I remember scenes of her weeping, a tumultuous clash of emotions summoned forth without a tangible source.
Displacement has etched itself onto her childlike face, framed by locks of hair on either side. It's visible in the glow of her honey-colored eyes, brimming with tears and a shattered gaze, as well as the disappointment lurking beneath her swollen eyelids. Her cheeks radiate a strange golden-red hue, and her delicate lips tremble, drawing attention away from all her other features.
Ten years have elapsed, and here I am standing in a foreign land, in a garden known as the Water Garden. Memories take me back to the time when I was in my own country, which, despite its vastness, was too small to contain my soul.
I leave myself between the oppressive rules imposed on me and my free-spirited heart. All the memories that once flooded my mind now fade away, leaving me with a singular moment, frozen in time.
Guilt eats at me, and at the center is my mother, who always used to say to me:
“How can we exist with all this loss?!”
And between the tears running down her cheeks, she said:
“How could it be?”
As if she was begging me in vain, the floundering of a woman trying to find some life to live, no more. She longed to create pillars of joy for me, like the warm tandoori bread we used to savor together. It broke my heart to witness her helplessness, as life inflicted a thousand wounds upon us. She was entrusted with the sacred duty of a mother, yet circumstances rendered her unable to fulfill it.
In order for her days to be imprinted on the remnants of my little soul at the age of six, my skinny body bore witness to my desire to cling onto my childhood a little while longer. The harsh environment left my hands rough and the cold froze my limbs as well as the dirt I my bare feet collected. All of these marks are now etched on my childish skin, and in my curly dark black hair, all against my will. I can’t recall the last time I washed, and my shabby clothes are stained with dirt.
I return to my little home, carrying all those burdens on my miserable soul, after a long fight with my sheep that keep me company in my clouded thoughts, after fighting with children such as me. I return home, with only some wounds on my head and face, only to receive a new beating from my mother as if, whenever she saw wounds on my face, she would finish the painting with some final touches.
I eat my supper and go to bed, which is full of lice because we have sheep and animals. These tiny pests hide between the blankets and pillows, and I wage another war with them until sleep takes me to my childish dreams.
Although everything is around me, my shabby quilt and my tasteless food, and yet my stomach is starving for more food, so that I can complete my battles tomorrow against my small enemies.
The next morning, the sun shines with the fog that covers everything around and above me as if it colors the remnants of the night. The smell of my mother's food reaches me with the smoke of the tandoori bread, whose scent brings a glow to my heart. The dew on my mother's garden on the roof of our house cools. I take hot water to wash my face and my hands, and get ready for food. I revisit the joys of life with my little dreams. Yet, I would lose myself in painful thoughts that robbed me of the beauty of my childhood: How could my mother live all this restlessness? How could she stand all night with all this weight on her shoulders? What is this “displacement”? How can I know my path when my mother does not know why she brought me to the miserable world?
To this day, I relive that moment. As I try to express it, letters falter between me and their own language, in order to penetrate all paths. Many nights passed until I understood my mother’s look. Was it fear or anguish that made her eyes tremble as she looked at me? With each dewy breeze, the world takes me to you, and the years deepen your memory.
I am the son of a mother whose name I do not know…
I have grown up, and today I am who I am, writing in order to exist. In the warm embrace of my mother, a piece of my paradise on the anchorage of life, I have reached the age of thirty. I am a young man whose epic story was complete, thrown to and fro by my memories and the joys of a noble sadness. All of the contradictions that I experienced were my companions until I called upon, once again, to reach the seal of this and that. It is love, the only cure for all this pain, the pains of my colorful mother whose life was that of the daughter of the sun, for the burning pain of homelessness which was a dagger in the prime of her life... My mute letters were uttered, and my roots swayed between sadness and her palms.
Only later did I reach the point of leaving, far away from all those memories, and enjoying my mother’s love here, to unite with her in life, to quench the thirst of my homeland, and to write her a name worthy of that heavenly generosity, just so that my mother would live as the daughter of the sun.
