Episode 10. Yasin: Bewilderment and Yearning

The gift of Cherrug so many years ago was in exchange for Yasin’s promise to marry his friend’s daughter, and share with her the incredible wealth that Yasin and Sanaa’s father had come by. That is, the wealth would be shared with Sanaa, since Jamil, Sanaa’s father was no longer.  And, Yasin dreamed that the love between him and his friend would cause Sanaa to love him too, even when he was so old, and also not successful . . .

Cherrug left Yasin’s shoulder, flew up to a branch of a dried out date palm, and closed his eyes. Yasin stood still, stopping in his tracks on the way that he supposed led to Baghdad, and the nearby ancient ruins deep underground. He proposed to return to the underground antiquity, crawl out from that narrow space to grasp the ledge of renewal, and reach for youth and vigor in a new manifestation of his old self. At which point, in a position of strength – able to summon youth and vigor and in possession of plenty of gold (whether coins of ancient vintage, or from the bank in Baghdad) – Yasin aimed to rock events in the contemporary world.

“Cherrug,” Yasin said loudly to the falcon, “how can I do all that?”

Cherrug, came to, ruffled his feathers, and defecated on the ground under the branch where he had been napping. Then his bright almond eyes looked love at Yasin.

“Cherrug,” Yasin whispered, “you are right.”

Cherrug, again ruffled his feathers, but this time less vigorously. Then he tucked his head under his wing, and standing on one leg, fell into deep sleep. Yasin, also overwhelmed by all his recent experiences, stretched out on the ground taking shelter in the scant shade of the date palm with its dried out fruit. “For love, I would sacrifice all.” he commented aloud, his voice drifting off as he fell asleep. “How stupid I am. It is for the sake of love that I have stayed alive until now. . .”

In deep sleep and dreaming, the figure of Sanaa’s father Jamil stood before him:

“Our gold is safe, in the bank and underground,” he paused, “depending on the nature of the currency.”

And, then Jamil added: “I, myself, may not be able to come back to enjoy our wealth when the tyrant vanishes,” Jamil had said. “I ask you to marry my daughter, yet unborn, and unseen . . . would you promise me to marry her and share all with her?”

“I promise to love the daughter of my dearest friend, and to marry no other,” Yasin replied. “I will care for her and share all with her.”

“I give you my falcon, Cherrug,” Yasin replied. “He will comfort you in your loneliness.”

The two friends embraced, and slapped each others’ backs. And tears ran down their cheeks, at the sad and unwanted parting. And Jamil left Baghdad and he left Iraq altogether. He left with his beautiful young wife, for the hardships of a migrant camp without even toilet facilities, what the Israeli Establishment saw fit to provide, for migrants from Iraq. . .

How many the times that Yasin had tried to imagine Jamil’s daughter. He had wanted to know at least her name. Had Jamil tried to contact him? Could Yasin have contacted Jamil? How much did Cherrug know? Did Cherrug actually fly to Israel and find Yasin and his wife, and their baby daughter?

Then, the phantom figure of Sanaa floated before his eyes, and Yasin understood the real reason for his having left his troll-like existence in the grasslands, and he knew why he was heading for Baghdad and the nearby ancient site. It was time to meet his promised bride. He needed to be young and handsome and please her. How, how, how . . .

“How can I contact Sanaa?” He awoke in a sweat, in the heat of the day. “I must find her. I need her. I cannot wait.” The white cumulus clouds in the clear blue sky seemed to him to be the gown of his bride-to-be floating in his absent existence.

Finding Sanaa blocked all else from Yasin’s mind. He could no longer worry about whether or not she would love him, either for her father’s sake or for his sake. He had waited and believed and led an interim existence for so long, and knowing that his seclusion could not last forever. He was so-to-speak standing on the ledge of Cherrug’s rock . . . about to fly or fall down.

Episode 9: Sanaa crosses another border – the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border

The desert road to the southern Iraqi border stretched out ahead. The road was barely distinguishable in the sand and seemed to Sanaa to be endless, surrounded by an eternity of anonymity – sand with barely a tuft of green in sight. A series of trucks that gave the illusion of being a sort of convoy due to their stately, sedate pace, were gradually passing the dilapidated, squat, old passenger car Sanaa was in. Sanaa’s driver, Ali, a young, reckless-looking Iraqi with a mustache, seemed indifferent to the convoy. His other passengers besides Sanaa were his family – his wife and children, and that was what occupied his attention. Sanaa had been included because, Ali being an Iraqi, and a Muslim, and of course chivalrous, could not let a young, beautiful woman like Sanaa travel alone unprotected.

