Poor Rail! - A poem by Majid al-Saffah

https://youtu.be/j7Pa7fday9U Poor Rail By Majid al-Saffah Translated by Rafed Khashan This poem should join the ranks of the rail poems written by Philip Larkin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ezra Pound, and others who celebrated the rail or regretted its decline. I fell in love with this poem and immediately started translating it. I did not finish it yet, but it is worth sharing to receive any feedback or comments. Saffah regrets in this poignant poem the poor conditions of the Iraqi rail especially after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Poor Rail Poor rail, I saw it yesterday dragging its cabins in humiliation! Poor rail, I saw it yesterday noon coming down yet careworn, As if carrying the post-70 worries of its age! Poor rail, how sweet it was in the bygone days when it passed by us! How sweet it was in the past when it passed through the towns! I felt as if it entered our homes and woke us up. Yet now, it sounded as if it was robbed of its sound. I wonder who silenced it and who did humiliate it? Poor rail, how audacious it was in bygone days! Poor rail, its stations turned into ruins as if they were graves. Alas! They were also included in the “who-cares law!” They were glowing meeting places of lovers. How many a time did we bid farewell to our loved ones! And how many a time did we receive them thence! “Zamil” wrote the poems of our yearnings on the rail. And the “Rail and Hamad” is the most beautiful of our lyrics! O, rail! What changed you? You look sad when you pass by. You turn your face to the other side, And do not look to us? We fell into your sound’s love when we were kids. Is it possible the beloved denies his lovers? O, rail! Why when you come back, You are not excited, as if You are being led to the guillotine? You are being dragged on your face when you pass by. What happened to your old energy and excitement? He says the problem is with you, not with me. I am keeping my old habit that you did not forget. I used to leave and come down whenever I wanted. And the night walk was the sweetest of all walks. My stations, in bygone days, were in everyone’s heart Because everyone was my folk. I used to leave at night from the Abode of Peace Peacefully I glide down with no flinching eyes, Walking with pride like a peasant proud of his orchard. I pass through the historical city of Babylon, And see the remnants of Kish and the glory of our past. And through the Khaza’al’s turf, I go and sniff Hamoud’s perfume, Who teased his audience with his smart riddles.

Prophet Mohammed's Sayings

A third round of the Prophet’s words of wisdom I translated today in response to the continual ignorance and hate generated by French President Emanuel Macron. 1- Jesus once told his disciples: seek God’s love and draw near to him. The disciples asked: How do we do that, Spirit of God? He said: By hating the sinners you gain God’s love and by angering them you draw near to God. The disciples asked: Then who do we sit with? Jesus said: Sit with those who remind you of God when you see them, those whose words make you do more goodness, and whose actions make you long for the afterlife. 2- The one amongst you who is the farthest in likeness to me is the miserly, vulgar, and indecent. 3- Ill manners are ill-omen. 4- God has forbidden the indecent, the vulgar, and the unashamed who doesn’t care about what he says or what is said about him from entering Heaven. 5- The Prophet was once asked, “Are there devils among the people.” He said, “Didn’t you read Allah’s words when He says ‘he (the Devil) shared them in their children and posessions?’” 6- If you help, you get helped. The one who does not prepare patience for calamities will be incapable (of overcoming them.) The one who praises or criticizes people will be praised or criticized and the one who leaves people alone will be left alone. 7- Would you like me to guide you to the best manners in this life and the hereafter? Maintain relations with the one who boycotted you, give the one who prevented you, and forgive the one who hurts you. 8- He (the Prophet) once went out and saw some people pushing a boulder. He told them: The strongest amongst you is the one who controls himself when angry, and the toughest amongst you is the one who forgives when he is capable of retaliation. 9- I accept this religion (Islam) for my self yet it is not straightened only through generosity and good manners. So, adorn this religion with these two values as long as you are Muslims. 10- The most faithful amongst you are the ones who have the best manners. 11- Good manners secure love. 12- Genial countenance erases grudges. 13- Modesty is of two kinds: modesty of the intellect and modesty of idiocy. The modesty of the intellect is knowledge and that of idiocy is ignorance. 14- If you believe in God and the Day of Judgment, fulfil your promises. 15- Trustfulness brings forth God’s favor and treachery brings down poverty. 16- The child’s looking at his parents with love is one kind of worshiping (God.) 17- If the libertine is praised, God’s throne shakes (in rage.) 18- If someone does you a favor, reward him. If you are not able to reward him, then praise him, for praise is a kind of rewarding. 19- Do not argue or joke (in excess) with your brother. If you promise him something, never break that promise. 20- The best help to achieve God’s obedience is affluence.

