Khaled Khalifa - In Praise of Hatred

Afghanistan was forgotten until the Soviets entered it, and then the world was reminded of it once again. The Afghans, who wanted nothing from this world other than food for their children, became ensnared in difficulties. They became mercenaries for the warring factions that each wanted control over the marijuana fields they believed were full of money. Abdullah fell in love with the country when he saw its mountains, caves and plains. He considered its terrible silence appropriate for a reassessment of his sense of self and his ideas. After several trips to Washington when he used all his wiles to convince the Americans not to leave Afghanistan to its inevitable fate, Anderson followed him to Pakistan and they spoke like old friends about a new Islam, which wasn’t content with five prayers a day but pored over hundreds of texts calling for an Islamic state. On the first day they ate dinner in a local restaurant in Islamabad like tourists looking for traditional curios and Kashmiri silk. They haggled with a market trader and bought things they didn’t need. After being assured that Safaa had been delivered safely, Abdullah was as happy as a young child and insisted on celebrating with Anderson by going to the most luxurious restaurant and eating Saudi kabsa . They agreed to transport arms through a network of workers whom they didn’t name.

Abdullah would be alone for years. He vented his desires for Safaa in love poetry which had a broken metre but also a strange charm in its composition, and which was limited to words which rhymed with ‘Safaa’.

When we had to say goodbye to Safaa, we did everything for her and packed her bags with all the baby things; it became a necessity for us, so we could get used to her absence. After she had gone back to Saudi Arabia, the three of us, Zahra, Maryam and I, sat down together and we were silent. Maryam no longer felt a connection to anyone; Zahra was weary, moved automatically and didn’t reply to my questions about the secret of her soft feet and youthful face. There was nothing for me to do but return to my room and my dreams so I could draw them as I liked. I drew Abdullah wearing a turban, rifle in hand as he led the large army which would enter Kabul behind him and destroy the Russian forces being swallowed up by the quicksands in the swamps. Their remains turned into skulls which women collected to make necklaces of coloured beads that Afghans hung in their mud houses. For an entire week after Safaa’s departure, we ate our breakfast in silence and without enthusiasm. I was back at college; at the end of my walk there, I tried to recall the faces I had seen on the way. Everything had become decrepit: streets, faces, trees; now the obituaries no longer bothered to say ‘martyrs’ or even ‘killed by stray bullets’.

I spent a long time with Khalil and listened to his ravings as he described the taste of Wasal’s vagina as ‘spicy’ at one time and ‘like a pineapple’ at another. Afterwards he repented and wept to his friend Radwan, who smiled foolishly as he recalled memories of a young man about whom no one knew anything. One night, I heard Radwan speak to him about a mute girl the two of them had once met in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque. Radwan had convinced her of his ability to break the knot in her tongue, so she clung to him as he went on his errands; this eventually ended in a civil marriage performed by one of his blind friends, and which Radwan tore up after six months, during which time she had grown passionately devoted to him. She looked for him among the blind men of the city, who didn’t understand what she meant by the hand gestures she used to describe him. He told Khalil she was a poor woman who made straw baskets which no one bought; she exchanged them for herbs which would help her have a child, even if it was with Blind Radwan, who escaped from her only to become entangled with a family whose depression he couldn’t bear.

* * *

It is difficult to be constantly searching for the choices we want. Fate, to the same extent as it opened up secret caves in front of Abdullah, closed its doors in front of Maryam. Omar moved in with us after failing in his search for an elusive refuge — but she wasn’t saved even by his long stay. He would circle around the room, then leave wearing a limp suit, sad and devoid of any desire for frivolity or dissipation. He tried to open the family shops again, having lost much of his money in Beirut. He didn’t know how to get involved in any other trade.

At first Beirut had been entirely the right place for Omar’s new life, but the chokingly humid climate by the sea didn’t suit him. His homesickness never left him, and his friends lost their gay laughter. He eventually decided to return after the Mukhabarat confirmed that they would not harm him. He presented many expensive presents to the wives of officers who proved influential in pardoning the family name. He brought all his possessions, and tried to be involved with us, convincing Maryam that Marwa had committed no crime, and that members of the other sect were not our enemies but people it was possible to live alongside. His repeated visits to Marwa no longer roused anyone’s fury, and instead became a bridge with which he returned her to us. It is difficult to imagine yourself pardoning your enemy.

Omar never ceased to surprise us. He never doubted that life was short and did not deserve to be taken so seriously. The previous months had made him careworn, as if he was no longer in control. His beloved horse died and he couldn’t find anyone to bury it; he looked sorrowfully at its great skeleton, which was all that remained after the stray dogs had torn at it. He took its skull, cleaned it with alcohol, and dried it out in aniseed. Omar would boast of this new cup in front of guests who were used to his eccentricities. When he opened up the family shops there was a strong smell of mothballs, as he had stuffed large quantities of them in the more expensive carpets, to keep the mice away. They hadn’t found anything to gnaw on apart from one small carpet which Bakr had picked up from one of the markets of Izmir and considered a treasure. A rumour was circulated around the market that it had been presented to Sultan Abdel Hamid so he could pray during one of his visits to a famed shatranj player. Omar patched it up, but he was certain it would be too difficult to restore it properly. Bakr’s deviousness, which had once almost succeeded in getting an inexperienced antiques collector to pay six thousand dollars for it, was gone. Omar burned the carpet without a second thought. Smoke rose from the shop as he sat silently and observed his surroundings. He was overcome with nostalgia for the long-gone mornings spent here, as he drank tea and exchanged news of the latest murders in the narrow-laned quarters whose inhabitants were afforded no protection from their high walls.

Omar went to check on his farm which had been occupied by the death squad. They had ruined everything: they went down to the cellar where expensive wines were stored and drank them down without any regard for their taste; the bedding became filthy, and the smell of fat stank out the kitchen. Omar entered the house, accompanied by a senior officer, and threw them all out. He felt frustrated when he saw what they left behind and walked out again. He lived in seclusion, and didn’t respond to his friends’ entreaties to bring a bit of the joy to their lives which had faded after so many of them had fled abroad. He couldn’t find anywhere better to rest than our house. He sat and relaxed, a man returned to the family who needed him after a long absence. In the mornings he would have coffee and ask if we needed anything. I wouldn’t have believed that Omar could concern himself with parsley and cheese and would go to the Souk Al Hal to buy them while they were fresh. Maryam didn’t discuss how long he would be staying with us. She waited every day for him to gather his clothes and his things and leave us again to our lonely fate. We endured our relationships with all these males, whose lives began with dreams of the Republican Palace, and ended in homelessness, exile and prison.