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The river

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   As the wind snatches clothes from the clotheslines, the river has kidnapped A’isha or ( E’ishe) as she was called by her mother. There were no such exploits of the incomplete seven -year old girl for her name to become immortal, but her mother’s weeping which sounded like singing while she was walking around in the neighborhoods calling her lost daughter has been fixed in the people’s memory more than the drowning incident itself, and also more than Abu Yahya’s voice, the primary school cleaner, screaming one morning:” There is no power but in God! There is no power but in God” trying to wake up the mother who spent her last night at the school gate, waiting for her daughter, Aisha’s, return, and as soon as he touched her shoulder, she toppled over her face as dry as an old loaf.

No one expected that Abu Yehya with his bare face like a copper pot, was carrying that amount of emotion, for he was crying and wailing as a casualty, some people even began to condole him, despite the fact that the dead woman was a stranger to this man till that morning.

       Spontaneously, the inhabitants have given the river and those lanes that knew the mother the name Aisha, and so like this, the area became ( River Aisha).

        To the east a little, and in Altad’amon specifically, the same river was called Qlait’, with its four static characters as its water which was heavily filled with sewage. The people themselves did not bother to shake any of the four characters of that name.  

Oh yes! The name Qlait is pronounced as an insult that does not bear the minimum of tact, and adding the word river before Qlait was only a kind of disguised courtesy, and a rehabilitation for Qlait and its neighbors at the same time, for if you live next to Qlait seems humiliating, but to live next to the river, even if it doesn’t exceed two meters is something completely different !

       Between the parents’ caution and the boys’ adventures, the river was drawing a separating line, and all those mothers’ threats and warnings about not to approach the river, seemed as an invitation that could not resist its temptation to play at that place particularly!

      We started towards the river and very proud of the slight little hair which began to appear on our legs because it was the sign of our future manhood where smoking became not only possible but also a duty too!
 All those oaths which we exaggerated swearing by our fathers and the heads of the prophets were easily disappearing by the first breeze carrying the smell of the great river.

       There, our memory grew as the algae grow on a stone, slippery and cannot be accurately identified but at the same time, it cannot be ignored. Little things, like the cigarettes residue that we used to collect on the roads and smoke them in hunting frogs and lizards party, then torturing those small creatures, or after swimming in the ponds which were prepared to water the animals in Abu Sayah’s farm.

         We used to take off our clothes and plunge in the water wearing only the underwear that exposes much more than it could cover, each one of us seems naked as a grain of wheat. Bashar was more proud of the few hairs on his legs than the other boys, even when we played in the lane, he never hesitated to roll his green pajamas up to the knee to show his pride! Moreover, at that age, he began drawing a love heart and writing the first letter of his name and of the neighbor’s daughter in everywhere, on the electricity pole, on the walls, on the trash bins, etc… with this youthful pride, Bashar came out from the water with the rest of the boys to find out that all his clothes were stolen, and instead he found plastic slippers; their size was bigger than his feet’s size by four or five times  at  least. 

          Bashar or ( Abu- Alalaa) as he used to call himself, started to spin around himself just like that lizard which we put in an empty butter can and then on the fire to figure out if it would be grilled or fried.

       Soaked in his tears,  weeping for his lost clothes, listing and describing them: “ Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! My green pajamas! They are new! Oh God! They are new! Number 10! Oh God! Maradona! God! Maradona”. It seemed he lost Maradona himself; although everyone knew that only his shoes were new, the pajamas were not! Besides, his t-shirt was numbered seven and not ten! Actually t-shirt number ten was usually worn by Moutaz( one of the neighborhood boys) and it wasn’t Bashar! But he was determined to mix up his wishes with his lost stuff!

      He convinced himself to pretend jogging, and it must seem so to everybody; the Americans, yes the Americans, run in the streets wearing only shorts, and they are men! Then what matters if a boy runs wearing only pants! Yes! He had to convince himself he was still a boy after only an hour where he was trying to convince everyone that he is a man and the hair on his legs were the proof and that he had a girlfriend and the drawn heart on the electric pole was also another  proof.

     So he made his mind, he wiped his tears and his nose and started running. At first, it was not hard except for keeping the plastic slippers on his feet, the place was completely empty, but as he began to approach the lanes and passed by the houses, one after the other, the problem became more complicated every time he looked in the neighbors’ eyes and heard their sarcastic comments that they have already predicted for they knew what exactly happened from their children.

      He was trying to speed but the plastic slippers hindered him; however, he insisted to keep them for a reason or maybe he considered them as a kind of compensation! He prayed so much not to be seen by anyone, especially the neighbor’s daughter who he called( sweetheart), he prayed for her not to be at her house door standing as usual; in fact, God responded only to this part of his prayers, that actually she was not standing at her house door.

     He arrived home and headed inside like a runaway cat to find himself surrounded by most of the neighborhood women including his lover’s mum and her daughter, his sweetheart, they were visiting us for it was mymother’s turn of hosting the women meetings on that day. The women were not surprised as much as he got surprised by them! Because the children had already told their mothers about what happened and everyone was waiting for him. Actually, some of them had prepared ridiculous and wit comments. Quickly one of them asked:” Why have you still got your pants oh boy”?! To be answered by another:” It doesn’t matter! People forget”! Though there was nothing to forget about what happened. A third blinked:” God Bless, God bless! He became a man”!  Then an amazed laughing one said:” God bless! What happened?!” Of course, no one understood the question nor if it was a fundamental question! But the most painful thing which hurt him was his love’s laughter who could not try to hide it!

      In the middle of this festival, he did not know where to head except for the only open way before him or maybe the one he imagined it open. He went upstairs to the roof and shoved himself behind a barrel of water where he found the same drawn heart and the two letters waiting for him.

      We cannot forget what happened, today and after many years, Bashar is still laughing every time he buys pants and gets sure to buy the expensive ones, then he says:” you never can tell!

         So though the river does not exist anymore, its memories seem unforgettable! After a few months, big lorries arrived and emptied hills of white sand and huge pipes where a man-size could stand inside each of it! That new geography created new play spaces for us, and we invented new games that fit the nature of the new place.  Many workers dressed up in governorate clothes drove in their big machines and started to cram the pipes in the riverbed then turn the white sand on to leave the work for the rollers later. Whenever they pushed a new pipe, the river shrank and looked like it suffered to get out of those pipes, so slowly, its water appeared like dancing tears in a stranger’s eyes that could not be held.

           Suddenly, we, the youngsters, realized that the river no longer exists, only a sandy path has replaced it; we stood there, astonished, with open mouths, and dirty faces by the same sand, the river, in which we buried our secrets, no frogs anymore and no lizards, no river after this day! We looked at each other’s face with disappointed eyes, they have kidnapped the river before us just as the wind snatches the clothes on the clotheslines.

 Written in Arabic by Basher Nofal.
 Translated into English by Sarah Alhosain.

 

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