A second round of the Prophet’s words of wisdom that I translated and are directed to those who depict him as a violent person while he was sent by God as “a mercy for all humanity.” It is we who gave a bad impression about our Prophet and made others, through our ignorance and reckless behavior, think that our actions are a reflection of Mohammed’s teachings. 31. Start (eating) with salt and conclude it with salt for it has remedies for seventy conditions the least of which is insanity, leprosy, and albinism. 32. The evilest of people is the one who does not forgive and do not pardon. More evil than that even is the one whose evil cannot be averted and whose goodness cannot be expected. 33. Avoid lying for lying disgraces the face and be truthful for truthfulness brightens the face. Blessed is truthfulness and truly sinister is lying. 34. God loves his creature when he says, “Forgive me God because You are the only One who forgives the sins. God would then say to the angels: “My angels, this creature of mine knows that no one other than me can forgive the sins. Bear witness that I forgave his sins.” 35. Avoid backbiting and being a tattletale. Backbiting ruins your fasting and being a tattletale brings torment unto you in the grave. 36. Never swear by God if you are lying and do not swear by Him for no necessity for God shall not have mercy on those who swear when they are lying. 37. Avoid arguing for it starts with ignorance and ends with regret. 38. Use your miswak (toothbrush) for it cleans the mouth, make you loveable to God and clears your vision. Flossing makes you loveable to angels for the mouth’s foul smell hurts the angels. 39. Do not get angry. If you get angry, then sit down and contemplate into God’s might over people and His forgiveness to them. 40. Be courteous to your family, neighbors, and those you meet. If you do that, God will write your name in the highest levels. 41. Hate for other what you hate for yourself and love for others what you love for yourself and so you will be just in your judgment and fair in your justice; you will be loved by the residents of Heaven and dear to the hearts of the people. 42. Keep my commandments! 43. Asked a question about the signs people show, Prophet Mohammed said: 44. The signs of the truthful person are: truthful in his talk, believes in God’s promise and warning, keeps his pledges, and avoids treachery. 45. Signs of the believer: He has mercy, shows understanding, and has bashfulness. 46. Signs of the patient person: Being patient in calamities, resolute in doing good deeds, humility, and forgiveness. 47. Signs of the repentant: Watching God in his actions, shunning wrongfulness, pursuing rightfulness and preserving goodness. 48. Signs of the thankful person: Giving thanks in good times and being patient through bad times, having satisfaction with God’s decision and thanking and praising God, and only God. 49. Signs of the God-fearing person: Observing God in public and in secret, doing goodness unto others, contemplating into the Day of Judgement and supplicating to God. 50. Signs of the godly person: Pure-hearted, good-doer, well-earner, and improver of all his affairs.

At these testing times of continuous attacks on Muslims and Prophet Mohammad and the incessant ignorance of many Muslims who do not hesitate to hurt their religion and their prophet through their violent acts, we stand perplexed at what can be done to make things right. However, as we re-examine the Prophet’s tradition we find nothing but wisdom and light to guide those who are in search of one to make their journey safely through the darkness engulfing this life. Here are some of the Prophet’s words of wisdom I translated some time ago. 1- There is no poverty like ignorance and no riches like wisdom. 2. There is no isolation like conceit and no assistance like seeking counsel. 3. There is no smart measure like frugality, no pedigree like good manners and no worship like contemplation. 4. Prevarication is the bane of talk. 5. Forgetfulness is the bane of knowledge and slackness is the bane of piety. 6. The bane of forgiveness is humiliation and the bane of beauty is vanity. 7. The bane of courage is excess and the bane of good ancestry is conceit. 8. Be truthful and never tell a lie whatsoever. 9. Never commit a treachery however small it was. 10. Fear God as if you see him. Spend your money and yourself in defense of your religion. 11. Keep the good manners and avoid ill manners. 12. Three things are the dearest to God: Doing the duties God imposed on you, avoiding the things that God banned and having satisfaction with what God has given you. 13. Three things are good manners: Reach out to those who avoided you, give those who deprived you and forgive those who did wrong unto you. 14. Three things come at your rescue: Holding your tongue, crying over your sins, and having a big house. 15. Three traits are the masters of deeds: Being fair to people, treating brothers-in-God equally and remembering God at all times. 16. Three actions are rewarded in this life: Hajj negates poverty, charity repels calamity and kindness to relatives gains longevity. 17. Three missing traits renders deeds ineffective: Fear of God that prevents you from committing sins, knowledge to fend off ignorance and wisdom in dealing with people. 18. Three people will be under the shade of God’s throne at the day of Judgment: A man who loves unto others what he loves unto himself, a man who became aware of something and did not act before he made sure that what he will do will anger or please God, and a man who does not point at others’ faults before fixing that same fault in himself. Man must always be busy fixing his own faults for whenever he is done fixing one, he will discover another to fix. 19. Three traits are the gateways to godliness: Generosity, nice talk, and patience on nuisance. 20. Four things are coupled with four others as mentioned in the Torah: Whoever is overwhelmed with this life will always be unhappy with God, whoever complains of a plight inflicted on him will be complaining of God, and whoever approaches a rich person with humility will lose two thirds of his religion and whoever in this nation enters Hell is someone who makes fun of God’s teachings. 21. Four are coupled with four: ruling over others is coupled with despotism, not seeking counsel is coupled with regret and if you judge others, prepare to be judged; and finally poverty of religion is the greatest death. 22. All eyes are in tears at the Day of Judgment except three: An eye that stayed vigilant in the service of God, an eye that shut its lids to illicit sights, and an eye that welled with tears from the fear of God. 23. Blessed be the person who cries for a sin that no one knows about but God. 24. Three deadly sins and three salvaging deeds. The deadly sins are: pursuing fancies, persistent parsimony, and self-conceit. The salvaging deeds are: Fairness, satisfaction, indignation, frugality whether rich or poor you maybe, and fear of God in secret and in public in such a way as if you can see Him and if you cannot see Him, He can see you. 25. Three where prevarication can be approved: trick at war, promise to your wife, and reconciling among the people. 26. Three where truthfulness can be bad: calumny, telling someone what he hates to hear about his wife, and telling someone they are liars. 27. Four things turn useless: eating after fullness, a torch light in the moonlight, farming in the salty land, and doing favor unto people who do not deserve it. 28. Four that call for the acceleration of punishment: a man you did favor unto him and rewarded you with insult, a man who attacks you although you did not attack him, a man you had an agreement with on something and they act treacherously with you, and a relative you are kind to but treat you with abandonment. 29. Four traits without which one’s Islam would not be complete: Truthfulness, thankfulness, chastity, and good manners. 30. Lack of need for people is an immediate richness and excessive need for people is humiliation of oneself and it is an immediate poverty.

