The Broken Wings (8 page)

THE RESCUER

Five years of Selma's marriage passed without bringing children to strengthen the ties of spiritual relation between her and her husband and bind their repugnant souls together.

A barren woman is looked upon with disdain everywhere because of most men's desire to perpetuate themselves through posterity.

The substantial man considers his childless wife as an enemy; he detests her and deserts her and wishes her death. Mansour Bey Galib was that kind of man; materially, he was like earth, and hard like steel and greedy like a grave. His desire of having a child to carry on his name and reputation made him hate Selma in spite of her beauty and sweetness.

A tree grown in a cave does not bear fruit; and Selma, who lived in the shade of life, did not bear children.....

The nightingale does not make his nest in a cage lest slavery be the lot of its chicks.... Selma was a prisoner of misery and it was Heaven's will that she would not have another prisoner to share her life. The flowers of the field are the children of sun's affection and nature's love; and the children of men are the flowers of love and compassion.....

The spirit of love and compassion never dominated Selma's beautiful home at Ras Beyrouth; nevertheless, she knelt down on her knees every night before Heaven and asked God for a child in whom she would find comfort and consolation... She prayed successively until Heaven answered her prayers....

The tree of the cave blossomed to bear fruit at last. The nightingale in the cage commenced making its nest with the feathers of its wings.

Selma stretched her chained arms toward Heaven to receive God's precious gift and nothing in the world could have made her happier than becoming a potential mother.

She waited anxiously, counting the days and looking forward to the time when Heaven's sweetest melody, the voice of her child, should ring in her ears....

She commenced to see the dawn of a brighter future through her tears.

It was the month of Nisan when Selma was stretched on the bed of pain and labour, where life and death were wrestling. The doctor and the midwife were ready to deliver to the world a new guest. Late at night Selma started her successive cry... a cry of life's partition from life... a cry of continuance in the firmament of nothingness.. a cry of a weak force before the stillness of great forces... the cry of poor Selma who was lying down in despair under the feet of life and death.

At dawn Selma gave birth to a baby boy. When she opened her eyes she saw smiling faces all over the room, then she looked again and saw life and death still wrestling by her bed. She closed her eyes and cried, saying for the first time, "Oh, my son." The midwife wrapped the infant with silk swaddles and placed him by his mother, but the doctor kept looking at Selma and sorrowfully shaking his head.

The voices of joy woke the neighbours, who rushed into the house to felicitate the father upon the birth of his heir, but the doctor still gazed at Selma and her infant and shook his head....

The servants hurried to spread the good news to Mansour Bey, but the doctor stared at Selma and her child with a disappointed look on his face.

As the sun came out, Selma took the infant to her breast; he opened his eyes for the first time and looked at his mother; then he quivered and close them for the last time. The doctor took the child from Selma's arms and on his cheeks fell tears; then he whispered to himself, "He is a departing guest."

The child passed away while the neighbours were celebrating with the father in the big hall at the house and drinking to the health of their heir; and Selma looked at the doctor, and pleaded, "Give me my child and let me embrace him."

Though the child was dead, the sounds of the drinking cups increased in the hall.....

He was born at dawn and died at sunrise...

He was born like a thought and died like a sigh and disappeared like a shadow.

He did not live to console and comfort his mother.

His life began at the end of the night and ended at the beginning of the day, like a drop of few poured by the eyes of the dark and dried by the touch of the light.

A pearl brought by the tide to the coast and returned by the ebb into the depth of the sea....

A lily that has just blossomed from the bud of life and is mashed under the feet of death.

A dear guest whose appearance illuminated Selma's heart and whose departure killed her soul.

This is the life of men, the life of nations, the life of suns, moons and stars.

And Selma focused her eyes upon the doctor and cried, "Give me my child and let me embrace him; give me my child and let me nurse him."

Then the doctor bent his head. His voice choked and he said, "Your child is dead, Madame, be patient.

