By: ElMundher ElMarzouki
Translated by: Taghrid Fayad
“We Have to dream, in the graveyard of the human dreams.
In the same place, where they wanted us to die, we must survive”
In the ancient Husseini mansion, there was a spacious garden decorated in the French style, preserved its beauty, which was manifested in the splendor of divisions and symmetry among the paths and the distribution of the circular basins around the marble fountain facing the main entrance of the palace, which had a blue wooden gate studded with black domed iron nails. However, the continuous negligence of the garden for many years, made it lose a lot of kinds and quantities of flowers, roses, and trees. The garden looked pale exactly as the palace, the faces of its residents, visitors, and its working staff.
The palace was surrounded by a stone wall, above which was a small iron Italian- decorated fence, where the small branches of the tall trees had gone and bent through. Under the trees beside the stone wall, there were wooden benches, where a resident young man was sitting absent-minded under an old lemon tree. The young man was surprised by the words of an old man who was sitting beside him. The old man said: “Yes. I know. Nothing to like here. But don’t let this anger and alienation stop you from seeing the beauty around you.”
The young man held his head up as if responding to the old man’s words, and looked at the façade of what used to be a royal palace with its three floors, wooden door, marble staircase, and the statues of two lions on its threshold guarding the palace. Then he lowered his head, and his features disappeared again behind the tufts of his hair.
The old man understood that the young man, with the long curly hair, was listening to him, but he didn’t want to talk. The old man then smiled and caressed the tufts of his white beard, while watching the sunlight beams penetrating through the leaves of the lemon tree, moving slowly in circles, on the shady stone path. The young man turned suddenly to the old man, and looked at him through his curly hair, and said: “You seem at ease in this hell. As for me, I don’t care if it was a Husseini palace with an Italian style, and I don’t care about the fate of its French garden, nor about its long history of ruling and oppression. What does all this mean, if I myself am without a present, a history, or a memory?”
The old man replied without taking his eyes off the moving circles of light in front of him: “Yes, yes. I seem comfortable now, or to be exact, I’m not as upset as I used to be. Maybe I was obliged after the long years here and there, to dwell on the smallest details and the current moment. My body can no longer tolerate more cruelty, nor can my soul tolerate more cruel people, who become like that as they get more ignorant and more superficial.”
The young man said: “As for me, I want to run and run in the spacious fields and woods of this Earth. I want to climb up the hills and mountains, to sleep in caves, and to bathe in the valleys and fountains. Isn’t that a natural right for a dancing bird like me?”
Then his angry face disappeared behind the locks of his curly hair, again.
The old man answered: “Don’t be sad my son. People are getting more and more ignorant and afraid of themselves, so they become more ignorant of us, which makes them treat us in this cruel way. When I was at your age, I was growing up as a lover poet, and at that time, people were more understanding of dreamy lovers, and were more merciful to their madness and grief. I used to live with my family in an oasis village overgrown with pomegranate, grapes, and palm trees. That time, I used to leave my beautiful village with its famous market, its busy shops, its mosque, and its alleys, to go and live with the oasis animals, birds, and wonderful insects. I used to sleep and wake up, to come and go, whenever I wanted. I used to do that in the valleys like wild horses. I used to talk and to shut up, to shout and then to run, to hide in the grapevines or pomegranate trees for a whole day, and to play hide- and- seek with the creatures of the forest. I did that because I despaired that people could understand the language of my loving soul. Then people had changed a lot, and became fed up with creatures like me. They decided to put us in cages like this. They put us in narrow rooms with symmetrical hallways, and hard walls, so that we can discipline ourselves according to their wish, and to be in straight rows, in order not to spoil the arrangement of their empty boring lives. I tried a lot to understand their fear of us, and when I was sure that they would never understand our loving language, I created my own world and language, and talked to the creatures that are similar to me, and made my own special kingdom.”
