Gate of the Sun: A Narrative Excerpt

 Gate of the Sun: A Narrative Excerpt

discussions about identity, belonging, and the impact of historical trauma on individuals and communities.

Gate of the Sun Author(s): Elias Khoury and Humphrey Davies 

Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 80, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2006), pp. 12-16

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MM HASSAN IS DEAD. I saw everyone racing through the alleys of the camp and heard the sound of weeping. People were spilling out of their houses, bent over to catch their tears, running. Nabi-lah, Mahmoud al Qasimi's wife, our mother, was dead. We called her Mother because everyone born in Shatila camp fell from their mother's guts into her hands.

I, too, had fallen into her hands, and I too ran the day she died.

a woman Umm Hassan came from al-Kweikat, her village in Galilee, to become the only midwife in Shatila of uncertain age and without children. I only knew her when she was old, with bent shoulders, a face full of creases, large eyes shining in a white square face, and a white cloth covering her white hair.

Our neighbor, Sana', the wife of Karim al-Jashi the kunafa (pastry) seller, said Umm Hassan dropped in on her the night before last and told her that her death was coming.

"I heard its voice, daughter. Death whispers, and its voice is soft."

Speaking in her half-Bedouin accent, she told Sana about the messenger of death.

"The messenger came in the morning and told me to get ready."

And she told Sana how she wanted to be prepared for burial.

"She took me by the hand," said Sana, "led me to her house, opened her wooden trunk, and showed me the white silk shroud. She told me she would bathe before she went to sleep: I'll die pure, and I want only you to wash me."

Umm Hassan is dead.

Everyone knew that this Monday morning, November 20, 1995, was the time set for Nabilah, Fatimah's daughter, to meet death. Everyone awoke and waited, but no one was brave enough to go to her house to discover she was dead. Umm Hassan had told everyone, and everyone believed her.

Only I was taken by surprise.

I stayed with you until eleven at night, and then, exhausted, I went to my room and slept. It was night, the camp was asleep, and no one told me.

But everyone else knew.

No one would question Umm Hassan because she always told the truth. Hadn't she been the only one to weep on the morning of June 5, 1967? Everyone was

dancing in the streets, anticipating going home to Pal-estine, but she wept. She told everyone she'd decided to dress in mourning. Everyone laughed and said Umm Hassan had gone mad. Throughout the six long days of the war she never opened the windows of her house; on the seventh, out she came to wipe away everyone's tears. She said she knew Palestine would not come back until all of us had died.

In her long life, Umm Hassan had buried her four children one after another. They would come to her car-ried on planks, their clothes covered in blood. All she had left was a son called Naji, who lived in America. Though Naji wasn't her real son, he was: she had found him beneath an olive tree on the al-Kabri'-Tarshiha road and had fed him from her dry breasts, then returned him to his mother in the village of Qana, in Lebanon.

Umm Hassan died today.

No one dared go into her house. About twenty women gathered in front of the door to wait, then Sana came and knocked on the door, but no one opened it. She pushed it, it opened, she went in and ran to the bedroom. Umm Hassan was sleeping, her head covered with her white headscarf. Sana went over and took her by the shoulders, and the chill of death flowed into the hands of the kunafa-seller's wife, who screamed. The women entered, the weeping began, and everyone raced to the house.

1, too, would like to run with the others, go in with them, see Umm Hassan sleeping her eternal sleep and breathe in the smell of olives that clung to her small home.

But I didn't weep.

For three months, I've been incapable of reacting. Only this man floating above his bed makes me feel the thrill of things. For three months he's been laid out on his bed in Galilee Hospital, where I work as a doctor, or where I pretend I'm a doctor. I sit next to him, and I try. Is he dead or alive? I don't know am I helping or tormenting him? Should I tell him stories or listen to him?

For three months I've been in this room.

Today Umm Hassan died, and I want him to know, but he doesn't hear. I want him to come with me to her funeral, but he won't get up.

They said he fell into a coma.

An explosion in the brain causing permanent damage. A man lies in front of me, and I have no idea what to do. I just try not to let him rot while he's still alive, because I'm sure he's asleep, not dead.

But what difference does it make?

Is it true what Umm Hassan said about a sleeper being like a dead man-that the sleeper's soul leaves his body only to return when he wakes, but that the dead man's soul leaves and doesn't come back? Where is the soul of Yunes, son of Ibrahim, son of Suleiman al-Asadi? Has it left him for a distant place, or is it hovering above us in the hospital room, asking me not to go because the man lies in distant darknesses, afraid of the silence?

I swear I've no idea.

On her first visit, Umm Hassan said that Yunes was in tor-ment. She said he was in a different place from us.

"So what should I do?" I asked her.

"Do what he tells you," she answered.

