Nighty night and the Moonlight Sonata calms the starry night. Under the moon I start to pick up star after star. It becomes clearer, so I can see through layers and layers under the dark blue sky, and if I whisper, the stars can hear me and tell the moon our secrets. They are already dancing around the moon in that corner.
Every night, just before making my way upstairs to the open roof, I take my radio recorder from my room, lock some of the worries of the day in the side drawer of the antique dresser with my comb. I wash my sweaty body under a sizzling shower and drizzle Diorissimo perfume to fill the air with the scent of jasmine.
“Bye, Lulu,” I say, waving goodnight without a reply. She hides her head under her wing, forming a pure fluffy heart.
Special iron beds are arranged on the roof where jasmine and cactus grow all around. The linens are freshly enriched by the breezy night. Mosquito nets cover each bed. In one of the Arabian Nights, each one of us hides a dream or two only to be awakened sometimes by flies to welcome their day and dance over our heads. That natural breeze beats the ‘fake’ air conditionings of June 1985. Anyway, the electricity is off! Hot summery Basra and a step into the final exams at the university. Tonight is calm; well, so far. Mom keeps telling me to have a good sleep. Other beds are empty. Dad has to be in Baghdad following an angina attack. Baghdad is safe and far away from the Iranian bombardments in the south nearer to the border. Big brothers, Nasr has his small family north of the capital, the other, Omar, is deployed to the east.
I jump on my bed. “Enough with the news,” I tell Mom, pressing the tape recorder, and here is Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2, with its loneliness, to help me concentrate on the lovely sky and revise for the exam. Only a little deep sleep to be awaken by bombs around 6:00 am. Always heavy bombardments at the start and end of the exams throughout that period. Hurriedly we get downstairs to the cornered room under the stairway where we take shelter before a glimpse of light comes through the four-cornered house windows, which are fully covered by sandbags. I have to go, despite all circumstances, to the university. Automatically I change my clothes into my university uniform. Mom, too. We should’ve slept in our clothes rather than nighties! She drives through the risky main road, crossing the bridge until we reach the roundabout. The “noise” is getting “noisier”. I kiss Mom goodbye. Every day I kiss her goodbye and she says Wait for me.
“Goodbye, Mom.” A mutual tender hug and kiss.
“See you later. No goodbyes,” she always replies, with a hopeful gaze and blowing a kiss. “Goodbyes are not allowed,” she says, turning the steering wheel back home. Waving to the white Fiat car with affection, I enter the uni gate.
“Yes,” I say in great hope, “I wait for you.”
I pass the new diggers as they are about to build a shelter. Picking up some shiny mother of pearls from the soil, I place them in my pocket. My treasure; a prehistoric treasure.
I reach the canteen where some friends and colleagues are gathering, locking outside the campus all politics and bombs. Everyone knows everyone, listening to nourishing music, Lebanese Fairuz boosts our day with her soft angelic voice. Mozart’s Molto Allegro gives the music another depth with the accompanying Arabic poem: summertime, love, love letters and goodbyes.
Here I see a couple with a glimmer in their eyes, some exchanging letters. Others hiding behind books pretending to read. A few preparing for exams, as more want to lose a year and to gain a ‘life’ with their beloved. An invitation card to a wedding or two are circulated. Hopeful smiles are drawn on all our faces.
Exam time draws nearer, so most of us find our way to the classroom, waiting for others to make their way. Exam papers are distributed. In the classroom, some are absent. Nevertheless, the rest of us are sitting the exams with noises around, some near, some far. Thirst for water is disappearing. All done.
The professor encourages us to concentrate on answering despite the noises. Despite the empty chairs. Despite the papers awaiting for answers from the absent students. A few enter unexpectedly this time. Others are still… still and chairs are empty still! My pen shakes for three heavy hours. As soon as the papers are taken, I have to leave. We leave one by one. Poor Mom is waiting for me. I run towards her to pick me up. My friend comes with me to drop her by her house.
