particular car.

  I sighed in relief when the car finally descended the bridge and delved into a wide neighborhood with vacant streets and lonesomely standing buildings, surrounded by wood and building materials. I felt scared, recalling that I would need to pass through that bridge again on my way back.

  The car pulled to a stop in front of a massive house. The passengers came out. They were two young men and two girls and only one of the girls was veiled in a burqa 1. They went inside, as I descended into the front yard. They were sharing witty conversation and their laughter filled the air, while walking to a wide hall, where music and clamor were loud. I placed the trunk near the fence and followed them, but I could not go inside the hall. Instead, I resolved to watch everything from a large window that stretched across the wall, overlooking a blue pool, wavy with the sound of its water purifier. They were sitting on the floor in a circle around a young man, who was playing Oud 1, and another drumming the beat to a girl who was singing in a sweet soul-stirring voice. Their bodies were expressing the whispers of their lips. In a corner, some gathered around a young man who was reading rhymed verse, while others were playing cards, and yet others were sneaking to side rooms, intoxicated with ecstasy and music! Some girls were in tight jeans, and some were glamorously dressed. Only a few were still wrapped in their abayas 2, letting their embroidered headscarves show a good deal of their nicely groomed hair. A few other girls were wearing burqa, revealing their beautified eyes with dark kohl 3, while the rest of their bodies swam in ornamented pitch black.