Upon hearing her doctor's announcement, Selma uttered a terrible cry. Then she was quiet for a moment and smiled happily. Her face brightened as if she had discovered something, and quietly she said, "Give me my child; bring him close to me and let me see him dead."

The doctor carried the dead child to Selma and placed him between her arms. She embraced him, then turned her face toward the wall and addressed the dead infant saying, "You have come to take me away my child; you have come to show me the way that leads to the coast. Here I am my child; lead me and let us leave this dark cave.

And in a minute the sun's ray penetrated the window curtains and fell upon two calm bodies lying on a bed, guarded by the profound dignity of silence and shaded by the wings of death. The doctor left the room with tears in his eyes, and as he reached the big hall the celebrations was converted into a funeral, but Mansour Bey Galib never uttered a word or shed a tear. He remained standing motionless like a statue, holding a drinking cup with his right hand.

The second day Selma was shrouded with her white wedding dress and laid in a coffin; the child's shroud was his swaddle; his coffin was his mother's arms; his grave was her calm breast. Two corpses were carried in one coffin, and I walked reverently with the crowd accompanying Selma and her infant to their resting place.

Arriving at the cemetery, Bishop Galib commenced chanting while the other priests prayed, and on their gloomy faces appeared a veil of ignorance and emptiness.

As the coffin went down, one of the bystanders whispered, "This is the first time in my life I have seen two corpses in one coffin." Another one said, "It seems as if the child had come to rescue his mother from her pitiless husband."

A third one said, "Look at Mansour Bey: he is gazing at the sky as if his eyes were made of glass. He does not look like he has lost his wife and child in one day." A fourth one added, "His uncle, the Bishop, will marry him again tomorrow to a wealthier and stronger woman.

The Bishop and the priests kept on singing and chanting until the grave digger was through filing the ditch. Then, the people, individually, approached the Bishop and his nephew and offered their respects to them with sweet words of sympathy, but I stood lonely aside without a soul to console me, as if Selma and her child meant nothing to me.

The farewell-bidders left the cemetery; the grave digger stood by the new grave holding a shovel with his hand.

As I approached him, I inquired, "Do you remember where Farris Effandi Karamy was buried?"

He looked at me for a moment, then pointed at Selma's grave and said, "Right here; I placed his daughter upon him and upon his daughter's breast rests her child, and upon all I put the earth back with this shovel."

Then I said, "In this ditch you have also buried my heart."

As the grave digger disappeared behind the poplar trees, I could not resist anymore; I dropped down on Selma's grave and wept.

KAHLIL GIBRAN – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) was a Lebanese artist, painter, poet and philosopher who spent most of his life in the United States and who wrote both in Arabic and English. He was, thus, much celebrated in the Arabophone world as well as in the Anglophone world. His ultimate literary achievement was probably
The Prophet
(1923), a light volume of twenty-six poetic reflections on the subject of faith and universal spirituality that was translated into more than twenty languages in the world.

Khalil Gibran was actually one of a number of Arab intellectuals and writers who lived in the United States in the beginning of the twentieth century and who had a great influence on the development of modern Arabic literature through the exploration of Western literary movements. The group was presided by Khalil himself and was baptized Arrabitah, or “The League.” It also included other famous and important literary figures such as Mikhail Nuaima, Nadra Haddad and Iliya Abu Madhi. Generally, the Arabic literature of the beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the revolutionary ideas advanced by Arrabitah members as well as by other Arab intellectuals and literary men who felt the urgent need to revolutionize classic Arabic verse and prose. It was a growing urge to innovate and to break with old literary traditions and conventions. The current eventually helped to open new horizons such as the flourishing, in the second half of the twentieth century, of Arabic prose poetry and free verse. The Arrabitah experience was, actually, fundamental in the life of Khalil Gibran who was regarded as a literary rebel and a leading figure of the Arabic literary Renaissance in addition to his Oriental contributions to Western poetry and thought.