Another round of bombshells. Nearer and heavier this time. I just don’t want to look at the smoking buildings, streets and palm-trees. As we enter the garage, a heavy bombshell! We run into the house. Dust and rocks. A pause as we leave the car. Part of the car is destroyed. My poor Lulu, the parakeet, is “shredded” in front of me. Only now I see all human parts, streams of blood and all the victims appear before my eyes, no matter how I try to blind myself. I am just frozen. Standing. Staring at the stillness of destruction. Heated crystal tears tear my cheeks. A hand pulls me from the rubble, hurriedly running to the car. The car is partly hit. We are dragged out through the dust, through the rubble, through the blood.
I leave with Mom and we make our way to the south where my uncle’s house is and there are less bombardments. We have to take the coach to Baghdad. I don’t know what I was wearing until I find myself in the same grey skirt and white shirt; the dusty stained uniform of the day. A chain and gold heart around my neck, a gift I was given from my parents with their names engraved in beautiful Arabic calligraphy. The rest of my jewellery with other papers were left behind with a distant, faint, harsh voice shouting:
“Leave. Leave. Leave. Your lives are far more important!”
I can see some papers are burnt, others flying here and there and a shadow of a ghost.
Now
Only two points:
Birth and death
But, in between
Here lies a paper
No. Papers and papers and papers
Birth certificate
Degree certificate
Working certificate
Marriage certificate
Divorce certificate
Walking certificate
Seeing certificate
Papers here. Papers there
Dust covers everywhere
Words are shattered, in disguise
Reality is burnt
And through the ashes
Search for that self…. Continues
Death certificate is hereby drawn.
STOP!
Have you seen me there?
***
Yes. I am still there, whether you see me or not.
Another sky. One rotating moon with its lovely Venus and their bridesmaids. A decade. A second and a third. A spring and a winter and the in-betweens.
That spring day of 1993, and just before Easter Holiday, I find myself in a hospital bed to be turned to the right. To the left. To be fed. To be changed. Bra! Who invented them?
“We know the previous surgeon did some damage with the epidural and the manipulation to your spine you had earlier, but we cannot fix it,” a doctor’s face announces, his eyes widen and widen. “Deal with it,” he adds with a devious grin.
So let’s deal with the pain. Head up. Only one heavy step and I am (un)able to do it. Who cares, let’s dance it out. A holistic dance:
Let’s Dance
To walk is to stumble
To dance is to step
Let’s dance
And in a tango rhythm:
One step forward, you protect me
- In a heartbeat, I sweep you away
One step back, you unveil me
- With a shiver, I crave you
Rhythms sway us in a magnetic touch
Melt our souls in a nostalgic love
(in a flash)
Let’s dance
Melody of hope
If steps tire us
Heartbeats allure us
Let’s dance
If beats fail us
Trembling awakens us
Let’s tango
And let the moon lift us away
Tying us smoothly
In its grace
A lullaby within its crescent
Let’s tango
Between its eyelashes
Dive in its darkness
And sleep…
***
Sleep.
How many hospitals? How many ambulances? Springs and winters. Sleepless painful nights painting the ceiling with hope and regret. Nuisance painkillers that just make me dizzy rather than bring a touch of comfort; and the horoscope of the day says: “things are flourishing”! Ah well, thank you for the encouragement! And the hospital “literature” is: open bowel. Pass urine. Rate the pain. Reach the nose. See the light. Does it tickle?
“Do you hear me laughing?” I nod.
At home, time to fight the new reality. To try to stand. To move. To continue my master’s degree in translation and linguistics.
Dawn welcomes the day. That orange mist is making its way towards the room to draw a little smile through the big window, touching the orchids on the shelf, tenderly hugging the white lilies, painting them with a touch of orange. It follows the poison ivy that folds its stems and leaves upwards around the books to the left of the window, hugging the old books. If poisons can sometimes nurture, then climbing ivy is medicine. It throws its “poison” on some of the new books and ornaments them with beauty. All their shadows dance together with my figures painting the smiling window on the right, then the roof with the colour of the soul. Some is thriving by the sun, others are enlightened by the moon. A lively breeze accompanies Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2, and I dance a little dance.