Flowers of Flame

A Translated Modern Iraqi Poetic Anthology Published by Michigan State University Press with introductions by the translators and Dan Veach, the founder of Poetry Atlanta and Editor of Atlanta Review. His anthology Flowers of Flame is the first collection of Iraqi poetry since the American invasion of Iraq.

Dan Veach

Despite years of war and tsunamis of sound bites, this will be the first
opportunity many readers will have to meet Iraqis as real human
beings, speaking heart to heart. In these pages you will hear the unheard
voices of Iraq: men and women, Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds.
Th ese poems were collected, as the war raged all around them, by
Iraqis living and working in Baghdad. Th is is their message to the world,
one that transcends all the barriers dividing present-day Iraq. It is a message
that needs to be heard by all sides in the current conflict.
Iraq’s poets have suff ered imprisonment, exile, and death for the
truths they have dared to tell. Poetry is not a luxury in Iraq, but a vital
part of the struggle for the nation’s future. Th is is poetry that is feared by
tyrants and would-be tyrants.
How do they do it? How is it even possible to write poetry in presentday
Iraq? One poet asks himself, “How can you extract poems and shrapnel
from your chest at the very same time?” Th e answers that you’ll find
here will amaze you—a “perfect storm” of international headline news,
profound humanity, and genuinely great art.
You’ll find joy here as well as struggle. Arabic poetry has a long and
rich tradition of ecstatic love, whimsical humor, and philosophic insight.
Remarkably, charm and lightness of touch abound. Even the war invites
you to a picnic—from which you will not return untouched.
Th ese poems form a continuous “conversation,” each one speaking
to and illuminating those around it. Th e subjects taken up in turn are war,
love, the daily life of the people, and the inner life of the artist. An Iraqi
emergency room physician in Baghdad, someone who has surely seen
the worst of the current conflict, recently read this collection in English.
When he told us that these poems had brought him to tears, I knew that
we had captured at least a little of the truth about Iraq.

Is Translation a Finished Product?

It is once said that a work of art is never finished; it is abandoned. I think this also applies to translation. Five months ago I was commissioned by a publishing house to translate HC Armstrong's book “Lord of Arabia” into Arabic. This was the first work I do for publishing, which meant exerting extra efforts and paying more attention to details as it simply meant the real start of my professional career as a translator. The years of study and translation were only an anticipation of this day. I sat forth translating the book after an initial reading to build some horizon of expectations and to be well prepared to choose the best terms and expressions from the wealth of alternatives available in the dictionary and my mental lexicon. Every writer and translator brings to the text she writes or translates an age-old history of prejudices and perspectives that would definitely affect her linguistic choices and finally the quality of her translation. In fact, the book was discussing the history of the Saud Family and the role of Wahhabism in the rise of the new Saudi state. As a Muslim, I have a set of preconceived ideas and stereotypical images of what a Wahhabi could be. Though consolidating many ideas and images I have of Wahhabism, the first reading I did was also instrumental in dispelling many others and to remind me of my ethical role as a translator. In this essay, I wanted to highlight the fact that the translation of a text is a dynamic process that takes shapes and finally crystallize into a product after a number of tests and continual refinement.

In my translation, I had first to figure out a way to approach the text following the cursory reading I did at the first place. Therefore, I realized that to come up with a well-received translation, I had to rely as much on encyclopedias and the Internet as I do on dictionaries. In the translation of technical and historical materials, the linguistic knowledge is by no means enough and the translator has to rely heavily on relevant non-linguistic materials to render her translations perfect.The linguistic knowledge enables the translator to decode the target text; nevertheless, a knowledge of the materials at hand should complement that linguistic competence in order for the translation to make sense. The translator should also bear in mind that she is translating a text for it to be read by a certain community of readers; otherwise, the translation would be no more than a pastime and unreasonable. In fact, it is that community of specialist readers who should always be present in the mind of the translator while she is engaged in that act of translation. An unintelligible or poor translation means the ruin of one's career as a translator. That readers community is the one who translates and the real agent deciding the final form of the translation.

After having prepared my translation tools and materials I started the process of rendition moving regularly back and forth in conjectural leaps between my mental lexicon, the dictionary and the encyclopedia represented by the world wide web. These conjectural leaps allowed me first to guess the meaning of words (linguistic knowledge) and the correct transliteration of the names of people and places (extra-linguistic knowledge) and confirming or refuting them as I move. The Internet provided me with complete essays and sometimes chunks and chopped sentences on the material I was handling. A cross-comparison of the search results was also useful in corroborating the choices I made. If the Internet failed, I usually contacted some of the people I know to ask them for the information I needed.

However, despite these great efforts and strenuous process of decision making, when the translation was finished and sent to the client there remained some of the transliterated names that I was not sure of. I left it to the publisher who was definitely going to review the text before publication.

After I finished the translation of the book I left Jordan to the United States. Sometime after I arrived in the States, I was invited to have dinner by an old Bedouin man who was resettled in the States a couple of years before me. While driving he told me of the tribe he belongs to, which was AlRuwalla. As soon as the old man mentioned the name of his tribe, I was struck to realize the first mistake in my translation. In fact, Armstrong's transcription was totally correct, but since I never heard of the name of that tribe, I was not able to transliterate it correctly back into Arabic.