Sanaa, looking out the window, noticed one of the trucks pulling up, and a young Arab boy alight at the side of the road. The boy peeked under his jacket, and seemed to be tugging at something. She forgot about the Arab boy when suddenly high barbed-wire demarcating the continuation of the road indicated another presence, a rather ominous presence.

“It’s the Iraqi border,” the driver’s wife shyly informed Sanaa. “My husband brought me before. He sometimes stays in Kuwait for a long time.”

“Don’t be afraid,” the little boy said. “My father is a mighty man, an Iraqi hero.”

“Don’t forget,” the driver said to Sanaa. “Don’t talk. But, if you have to say something . . . .”

“What if they want to see my passport?” Sanaa interrupted.

“Unlikely. They’ll assume you are on mine,” the driver said. “But if they do, then say you can’t find it!”

Sanaa scarcely had time to reflect on all the barbed-wire when she heard a loud blast that seemed to come from somewhere in the distance . . . And she heard shouts! The rear windscreen of the car clouded over. Now the convoy of trucks, seemed to be racing with each other as they zoomed by Ali’s dilapidated passenger car. In the distance, Sanaa could detect two high archways, also of barbed-wire, looming above the horizon. As they drew near, she could see that there were gates between the archways, obstructing the road. Ambulance sirens filled the air now, as an ambulance pulled up at the gate. The border patrol officers at the side of the gates were fully occupied with a line-up of agitated trucks trying to push through with their various deliveries. But, the border patrol officers were suspicious of the ambulance and signalled to the driver to halt. Sanaa’s driver, on the other hand, received little attention.

“Let’s see your passport!” someone shouted.

And Ali sticking his hand out the window, said: “Here it is!”

“Get a move on,” the patrol guard shouted. “Can’t you see we’re busy!”

Sanaa’s new-found friends drove on in the now blazing sun to Nasiriya where they lived. Nasiriya in sight, they extended a warm invitation to Sanaa to spend the night with them. Sanaa knew she had to make enquiries about Yasin. She hoped that someone in Nasiriya would at least have heard about Cherrug’s whereabouts. In any case although relieved about getting through the border, she was tired and bewildered! She accepted the so very kind invitation of the Iraqi family.

Sanaa sighed, and stretched out on the mattress offered her, and then Sanaa and the Iraqi family went to sleep in the coolness and tranquility of the conventional thick-walled Arab house. It had been a hard drive.

End of Episode

EPISODE 7 Sanaa Crosses the Border

Sanaa must ignore all boundaries, all social conventions . . . all impossibilities if she is to find Yasin. She must bestow value on what seems valueless to her in the light of no other person having a need for it. Hayim had taught her a lesson: With the making of the Will, what she had inherited from her father and seemed useless to her, only worthy to be abandoned . . . suddenly became valuable.  That is, it became potentially valuable in the light of the possibility of her finding someone else who might want and value it.

“Something is worth what someone will pay for it,” the auctioneer had told Papa. “If no one likes it, or appreciates it, is it still a work of art?” he asked Papa.

“Oh, in that case,” Papa had replied, “Yes.” Quite definitely. And, I will go on searching for ancient objects-of-art that inspire me, and not heed anyone else’s opinion. And I will rescue them from the powers that want to bomb them, explode them, steal them . . . . I will rescue them from those who destroy this work of the mind of others. It is through the creative mind of their creativity that I inherit – that I can create, and re-create . . .”

Sanaa now added her reply: “I can create, re-create. It is the work of my mind, my hands . . . I am free to wander.”

What Sanaa had in Beer Sheba – the house she inherited – had seemed valueless to her. She had relied on the lawyer, Hayim al-Din, who in his wisdom and through his poetic creativeness in the writing of her Will had bestowed value on it . . .

Now Sanaa must search for Yasin, the friend her father had trusted with his secrets, and most probably her own future. From Jerusalem, she flew to Europe, and from Vienna she took Austrian Airlines to Dubai in the Gulf, and from Dubai she boarded a domestic flight with Kuwaiti Airlines. Listening to the Prayer for a Safe Journey, Sanaa felt comfortable and secure. Here, in this Land she was safe in the hands of Allah, among Believers. She relaxed, and ate the home-cooked meal that was served to her.