“Oh! Look at that!” I say as a small blue creature on the window sings in bewilderment.
“Sweet Lulu, have you risen to come to see me? To be with me after all these years?”
She comes as the Concierto de Aranjuez captures the rhythm of the heart.
“I’ll come to you,” I assure her.
With the tune playing I turn to the left by crossing my right leg over my left, holding my breath and the wall-rail with my right arm. Supporting my upper body by the left elbow and arm. Breathing is getting difficult with the cocktail of numbness and pain. Who cares, it’s Chopin’s Nocturne op. 21 now! I press the bed button: head up. A sigh. A breath. A tear. A smile. Now, dragging my legs down at a snail’s pace. A sigh. A breath. A suffocating triumph. A relief? Long way still, looking at the wheelchair.
“Wait for me!” I say, with a trembling breath.
Is that a breath or a throbbing? Chopin is calling me too, to calm the edge of the pain. With his Waltz no. 10 playing, my legs are down the bed trying to stabilise me. I see a smile on my face in the mirror opposite the bed. Biting my lips gives me a natural pink filler.
Finally, I shift to the wheelchair using the slide board and the frame. A sigh. A deep breath with each step. I turn backwards, to the left towards the window. A bleep of the electric wheelchair. Hurray, I have done it ALONE! A little soft whistle from me and Lulu is on my finger taking shelter in my palm from the rainy afternoon of early spring 2016. Yes, risen from the ashes, this little creature I hug, and breathe through her.. deeply.
While I am by the shelves, I pick one of the old Arabic books. The sound of leafing through the papers brings back different memories from working on a computer, no matter how big its memory. A dried flower stuck on a page, a drawing in this corner. Ah! A letter and a feather drop out onto my lap. I open the envelope with enthusiasm. Unfold the paper and it’s big brother’s neat handwriting dated January 1995, less than a year after my dad’s departure to the other world. Dad, whose eyes I closed when he took his last breath. Oh, it’s addressed to Omar, the second brother. I am about to return it when my eyes glimpse a sentence:
“The Samsonite business case is lost or stolen. I couldn’t find it.”
My interest makes me look for other letters. In an earlier one:
“Little “sweet” sister has nothing to live for. She is already in London. Everything is taken care of.”
I’m mesmerised as my eyes go through this passage again and again. That scene! That ghost! Now I can see the face clearly and hear the voice and the tone distinctly. That ghost who pretended to save me earlier in 1986! It was Nasr! It is my big brother.
The shout I make deafens the entire world; even Lulu flaps hysterically around the room. The paper is still between my fingers. Shaking.
1991 and the scary sleepless nights, glued to the news, watching the heavy bombardments on Iraq, praying endlessly for his safety in the mosque and lighting candles in the chapel. The vile war!
An eye on the letter, an eye on the photos resting on the shelves. Very few black and white family photos were rescued at the time. Say ‘cheese’ for the pose! Smile for the Black heart. Cry for the white memories.
Lulu climbs with alacrity up to my shoulder, tickling me with every step to rest on my neck, covered by my hair, giving me some tender warmth while I am shivering and my throat is absolutely dry. Rivers of water wouldn’t quench the thirst and wet my throat.
I search for other words in the nineties’ letters, which are kept in tidy boxes on the shelves.
It’s spring 2016, and email is better than the terrible nineties landlines:
“Oh.. plea..se help me out and…” Nasr begs and begs. The line goes dead..
“I am only a student here,” I remind him. “Oh no! I am Margaret Thatcher,” mimicking her voice and gestures. “I hereby invite you to the UK. Which ministry would like you to work for?”
“We’re embargoed…” he says.… the line is cut.
Another call.
“…”
“I am embargoed too and Alone.” I cannot explain more from my end.
“I’ll support you all the way through .. once I am with you,” he says. In another call.
