Khaled Khalifa - In Praise of Hatred

The land was vast, its meadows as lush as brocade, and the desert sand sparkled like silver confetti, as did the houses made of white stone which we entered. I heard people’s voices, but never saw a single one: I heard women’s laughter, children’s screams, the clamour of musical instruments. We went out into a narrow alley which became still narrower the further along it we walked, until we reached the point where we could no longer walk side by side. Rabia took my hand and I followed her, panting, trying to cling to the rustle of her white gown and her braided hair. She didn’t turn towards me, but continued walking behind the mass of horses, nashid singers and tambourine players. At the end of the alley the space narrowed and prevented me from passing while Rabia slipped through easily, as if the walls had been drawn aside to admit her. She looked behind, smiled at me, and left as the barrier opened up on to infinite water. The tambourines drew off and the horses departed.

Only I remained. Everything around me, stones, water and sky, was silent. I was alone. My grandfather took my hand with a chuckle, my three aunts walked behind us at a measured pace in their usual clothing. At the first bend I saw Radwan leading our caravan to the gate of the huge house, leaving us in the vast outdoor space and taking himself off to his room without a word, as ever. There were plants surrounding me and water in front of me. I was sure that Rabia would never descend from the ceiling to take me by the hand again and lead me back to the water, which was unlike any water I had ever known. Whenever I tried to recreate the whole image, that water at the end bubbled in my memory, honey-coloured and shot through with green.

I felt very tired and went into my room shivering, crept into bed and slept deeply. I tried to recall the details of Rabia’s face and eyes. Features, voices, scents: all fled as if I were in a faint or turning delirious. I only woke up because of the clamour made by my aunts. I heard Marwa’s voice and got up wearily from my bed, quickly washed my face and went into the living room where she was wailing. I hugged her and buried my face in her hair, and I felt the last of her sobs as she drew back to examine my face; its wheatish complexion hadn’t regained its purity yet. I didn’t understand what had happened. My aunts were speaking all at once and then suddenly falling quiet. After a short while, Radwan entered and said, ‘Selim is coming.’ He left and my aunts were silent.

My aunt Marwa had a beauty spot on her cheek, an old family legacy which had been interrupted for two generations. When my grandmother saw it for the first time she said, ‘She will return the family to its true path. The women who come after her will enjoy their lives and they will have many children. Isolation will never enter their hearts.’ My grandfather, desperate, didn’t much care. He was convinced that his daughters would never break the bonds of spinsterhood and believed that fate, despite erring once, would doubtless return everything back to its natural course. For this reason he didn’t care about the charm hanging around the neck of his youngest daughter, nor the blue beads my grandmother used to make colourful necklaces in order to adorn Marwa when she accompanied her to family councils. These sessions roused a wish in Maryam to curse these perverted women, who gathered as if in a bazaar to inspect the value of the girls, the suppleness of their bodies, the size and firmness of their breasts. There were interviews and hidden deals between the women who enjoyed buying and selling and enlarging upon the qualities of their absent sons, and the mothers of those girls strutting around in long gowns, laden with fake jewels, their faces coated with creams, as strange blends of perfume wafted from their bodies and weighed down their breath. The expert old women would reach out for hair and teeth and breasts, exposing chests to palpate the tender-skinned bodies, only just blooming with coloured desires.

My uncles Selim and Bakr arrived and Marwa cried in front of them. She said she could no longer bear life with her husband, who came home only when he was drunk or high, and who would beat and kick her. When her family cursed her and accused her of destroying his life, she uncovered her white back in front of us. Maryam pointed to the blue and ruby-red bruises that resembled whiplashes. Selim concealed his fury while Bakr angrily looked back and forth from his brother to my aunt’s bare back; I was haunted by the blotchy colours of her skin, like scorched earth. Marwa calmed down after Selim assured her he would put an immediate end to this brutality of her husband, and she would not leave this house unless his behaviour changed. Bakr swore to smash his head in with the hammer hanging in our cellar; this last was spoken to his uncles, who had intervened more than once to curb his violent conduct.

My uncles left at the end of the night, their presence having rendered appropriate a long conversation about how everyone was. Among those present was Radwan, who informed his friend Bakr that he had created a new perfume that he was taking to the markets, and which he would release under the name ‘Attar of Secrets’. Bakr spoke about his increasingly frequent trips to various places all over the world, which were necessary for the expansion of his business.

Maryam was overjoyed at this reunion of the whole family. She forgot to grumble about Safaa’s behaviour, and pretended to forget Marwa’s problems after she went into Safaa’s room. Marwa took off her black outer clothing, and in her light clothes she appeared effortlessly beautiful when I saw her throat and her hair reaching out from underneath the thin head covering tied around her neck.

Selim asked me if I needed anything, and Bakr complimented me on my upstanding morals, which had become proverbial among all the members of the family. He kept proudly repeating, ‘Leave this one to me, she’s like a daughter to me.’ I was gladdened by Uncle Bakr’s attention; for me, he represented the pinnacle of vigour and brilliance on account of his tall figure, his powerful body, and his features that hinted at cruelty yet were lined with a fervent tenderness and deep sadness which no one discerned. His eyes rolled ceaselessly in their sockets as if a fire were burning deep within him. I didn’t understand the anxiety and reticence in his movements, which could quickly grow suspicious and agitated. He was absent for days at a time without informing anyone of his whereabouts. His wife complained to Maryam, who told her that my grandfather had often said that business had its secrets.

I would have liked to tell Maryam that the city was secret, the streets were secret, so were the stones and people, houses, rooms, hearts … even laughter was secret in a city that celebrated secrecy and where everything was enacted far from others’ eyes. Recently, I had started feeling that everyone was conspiring against everyone else. It was conspiracy that I saw in Marwa’s eyes as she prepared a bed in Safaa’s room, both of them absorbed in asides they were trying to hide from me. I tried to come closer to them to listen in on their whispered conversation as they were weaving.

I could feel from Marwa’s eyes that she was flooding me with love. She would wake me up for school and make my bed while I washed my face, and then she would prepare breakfast for me and coffee for herself. Her light, tender conversation swamped me with a deluge of hidden affection; I felt that I needed it more than at any time in the past. Questions blazed inside me. In school, with Dalal and the other girls muffled in black clothing, I plunged into descriptions of Hell and the torment of the grave; these images terrified me, and the girls excelled in their sober narrations. I felt that the black Angel of Death was waiting for me on the other side of the street. He would open the ground to me and I would wander with him among the risen corpses. I would wait my turn to walk on that path, no features on my face, a flat being without scars. If I fell before reaching the gates of milk and honey and the sweet rivers where the believers were gathered, I would perish in the midst of the sins from which I no longer knew how to distance myself.