Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation) by Hadiyya Hussein Read Free Book Online Page B

the passport.
I wasn't sure when or how I left that office. I was torn
between joy and sorrow as the car continued on its way
to the Jordanian border. I poked my face into the glass.
Dawn had begun to steal in, and although I was out of
danger, horrible thoughts still lay in wait for me. What
if, as often happens, the security officers followed us and stopped the car out of suspicion? What if they found out
about the false passport? Wouldnt it have been better to
flee with a passport in my real name? Were things really
as dangerous as Youssef thought when he had arranged
for this passport? Perhaps. Anything was possible when
our rights were lost and the state devoured our lives little
by little.

    The morning became brighter, but the beating of my
heart and my breathing didn't return to normal until
after the car finally crossed the al-Rouwaychid checkpoint. It was early morning, and a light rain drizzled on
the window. I glanced at the black stone fields along the
road and saw skeletons of old cars among the scattered
vegetation. The land started waving up and down, and I
recorded my first day in exile.
    WHEN I SET FOOT IN AMMAN, I stretched to my full
length and felt alive. Only a few hours earlier I'd been
shrunken and scared, horrified, overcome by black
thoughts. Getting out of the car was like a new birth, and
I was taking my first steps. I took my bag to the nearest
telephone booth and called Hani. His brother answered
and said that Hani was in Naplouse, but that Youssef had
called from Baghdad about me. After almost twenty minutes, a thin young man arrived, and I went to meet him.
    "Are you looking for me?"
    "Are you Huda?"
    "Yes."
    "I'm Hussam, Hani's brother."
    We walked to his house. Umm Hani welcomed me
with open arms as though she had always known me.
She was a slightly plump woman in her fifties, elegant and with a silver tongue. She offered me a lemonade and
then led me to another room. "You need to rest after the
fatigue of the road."

    I slept most of the day, but when I got up, my body
was still exhausted; fear and the journey's length had
sapped all of my strength. Over lunch, Hussam told me
that he'd visited Baghdad twice, found it beautiful, and
intended to study medicine there.
    I stayed three days in Hani's home. With his mother's help, I then rented a small room above a carpentry
workshop. I had to climb 12o steps to reach it, and it overlooked a street crowded with government offices and
trade buildings.
    On my first night there, I had insomnia. The landlady,
Umm Ayman, had told me that before me, an Iraqi man
and his wife had rented the place for more than a year.
I tried in vain to forget the two bodies that had shared
the same bed I was sleeping on now-this feeling was to
become part of my exile. As soon as I pulled the blanket
to my body, I would smell a strange odor, a mixture of old
sweat and something like an old, rotten peach. Although
Umm Ayman vowed that she'd washed and sterilized the
blankets, I couldn't help thinking about the breath and
odors of previous bodies. I had been accustomed to perfuming my bed with incense from Najaf every night before
I went to sleep. It's a habit I had picked up from my grandmother; I would burn sticks of incense along with grains
of clove. Holding the censer, I would walk around my bed
so that I could sleep with a serene soul and body. Now,
however, I needed time to get used to the new smells, the
moist walls, the low ceiling, the small window overlooking the street. I came here with a ruined soul and broken hopes, so I had no choice but to adapt. From the first week
of my arrival, I applied myself to exploring the city-its
alleys and streets, its people and markets, its kiosks and
bookstores. During the first three days, Hussam showed
me the chief spots in Amman. Later I found the city's
main library, where I would spend an hour or two reading. I had to resist the desire to buy books because I had
to