A couple of months later, while I was browsing YouTube.com for some videos I came to realize my second mistake, which was also due to a deficit in my extra-linguistic knowledge. This time, it was the name of one of the tribal Sheiks by then, Hithlain. I transliterated the name sound by sound into Arabic and thus echoed the English sounds of the name rather than the true Arabic ones. I should have realized that the “H” stood for the pharyngeal sound /ḥ/ in Arabic and “th” for /θ/ so that my rendering of the name should have read /ḥɘθlein/ in stead of /hɘðlein/. As soon as I realized my mistakes, I wrote to my client informing him of the errata. I was really relieved when he wrote back to me to thank me and to tell me that it was their practice to review and edit all the translations before publication. A good relationship between the translator and her client is indispensable for producing translations of publishable quality.

No translation, therefore, is finished. To say that there is one and only one correct translation of a text is reductio ad absurdum indeed. This would suppress the plurality of readings and interpretations of texts and would render understanding, cognition and experience as absolute and immutable. However, there are more acceptable, reasonable, justifiable and well-grounded translations provided that the translator is responsible for the linguistic and extra-linguistic choices she made. Moreover, as far as transliterations are concerned, yes, there are correct and incorrect forms of translation. The translator's mission is first to make up her mind as to be faithful or not. Second, she has to make provisions for the requirements of the job at hand. Third, she should be acquainted with the map of the text at hand; its starting point, resting stations, main topics and places and destination, inter alia. In this sense, translation approaches a journey into an unknown terrain and the translator, like a traveller, should always be knowledgeable of the road map, where to rest, and what to prepare for that journey before setting forth. It is not a journey into the unknown and the translator should also learns more and more as she makes her progress on.

Jamal Juma

Diary of Sleepwalker (Poetry)

Translated by

Shihab A. AlNassir, PhD.

This is the third volume of poetry translated by professor Shihab and the first he was personally commissioned to translate by the expatriate Iraqi poet Jamal Juma following his two successful translations of Mahmoud AlBreikan’s “Selected Poems 1953-1995” published in 2006 by AlMaamoun House in Baghdad, and Yaseen Taha Hafidh’s “War: A Long Poem” also published by the same house in 1988. The volume, which is still in manuscript form, consists of two poems. The first poem is the longest subsuming four chapters under the title “An Overture Not Bach’s”. The whole volume, however, bears the title “Diary of Sleepwalker” and is riddled with fantastic images that give rise to a dreamlike world inhabited by extraterrestrial beings. In this review, I am going to examine some aspects of Prof. Shihab’s translation setting out with some observations about language and translation in general.

Language, English in particular, offers its users a wide variety of choices that are necessarily motivated. Whether on the lexical or syntactical level, these options testify to the creative aspect of human language and its infinity. As such, to be part of this infinitude and to get into what Lacan calls its jouissance, the language user, the translator in this context, should be cognizant enough of this multiplicity of options and their generative interaction. The translation of poetry is a very hard test of the translator’s competence in mastering language, both TL and SL. A more demanding job would be the translation of poetry from one’s mother tongue into another language, where one usually did not pass through its natural phases of acquisition. To translate from Arabic into English would not be an easy job; and to translate Arabic poetry into English poetry would call for tremendous efforts and a wide cumulative knowledge that transcends that of the bilingual dictionary, which is most often a trap than an asset.

Robert Frost, the US poet, once defined poetry as “what is lost in translation”. Loss in translation is inevitable. But how to make for such a loss and what should a translator have at his/her disposal to render faithfully every aspect of the text and contribute to its re-creation?

It seems to be a taken-for-granted issue that human beings do not depend solely on knowledge of language to communicate effectively. They need to know what they are communicating about. In a sense, knowledge of the word (language) must of necessity by coupled with a knowledge of the world. In translation this is no exception. Translators should possess a knowledge of the language as well as the domain they are translating into. Hence the view that one cannot translate poetry unless he/she is a poet.
Though not a poet, Prof. Shihab has managed to produce a very fine piece of translation that can hardly be excelled. And by so doing, I believe that he shattered the poet-translator myth. I had the opportunity to discuss some of the poems with the translator, who has generously given me access to his drafts of the translation.

During my discussions with the translator and my review of the translation and the drafts, I arrived at the following points:

The translator does not need to be a poet to translate poetry.
S/he needs, however, to be a cultivated reader of poetry.
Human thought reverberates over different places and ages. A poem written today in Iraq might possibly touch upon a topic addressed by a poet in Britain during the 1950’s, for example. As such, knowledge of this poem would avail the translator to produce a translation well-suited to the English reader’s sense.
The multiplicity of linguistic options should all be conjured up and invested. The choices to be made renders translation as a political exercise requiring careful decisions to be taken at critical junctures.
The choices made, at the paradigmatic and syntagmatic levels, are similar to chemical interactions: they have to be made according to certain rules and formulae. Otherwise, a big explosion might be caused and hence monstrous deformities in the produced text would be churned out.
Translation of a poem is an endless activity.
Readers have only the end-product of the translation at their hands and so they might flout the translation by overlooking the phases of its production. A simple sentence like the following:

(الروح سجينة الجسد، سيأتي الموت ويطلق السراح)

appears in the final version as

(The body enchains the soul. Death will come,
And on-sets the release)

The Arabic sentence is as simple as it may appear in the translation. However, this sentence is the result of a tiresome struggle on the part of the translator to come up with a simple rendering that adds to its perfection. It is not a question of correctness but of what is the best and fittest. Let us look at the generative phases of the line above that stands just like the tip of an iceberg:


Syntactically speaking, the construction of the Arabic sentence is quite simple and does not call for any concern. Nevertheless, we see that the translator is not satisfied with what comes first into his mind and tries to display all the potential options offered by language before his eyes to choose from. Consider for example the phraseالسراح يطلق which is supplemented by different equally valid equivalents by the translator:

Makes the release
Bestows the release
Let it unchained
Offers the release
On-sets the release

The list is not exhaustive; we would also have

Let go of it
Free it
Sets it free
Leave go of it
Etc.

