Dunya Mikhail - The Iraqi Nights

THE IRAQI NIGHTS PRELUDE In the land of Sumer, where the houses are packed so closely together that their walls touch, where people sleep on rooftops in the summer and lovers climb the walls to see one another, and where lovers marry young, though their parents always refuse at first In that land, Ishtar was walking through the souk looking for a gift for Tammuz. She wanted to buy everything, even the skull hanging there like the ring around the neck of a dovea dove stepping into what it thinks is the fragment of a setting sun. And the card she forgot to pay for contains neither Cupid nor his arrows, neither fire nor water nor air nor earth; it does not show her bending over the grave, and it does not tell her story on the thousand and second night.On her way back, she was kidnapped by some masked men. They dragged her onward, leaving her mothers outstretched hand behind her forever. They brought her down into the underworld through seven gates. These poems Ishtar wrote on the gates suggest that she wasnt killed at once.

Or perhaps her words drew her abductors attention away from thoughts of murder. Her hand holding a gift, her mothers outstretched hand behind her, the hand of her childhood doll, who sings when you press a button, the hand of her abductor, dragging her along, the hand that wipes away a tear, the hand that turns over the nights in an old calendar, the hand that waves in greeting or farewell or for help, the hand with all its lines: the line of life, the line of love, the line of fate

In the first year of war they played bride and groom and counted everything on their fingers: their faces reflected in the river; the waves that swept away their faces before disappearing; and the names of newborns. Then the war grew up and invented a new game for them: the winner is the one who returns from the journey alone, full of stories of the dead as the passing wings flutter over the broken trees; and now the winner must tow the hills of dust so lightly that no one feels it; and now the winner wears a necklace with half a metal heart for a pendant, and the task to follow is to forget the other half. The war grew old and left the old letters, the calendars and newspapers, to turn yellow with the news, with the numbers, and with the names of the players. Five centuries have passed since Scheherazade told her tale. Baghdad fell, and they forced me to the underworld. I watch the shadows as they pass behind the wall: none look like Tammuz.

He would cross thousands of miles for the sake of a single cup of tea poured by my own hand. I fear the tea is growing cold: cold tea is worse than death. I would not have found this cracked jar if it werent for my loneliness, which sees gold in all that glitters. Inside the jar is the magic plant that Gilgamesh never stopped looking for. Ill show it to Tammuz when he comes, and well journey, as fast as light, to all the continents of the world, and all who smell it will be cured or freed, or will know its secret. I dont want Tammuz to come too late to hear my urgent song.

When Tammuz comes Ill also give him all the lists I made to pass the time: lists of food, of books, lost friends, favorite songs, list of cities to see before one dies, and lists of ordinary things with notes to prove that we are still alive. Its as if Im hearing music in the boats hull, as if I can smell the river, the lily, the fish, as if Im touching the skies that fall from the words I love you, as if I can see those tiny notes that are read over and over again, as if Im living the lives of birds who bear nothing but their feathers. The earth circled the sun once more and not a cloud nor wind nor country passed through my eyes. My shadow, imprisoned in Aladdins lamp, mirrors the following: a picture of the world with you inside, light passing through a needles eye, scrawlings akin to cuneiform, hidden paths to the sun, dried clay, tranquil Ottoman pottery, and a huge pomegranate, its seeds scattered all over Uruk. In Iraq, after a thousand and one nights, someone will talk to someone else. Markets will open for regular customers.

Small feet will tickle the giant feet of the Tigris. Gulls will spread their wings and no one will fire at them. Women will walk the streets without looking back in fear. Men will give their real names without putting their lives at risk. Children will go to school and come home again. Chickens in the villages wont peck at human flesh on the grass.

Disputes will take place without any explosives. A cloud will pass over cars heading to work as usual. A hand will wave to someone leaving or returning. The sunrise will be the same for those who wake and those who never will. And every moment something ordinary will happen under the sun. A single inch separates their two bodies facing one another in the picture: a framed smile buried beneath the rubble. Whenever you throw stones into the sea it sends ripples through me. My hearts quite small: thats why it fills so quickly. Water needs no wars to mix with water and fill the blank spaces. The tree doesnt ask why its not moving to some other forest nor any other pointless questions. He watches TV while she holds a novel. He watches TV while she holds a novel.

On the novels cover theres a man watching TV and a woman holding a novel. On the first morning of the new year all of us will look up at the same sun. She raised his head to her chest. He did not respond: he was dead. The person who gazed at me for so long, and whose gaze I returned for just as long That man who never once embraced me, and whom I never once embraced The rain wrecked the colors around him on that old canvas.