Authors: Amjad Nasser
* * *
Young Younis didn’t budge from the room. He just said, ‘They’re waiting for you in the diwan.’ He remained standing a few feet away from you. You remembered your first meeting with Roula, the words ‘I love you’ and how, as her dimples prepared to make a storm, she said, ‘Are you mad?’ The smell of the cinchona trees, the kisses, the letters that came close to the Song of Solomon, the perfumed lock of hair, morning coffees in the central market, the suns that rose and the suns that set, the storms, the biting cold, Khalaf’s face and his eyes avoiding you. A videotape with a thousand and one images, replayed at speed as you looked inanely in the mirror.
Suddenly, something happened that you hadn’t expected.
You felt that all your sensations – the rise and fall of your breathing, your heartbeat, fast or slow, all the images that passed one by one through your head – were happening to someone else you could see in the mirror. You could feel exactly what he felt, and see the images, fast and slow, that went through his mind, but he wasn’t you. It was as if the two of you had been one person and then you had quietly split in two, like space ships undocking on a television screen. But you were strongly aware of him nonetheless. You even felt that his mouth was dry and he was trying to moisten it by producing a little saliva. There were three of you in the room: you, the other person in the mirror and young Younis, whose round eyes were darting between you and the mirror. You thought it had happened under the influence of the tranquilliser you had just taken. But no. Because when you put your hand on the shoulder of young Younis and said, ‘Let’s go’, the hand of the man looking out at you from the mirror did not move. He kept staring at you with looks that ranged between pity and expectation.
With her hair tied back and her black dress raised to her knees, Roula was sitting on a chair under the calligraphy that read
Souls yearn for you for eternity.
You told yourself it might have been a coincidence, though to you she retained some of that aura of princess she had in distant days. She too liked that poem, which you had read to her. Your brother Shihab and his wife Fadwa were talking to her. You heard her voice before you went into the diwan, saying that she had been going to the park for a walk. It was the same slightly husky voice. The huskiness that used to make your head spin. Then you heard Fadwa say that you had been shutting yourself up in the room all the time. Then you went into the diwan. She stood up and greeted you. She looked shorter than you remembered her. ‘Welcome back,’ she said. ‘Thank you,’ you replied. ‘It’s been a long absence,’ she said. ‘Indeed!’ you said. Then she asked, ‘Just visiting or back for good?’ ‘I’m not sure yet,’ you said. Her dimples were in action, both when she was speaking and when she was listening. You felt that they were about to take off with full force but they didn’t. Some kind of intentional self-control held them back. The two of you didn’t know where to begin. All the things you said at the start were laborious attempts to discover the path the conversation should take. You didn’t come across that path. The conversation remained desultory. It went back and forth but didn’t lock on to a particular track. It was the talk of strangers, or of people who last met a long time ago. So commonplace talk was safer. She asked you if you found the country changed. ‘Sure,’ you said. ‘Everything’s changed,’ she said, ‘even the weather.’ Then she fell silent. You found yourself telling her, ‘That’s the case everywhere. Places change and people too.’ You chatted a little about how change was the way of the world, and then you shut up. She said you had become famous, and you said, ‘Not very. It’s actors and singers who can be described as famous, not writers. At least, not writers like me.’ She said, ‘But we’ve seen your picture in the papers several times.’ ‘Maybe,’ you said, ‘whenever one of my books comes out.’ You didn’t notice you were now alone, in front of glasses of lemonade with rosewater, until she said she had lost all those she had loved and that she had only her children left. Apparently you had made a reference to the black dress she was wearing. You thought of that ancient line of poetry: ‘Those I love are gone and I am left solitary, like a sword.’ But you didn’t say it. Your mind, quite separately from you, summoned up the words of the poem, which didn’t normally come to mind, and the line tripped across your silent tongue word by word. The line took hold of you and you couldn’t drive it out of your head. That saddened you, or upset you, you don’t know, and you told her, ‘At least you have your children.’ When you uttered this stupid comment you broke free of the line of poetry and relaxed. But she ignored the comment and said, ‘It’s not true what you wrote in your book
Hamiya and the Bridge
.’ You asked her what she meant exactly. She spoke about how the woman you had loved in your country asked you for a divorce shortly after you escaped abroad. She was referring to one of the chapters in your previous book, which was a mixture of autobiography and fiction. You told her the book was not a documentary work, not a real autobiography, because it had imaginary elements, perhaps more than it drew from reality. She said something to the effect that even if the book was entirely fictional, that didn’t change the fact that the woman you were talking about had not sought a divorce soon or in the way you described.