The translator, albeit, embarks on ‘on-set the release’. Onset, which is equivalent to ‘start’ and ‘initiate’, would give a sense of immediacy congruent with the idea of death. For me, though, I would choose ‘offer the release’ for I see the soul so tormented by the prison of the body that it desires death and would accept it when offered. This, however, is very true to poetry which is open to differing readings and interpretations that automatically produce different translations.

What characterizes this translation of the volume is that it strikes the reader as unexpected, as something surprising and not common. This is again attributed to the aware investment of the multiple choices the translator has at his disposal. For example, consider the title of the first poem in the volume:

افتتاحية ليست لباخ

It is skillfully rendered as

An Overture Not Bach’s

Not simply as: An Opening that is not Bach’s, An Overture that is not Bach’s or simply as An Overture that does not belong to Bach. This awareness of the workings of the English language gives the translator the flexibility to maneuver through the Arabic text. It is “an overture”, a musical introduction, not simply “an opening” because it is “Bach’s”. Let us look at a more difficult example. Consider this excerpt from ‘A Requiem Not Mozart’s’


نم ايها الجسد

ظلالك لن يمحوها احد

حتى ولا الظلام.

Where it is rendered as

O body wake up not
Your shadows no one will phase out
None else even darkness.

The use of the archaic form “wake up not” would add to the overall sense of the volume which centers over issues of death, dreams and reveries. It would also contribute to the smooth flow and tempo of the poem and provide a phonic equivalent to the rhyming lines. Moreover, there is fronting, which is a marked form in English to give emphasis to a certain phrase or expression, so that ‘Your shadows’ is justifiably emphasized as in the Arabic text. Other twists and turns can be observed throughout the volume as in the following example from Jars in the chapter of Dreams:

قوارير محشوة
برسائل تطلب الغوث
من غرقى مجهولين،
يقذف بها الموج كل ليلة
لتتلاطم على تخوم سريري..

Jars stuffed
With letters asking for the aid
Of many a drowned unknown,
Them the waves fling every night
To wax rough on the edges
of my bed.

Instead of using the bland expression “of many unknown drowned people”, the translator conjures up the still fresh construction many + a + noun = Plural, which he uses to overcome the first longwinded option. It is these choices that constitute the delightfully astounding element in the translation despite the fact that there are some instances where the reader gets clogged at a certain word or expression.

To put it in a nutshell, I can conclude by pointing out that translating a poem is by no means a finished project. Just like readings differ across times and through places, so is the case with translating poetry, where the indeterminacy of meaning and multiplicity of interpretations are what give poetry its power and efficacy. One can also say that though simple as they might appear, the poems in this volume do not lend themselves easily to translation. The very themes they tackle and the far-fetched images they evoke make it incumbent upon the translator not only to call up his/her linguistic repertoire and encyclopedic knowledge, but also to give a free rein to their imagination. The translator has really to get under the poet’s skin to probe his world of fantasy and surrealism, where the bubbles are spitted out of the mouths of the fish to be transfigured into moons, and where the pillows are clouds.

Above all, it seems that one has no option but to reiterate the words of the US translator, Clifford Landers, who acknowledges that “as someone who has seldom had the temerity to venture into the poetic arena, I do not conceal my admiration for the brave men and women who specialize in bringing into English the loftiest thoughts expressed in languages other than our own.”