Now in Kuwait, she was asked why she had come. “To see Yasin, Papa’s dear friend,” she replied. “He lives in the desert in southern Iraq, and sometimes crosses over to Kuwait.” And they understood that and gave her a visa, stamped in Hayim al-Din’s old and outdated passport.

“Now,” Sanaa said to herself, “I must go to a Kuwaiti beauty salon where they will make me beautiful. I must make Papa and Mama proud of me when I meet Yasin.”

Sanaa hailed a taxi from the line-up at the airport, and instructed the driver to take her to an excellent beauty salon: “One the famous T.V. singers use, a place the wealthy and spoiled Kuwaiti women like,” she said. “Do you know such a place?”

Of course, the driver knew, and even assisted her to get an appointment, although of course he could not enter since this establishment was definitely for “ladies only.” And no wonder, since the clients came to relax, removed their outer garments and reclined on couches, chatting until their turn came to enjoy the all-comprehensive attention of the salon’s expert treatments. Hair, nails, face and body – all would undergo treatments that would ensure elegant brows, gorgeous hair, and pure unblemished skin – eternal youth and vigor in the course of a few hours.

In Sanaa’s case, she also received advice on how to dress, and where she could buy some suitable and gorgeous clothes . . . full-length long sleeves, and so forth. Sanaa gave one and all a great big tip, and they called her taxi driver to come back for her, and take her to where she wanted to go.

The Call to Prayer resounded over the rooftops, and Sanaa returned from the market loaded with packages to a hotel in a district populated by many foreigners from Iraq, Egypt and India. She booked in for one night, left her passport with the hotel check-in clerk to be reclaimed in the morning, and went to sleep.

Somehow she would have to get a lift to the Iraqi border, and transport to? Where? How would she find Yasin?

Episode 6

The Headless Man Reappears

Yasin glanced ahead into the sinking sunset, back down the road before him. He again saw the figure of a man approaching. This time the man’s image was not blurred. Strangely, the man held his large head under his arm. He was you might say, a “headless man.” The distance between Yasin and the headless man was narrowing, so Yasin called out: “Hello there!”

The man set his head on his shoulders and replied: “Hello, is that your falcon?”

“Yes,” Yasin replied. “He is not for sale.”

“Oh, I no longer need help,” the other replied. “Certainly not from a bird!

“Where are you going? Where did you come from?” Yasin asked, thinking it might be better to avoid at least one of these two destinations.

“I have come from a new up-side-down-world, a modern state in fact that creates headless citizens. I saw a sight that frightened me, so I am going back down the road to antiquity,” he replied.

“What did you see?” Yasin asked.

“I saw,” the other replied, “an old woman walking with the help of makeshift crutches – two sticks jutting out sideways. It was after the bombing, and the houses behind her in the background were rubble. She was old and could hardly walk, so she had stayed where she was, through it all. She could not run. The noise of the bombs was horrific, deafening, and she suffered badly. There was no food and no water there, so she came out from where she stayed through it all, fearful and helpless.” He paused, and went on:

“What should I think about this? What should I say? And, it looked like South Lebanon, but it could have been somewhere else too, like, these days, Syria, or the new State that makes headless men . . . And, it really happened . . . And this is old age?”

Yasin was horrified. Truly, he must do something about the state-of-affairs. It occurred to him that he too might return to antiquity, specifically to his own origins. He would take Cherrug back to the rubble of the ancient site that his ancestors had called home. There he and the bird would find renewal, new vigor, new life, and lots of gold coins. He started walking and headed in the general direction of Baghdad. Cherrug, restless on his shoulder, seemed to want to tell him something.

SANAA Makes a Will

Sanaa having heard the news broadcast, decided against traveling through Syria, and considered the possibilities of traveling to Iraq via Jordan, but thought it might be safer to approach the border from Kuwait. Still, things had the ring of danger. She could hardly use her Israeli passport in any of these countries, and anyway had no time to apply for a visa. Her reason for travel was kind of dubious, rather unusual, so it would be hard, in any case, to explain it to any authorities.

“Better make a will,” she said to herself, “before I leave Jerusalem.”

****

Soon Sanaa stood outside an impressive door with a small sign that read: Al-Din & Associates. But Sanaa would have known where she was even in the dark, and without any sign. She knocked and opened the door. Her father’s dear friend Hayim al-Din appeared from his inner office “Welcome, welcome, my dear,” he said, and waved her inside. “Have a seat! How are you?”