"But he doesn't speak," I said.

"Oh yes, he does," she said, "and it's up to you to hear his voice."

And I don't hear it, I swear I don't, but I'm stuck to this chair, and I talk and talk. Tell me, man, what should I do? I sit by your side and listen to the sound of weeping coming through the window of your room. Can't you hear it? Everyone else is weeping, so why aren't you?

It's become our habit to wait for occasions to weep, for tears are dammed up behind our eyes. Umm Hassan has burst open our reservoir of tears. Why won't you get up and weep with us?

HEY, YOU!

How am I supposed to talk to you, or with you or about you? Should I tell you stories you already know, or be silent and let you go wherever it is you go? I come close to you, walking on tiptoe so as not to wake you, and then I laugh at myself because all I want is to wake you. I need one thing-one thing, dear God: that this man, drowning in his own eyes, should get up, open his eyes and say something.

But I'm lying. Did you know you've turned me into a liar? I say I want one thing, but I want thousands of things. I lie, God take pity on you, on me, and on your poor mother. Yes, we forgot your mother. You told me all your stories, and you never told me how your mother died. You told about the death of your blind father and how you slipped into Galilee and attended his funeral.

You stood on the hill above the village of Deir al-Asad, seeing but unseen, weeping and not weeping.

At the time I believed you. I believed that intuition had led you to your house there, hours before he died. But now I don't. At the time I was bewitched by your story. Now the spell is broken, and I no longer believe.

But your mother? Why didn't you say anything about her death? Is your mother dead? Do you remember the story of the icon of the Virgin Mary?

We were living through the civil war in Lebanon, and you were saying that war shouldn't be like that. You even advised me, when I came back from Beijing as a doctor, not to take part in the war, and asked me to go with you to Palestine.

"But Yunes, you don't go to fight. You go because of your wife."

You gave me a long lecture about the meaning of war and then said something about the picture of the Virgin Mary in your house, and that was when I asked you if your mother was Christian and how the sheikh of the village of Ain al-Zaitoun could have married a Chris-tian woman. You explained that she wasn't a Christian but loved the Virgin and used to put her picture under her pillow, and that she'd made you love the Virgin too because she was the mistress of all the world's women and because her image was beautiful-a woman bending her head over her son, born swaddled in his shroud.

"And what did the sheikh think?" I asked you.

It was then that you explained to me that your father the sheikh was blind, and that he never saw the picture at all.

When did Nahilah tell you of your mother's death? Why don't you tell me? Is it because your wife said your mother had asked to be buried with the picture and this caused a problem in the village?

Why do you sleep like that and not answer? You sleep like sleep itself. You sleep in sleep, and drown. The doctor said you had a blood clot in the brain, were clinically dead, and that there was no hope. I refused to believe him.

I see you in front of me and can do nothing. I hold conversations with you and tell you stories. I'll tell you everything. What do you say I'll make tea, and we'll sit on the low chairs in front of your house and tell tales! You used to laugh at me because I don't smoke. You used to smoke your cigarette right to the end, chew-ing on the butt hanging between your lips and sucking in the smoke.

Ellas Kh

Gate of

Now here I am. I close the door of your room. I sit next to you. I light a cigarette, draw the smoke deep into my lungs, and I tell you stories. And you don't answer. Why don't you talk to me? The tea's gone cold, and I'm tired. You are drowning in your breathing and don't care.

Please don't believe them.

Do you remember the day when you came to me and said that everyone was sick of you, and I couldn't dispel the sadness from your round white face? What was I supposed to say? Should I have said your day had passed, or hadn't yet come? You'd have been even more upset. I couldn't lie to you. So I'm sad too, and my sadness is a deep breach in my soul that I can't repair, but I swear

I don't want you to die. Why did you lie to me?

Why did you tell me after the mourners had left that Nahilah's death didn't matter, because a woman only dies if her man stops loving her, and Nahilah hadn't died because you still loved her?

"She's here," you said, and you pointed at your eyes, wide open to show their dark gray. I was never able to identify the color of your eyes when I asked you, you would say that Nahilah didn't know what color they were either, and that at Bab al-Shams she used to ask you about the colors of things.

You lied to me.

You convinced me that Nahilah hadn't died, and didn't finish the sentence. At the time, I didn't take in what you'd said; I thought they were the beautiful words an old lover uses to heal his love. But death was in the other half of the sentence, because a man dies when his

woman stops loving him, and you're dying because Nahilah stopped loving you when she died.

So here you are, drowsing.

Dear God, what drowsiness is this? And why do I feel a deathly drowsiness when I'm near you? I lie back in the chair and sleep. And when I get up in the middle of the night, I feel pain all over my body.