Rafed A. Khashan

The Sky will not Rain Again


AUGUST 28, 2006

It was a cold and inundating winter when the people crowded out of their
houses in search of oil to light the lanterns and heaters. Empty barrels and
pale faces scattered in all directions. Smoke emanated from the yards. It
was the smoke of burning drenched woods. In the direction of the post
office, which was recently air struck, people gathered to look at the
immense destruction which the vacuum bomb left and to collect some
items from the rubble that might assist them in their subsistence. A
howling voice rose among the people “What you are doing is haram”….
“You should not do that, you Muslims; these are public property that you
all have to protect not to plunder”.
“Why don’t you go home, old man?” Karim, a young man in his twenties
yelled in a derisive tone. “We are hungry, exhausted and worn-out, we
don’t have our daily living, the Americans are bombing and the whole
government is crumbling down.” “Before you tell us it is haram, you should
have preached the officials who starved us and made us bare of our rights.
Shame on you, you are an old man. Why should we care for public
properties while our lives are stolen?”
The rest of the people did not seem to care about the verbal skirmish
between Karim, the aspiring and indignant young man, and the old man whose views were out of context.
Karim went home with a bundle of firewood that he managed to collect
from the rubbles of the post office. Today they will get some warmth and
prepare some food and drink fresh hot tea to thaw their debilitated bodies.
Karim’s father was killed more than a decade ago during the first Gulf War.
He left his wife, Karim and other four sons to face the hardships of life.
Karim was the youngest of his brothers and so was the spoiled one. But he
always showed a considerable composure and self-reliance. He left the
school at the age of 15 and opted to work as mechanic with his cousins,
only to be deprived of the benefits of education that he finally realized
when he saw his peers plowing their ways into good social positions.
Pondering over his cup of tea in the dark corner of the humid room, he
heard the sound of jet fighters lacerating the sky. “Damn them. Can they
bring us hope and remove Saddam? I want to work and marry the girl I
love. I want my children fill the house before my mother passes away. I
want her to see them playing around.”
In the morning, Karim went collecting wood for cooking. He reached the
ramshackled post office to find a greater gathering of people. Among them
was his dearest friend, Jalal.
“Hay, Karim! Come over here!”
Karim glanced Jalal waving his hand with a big smile on his face.
“Have you heard the news?”
“Which news?”
“Saddam is finished and the government flew away, bye-bye papa
Saddam.” Jalal frisked towards Karim enthusiastically.
“There would no longer be rotten Baathists breaking into our houses
in the midnight in search for fugitives or to take us to the party
section to spend the night with the dogs.”
“You must be kidding?”
“Look at those people and how joyous they are. The good guys
entered Baghdad with no opposition, the Americans themselves are
surprised.”
The gathering was in a state of ecstatic elation, they were laughing and
cursing Saddam loudly. However, some of them were still afraid of cursing
Saddam in public.
Karim was astounded, all the beautiful dreams and future plans seemed
within reach. They would soon be like the rest of the world, modern
technology, mobile phones, fashionable cars, air-conditioned work places,
a long list of fantasies and false expectations.
The weary crowd of people seemed to have forgotten their misery with the
news of toppling Saddam. They laughed and cracked jokes at the ‘fallen’
regime. They were pathetic; not knowing what would be awaiting them.
Thrilled and raptured, Karim returned home carrying his daily bundle of
wood and went to his mother to tell her the news. She was not so much
surprised and did not show a great interest. The news did not seem to
appeal to her as she was convinced that nothing new would soon happen to
remove their misery for ever. She took the wood and began to kindle the
fireplace. The wood was wet and did not burn easily. She spilled some oil
from the lantern on the sticks, which began to smolder with wisps of damp
smoke.
“What will you cook us today?” Karim asked.
“Nothing’s soup.” His mother had a rather black sense of humor that
made him smirk.
“I long for some meat; I can’t eat this watery, vegetarian soup any
longer.”
“Only human’s meat is cheap today.” Karim’s mother spluttered
while she was stirring the lumpy lintel soup.
Outside, people were preoccupied with petty talk about the recent
developments and the new order. The central Baathist government melted
like ice in a whirlpool, and Saddam himself disappeared in an
occult hideout. The political affair did not concern Karim so much and he
opted not to get in discussions of this kind. Maybe, he was also afraid of
Saddam’s ghost that was still haunting the minds and hearts of most Iraqis.
Summer was approaching rapidly and the weather was getting warmer and
warmer. There was no spring in Basrah, where Karim lived, only for a short
time. Flowers and butterflies could only be seen on the TV that Karim was
about to forget because of the scheduled power cut-offs. The only
interesting thing that appealed to him was the scattered cottony clouds that
were moving in different shapes in the sky driven by the soft breezes. One
was like the face of a girl, the other was just like a chair that had soon
morphed into something like a car or a table or may be nothing. The whole
thing was an illusion. They were no more than creations of Karim’s fantasy
as when he used to tell his friends that he saw the face of a beautiful girl in
the moon.
At about 12 pm, Karim spread his rugged prayer mat and put the
turbah, the sacred soil of Kerbala that mingled with the blood of
martyrdom. He began to pray though he couldn’t hear the muezzin as the
there was no electricity to operate the megaphones. He was happy with
this, as the mosque used to be close to his house and the muezzin had an
extraordinarily coarse voice that sent him jumping from his bed. His
prayer was short. He began with the noon prayer and moved to the
afternoon prayer in a hurry that he missed a rukaah. He must have been
yawning in his reveries. Like many Iraqis, Karim usually finds himself
talking with himself in the middle of the street, and when he realizes that
someone is looking at him he swiftly slides his hand into his pocket and
takes out his rosary to give the impression that he is counting his
exaltations of God. However, people would laugh at him but no sooner
than they find themselves in a similar situation, only to be laughed at by
others.
After months of the invasion and the big promises from the Iraqi and US
officials, nothing changed. The only thing that Karim came to have is a
mobile phone to which he sometimes can’t find enough money to buy a
scratch card, and the car he promised himself of was reduced to a bicycle