Khalil Gibran was born in Lebanon, in the village of Bsharri, on January 6
th
, 1883. His full name had been Gibran Khalil Gibran before it was simplified in the New World. According to different accounts, Gibran’s Maronite Catholic family was financially very modest despite owning their own rural property. His father Khalil Ben Gibran switched from one job to another. He was reported to have served as a shepherd and as an apothecary keeper. His gambling and tax evasion habits led to his temporary imprisonment.  

Having had no formal education as a child, it was thanks to his mother Kamila that Khalil Gibran started learning languages and basic sciences at home. Kamila was an educated and a talented woman who venerated knowledge and who spoke and wrote in Arabic, French and English. She was also quite religious and used to receive Maronite priests who equally contributed to Gibran’s education by introducing him to languages and biblical studies.

Gibran was only twelve when his mother decided to join her brother in the United States. This was mainly for material reasons as Gibran’s father was still suffering from financial problems. Hence, in 1895, the Gibran family immigrated to Boston leaving only the father to take care of the family’s property. With Kamila and Khalil, there were Khalil’s two sisters, Mariana and Sultana, in addition to Khalil’s half-brother Butrus (Arabic for Peter). In Boston, while all the other members of the family occupied different jobs, Khalil was sent to school where he excelled and was distinguished among American classmates. This early experience shaped his whole life of a confirmed polyglot who would write eloquently and elegantly in more than one language. In addition to English language and literature, his early studies also included art courses. During this period, Gibran also met the Boston artist Fred Holland Day who played an important role in encouraging young Gibran and ushering him into the world of art. In 1898, some of Gibran’s early drawings were already chosen to be published as book covers.

After a short period in Boston, Gibran as well as his family thought it important for him to learn about Arabic language, literature and culture. It was, hence, decided to send him back to his native Lebanon with the objective of acquiring everything related to Arabic before returning to the States. In Beirut, Gibran attended Madrasat al-Hikma (The School of Wisdom) where he studied until 1901. Years after the Beirut experience, which was crowned with an honorable graduation from the prestigious Lebanese school, Gibran headed to Paris to study art at celebrated French schools. By the age of 20, Gibran had already written numerous essays, stories and poems in addition to his many drawings and paintings. 

Back in Boston, Gibran’s life was also marked by the presence of another important person, mainly after the death of his mother. It was Miss Mary Haskell, a Boston school headmistress much older than him that he met during one of his art exhibitions in town. Miss Haskell seemed to play the role of both a lover and a mother-figure to the young poet. She encouraged Gibran’s passions for literature and the arts and supported him financially, actually paying for most of his studies. She also introduced him to important writers, journalists and publishers. Today, much about Gibran’s life is known thanks to the hundreds of letters that the couple used to write to each other.

Correspondence between Miss Haskell and Gibran took place mainly from 1912 on after Gibran decided to move to New York where he remained till his death. New York was surely more appropriate for his ambitions and actually helped his reputation grow. It was also in New York that the group of Arab-American intellectuals known as Arrabitah was centered. Gibran’s publications actually multiplied after he settled in New York and started to become known among the literary circles of the age.

In the beginning of his career, most of Gibran’s literary publications were in Arabic. They included a number of works that revolutionized modern Arabic literature and art such as
An
Introduction to the Art of Music
(1905),
Broken Wings
(1912) and
A Tear and a Smile
(1914). English publications came later in Gibran’s career. His earliest English publication was
The Madman: His Parables and Poems
in 1918. The short book represented a collection of thoughts and parables using the first-personal pronoun of a supposedly madman and pertaining to the subject of faith in God. After
The Madman
, Gibran published
Twenty Drawings
(1919) and
The Forerunner
(1920). So far Gibran’s publications were of significant success. It was, however, with the publication of his masterpiece
The Prophet
in 1923 that he achieved unprecedented recognition and fame. The Prophet was later followed by
Sand and Foam
(1926),
Kingdom of the Imagination
(1927),
Jesus, the Son of Man
(1928) and
The Earth Gods
(1931).