I come close to you, I see the air roiling around you, and I see that place I have not visited. I'd decided to go; everyone goes, so why not me? I'd go and have a look. I'd go and fasten the landmarks in my eyes. You used to tell me that you knew the sites because they were engraved on your eyes like indelible landmarks. Where are the land-marks, my friend? How shall I know the road, and who will guide me?

You told me about the caves dug out of the rocks. Is it true that you used to meet her there? Or were you lying to me? You said they were called Bab al-Shams "Gate of the Sun" and smiled and said you didn't mean the Shams I was in love with, or that terrible massacre at Camp Miyyeh wi-Miyyeh, where they killed her.

as Khoury of the Sun

You told me I didn't love Shams and should forget her: "If you loved her, you'd avenge her. It can't be love, son. You love a woman who doesn't love you, and that's an impossibility."

You don't understand. How can I avenge a woman who was killed because of another man?

"So she didn't love you," you said.

"She did, but in her own way," I answered.

"Love has a thousand doors. But one-sided love isn't a door, it's a delusion."

I didn't tell you then that your love for Nahilah may have been a delusion too, because you only met her on journeys that resembled dreams.

I DRAW CLOSE TO TELL YOU that the moon has filled the sky. In al-Ghabsiyyeh, we love the moon, and we fear it. When it's full we don't sleep.

Get up and look at the moon.

You didn't tell me about your mother, but I'll tell you about mine. The truth is, I don't know much about her-she disappeared. They said she'd gone to her people in Amman, and when I was in Jordan in 1970, I looked for her, but that's another tale I'll tell you later.

I told you about my mother, and I'm going to tell you again. When you were telling me about Bab al-Shams, you used to say that stories are like wine: they mature in the stelling. Does that mean that the telling of a story is like the jar it's kept in? You used to tell the stories of Nahilah over and over again, your eyes shining with the same desire.

"She cast a spell on me, that woman," you'd say.

But I know that the spellbinder was you-how else did you persuade Nahilah to put up with you, reeking with the stink of travel?

My mother used to wake me while it was still night in the camp and whisper to me, and I'd get up and see the moon in its fullness, and not go back to sleep.

The woman from al-Kweikat said we were mad: "Ghabsiyyeh people are crazy, they're afraid of the moon." But we weren't afraid though in fact, yes, we would stay awake all night. My mother wouldn't let me sleep. She'd tie a black scarf around her head and ask me to look at the skin of the moon so I could find my dead father's face.

"Do you see him?" she'd ask.

I'd say that I saw him, though I swear I didn't. But now, can you believe it, now, after years and years, when I look at the face of the moon, I see my father's face, stained with blood. My mother said they killed him, left him in a heap at the door and left. She said he fell in a heap as though he weren't a man but a sack. And when she went over to him, she didn't see him. They took him and bur-ied him in secret in the Martyrs' Cemetery. "Look at your father, and tell him what you want."

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 see her, you will 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 join her, and we would look at the moon. That burning taste overwhelms my tongue and eyes, and I drink tea and 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 the dish of the sky, the whole village would wake up, and the blind singer would sit in the square and play on his one-stringed fiddle, singing to the night as though he were weeping. And I am weeping with drowsiness, and the taste of the 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 peo-ple 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 torn down the wall of death.

You didn't tell 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, went out of the house and left me with her.

You came into your house, and you 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 camp to Sha-tila. 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 lightens 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 end the conversation.

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 when the children started to nurse and they would 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 with the pain. So you were saved from death.

I didn't believe Amna because the story seems impos-sible. 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 sole survivor because you managed to grip a nippleless breast, and that your mother never failed to remind you of the pain she had 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 mys-terious disease, which was transferred to them from their mother's inflamed breasts.

I see you now, and I see that child, and I see its big head, its face within the 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, and I see your death, and I see the end.

Still from Porte du Soleil (2004, с me to stay with you because Courtesy: Ognon Pictures

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 no one would dare 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 swear. I'm lost and I'm afraid and I'm in despair and I'm wavering and I'm fidg-ety 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 fact is, I read in a book whose title I no longer remember that people in comas can have their conscious-ness 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 must listen. I know you're sick of my stories because they're your own stories that I'm telling you; I'm returning what I took from you. I tell them, and I 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 keep-ing 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 camp after you were released from prison? Do you remember how you fired your gun into the air and insulted every-one and how 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. 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. You had a beard and were filthy-that's what the police report from Sidon says and you were carrying your rifle in your hand 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, as well as three other rifles from the guard post. With those rifles you began. WIT

Translation from the Arabic By Humphrey Davies

HUMPHREY DAVIES's translations include Naguib Mahfouz's Thebes at War (2003) and Alaa al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building (2004). Davies has lived throughout North Africa and the Middle East and currently is based in Cairo.