without mudguards and brakes. However, there was a strikingly new
development. A sinister one. Terrorism. Rarely had Karim heard of a
roadside bomb, an explosive belt, a car bomb or a body bomb. The country
was infested with Arab fighters, trained in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria
or Iran. They might have been here in Iraq since before the invasion.
Rumors were rife that they were brought in by Saddam. The events were
accelerating and terrorism had become a hook on which the
Americans and Iraqis were fastening their faults. Anyhow, the rebuilding
plans were exploded with the bodies of the poor that filled the
fridges and the streets.
The Sunni Triangle was just like that of Bermuda and the Americans are at
loss about what to do. To launch a sweeping offensive and destroy their
democratic image or leave the terrorists steal the lives of the innocents.
Here glittered in Karim’s mind the idea of joining the new Iraqi Army. It
was said they paid well and the soldiers were treated just like officers. Good
food, nice clothing and a noble cause: fighting the terrorists and protecting
the innocents. Why not, he would be able then to afford his marriage
expenses and save a good sum of money and then retire. It was up to him
now; no one could force him to stay in a job he detested. He used to be a
deserter in Saddam’s army. Democracy, long live democracy!
The idea of being a soldier anew did not appeal much to Karim’s mother
nor to any of his brothers. Nevertheless, they could not prevent him from
doing what he thinks reasonable for himself. Karim’s mother was really
upset; she has seen some bad dreams recently which kept recurring for
three consecutive nights. She saw Karim carried home with his bride in a
big procession of friends and relatives. Henna dyed his left hand and his
bride was dreadfully ugly. She never told the dream to anybody. She was
told that dreams were tied to a bird’s foot; if the person spoke them out,
they would fall and come true. Wedding meant the opposite to her. Maybe
a funeral or some disaster.
“Sonny, Karim, quit this idea. I am not strong enough to hear of
anything bad happens to you.”
“What’s up, mom?”
“Karoumi, remember you hardly survived Saddam’s army and you
come today to volunteer? It is death waiting in every corner of the
streets to take the youth. We don’t want your money, and your
brothers will care for your needs and will marry you off to whomever
you like.” She implored him with pleading eyes.
“Mom, you want me to live like a parasite scavenging on my
brothers. I want to rely on myself and to make my way in life.” Karim
began to lose his temper and his mother could sense that in his
trembling voice. There seemed no point in arguing. But plentifully
and quietly Karim’s mother’s pale, glaucoma-ridden eyes watered.
She dried them with her black velvet veil and went inside the kitchen
to make some tea.
The recruitment centers were full of young men applying for jobs as
soldiers. Long queues of merging figures waited in the scorching sun and
humid air for their interviews. White men, English men in military uniform
with Iraqi interpreters stood watching in delight the crowds of young men
who came voluntarily to join the fledgling army. Some others came
distributing bottles of water to the recruited. Karim found himself gulping
the whole bottle to compensate the water he lost in the heat. He passed the
formal interview and now he had to wait for his assignment.
After two weeks, Karim headed to the recruiting centre to find his name on
a long roaster of soldiers assigned to a unit in Fallujah. He heard some men
around saying “we are no fools to go there. It’s monstrous death.” A swarm
of ideas and obsessions swept him, but he had already made his mind to go
despite the consequences. He received the instructions from the centre
and now he should leave within a week to his military unit.
The news of his assignment to Fallujah grotesquely alarmed his mother,
who threw herself kissing his feet. He bent down and wept while hugging
her. It sounded much like a final good-bye. Yet he was determined to go
and nothing seemed to hurdle his march. He was instructed not to take any
baggage with him including food and military uniform. Everything would
be cared for there as these things would definitely put the soldier to extra
danger while making his way through the different corners of the acute
Sunni Triangle. It would be a long trip full of expectations and hazards and
nobody knows what would happen to him.
At 5 am, Karim bid farewell to his mother and brothers and set to the bus
station. His mother spurted some water behind him to make his trip safe
and come back one piece to her. She was looking at him in despair as if he
was marching towards death. She could only force herself to say “take care
of yourself, Allah, Mohammad and Ali be with you.” She kept watching him
with her watering eyes till he took a taxi to the bus station.
A month passed and no news from Karim. Tears did not part his mother’s
eyes and her prayers were dedicated to his safety. At about 11 pm, Karim
was about to knock the door when he was paralyzed by a whopping voice “I
am coming, Karim, thanks God for your safety, sonny!” She trudged
hurriedly towards the door and stumbled by a bucket yet she managed to
keep her poise. How did she know it was her son at the door? She must
have sensed that in the air as was the hunch of all Iraqi mothers. She
sensed his odor.
The arrival of Karim sparked a raging fire of emotion in his mother who
went about weeping of happiness. She covered his body with warm kisses,
from top to toe. She could sleep and eat after weeks of fasting and
insomnia. Inside the house was dark except for a flickering sooty lantern
that was hung in the corner of the living room. All seemed to have slept
early as usual. Darkness and the fumes of the lantern made all the families
seek refuge on the roofs of their houses for cool breezes to sleep. Yet, they
could never escape the prickly needles of droning mosquitoes. Karim
fumbled his way in the darkness to his room while his mother raised the
lantern above his head to get a better view of the face she missed for a long
time. She gave him a glass of water which he drained in one gulp. The
bathroom was already prepared for him.
Ashuraa, the tenth day of Muharam, was approaching. Karim came to
commemorate the holy occasion in Basrah. Preparations had been made.
Black, white, green and red banners were hoisted above the houses. Black
obituaries with the Prophet’s sayings, poetic verses and historical
testimonies paying tribute to Imam Hussein were nailed to the private and
public walls. The air carried with it the dust of the battle of Kerbala and the
crackling of the fire which was set to the tents of the Hashemites. The large
bronze cauldrons and basins were dusted off and the processions equipments
suddenly invaded the markets from Iran. All the flagellation tools that used
to be forbidden under Saddam’s regime floated up out of the blue. In
Muharam, all the poor would eat to satisfaction. Mutton, venison, camel