You remembered your contract of marriage to Roula, which you had found among your papers. It was dated about six months before your sudden flight. The conversation between you finally seemed to be on the right track. You felt comfortable and you felt no urge to cough.
You don’t know how long you went on talking. Then the lights came on. Roula pulled down the hem of her dress, which had ridden up above her knees, exposing two round, well-formed, wheaten thighs that you knew well. ‘My deepest condolences!’ you heard her say, referring to your wife.
You had to face the person you had long avoided, the one you left behind twenty years ago. Or, more precisely, the one who hadn’t crossed the border with you to the City Overlooking the Sea, and had not lived the life you had lived since that moment. The one you hadn’t dragged with you from country to country, along with a small suitcase and a few books, the one who had not known the cold that had chilled you to the bone, who had not seen wars and sieges and how people can eat rats and cats, who had not seen the victims of the plague staggering in the streets and falling on the pavements like autumn leaves. You knew that confrontation was inevitable with this person, who would turn up at the worst of times, fold his arms across his chest, and scrutinise you like an obstinate examiner. He’s not a ghost. But also he’s not flesh and blood. You find it hard to define his status. He exists and that’s it. He’s here, exactly as you left him.
That night you sat alone, as usual, on the balcony after the rest of the family had gone to bed one by one. The coughing and the insomnia, which had disappeared on your first nights, now recurred. Your remaining family did not stay up late on the balcony as they did in the old days. The nights of the past now came back to you, with their smells, the carefree laughter, the stories told in three or four versions. Your grandfather’s version. Your grandmother’s version. Your father’s version. Your mother’s version. It was usually the last version that decided between the other versions, because your mother had an extraordinary memory and could reconstruct faces, events and words with an accuracy unrivalled by anyone else in the family or in the neighbourhood. You felt there was someone hovering around you. There was someone waiting for this opportunity. Maybe you were waiting too.
You knew that if he spoke he wouldn’t stop. If he stopped it would be hard to persuade him to speak again. You also knew that you were the one expected to speak. You first. Because you were required to tell a story that matched his story. A story justifying what had happened. Then you might be quits in his eyes: a story that settles the score after another story. But can one story mend the ruptures, patch up the holes in a life that has almost run its course? Is there a story that is the mother of all stories? An overall story. You don’t know. But nonetheless it’s definitely you that has to speak first. Go on, tell him one of the stories from your exile, your life abroad, your wanderings (call it what you like), or make one up for him. But what should you talk about? About promises, hopes, wars and sieges, the wandering life, the cold, waning vigour, sadness and death the reaper? That’s too much. Besides, you’re scatterbrained and disorganised. There is a story that might not make him very happy but it might hold his attention. It’s about the man who split in two. Of course he knows that story. But you don’t mean you and him, but rather you and the person whose name was the same as your pseudonym, who wrote in newspapers like you and who chased you tirelessly through a labyrinthine city of twisting lanes because he wanted to find out who had assumed his identity. Tell him that story, even if you don’t know what his reaction will be, but stipulate that he must listen to you till the end. Stipulate that he cannot interrupt. That way you can keep him under control if he rebels. You can sidestep his questions when you don’t have a satisfactory answer. You can take him on a wild goose chase with your convoluted story. You’re in a good mood now. Take advantage of it.
