The Dreams (16 page)

T
here I was in a radiant reception hall. In my hands was a golden platter filled with all manner of delectable delights.

I was reminded of the brilliant evening companions among our lifelong friends who had left this world. I began to see them approaching, their resonant laughter preceding them. We traded salaams of greeting, as they began to praise the platter and what it presented. Yet my happiness was suddenly extinguished when I exclaimed that I could not partake with them, for the doctors had categorically forbidden me ever to smoke.

Surprise showed on their faces as they scrutinized me intensely. They asked dismissively, “Are you still afraid of Death?”

O
n top of a nearby home I spied furniture, wrapped and decorated. Then I remembered that I’d heard the house’s owner had turned the place into a cultural institute for which he charged no admission: he was content to live on the roof.

Pleased by this, I admired him for it, and was invited to attend some of his lessons. I found the place crammed with humanity. The man said today’s lesson would be about the bull that bore the world on his horn. His speech struck me as odd, and a derisory laugh escaped me. Faces glazed with anger turned toward me.

The man himself fixed me with a glowering stare, silently pointing to the door.

F
ive men wielding switchblades seized me: I gave them my money and they fled with confusing speed. Yet some of their features remained imprinted in my memory.

Since that incident, I have avoided walking alone on the side streets, though the main road is never devoid of its own ordeals. One day I found the traffic stopped and the people gathered on either side.

Before long came a convoy of many cars. As the last part of it passed before me, I saw a face that made my heart leap, and began to mutter, “There must be so many who look the same.”

T
he journey’s start was agreed. The family met the news contentedly, hastening to advance me money.

I went immediately to the tailor to be fitted for a suit in the latest fashion, and the man truly did an outstanding job. Still, he wasn’t satisfied.

Producing an elegant turban, he thrust it on my head. “Now,” he said, “the suit’s in the current style.”

T
he fighting grew fiercer along the roads until its rattle and ruckus brought all means of transport to a complete halt. I returned exhausted to my home—where I longed to lighten my tiredness under the water of my shower. When I went into the bath, I found my girl inside, drying off her nude body. Completely transformed, I rushed toward her, but she pushed me far away from her—warning that the warring in the streets was growing closer to my house.

H
ere was the office of the Secretariat, where I spent a lifetime before going on pension. Here, too, I had been companion to the cream of employees, in all of whose funerals Fate decreed that I take part.

I stared inside the room to see the youths who had succeeded us, and was nearly felled by the shock—for I found no one there but my old colleagues. I rushed inside, shouting, “God’s peace upon my dear ones!” with anticipation, confusion, and unease. Yet not one of them raised his head from his papers, and I withdrew back unto myself in frustration and despair.

When the time came to go, they left their places without any of them turning to look at me—not even the lovely lady translator. And so I found myself alone in the empty chamber.

F
rom my prospect on the sidewalk, I cast my gaze onto the garden enclosed by the iron fence. There I saw the queen of my heart as she dispensed chocolates to lovers gathered there.

I raced toward the fence’s gate until I reached the entrance, panting as I ran inside. But I found not a trace of my dear one, and cried out a curse upon love. The time came for me to go back outside—and there I saw my girlfriend in the same place where I had been, walking arm-in-arm with a young man who appeared to be her fiancé.

I wanted to return whence I came, but exhaustion, prolonged reflection, and the lost opportunity would not let me.

T
his was a circular field in whose center was a slender date palm, and around which little houses were clustered. In the afternoon, the doors would open and women would come out to chat under the palm. Usually the conversation was about marriage and their daughters. I would withdraw far away to follow what they were saying with zeal.

When the sun set I would be devoured by hunger. No one would know of my condition except for my childhood girlfriend who would slink up to me carrying a small plate, one half of it filled with white cheese, the other smothered in parsley.

We would labor together to assuage each other’s hunger, to the hum of the gossip about who would be wedding whom.

T
his is a trial and this a bench and sitting at it is a single judge and this is the seat of the accused and sitting at it is a group of national leaders and this is the courtroom, where I have sat down longing to get to know the party responsible for what has befallen us. But I grow confused when the dialogue between the judge and the leaders is conducted in a language I have never before heard, until the magistrate adjusts himself in his seat as he prepares to announce the verdict in the Arabic tongue. I lean forward to hear, but then the judge points at me—to pronounce a sentence of death upon me. I cry out in alarm that I’m not part of this proceeding and that I’d come of my own free will simply to watch and see—but no one even notices my scream.