Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation) (22 page)

After Samih heard about my travel plans, he called
from Cairo to talk to me. He wished me happiness, but
behind his voice I could feel suppressed weeping. The
time for departure was approaching. One after another,
I crossed out each day on the calendar.

Only four days were left. I had gotten rid of surplus
possessions, and everything was ready for the journey.
Samih hadn't returned from Cairo. Samiha told me that
he had met the Iraqi musician Nasseer Shamma, who
asked him to join his group (the House of Arab Lute), and
he was considering the offer. One day after another. The
hands of the clock were running. Only two days left.

I was not happy or sad, satisfied or angry. I wanted to
discover the unknown and felt like a newborn. It was my
last day in Amman-Amman that was bringing me my
country's news through the waves of immigrants who
were looking for their bread and escaping the fires of new
wars. The exile I had suffered would be a mere rehearsal
for longer days that would begin tomorrow.

iT's MARCH 4. Samiha helps me carry my bag. She puts it
in her car, and while she takes me to Queen Alya Airport,
my eyes gather details of Amman before I miss it forever.
A voice behind me cries: "Oh, stranger, where to?" And I repeat to myself what the poet Ibrahim al-Zabidi said
when he departed for freedom thirty years ago:

Oh, morning of Baghdad, Farewell,

I'm entering exile.

2. Ibid., 102.

i. Anthony H. Cordesman and Ahmed S. Hashim, Iraq: Sanctions
and Beyond (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997), ioi.

i. Abu Tabar, the "Father of the Ax," a supposed serial killer who
terrorized Baghdad in 1972-73, but who was in fact working for Saddam Hussein's regime, killing those families who opposed it.

2. Alessandro: a character in a famous Mexican film series.

3. "The party": the Baath Party, which was the only party of government in Iraq until 2003.

4. Umm: the Arabic word for "mother."

5. Fatima al-Zahra: the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed and
the mother of al-Hassan and al-Hussein.

6. During the 19gos, the Iraqi government made it very difficult
for Iraqis to travel abroad. They had to pay heavy taxes, around four
hundred thousand Iraqi dinars (anywhere from three to four hundred
US dollars), to be able to travel.

7. Qur'an IX, 51.

8. Bab al-Taous: one of the gates of the holy city of Najaf.

9. The shrine of the prophet Elias is said to be on the Tigris River
in Baghdad.

10. Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (1926-64): Iraq's most celebrated poet
and one of the pioneers of the free-verse movement.

ii. Abou-t-Tayyib Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi: an Arab
(Iraqi-born) poet regarded as one of the greatest poets in the Arabic
language.

12. The material quoted is from a diary of an Iraqi soldier, poet Ali
Abd el-Emir, dated March 2, 1991.

13. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf: an important provincial governor in Iraq
during the Umayyad Empire whose methods of rule were very harsh
and unpopular.