Sanaa looked up at his smiling face, and her confidence grew. “I know I am still young,” she said, “but now I own property, my father’s house.”

“A big responsibility, Sanaa dear! How can I help you?” Hayim said.

“I want to make a will!” Sanaa came right out with what was to her a bizarre request.

“Quite in line,” the old lawyer said. He was older than her father had been, but he seemed to be strong and healthy. “A big responsibility,” he repeated. “Who will you leave the house to?”

“Well,” Sanaa said, “that’s already a problem.”

Hayim grew thoughtful. He knew her father well, and had, of course, been the executor of her father’s will. “Is there someone you would like to give the house to or the proceeds of the sale?” he asked.

Sanaa thought she should give her estate to someone younger than herself. “That’s usual, isn’t it?” she asked timidly.

“Well, yes, but in this case . . .” Hayim was not too sure either. In all his fifty years of practising law, he had known a lot of people, some with few relatives or no relatives, and some with no family, as in this case.

“Do you have a finance?” he asked.

“No,” Sanaa replied. “Papa had someone in mind, but he said the matter would have to wait. I think his friend Yasin in Iraq knows. I think it is a very old arrangement. Something my father committed to before he left Iraq.”

“Is that so!” Hayim stroked his face. “Yes, that’s possible. But, you know, most of the Jews left in the 1950s and by the 1970s, you could say the rest had to leave. Much against their will, of course.”

Sanaa said: “Who can I leave my estate to?”

Hayim already understood Sanaa’s mission, but he would draw her out, make her tell him the whole story. After all, he was the most skilled of lawyers! When she had admitted why the urgency for the will, he would try to help her.

End of Episode

EPISODE TO COME SOON

I have just returned to Australia, and will post a new episode soon.  Best wishes to all my friends.

Aviva

SOMETHING DIFFERENT: A poem by Dr Antony Johae.

I thank Dr Antony Johae for allowing me to publish his poem on the Chinese creation story!

The Chinese story in Dr Antony Johae’s poem is pure mysticism, not dissimilar to Sufism.
As far as I understand Budhism is mysticism, and Confucianism is ethic and way of life. The two combine in China. Here is the poem:

Chinese Creation Story

It began as an egg –
the universe enclosed in a shell.
Then it split;
above became sky,
below became earth.
As the sky rose
and the earth thickened
P’an-ku, primeval man, came out
daily growing taller.

But P’an-ku died,
parted like the universal egg.
His head became the sun
blood, rivers and seas
his hair dark forests
perspiration rain
breath the wind
voice thunder
his fleas mankind.

Published in Ariadne’s Thread 10, 2014
©Antony Johae

Basically, the Chinese, as far as I understand their philosophy, are optimistic about human nature. Ancient Chinese teaching is that man is fundamentally good. The creation story, as Dr Antony Johae has it in his poem, seems to put forth the idea of the smallness of man and the greatness of all nature that is part of this small being’s wondrous existence.

What a wonderful poem!
Aviva

* Dr Johae was a lecturer in Kuwait University in the English Department for 18 years. He is a much published poet in English.

Episode 5. Sanaa. An Arab marketplace. Sanaa’s search begins.

Sanaa came out of the small bookshop, a tattered map scrunched up in her tightly clenched palm. She looked up at the mosque at the other end of the marketplace. The small shops and stalls surrounding the paved square were “Oh” so inviting. And there was a pedlar singing out his wares: “Cold date drink!” The pitcher on his shoulder was ever ready to tip and pour out into a chained silver cup, a thirsty drink for a needy customer. Sanaa pushed her way through the throng of people, shopping and wandering about. Then, with her free hand, she gave the pedlar some coins, and poured the drink from the cup he handed her into her mouth. It would sweeten the way for her.

 

She stuffed the map into her pocket, and pulled out her wallet. Opening the wallet, she pulled out the tiny scrunched up note in Arabic that had been dropped in the backyard, while she was asleep in her bed, in her father’s house. She had been dreaming all the while about Cherrug, her father’s falcon that he had left with Yasin in Iraq.

 

While Sanaa was in the bookshop, she took the chance to ask the owner if he could read a note in rather odd Arabic. He replied: “Show me, my dear, there is no Arabic that I cannot read!”