You sat up straight on the mattress on the floor. You cleared your throat. Then you told him, ‘Listen to me as long as your bad temper will permit. A meeting like this, face to face in the open air, with all the time in the world, doesn’t always happen, and may not happen often in the future. You don’t know everyone I know but I definitely know everyone you know. You don’t know, for example, that I’m not the only person who uses this pseudonym, which you don’t like. How could you know that there’s someone else who’s a professional writer, like me, and bears the same name as me but who lives, fortunately, far away where the ocean roars and a thousand deserts loom? We have never lived in the same place. I myself only noticed this when I was asked to explain how I could be in two places or with two different women at the same time, although I am not some kind of superman. Then I was asked how I had come to write things that weren’t like me and that don’t bear the hallmark of my nervous tension, which is more famous than my writing itself. This is apart from the fact that his writings on current affairs take a position that is different from mine. I didn’t believe the talk about these alleged writings until a friend showed me some cuttings of them and I found that the content and form had nothing to do with me. They weren’t better than what I write, or worse. They were just completely different. It’s true that language is a universal feature of humanity and the same ideas are widely available, but the way we handle words and ideas differs from one person to another.
‘The first time I noticed that this person existed was when a critic, in the country that stretches from the ocean to the desert, commended my book
Hamiya and the Bridge
and I found a blurred photograph published with the review. The photo department in the newspaper had assumed it was a picture of me. It wasn’t me. I was convinced of that even though the picture was blurred and didn’t have any distinguishing features, unless you count the thick glasses that almost covered the man’s eyes. But when I remembered that I do sometimes wear thick-framed glasses, I was a little hesitant about taking a position on the identity of the person in the photograph. I interpreted it as just a coincidence. There was someone else whose name was my pseudonym and who practised the same profession. They say that God can create forty likenesses of a single person, so it wouldn’t be hard for Him to inspire forty men (or women) to give their children my assumed name, which you don’t like. I don’t know if you knew this, but when I gave myself this name, after I fled the country, I was thinking only that it was ordinary, a name like any other name.’
You stopped talking, then you looked at him. His face showed signs of scepticism, as though he wanted to say something. But apparently he intended to comply with your stipulation, not to interrupt until the end. So you continued:
‘Please believe me. Yes. That was the reason. After we split in two, I wanted to have an ordinary name that wouldn’t draw attention, that wouldn’t arouse suspicion of any kind and that was plausible in that city where bullets could easily fly. A name that would be lost among other names, with no special meaning, though in our language it’s hard for names not to have meanings or symbolise something. For example, my first name (which is now exclusively yours and which I remember only when I’m with you on this balcony or in the troubling dreams I have) is the name of a prophet, a man who’s also known as Jonah. But a marginal prophet. I don’t know what his message was. It’s said that in Nineveh he tried to guide his people to the right path but didn’t succeed. He abandoned them. He wandered around aimlessly. He went to sea and a whale swallowed him. I don’t think my father meant to imply any of this when he called me Younis. It would be disastrous if that’s what he intended, because there’s nothing of Younis the prophet in me, or even of Younis our relative, a good man we never saw without his crutches. Anyway I don’t like this name. It always struck me as an old man’s name. For ages it reminded me of our relative, who was already old when he was born. On crutches. This is the truth that you in particular must know. Besides, I don’t like big names. The names of heroes and gods that some writers and poets and politicians working in revolutions and secret organisations adopt for themselves. You know that in Hamiya I was branded with a red-hot iron on my stomach because of books and ideas, and I didn’t choose for myself (sorry, I mean you didn’t choose for yourself, because I still mix up the two personalities and the two periods) a name other than Younis al-Khattat. I want you to know you’re not the only one to have suffered. The anxiety and uncertainty I went through were no less painful than the disappointment, the sense of abandonment and neglect that you suffered. To carry around someone you no longer are, a name you’re not known by among people but which nonetheless remains stuck to you, is not just a procedural matter. Do you understand? It’s not just a question of a passport and bureaucracy. If that were the case, it wouldn’t be a subject worth talking about now.’