Awkward words and raffling voices, footsteps coming in and rapidly pacing legs propel out, a laugh to the left and yet another to the right. As I listen closely to the sounds floating past my closed eyes, and cling desperately to the curves of my ears but uselessly as gushes of other fellow words and scattered letters violently grab them away with the wind and carries them out to burn under the flaring sun of a typical Palestinian July, here comes a moment I say to myself and follow surrendering to that moment. Life starts to slow down as my thoughts take over my senses, the voices are fading gradually and the cool breeze that was flirting with my face suddenly stops. I open my eyes, everything is frozen, lips are moving slowly with muted words struggling to get out alive, everything is in a slow motion … and everything is silent, what a beautiful world that is, what a beautiful world.
Traces, Places … and all sorts of faces. I always had this urging question whether it’s the place that makes the people? Or is it the people that make the place? Strangely, this question was pretty much knocking the doors of my intrigued mind as I watched the sun-rays tenderly caressing the petals of the Red, Pink, and yellow fresh roses outside the tiny red aluminum windows of my office. In the midst of all that frozen reality, the robot lips, the puppet hands movements, the sun-rays prancing and dancing on those petals and the moving fan slicing the air and distributing it, like a single mother of four slices a loaf of bread where it’s flour was not mixed with water but her own sweat and blood to feed her hungry children … the fan slices the air and send us insufficient chunks of it to cool our tired worn faces, but not all faces are worn or tired by the effect of the heat and working hours, many faces need a better soul to make them look better … sometimes we need more than a chunk of cool air to rest our hearts, and a little more than a good thought to relax our souls. “AL SALAMU ALAYKOM!!” said a deep voice that shifted my attention to the far corner of the room, and like an ocean wave orchestrating the change … everything around me is back to life, lips blabbering, hands rapidly moving, words like cars in a traffic jam take the initiative and march themselves in patters aboard the wind that again … carried them outside to burn under the sun. My eyes followed the legions of words as they respectfully avoided that rough figure standing at the door. “I hope someone is hungry for a good read?! HAHA” … Mahmoud sells books, no no, well … he sells knowledge. For the past 32 years ever since he was 12 Mahmoud used to carry around all sorts of books and wonder around Ramallah, trying to sell these books to people trying to make whatever money he can make to keep on living. Unlike the other wandering book-sellers, Mahmoud knows what is up, he has read all the books u can think of, you name it, Russian literature, Brazilian folk stories, cooking books, physics books, and the most dangerous of them … Arabic Books.
Fact: I don’t like reading books written by Arab authors, too much censorship in Arab countries, however there is one name I can think of … Alaa Al-Aswany. I will give you the pleasure to research this amazing author who with great craftsmanship molded reality into books and made it possible for people with open eyes and blind hearts to learn of the world they walk aimlessly in, and made it possible for people with sight and no vision to take a look -at least once- inside.
Friendly fire, I have heard a lot about that book and wanted to read it … now is my chance! “Mahmoud, I feel like having a bite at a book by Alaa Al-Aswany called …” and before I finished my sentence, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat there it was in Mahmoud’s hand. I smiled … widely, but not as wide as Mahmoud’s smile that failed to cover the look of pride of his work in his hazy green eyes. Like a kid with a chocolate bar I threw myself in my chair and started checking out its pages gently turning them one at a time, like a lover tenderly undressing his long awaited love desperate for their souls to collide. “If I wasn’t an Egyptian, I would have loved to be one”, a quote by the late popular Egyptian leader Mustafa Kamal was written at the beginning of the first chapter. “How proud!” I exclaimed to myself … I wish I could be as proud as he is of his country.
As I was sinfully enjoying my reading, I found myself closing my eyes, voices slowing down, sinking into the light of my thoughts … the momentum of my thoughts is increasing, I could feel the feet stomping around me coming to an inevitable stop, Mahmoud’s voice fading away … Am I proud of who I am? … Is Egypt made by the Egyptian people? … or the other way around? … some questions I would love to ask to Mustafa Kamal 100 years after his death … I am that son, eating that slice of bread from the hand of his burdened mother, I am the sun-rays dancing on those petals … I know who I am … but who are all those tired faces … their traces … and those places … I call home … ?
Together … on a journey to find out … we are setting …
TO BE CONTINUED …
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