 

The old bookshop owner peered at the small note, took out a magnifying glass, and exclaimed: “My God, where did you get this! It is indeed hard to read. But, actually the content is very simple. Looking up curiously at Sanaa, he said: “Yasin needs your help. Please come. Cherrug.”

 

Sanaa exclaimed: “Cherrug! Then it was Cherrug. How . . .”. Her voice drifted away. She was dazed. How? Was it more than a dream?

 

The bookshop owner was scrutinizing the note: “How, my dear, did you get an ancient piece of parchment like this?” he exclaimed. Then it occurred to him that it could be valuable! He thought it might be stolen, but could not, of course, say that directly to Sanaa: “How long have you had this for?” he said. “It’s ancient, and the writing is from a time when words were spelt in different way!”

 

Sanaa wanted to get the note back, and go. She replied: “I had no idea! My father used to work in a museum. The old man handed it back to her. “Cherrug,” he said, “is a kind of falcon, an Iraqi name for “falcon.”

 

Sanaa drank the cold date drink, and handed the cup back to the pedlar. Her heart hurt, thinking of her father, of Cherrug. Cherrug, she knew must be an old falcon now! But, Yasin? She had never thought about his age. Now she wondered. How old could he be? How old was he before, when her father knew him in Iraq? Was he still alive? But, he must be! But, the note was so old . . . It was all so puzzling. She had to find Yasin. He needed her help! What could that mean?

 

She would go the “way the falcon flies.” What would that be? At any rate, she could see from the map that Jerusalem, where she was, is near Jordan. Jordan shares a border with Iraq, south of Syria. A long way! But, closer to South Iraq, if that was still where Yasin and Cherrug lived.

Sanaa started walking, all the while listening to her iPhone news broadcast. The Middle East news was dreadful. She decided against the alternate of going up through Lebanon and Syria. It sounded especially uninviting.

 

 

 

Episode 4. Yasin. Blockade and a Headless Man

Yasin bent down and picked up a radio lying on the ground. Listening to the news, he decided to make a detour before heading for the Baghdad-Damascus Road. Presently, there was no such road. There was no Baghdad and no Damascus as he used to know these cities. There was no Palestine as he used to know it. And Lebanon and Jordan were overrun and sinking into the earth. So he decided to detour in the direction of the cities of the South near the Iranian border.

“I suppose there is still some use for money?” he said to himself. To Cherrug, he said: “We’ll find you some nice place to rest.” He noticed that Cherrug looked somehow younger. Was it a response to the need of the times?

Yasin straightened up, and somehow felt stronger! Cherrug flew up to his now customary perch on Yasin’s shoulder. And they moved along, more rapidly now, inspired by terror and the urgency of the situation – on a road leading to a small city that Yasin hoped would have banks, that is, a river bank and a building with money in it called “a bank.”

Sure enough, in the distance could be seen high date palms, and then came in sight – rooftops. And Cherrug circling round could see all of this! His falcon’s beak seemed to smile. Yasin glanced ahead into the blazing sun, down the road before them, and saw the figure of a man approaching. The man’s image was blurred by the glare of a sort of mirage in motion. It seemed wondrous to Yasin that he would soon see another human being in the flesh and not just himself reflected in the water of an oasis. As the distance between Yasin and Cherrug and the approaching figure lessened, Yasin noticed that the man seemed to be carrying something under his arm. Then the mirage and the man’s figure vanished. And Yasin and Cherrug found shade in the shelter of the tall date palms and following the trail, made their way to the city center, a bustling marketplace. And, many people were circling round. Their clothes looked shabby for the most part, but their baskets looked more-or-less full of good things to eat that they had purchased in the market. “With money,” Yasin said to himself, and looked up at the high building before him. It had a big sign over a massive entrance; the sign read: “Muslim Bank.”

Cherrug of course was, all the while, quietly sitting on Yasin’s shoulder, utterly bewildered by the unfamiliar scene. With clenched claws, he remained there as the strange pair passed through the portals of the Muslim Bank. A tall highly presentable attendant approached them and greeted them.

Yasin said: “I would like to withdraw funds from my Baghdad account. Would that be possible?”

The attendant frowned, and said: “Sir, we have no contact with any banks through the central banking system. There is a special, singular blockade created for our Muslim bank.”

Yasin replied: “How do you get outside funds and food supplies?”

The attendant replied: “The only outside funds we can access are through our Muslim brothers over the border in Iran! We should be quite rich, but in fact our economy is in a bad way.”

