the dream for which I had lost my other arm. It was as though I were afraid it might escape along with the dreams of the man who was yet to throw his arms around you in joy.
Caught between tears, joy and pain, I kissed you for Si Taher and for comrades who hadn’t seen their children since joining the FLN. And for others who died dreaming of a simple moment like this when they would hug not rifles, but their children who had been born and grown up out of sight.
I forgot that day to kiss you for me, to cry before you for me, for the man you would make me a quarter-century later. Alongside your name I forgot to register my name in advance, to request in advance your memory and years to come, to reserve your life. I should have stopped the toll of the years racing with me towards twenty-seven as you entered your seventh month. I forgot to keep you in my lap for ever, playing and toying, saying things neither you nor I understood.
I told the story with deliberate brevity and kept the incidental details to myself. You didn’t interrupt once and only seemed to pause at the date, 15 September 1957, when I officially registered your actual name. Even though nobody had told you the story before, you didn’t ask a single explanatory question and didn’t utter a word of comment. Perhaps no one had found it worth telling.
Stunned, you listened in alarming silence. A haze of stubbornness obscured your gaze, and you, who in the same place had laughed so much, wept in front of me for the first time. Did we realise at the time that we laughed to evade the painful truth, to evade something we were looking for and putting off at the same time?
I looked at you through the fog of your tears. Right then I longed to enfold you with my one arm like I’d never held a woman, or a dream. But I stayed where I was, and you stayed where you were, facing each other. Two stubborn mountains with a secret bridge of compassion and longing between them, and many rainless clouds.
The word ‘bridge’ caught my mind, and I recalled the painting – as if I had remembered the most important chapter in a story. I was telling it to you, but perhaps, also to myself so that I could believe how strange it was. I stood up and said, ‘Come on, I’ll show you something.’ You followed me without question. I stopped in front of the painting. Bewildered, you waited for me to speak. ‘You know, that first day when I saw you standing in front of this picture, a shiver went through me. I sensed that there was a definite, if unknown, link between you and the picture. That’s why I came and said hello to you – perhaps to learn whether my intuition was wrong or right.’
You said in surprise, ‘And was your intuition correct?’
‘Haven’t you noticed the date on the picture?’
Looking for it at the bottom, you said, ‘No.’
‘It’s close to your official birthday. You’re only two weeks older than this painting. Your twin, if you like!’
‘Wow, that’s incredible!’ you said.
You looked at the picture as if searching for yourself and said, ‘Isn’t that the mountain suspension bridge?’
I answered, ‘It’s more than a bridge. It’s Constantine, which is the other kinship you have with this picture. The day you entered this exhibition hall, you brought Constantine with you. She came in your figure, in the way you walk, in your accent and in the bracelet you were wearing.’
You thought a while, then said, ‘Ah, you mean the miqyas . I sometimes wear it on special occasions, but it’s heavy and hurts my wrist.’
‘Memory is always heavy,’ I said. ‘Mother wore one for many years and never complained about the weight. She died with it on her wrist. It’s just a question of getting used to it!’ I wasn’t telling you off, there was sadness in my voice. But what I was saying meant nothing to you. You were from a generation that finds everything too heavy. That’s why traditional Arab clothes have been cut down to one or
Caught between tears, joy and pain, I kissed you for Si Taher and for comrades who hadn’t seen their children since joining the FLN. And for others who died dreaming of a simple moment like this when they would hug not rifles, but their children who had been born and grown up out of sight.
I forgot that day to kiss you for me, to cry before you for me, for the man you would make me a quarter-century later. Alongside your name I forgot to register my name in advance, to request in advance your memory and years to come, to reserve your life. I should have stopped the toll of the years racing with me towards twenty-seven as you entered your seventh month. I forgot to keep you in my lap for ever, playing and toying, saying things neither you nor I understood.
I told the story with deliberate brevity and kept the incidental details to myself. You didn’t interrupt once and only seemed to pause at the date, 15 September 1957, when I officially registered your actual name. Even though nobody had told you the story before, you didn’t ask a single explanatory question and didn’t utter a word of comment. Perhaps no one had found it worth telling.
Stunned, you listened in alarming silence. A haze of stubbornness obscured your gaze, and you, who in the same place had laughed so much, wept in front of me for the first time. Did we realise at the time that we laughed to evade the painful truth, to evade something we were looking for and putting off at the same time?
I looked at you through the fog of your tears. Right then I longed to enfold you with my one arm like I’d never held a woman, or a dream. But I stayed where I was, and you stayed where you were, facing each other. Two stubborn mountains with a secret bridge of compassion and longing between them, and many rainless clouds.
The word ‘bridge’ caught my mind, and I recalled the painting – as if I had remembered the most important chapter in a story. I was telling it to you, but perhaps, also to myself so that I could believe how strange it was. I stood up and said, ‘Come on, I’ll show you something.’ You followed me without question. I stopped in front of the painting. Bewildered, you waited for me to speak. ‘You know, that first day when I saw you standing in front of this picture, a shiver went through me. I sensed that there was a definite, if unknown, link between you and the picture. That’s why I came and said hello to you – perhaps to learn whether my intuition was wrong or right.’
You said in surprise, ‘And was your intuition correct?’
‘Haven’t you noticed the date on the picture?’
Looking for it at the bottom, you said, ‘No.’
‘It’s close to your official birthday. You’re only two weeks older than this painting. Your twin, if you like!’
‘Wow, that’s incredible!’ you said.
You looked at the picture as if searching for yourself and said, ‘Isn’t that the mountain suspension bridge?’
I answered, ‘It’s more than a bridge. It’s Constantine, which is the other kinship you have with this picture. The day you entered this exhibition hall, you brought Constantine with you. She came in your figure, in the way you walk, in your accent and in the bracelet you were wearing.’
You thought a while, then said, ‘Ah, you mean the miqyas . I sometimes wear it on special occasions, but it’s heavy and hurts my wrist.’
‘Memory is always heavy,’ I said. ‘Mother wore one for many years and never complained about the weight. She died with it on her wrist. It’s just a question of getting used to it!’ I wasn’t telling you off, there was sadness in my voice. But what I was saying meant nothing to you. You were from a generation that finds everything too heavy. That’s why traditional Arab clothes have been cut down to one or
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