Read Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation) for Free Online Page A

were twisted together, so the midwife separated them to identify the baby's sex. Juri was still moaning and gnashing her teeth. The midwife wrapped the lump of flesh while Mazloom al-Sa'idi waited tight-lipped behind the door, his heart heavy with grief.
    "Didn't I tell you it would be a daughter?"
    Mazloom didn't answer; he was like someone who had fallen into a dark well. The midwife was about to hand him the little one when she heard the mother's voice. She returned to Juri and was surprised by the sight of another head. She guided it out. This one was smaller, and she didn't need to separate the baby's legs this time-they were open. She immediately called to Mazloom al-Sa'idi: "It is the son you were waiting for!"

    He felt such strength that he almost fainted. The
midwife cleaned the baby's body, and when she had
finished, she wrapped him in a soft fabric and handed
him to Mazloom al-Sa'idi. As soon as he held his son,
he broke into tears. At that moment, Juri was quiet
from exhaustion. Lamia started cleaning her forehead
and sprinkled her face with rose water, moaning verses
from the Holy Qur'an. Juri slowly opened her eyes and
looked at Mazloom, who was breathless as he hugged
the child. Meanwhile, the other lump of flesh was
quiet, as if she hadn't come to life or as if she already
realized that from that moment on she was surplus.
    Looking at the male child, Mazloom al-Sa'idi said,
"His name is Nadir."
    "What about the girl?" the midwife asked him,
and, as if remembering a forgotten thing, he said, "The
girl? I leave it to you. Choose the name you want."
    Without hesitation, the midwife said, "Her name
is Nadia. After my daughter."
    When my father had been struggling in the mud
holding the midwife's hand, he had thought that
every female birth was equivalent to death. He was
sure that if there had been a male baby among the four
births, that son would have held on to life. But the days
deceived my father, for he himself died a year after
our birth. I survived, and a male in the family died.
    WHAT COULD I DO with the lengthening hours? Time
had slowed down. I had nothing to do. My days in
Amman were quiet, like still water. But Nadia stirred it
after her death, nailing me down in front of her memories. I wondered what came after this difficult birth.

    My existence began there in that forgotten village of
just a few hundred houses in Abu al-Khasib. From the
first cry of my birth, my life was marked by neglect in
favor of Nadir. Our house was small, with a courtyard
separating its two rooms, and behind one of the rooms
was a storage area. Our beds were made out of palm
branches. In front of my mother's bed was a pile of
blankets, pillows, and sheets. The floor was covered
with woolen rugs on top of mats of palm leaves. The
roofs were made of palm trunks and fronds covered
with layers of dried mud; the walls were washed with
gypsum. When we had just learned to walk, the government decided to build a grain-storage facility in the
village. The compensation that my mother obtained
allowed her to move to the center of the town. There I
went to school and learned my first letters. Years later
we heard that the storage facility was converted into
a chemical factory, which would be destroyed in the
Gulf War.
    WHAT HAPPENED TO us? How did we cross those terrifying desert distances, fleeing to save our tortured souls?
Why did Nadia have to die before she found a country
that would shelter her? And why did the embassy refuse
to repatriate her body to Iraq? Don't we have the right to
be buried on the land of our ancestors? Does the president have the right to retain his grip even on the dead
after having deprived them of joy during their lives?
What can a powerless corpse do? It can't claim compensation for years burned out by the wars. Yet the president
fears even corpses that are unable to object or resist. What
about me? How am I going to end and in which land? I'm the one who