Yasin looked around at the luxurious, but now not so well-kept bank, and Cherrug flew around in its high vaults, perching at the top of a magnificent highly ornate pillar. And then Cherrug returned to Yasin’s outstretched gauntleted arm and hopped onto Yasin’s shoulder, and they left the bank.

The pure sparkling water of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were both not far and would do for drinks, and Cherrug could hunt for food. But, Yasin, hearing the call to prayer, decided to visit the mosque and pray there. And, they spent the night in the mosque and enjoyed its hospitality. Yasin prayed for strength to serve his people, the Arab nation. He knew now that he was needed, and although he still preferred a contemplative way of life, he had a social obligation to a humanity that was in dire distress.

EPISODE

The present ambition of many is for a unity led by Iraq overriding present political boundaries. It is how they would solve the Syrian crisis. And it may happen. They see it as a return to the freedom of antiquity, and the beginning of a new time – a return to youth and vigor. – Aviva

Episode 3 ON YASIN AND CHERRUG.

Yasin could not bear to see his beautiful bird age and die. Cherrug was now 24-years-old, and that is very very old for a falcon. Cherrug would know when it came time to die. Birds had that kind of knowledge. But Cherrug had not yet indicated in any way to Yasin that the time was nearing. “We’ll return to what was once civilization – together.” Yasin informed his bird. “Do you think you can claw your way through the fence? I cannot fly.” Did Cherrug know that he was being asked to break through a military barricade? He preened the soft feathers that covered his vulnerable bird’s body with its hollow bones and delicate flesh. And, at daybreak the strange pair set out for a long trek, the squat weak old man providing personal transport for Cherrug, his beloved falcon. Evening, and barbed wire made them halt in their tracks. There were bursts of gunfire, and a sickening glow in the sky. The distant, but horrific and deafening landing of a bomb deep in the earth was still resounding. It seemed advisable to avoid the fallen shrapnel that could well be contaminated with radiation poisoning, but Yasin could not fly. This not being able to fly was a real handicap, but on the other hand the skies were not exactly safe either. Amongst the debris, were the fallen bodies of birds, their bodies well-concealed in a mass of feathers or they were just “fried chicken,” so to speak. It was horrific, and Cherrug was astounded and of course worse than terrified. “Cherrug,” Yasin said pointing, “fly over the fence, and open it up between the joins, just a little bit. I’ll do the rest!” Feathers do not transmit electrical shocks, so there was just a chance that Cherrug could do what he was told. Yasin started to pray, and a silvery aura with sparkling pink-violet glints appeared. Its almond shape embraced the space around him, then expanded and included the bird. Cherrug burst forth. He flew to the other side of the fence. His claws tore a hole. Yasin yanked the fence wide open and climbed through. He walked a few paces and held out his arm. Cherrug returned, landing on the gauntleted forearm. Yasin stroked his breast, and the  strange pair set out again, the old man again providing transport for his praiseworthy falcon. Exhilaration seemed to override the white face of terror. . .   End of Episode

EPISODE ON SANAA: Sanaa decides to improve her Arabic.

Meantime – Sanaa decided that it was time to improve her Arabic.  She had never cared before.  It was just the language her parents spoke at home.  She couldn’t make them speak Hebrew at home or she would have.  There were plenty of people who spoke Arabic in Beer Sheba, but she didn’t know where to get books in Arabic for doing some self-study, in private of course.  She wouldn’t want anyone to know about her project of the moment. “There are two places in Jerusalem, in the Old City,” Rafi said. “They sell books of poetry by Palestinian and other Arabic poets too.”  And, he wrote down the exact street and names of the shops in the Old City.  Rafi loved poetry, and Sanaa wasn’t about to tell him what her interest was.  That she wanted to go to Iraq.  “I love poetry,” he said.  “The best Palestinian poet is Mahmud Darwish.” She thought that would do.  She would go to the bookshops, get some poetry, get friendly, and then ask for what she wanted. Sanaa arrived at the central bus station in Jerusalem.  The city was breathtaking with fresh, clean, cool air.  Sanaa sat down at the little outdoor cafe and ordered some coffee.  Time to ask someone for directions to the Old City.  She felt happy all of a sudden.  Exhilarated.  Jerusalem was an inspiration.  A breath-taking city.  “Go to where you can overlook the Wailing Wall and al-Aqsa Mosque  in the background.  And then head for the gate to the Old City,” someone said. Sanaa wept at the Wailing Wall, an involuntary response! And then she found the gate to the Old City and started walking, exhilarated and fascinated by the maze of streets, then lanes.  Standing in an ancient lane that was so narrow it obviously wasn’t built to accommodate traffic, she looked up.  There were high buildings, their walls adjacent, lining both sides of silent lanes.  Could one just wander there forever?  It was elfish, mysterious like in a Daphne du Maurier novel.  Sanaa had lost the way. Sanaa looked up.  A woman, a child by her side, appeared at a high window.  Who were they?  Could they know who she was?  The woman seemed to understand that Sanaa needed help!  She was beckoning.  “That way, that way,” she seemed to say.  Sanaa decided to follow what seemed to be an instruction. . .     End of Episode

