سماهر عبدالحفيظ حمدان
الحوار المتمدن-العدد: 6953 - 2021 / 7 / 9 - 03:37
المحور:
الادب والفن
Identity in the Idle Time
Nothing awakens us from our deep but our horrified at the farewell of the ones we love.
Hanan was out like a light after a week of painstaking work. Friday was her sanctuary to get the tiredness off her body and the y off her weary eyelids. As usual, the shadows of the beloved ones began visiting her while she was in a slumber. This time, it sounds really different. She could have seen her mother who departed away from her 10 years ago. She was lying on a hospital stretcher wearing green clothes like the ones surgeons wear when they enter behind a patient sticking scalpels in his - her sedated body which has been chased by the lovers hopeful eyes and their tongues stir with prayers. She was also covered with sheets of the same color. She was helpless and solemnly yelling and calling Hanan to the harshest pain of her ability.
She got up out of her , freaking out in a miserable way. She turned around to take a look at her husband who seems to wake out of a deep because of her restless and her twitchy raving. She hesitantly looked at him and called his name with a terrified voice.
- " Tha er … Tha er "
- " Yeah … "
- "I need to bounce something off to you but please, do not consider me insane!"
- "Say, what is wrong?" said it with extreme concern
- "I feel like one of my parents has died!"
- " La hawl wala quat iilaa billah (There is no power´-or-strength but with Allah). Keep evil away. This is an illusion and dream hallucinations."
He gently and kindly patted her on the shoulder, saying:
- "It is ok. Try to another hour. You are exhausted and you need to ."
is that the unknown world which Hanan hoped to dive in, in her day off. That s what she said to her colleague this weekend, when she left for home after a week of exhausting work. So what else but work and are awaiting her?! She can t visit nor see her parents and brothers who live in Jordan just a stone s throw away from Palestine. Many incidents have been buried in time archive while she is still dormant. She hears what s happening but she cannot see it. Her father grew old, the gray hair invaded her mother s head and all her brothers married. She s had a lot of events in her imagination but she did not actually live in them. Hanan turned these events into memories that were all painful even if she tried to hide her ache. Her life was like Godot s who spent his life waiting with no hope. During the lean ten years, hope was her only provision. She did not realize that hope deferred maketh the heart sick. It is just like the wick of a candle that burns her from inside´-or-like a malignant a tumor that ruthlessly attacks her soul. She did not realize that amputation will be the end of the tortured soul.
The flashback for the ten years passed in front of her eyes. Then, she sunk into the ocean of memory and suppressed the inner voice which was urging her to get out of bed to inspect her foreboding tragic nightmare which he portends eternal parting which will put an end not just to hope, but also to wait.
She took the blanket off away from her with a shaky hand and wiped her sweaty brow with her palm, which seemed to burst into tears before her eyeballs. She looked at Tha er who got his head covered to avoid her worried flaming eyes. He knows very well the strength of his wife and the spiritual connection with those she loves.
She turned around and grabbed the phone with an uncertain hand- it s like she knows what s waiting for her. She was about to call the number when she remembered that telephone call with her mother when she wanted to tell her that she finally got the Palestinian ID after ten years of her marriage and the painful parting, she s going to turn her dream into reality and gain the warm embraces of her mother, but she responded by saying: "There s no time left."
She thought: "Is it possible that my mother has a sixth sense and she ll die after her prospective identity became a matter of a month´-or-two?!" She shook off these painful thoughts and caught the phone.
She wrongly dialed the number several times. It was like the subconscious mind was trying to protect her from herself and from her stubbornness. Finally, it worked and the phone rang on the other side and she heard her father saying: "Hello" It s like he wants to say "Alas" not "Hello".
Hanan felt calmness once she heard her father s voice. She plucked up her courage and said:
"Dad, where s my mom? Can I speak with her?"
A solemn silence has prevailed on the other side who seemed to be at the other end of the world. Her soul started boiling like a boiler. She tried to break the deafening silence by calling her father:
"Dad … dad please, I want to talk with my mom!"
"Your mom … your mom … still … she is still a.
Her strength has gone, for she knew that his serious and quivery tone hides a catastrophe behind it . But his attempt to hide what s going on will never succeed with Hanan
-"Dad … dad please I want to talk with my mom! … I know as well as you do that my mom does not till nine o clock on Friday." Once again, there was a restless silence. Suddenly, her father s trembling voice rang out:
-"Your mom … your mom … is in the hospital."
-"OK, OK, which one of my brothers is with her? I want to call him.
Hanan barely finished her sentence until her father broke down and cried his eyes out! He quaveringly answered her:
-"May her soul rest in peace!"
Hanan felt nausea as if her soul was gradually exiting her body , the soul which has been eager to meet with her family for a decade. She pictured the final valediction which has not and will not be completed, the funeral which will be held without the eldest daughter and the scene of the parting for her mom ten years ago. At that time, it occurred to her that their separation will be eternal, for it seems that it s enough for the fears to come to our minds to become a reality.
She loosened her grip off the phone and fainted when her head hit the edge of the closet, perchance she may see her loved ones in her coma,´-or-maybe Hanan wakes up meeting with the people she loves after the waiting ripped her entity apart piece by piece.
She might awaken to a reality where she will not pay for her nationality in tears and yearnings. She was Palestinian to the core, but a small piece of paper from the civil affairs with a Zionist seal deprived her of meeting her loved ones who had died with no meeting. If she were an immigrant from Hungary´-or-Russia, she would have become a citizen in minutes and she would not become a hostage in two cells, the cell of her alienation and the one that locks her up in her own city as if she were a fugitive from justice.
The Author
Iman Morshed Hammad
The Translator
Samaher A. Hamdan
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