The young man asked: “Are we really sick? Is it possible that the dancing birds could go mad, and dreamy lovers could become crazy?” Then he receded backwards, and his sad dreamy face became clear. And he added: “I often had a desire to live with beings, whose language I don’t understand, and who would not understand my madness. We would just communicate by gesturing, humming, and looking at each other. We would remain silent, then we would forget everything. So, are we really sick?”
The old man understood the complaint of the dancing bird, and he said: “the lunatic is the first one to be surprised… my son…he is the last to be victorious… He could grasp the meaning, out of the mess and destruction... He can hear the silence, and shouts in the face of obscenity. He can win the lost battles, and thank the clouds... We have grown our seed in the waste field. Hope is the industry of the mighty, my boy. In order to be strong, you must learn to fly. We are the victims of other patients. Don’t be afraid of this prison, my son. Here, in the cemetery of human dreams, we have to dream. Yes, we have to survive and live, exactly in the same place they wanted us to die in.”
The young man stared at him smilingly, and said: “Can I dance in the same place where they had broken my wings, and pulled out my feathers?”
The old man grabbed his hands and said, "Let's fly, my little boy, high above these walls... away from these villages... let's fly there, where the soul desires... let's fly and leave our bodies to them, as empty boxes and dead dolls, in which they can try all their injections and drugs... or they can even shock it with electricity, when they are unable to tame it... Come on, breathe deeply... Look at the sun and be what you want.
The young man closed his eyes, then the wrinkles on his face disappeared, and his smile radiated its way up to the sun. He stood up delighted, and felt that he was very light. He opened both of his hands as wings, tilted his head back a little, and started to slowly move in circles around himself, placing his right foot on the ground whenever he closed the circle. Then he would clap his hands lightly and open both of them again, extending his palms to the sky completely. Then he would clench his palms together, and release them again, as if he was holding the light in them, then he would scatter it over people and places.
As for the old man, he was tracking the young man’s movement in exultation, and communicating with him through sight and insight, and rejoicingly hitting his chest and palms. The old man was watching the breath-taking movement of his body and the stamping of his feet on the stone path, drawn to the dazzling aura around the young man, and his pliable body. And… suddenly, a light, luminous mist fell on the palace, the garden, and the trees, then… up… the spread wings of the bird, and the beating of its feet on the tiles… and on the beard of the old dreamy lover.
As for the visitors on the seats, and in the paths of the garden, they followed the movement of the bodies, the dance of colors, and the embrace of souls, in an all-encompassing tranquility. They were taken by the coordination of movements, the signature delicacy of the feet, and the escalation, which took the visitors to moments of fascination and amazement. Those moments were interrupted by the nurses rushing towards the dancing bird, to tie its wings and to imprison its soul.
The visitors left, and the lunatics were sent back to their rooms. The nurses fed them their own sedative and sleeping pills, and injected them with anesthetic needles. As for the old man, he succumbed to the electric shock, smiling, because the dancer had flown away forever. In cabin 22 of corridor 10, the doctors and nurses found only a body in his shape, dressed like his clothes, bearing the serial number 17-14 in the registration book.
After many years, visitors and some passers-by noticed that the inmates of the palace were looking out of their windows at the garden, whenever the mist came down. They could then hear the clapping of palms and stomping of feet emanating from the rooms... Then they would hear the echo of the fluttering of feverish eagle wings trying to fly. Then it flies high around the palace, and when it reaches the high sky, it would be washed with the clouds…then transparent dew drops would fall on a land, that is always thirsty for love and mercy.
18/October/2021
This story is dedicated to the soul of the black man, Salim Marzouk, or General Salim, who was forced to stay in a mental asylum, for 38 years, only because he refused the racial discrimination in Tunisia, in the Sixties era. After the revolution, Salim refused to leave the mental asylum.
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-This story was posted on Afaq Horra website, on 11/May/2022
-It was translated into Italian, by Antonino Desposito, and was posted on Rive Arabe website, on 2/July/2022
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