FOR MY FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK – An Essay

To introduce myself to you:

I am a writer, screenwriter and translator. I recently worked with Professor Reuven Snir and Baghdadi poet Abdul Kader El Janabi (Abd al-Qader al-Janabi) on the book BAGHDAD: The City in Verse (HUP: 2013). Translations of Adunis’ two poems mentioned in my essay were published in that book.

The Iraqi poet who wrote for my screenplay “Love Under an Umbrella” is Abd Ali al-Rammahi (known as Rammahi or sometimes Ali Rammahi). He is also a graphic artist. His poem “Baghdad” is also in the above book BAGHDAD: The City in Verse.

I am currently working on more books for publication of and on Arabic creative and scholarly work.

— Aviva Butt  

                                                                                        June 2014

AN ESSAY ON

Adunis’ two poems on Baghdad:

May poetry press its lips to Baghdad’s breast (1969)

Time crushes Baghdad’s body (2005)

And two screenplays:

Love under an Umbrella (an original screenplay by Aviva Butt with poetry by Rammahi

In Blood I Come (an original screenplay by Aviva Butt) (2005)

 

As portrayed in his poem May poetry press its lips to Baghdad’s breast, Adunis’ impression of Baghdad under the dictatorship is accurate.  Only the darkest moments of Baghdad’s history are called to mind.  Adunis writes in 1969.  The situation worsened from 1991 with George Bush’s abrupt ceasefire ending the First Gulf War and the ensuing American-led economic blockade.  The blockade, euphemistically called “sanctions” was enforced militarily by air and by sea until the Second Gulf War in 1993.

In my screenplay titled Love Under an Umbrella (2001),I depict the situation in Baghdad between the two Gulf wars.  The “political hammer” (to quote Adunis) knocked the “anvil” of Baghdadi neighborhoods in the same manner as described by Adunis in 1969,  and there were in addition the above outlined external pressures.  To accurately convey the emotional and human story, I worked with an Iraqi poet, so that the screenplay is an original screenplay by Aviva Butt with poetry by Rammahi (Abid Ali al-Afrawi).  The protagonist Maher says that he sits in a world of blockades.  In his own personal blockade, he enjoys his awareness of existence and watches far off stars glowing.  As with Adunis’ poem, the poet of Love Under an Umbrella makesa sharp distinction between day in Baghdad and night.  With dawn, Maher says, he sees his baby daughter’s face and thin body.  He sees a world of “blockades, war and starvation”.  Above all, he lives in fear of every passing shadow.  Rammahi writes the original Arabic poem that Maher sings:  “In my kaleidoscopic blockade/My soul split into two scenes/The birds are fearful/And my hand shakes/And I am fearful/From afar an informant watches me. . .

In the first two stanzas of his poem of 1969, Adunis describes the fear that there will be an informant and the fear of the consequences.  The informant could be anyone—a neighbor, a friend, a relative or family member or just a passerby.  Adunis could only have understood this because he is a poet-prophet with special vision.  It is unlikely that anyone in Iraq would have explained to him that Iraqis were living in an ‘upside down society’; and it is even more unlikely that anyone outside Iraq would have believed him if he had published his poem in 1969 when he wrote it.