I keep asking lawyers.
My carer comes to help me back to bed. I have to find a safe home for Lulu. I place an order for a cage, a home with a swimming pool and a swing. At the same time I send emails and messages to some trusty old friends who found me again through Facebook. I enquire about Dad’s properties and mine.
The cage is delivered and Lulu is happy. We both sing at the happiness of being in a safe place together. Painting it with pastel watercolours. Tiptoeing like a feather leaving tracks, heaviness on the bed.
And…
Lulu fled to flex her wings
Frightened she was
Unable to sing
Looking for safety
Back she came
Comfortably shrinking in her cage
***
Comfortably shrinking in her cage
Back she came
Looking for safety
Unable to sing
Frightened she was
Lulu fled to flex her wings
Jumping into Lulu’s swimming pool, and here’s Claude, my French physiotherapist, holding my waist tightly, helping me to move my legs and arms in a swirling motion, treating nasty spasms and twisted muscles. The feel of the waves on my body, dancing the pain on Zorba’s music of life to feel my legs, my back, my wings, my despair.
Lulu’s wings support me like my dad’s arms.
Splish.
Splash.
Splish, and here is my father holding me in his hands to teach me to swim against the tides of the world from a very early age.
Splash, and here is Claude and the difficult attempts to re-walk the heavy steps against the waves, in the river, in the sea, in the seven oceans.
I receive the official inheritance document: “Nasr Al. Razaq as the only son is the sole heir”.
The “sole heir”!
Summer 1973, he is lost in the mountains in the north while on holiday. Mom is driving her car, searching everywhere. From the window I shout his name passionately, frightened that a dog might bite him as he is scared of dogs. Omar with dad on foot to search too.
I give him my whole sandwich when he says, ‘I love tikka.’ Although I’m still hungry. I bake his favourite Swiss roll. I give him my pocket money. I hide his love letters for not to be discovered.
Autumn 2003, a surprise visit, just after he settled in Canada as a business man. I’m so excited to see him. On one occasion he holds a glass of water for me in front of visitors embarrassing me with my weak grip.
Another day, when mom asks him for support (not even financially) and before she continues, he interrupts her in a Hoarse voice made by smoking from an early age against dad’s permission and hiding from Mom: “My future and my family are the most important things on earth!” Shouting. “I don’t have time for you.” Standing fiercely and pointing at me.
Lulu opens her right wing to hug me like a drizzle in the heart. Her head lies on mine. Her pulse lulls me to sleep inside her warm wing, only to wake at dawn and see feathers are growing and spreading on my hands.
Little by little my wings get bigger and I find myself an eagle fiercely looking to the horizon, facing the world in its nasty form.
Wakey wakey
the world is shaky
For tomorrow and what it holds.
الحياة أوراق
نقطتان:
ما بين الحياة والممات
ورقة
لا،
ورقتان
ورقةٌ
أوراقٌ أوراقْ
أشهدُ بأنَّكَ وُلِدت. ورقة
أشهدُ بأنَّكَ نطقت. ورقة
أشهدُ بأنَّكَ تعلَّمت. ورقة
أشهَدُ بأنّكَ توظَّفت. ورقة
أشهدُ… وأشهدُ… وأشهدْ
مهلاً
ألا تشهد بأنَّي فكَّرت؟
وتتكوَّمُ الأوراق على رفوفٍ عتيقة
يأكُلُها الغبار.. فتبدو مخيفة’
وتُزوَّرُ الأوراق
تُسرَق الأوراق
تأكُلُها أفواه
تُنْهَشُ الحقيقة
فتحترقُ الأوراق.
وتبقى أنت.
– مَن أنتْ؟
*راجع أوراقي المحروقة
أتقرأ صِدق حياتي.. مكتوبة؟
– أشهدُ أنَّكَ متَّ
*دوِّنْها.. فقد كانت موجودة
*سطِّرها قبل أن تَحرقَ الأخيرة
وتحترقُ الأوراق
——-