meat and chicken are served generously by the Shiite and Sunni well-offs
alike. However much one ate, they were still tempted to eat more and
more. The remaining food was not easily disposed of; it was blessed food,
with a healing effect that a childless women could conceive a baby once she
stirred into the cooking of Ashuraa with the big ladle.
The processions began early in the morning after days of industrious
preparations. Karim joined one of these mawakebs heading to Abed Ali’s
house that used to be a meeting place for the processions coming from the
popular neighborhoods in Basrah. He wore in black with his hair low cut. A
big bunch of 30 cm metal chains fastened to the end of a stick filled his
hand. The procession moved in parallel queues that formed a huge
black mass guided by a drum beater that unified the procession’s march.
The cadence was so rhythmic and the bodies swayed left and right in a
semicircular movement with the hands rising high in the air before they
plunged to slash the backs with the iron chains. They moved in an
otherworldly, trance-like, dance towards Kerbala. Heads stemmed from the
walls of the house roofs looking at the young men in their first public
commemoration of the tragedy of the Hashemites after the fall of Saddam.
Small children walked each passing procession to the end of their alley. Old
women stood at the doors of their houses and the tears washing their faces;
they must have stirred old memories in the women’s hearts. There were
strong emotions of fury against the wrong doers.
“Are they staging a revolution?” One of the bystanders exclaimed
rhetorically.
“Had Saddam allowed them to do that, the Americans would not
have been here. Freedom feeds power and breeds love between
people and their leaders.” Another bystander commented.
The processions convened at Abed Ali’s house, where a large platform was
raised and decorated with colorful banners and rugs for the poets praising
Imam Hussein, his household, brothers and followers. Megaphones and
generators were also provided; they wanted the sounds to fill the corners of
the universe. Food was served at the noon to give a break to the exhausted
bodies. The afternoon was rather lighter and many sorts of cakes and
beverages were served.
“Drink and curse Yazid. Drink and curse Ibn Ziyad. Drink the water
and curse Shimr. Curse those who checked Hussein from drinking
from the Euphrates when he was dead thirsty.” An old man, who had
been called servant of alHussein, crooned while he was distributing
the drinks.
Night closed in on the city. It was dark, as if mourning with the people for
Hussein. The small children filled the streets as they shimmered in the
moonlight and the heat emanating from the asphalt. Karim went directly to
bed and slept soundly before the day of departure. He wanted to wake up
in the morning yet he felt much and much in need for a slumber. He would
absolutely have it.
It was the day of departure. The same fears and obsessions assaulted
Karim’s mother. She remained silent for she knew her son was stubborn.
The old dreams haunted her this time but she did not tell them only to
herself in the toilet. She believed that to speak out a dream in the toilet, it
would not come true and would not fall from the bird’s foot. The farewell
was so passionate and short. He went to his destination.
During the first week, Karim received his salary. The view of notes
enthused some life into his veins. What should he buy for his family?
Should he save the money for his wedding? No, he would be so mean then
not to buy gifts to his mother and brothers from the first salary. He would
buy a sheep to slaughter as a votive offering for his safety and distribute the
meat to the poor in his neighborhood.
There was an air of unease that Karim began to sense with the approach of
his leave. He began to have some misgivings and see bad dreams as if his
father was inviting him to dinner or to spend a night with him. At first he
was hesitant to take a leave, but he wanted to delight his mother’s heart
and to comfort her with his salary. That must have diffused some of her
fears at least.
The way from Fallujah to Baghdad was rather safe except for some
spasmodic shootings and US copters hovering over the highway, but this
gave a sense of comfort to Karim who was traveling undercover.
The central bus station in Nahda teemed with people; travelers, sellers,
drivers, peddlers, children, aged, young men, women, cats, stray dogs,
dust, oil, dirt. Karim had been hungry all the way to Baghdad. He decided
to have some sandwiches before he got into the bus going Basrah. The sky
was clouded but it did not seem to rain. It would not rain as it was June.
The falafel sandwiches were yummy to his empty belly. Hunger makes
good cooking.
There were about ten seats available in the bus Karim got in. He sat next to
the window and began to ponder over the crowds of people. What would
stop a takfiri from mincing those toiling bodies? Nothing but God’s mercy.
The sky darkened and the faces gloomed in the streets. A sudden
movement attracted Karim’s attention. He could not identify it well. It was
a ghost. Karim was nailed in his seat in terror. It was an amoebic figure,
shapeless, seeping unnoticeably among the people. It must have been in
search of a big hunt. It was approaching the bus from the left. It was
sinister, petrifying, gorgonic…. Karim broke his adrenaline manacles and
headed toward the door only to face the figure which sneaked into the bus.
It was something like an ape, a mongol scarved in red shemagh like the one
worn by the Bedouins of the Arab peninsula. He stared Karim in the face
with the eyes of Medusa. Karim was ossified. He could only cry “terrori…”
before he heard “tick, boooommmmm.” All the past and coming images
squeezed at the threshold of his memory racing to get a venue into his
vision. Childhood images, his mother, father, brothers, hopes,
expectations, dreams, fears, the unknown, the grave, the hereafter, the
wedding, his friends, his mother, the processions, the Hashemites, the
hangmen, the salary, the Americans, the Army, the terrorists, the dogs, the
lantern, his mother…. A long film track of fast moving images that crowded
at his mind. The motif, yet, was his mother. She was washing the dishes
when the biggest china bowl slipped her hands and crashed on the floor.
She felt a prick in her heart sensing a calamity happened to one of her sons.
But it was none other than Karim. Splinters of glass, slivers of metal,
blades, nails, screws, sharp objects pierced his heart and human essence.
She hurried madly upstairs, sloughed her veil, knelt on her knees and held
her breasts between her hands towards heaven. She beseeched God by the
milk and sanctity of motherhood to bring Karim back. “I pray You to return
my son to me just like You returned Joseph to Jacob.” He felt the death
throes with each shrapnel traveling through his limbs. The shrieks and
cries stabbed on his ears, transcended space and mixed with his mother’s.
The sky thundered but it will not rain again. All the rain of heavens will not
wash out the blood shed wrongfully.

THE END