To reinforce the terror that ensured absolute political control, Adunis tells us that “the dictator’s mind is devoted to composing specific encyclopedias that hunt human beings and tame them.”  Torture was the common means to “tame” Iraqis, which is to say, make them compliant.  Iraqi citizens were tortured even at local police stations and despite “torture” being against the law!  In Love under an Umbrella, Maher together with his friend Ali is brought to the local police station (mode-riyat al-amn al-aama).  Ali, a schoolteacher, on the word of his pupil, is accused of sedition.  The gravity of this offence was all the more since the regime’s definition of “traitor” was an Iraqi who was unenthusiastic about the dictator or his regime.  In this light, Adunis’ line “. . .each struggles to be the regime’s parrot, the most eloquent of them all” makes sense.  In  Love under an Umbrella, Ali is tortured and his mutilated body is dumped into Maher’s cell.  Then, Maher is released.  Nearing home, Maher witnesses the bombing of his house.  His wife and two babies are killed and some of the neighbors injured.  Adunis refers to such punitive demolitions in his line “My friend J lives in what seems to be a palace.  He said to me:  It is easier for this house to be destroyed than for me to open one of the windows you see before you.”  In Love Under an Umbrella, we hear the reaction to such events from Maher’s neighbors:  “Crazy poet!  What grief have you brought down on us?  Blockades, war, starvation.  That’s not enough for you.  Shut your big mouth.  Your wife and children are buried under that rubble,” and “That wasn’t any American plane!  This must be some sort of punitive demolition.  What have you done?” and “Our houses, our families!  You’re crazy.  You’re crazy.  Your big mouth!  Kill him.  Traitor!  Spy!“  So Maher becomes a refugee in his own country; he leaves Iraq and walks through the desert to Jordan.

Maher and Ali live in Madinat al-Thawra (now Sadr City), a Baghdadi slum district largely populated by immigration from South Iraq with a mainly Shiite population and a concentration of poets.  The glitter and sparkle of the Euphrates and Tigris still in their eyes and hearts, the devout Shiites and poets of Madinat al-Thawra remained defiant during the dictatorship and in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War.

In his poem Time crushes Baghdad’s body written in 2005, Adunis tells us that the Iraqis have been unable to return to the “river of history”.  The poet in a manner of speaking writes a love poem for Baghdad; it serves to console lovers of the land of the two rivers for the tragedy they must come to grips with:  “Night almost spreads its stars on Baghdad’s body/Murmuring, sleeping, she waits for the prophet of waking/Putting her cheek on the sand, she waits for the prophet of waking/She would be pleased if the earth were a book that she could seal/With her moans while being possessed by the prophet of waking. . .”  At present, the poet says, it is impossible for Iraqis to return and pick up the thread of their lives in what was their homeland.  Baghdad is a sort of “sleeping beauty”  awaiting a prophet to come and rouse her.  The first stanza of Adunis’ poem hints at the immediate history behind this situation.  It portrays the hope in the immediate aftermath of the American-led invasion of 2003:  “Tigris’ lips are shivering, life a jug nearly broken. . . O angel sleeping beneath her naval, when will you arise?/Spurt upwards, O you unseen water/You alone have defeated the desert.”

The poet fervently desires the artesian wells from the beginning of civilization to rise and defeat the desert with the pure sparkling water of renewal.  But, the jug that contains the shared soul of the Iraqi people is cracked only to be shattered by the actuality of the invasion.

Adunis barely mentions the “iron roof upon Baghdad’s shoulder”.  He is not interested in American aspirations and oil wells—the Iraqi people likewise.  My original screenplay In Blood I Come (2005) is about the indeterminate period immediately after the invasion.  Towards the end of this screenplay, the protagonist Khalil, an Iraqi journalist, makes a sort of pilgrimage to save the lives of the villagers he grew up with, who are under siege.  Wearing kafiyeh and riding a donkey, he passes deserted cars by the roadside.  He passes a petrol station.  A sign reads: No Petrol.  He looks into the distance and sees skyscrapers under construction.  He goes to a place that looks like Madinat al-Thawra and approaches a person who looks like Muqtada al-Sadr.  Khalil says:  “We trust you, Shaykh.  Please take us under your wing.  Please include us as your followers.”  The Shaykh (Shiite religious authority) says:  “You know of course that we have only the same kind of fighters that you do.  We fight with personal weapons and our fighters are ordinary people from all walks of life.”  Khalil replies:  “Shaykh, we are asking out of desperation.  My pen, my words bring no success.  Change nothing.”

It seems that the punishment the Americans and their allies inflicted on the Iraqi people and their dashed hopes in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War was the last straw—more than they could bear.  Adunis is right.  Baghdad rests her cheek on the sand, and also Basra and all of Iraq.

 

Aviva Butt

April 1, 2012