16

I looked for him in the evening, but he was nowhere to be found. I walked in the distant areas of the farm and the orchards, but he was not there. I left the farm and walked fast, not knowing where I was going, overwhelmed by a sense of loss. I felt guilty and was overcome with the premonition of an imminent catastrophe. A feeling of consternation guided my steps toward the unknown.

I finally regained my senses and found that I was standing on a hill overlooking Sanour in its entirety: the farm, the house, the vineyards, and the lake of lilies. It was sunset, and the southern horizon was turning red—a view I will never forget. With a heavy heart, burdened by the memory of what I had lost and regretted, I sat on a rock to watch it. I was losing my innocence and my sensitivity, and was growing old before my time.

I sat on the rock watching the lilies, colored gradually by the shades of the horizon, the silence of the universe, and the calm of the birds that prevailed in the evening. I was alone, looking for something, looking for a face, looking for myself in my inner self, wondering what would become of me, what I would do, what I would feel, what my role in life would be. I felt important. I was still young, and the world revolved around me. I felt that I occupied its center, that I was the axis of the earth.

I heard the grass rustling. I turned and saw him sitting on a rock behind me. He had been watching me while I had been unaware of his arrival. Only ten feet—even less—separated us, and I could not feel his presence. Was it because he had become adept at stealth and was trained in the art of camouflage? Or because I was engrossed in my own feelings?

We exchanged glances. He was still reluctant to talk to me, while I was mesmerized by the calm of the universe, the sunset, and a naïve sense of my own importance and my role in life. I waited for him to leave his spot and join me, but he did not budge, looking at me and expecting me to join him and apologize. He might have felt, when I wondered who was responsible for the mistakes, that I was blaming him and holding him responsible. He might have felt, when he was explaining to me the loss of the future and the revolution, that I had given up on my love for him because he had no future and he disappointed me. He might have felt that he was in a weaker position because he was poorer. I might have felt that he was subservient while I was in a stronger position. I was assailed by all those doubts as he did not budge, as the silence grew and the sun set.

I finally got up and went over to him. He made a place for me on the rock without uttering a word. I sat in silence and reached for his hand. He seized it, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. My tears began flowing despite myself. I sobbed with all my heart and said that God would not forget us because we were young and innocent, and had not committed sins or acts of disobedience. “God, why are you punishing us? Why do you tolerate injustice? Why do we live, suffer, and endure defeats and catastrophes? Why do we hear and feel and ache? Why are we unable to save ourselves from this darkness? Why, God?”

I turned to him and saw he was crying. He was embarrassed, drying his tears in silence. My hand was still over his lips and his tears were falling on my palm. I felt them burning my skin and my heart because I understood that he was weak like me, even weaker. That was how we were—two birds, lost and confused, searching for a purpose and a meaning, and loving life. But life was too harsh and powerful. What could we do?

He told me that my uncle was in a sad situation. Everything he had built and collected was gone and dispersed, like scraps of paper at the mercy of the wind. Everything worked against him, so he turned to love to help him get over his misery, but love made him even weaker. My uncle loved a woman called Hasna, who worked with the revolutionaries. She lived on the farm with her aunt. My uncle loved Hasna, but she did not love him because she was still faithful to the memory of her late husband, her brothers, and her uncle, the martyr Abu Kamal. Hasna was still dreaming of the days when she had been active with the revolutionaries and a member of the resistance. When her uncle Abu Kamal and her husband and her brothers died in Sanour, she sought my uncle out, hoping he would continue what her uncle, husband, and brothers had started. She wanted my uncle to take the place of Abu Kamal, the leader, and reunite the men, but my uncle was standing alone, abandoned by the freedom fighters and the revolutionaries.

He said all this while his head was bent, speaking in a low voice. I tried to comfort him and convey some hope and enthusiasm. I told him that what had happened did not mean the end of the world and the universe, because the children would take the place of their fathers. Wasn’t that what everybody was saying? Wasn’t that what my uncle, and my other uncle, and all the men were saying? With enthusiasm and eagerness, I told him that we were counting on him, and others like him. I said, “I stand by you and I will stay with you. We will live together and die together. I will be like Hasna. I will join you in the mountains and the valleys, in the caves of the quarries and the forests. I will stay with you until death.”

I said those words, shaking with emotion. He took hold of my hands and turned his face toward me as the shade of the setting sun was beginning to darken it. He uttered words I will never forget. He told me that what I had said was dictated by my emotions; they were the wishes of a young girl who was detached from reality and lived in a world of dreams. He asked me in a serious tone that verged on sarcasm, “You want to live in the mountains, caves, and quarries? Do you know how we lived? Do you know how we fought? Do you know how we were pursued? Do you know where we used to sleep, and how? We used to live on the ground, among the insects and the reptiles. Sometimes we slept with empty stomachs, without having had any dinner. Could you do that? Could you be one of us, among naïve peasants, most of them illiterate? They survived on very little and were not clean. They were isolated, living away from people and from their families. We lived away from our families. The revolution collapsed from the inside and we could not assemble it again. Every one of us was looking for a way out to save himself. People like me have no way out—no money, no land, no work, and no future. What do I have to give you? I have nothing to promise you, and I can’t tell you sincerely to wait for me, to be mine and wait for me. Here I am telling you, ‘Do not wait for me because I will leave this place and look for another place that would shelter me.’ I will look for work, for a thread to guide me, because right now I do not have a life and I do not have a future. I am nothing, just nothing.”

I was crying, torn and ripped apart, listening to him talking the way he did. The world had collapsed around me and I had no hope left in life. I felt that all those I loved had forsaken me. He had entered my heart and dominated my feelings. His love had set roots in my soul and my being. He taught me how to love. I saw the spring, the fields of wheat, and my paintings in the green of his eyes. Now he was leaving me without hope, without dreams, and without a future. What was the meaning of life without dreams and without a future? I would not live without his love; I would not be alive.

He kissed my hands and asked for my forgiveness. He put his head in my lap and cried for me and for himself, without being embarrassed. He cried and cried, and I cried too, and I swore that I would not forget him as long as I lived, and that I would remain true to my promise all my life. I would wait for him and I would not belong to another man.

He raised his head, dried his tears, and said, “You are still young.”

I replied, as I dried my tears with my dress, “You, too, are young.”

He smiled sadly. “I am young, but I am old. My hair started turning gray before I reached my twenties, but the revolution taught me a lot. I will struggle in life until I achieve what I want, although I do not know how. Your life, however, is what it is. Nothing has changed for you, your house, your school. All I wish is that you be happy with your life.”

I clung to him and said, “I will not be happy without Rabie.”

He kissed my hand a second and a third time, then my forehead. “You won’t forget me?” he asked as he was leaving.

I put my hand on my chest and said, like in a Jerusalem prayer, “How could I forget you? You are my spring.”