Dreams (A Short Story)

We were three girls at one school. We were in the springtime of life, and our souls had opened onto worlds of enchanting fantasy drawn for us by Western and Eastern books, original and translated, representing the best that the minds of writers ancient and modern have produced. We drank from the springs of Western literature and learning as a thirsty flower drinks of the morning dew. Then, in our free hours, we would sit recalling our lessons and our readings, reviewing the past ages and exchanging opinions and impressions...

— Have you read Galsworthy's “The Mob”? You must read it.

— What do you think of “Thus Spake Zarathustra”?

— And Nehru's book, the story of his life? It brims with sincerity. For the first time I find an Easterner speaking with such frankness.

From time to time we would adopt a hero whom we called the hero of the month. Sometimes it was “Cyrano de Bergerac,” sometimes “Shelley,” at another time “Gandhi” or “Lawrence.” We would read deeply about him and lose ourselves in studying and analyzing him, with wonder and contentment in our hearts, as if the genius we sang of had become part of our very selves.

Although we were in a foreign school, we looked upon the foreigners we mixed with with distance and wariness: in our view they were colonizers, whose concern was to spread the influence of the West in the backward lands and strip them of their character. And we looked with disdain on classmates of ours who curried favor with the foreigners out of servility or a desire to gain some advantage. But among those foreign women teachers there was one who caught our attention — not by her looks, though they were attractive, but by her freedom, her energy, and the oddity of her ways. She taught physical education, and in dancing she had astonishing expressive arts that left us bewildered and amazed before her, watching her supple muscles and her marvelous inventions. She would take long trips on her bicycle, racing the winds as she went and climbing the heights, then come back with the sun having tanned her freckled face, her mouth breaking into a wide and most innocent smile, and say, laughing:

“I don't know which of us will live longer, I or Layla” — that being the name of her bicycle. She had given it an Arabic name, saying: it deserves the name, for it is thoroughbred like the Arabian horse — indeed sturdier.

Her name was Sawsan, but we nicknamed her “Su.” With our feminine instinct we would wonder: how old might she be? Not one of us dared put the question to her openly, and we contented ourselves with what one of us said: she is a woman without age.

Even so, some of the girls were bold enough to ask her: Is there no man in your life? She would answer with her usual laugh and say: Oh yes — that was long ago. We quarreled over certain opinions and parted.

— And afterward?

— Nothing.

— Nothing? That cannot be!

— Cannot be? Why? Then she would add, reproachfully: It seems to me the subject of men holds first place in the lives of young girls, however much they try to hide it. But I am not surprised at this. It is a life full of emptiness, with nothing to fill it but the natural inclinations.

We would protest angrily and try to argue. As for her, she would sit down at the piano and begin to play, saying: “This is my language; it is nobler than words.” Then she would go on playing for long hours without tiring, as though she forgot herself when she did so.

One day she told us she was going to leave teaching and set out on a long journey in the company of her bicycle. She had wearied of this place, and had begun to feel decline and stagnation creeping into her soul; she must have a change.

“I must renew myself as I renew Layla's parts from time to time. Everything that does not renew itself dies.”

We asked her: Have you money enough for your long journey?
— About a thousand Lebanese liras.

We gasped in astonishment: And with that you hope to tour the world?
She answered: My clothes are very sturdy, and so is the bicycle. I can live a scout's life, and if things go hard with me I can teach some languages or work in a factory.

— And the music?
— The music is for myself; I don't like teaching it.
— Aren't you afraid to travel about alone, and without money?
She burst out laughing: “That is a lighter load and easier on the mind — for then I need not fear thieves!”

Then she added: Life is freedom and adventure. Apart from that it has no value.

“Su” went away, and we heard nothing more of her — except that from time to time she would send us hurried postcards, some from India and some from Italy. We seldom spoke of her, but the sound of her laughter and her deep, strange sayings kept ringing in our minds like a long echo.

We too went our separate ways, each on her own path, for school days do not last long. Our gatherings grew fewer after that. Yet we never once met without each of us pouring out her complaint of the shock that had seized her on passing from the life of imagination to the life of reality.

We had understood our surroundings through books, and behold, the gulf was vast between our dreams and the naked truth we came to face. And after exchanging views at school on Rousseau and Nietzsche and Shelley, we now traded remarks like these:

— Doesn't this state of things pain you? We are floundering in a black night of superstitions and delusions.

— I have yet to come upon a human being who does not lie, or exaggerate with impudence and poor taste.

— How can we live with people who do not understand us? They are still living in the age of Noah and Abraham and Jacob. There is no difference at all between the ones and the others.

— I see around me nothing but fossilized minds, and greedy souls whose only care is amassing money.

We felt the need to come together, to renew glimpses of our school days, to talk over the problems that confronted us, and to exchange succor and inspiration whenever we felt our resolve failing and our will sinking. So we decided to meet on a regular, settled basis.

One day we debated an important matter. Su'ad — she of the green eyes and the striking, attractive coloring — said: I am at a loss and I want your opinion. Shall I marry this man who keeps pursuing me? I cannot stand him, but he is rich. And I can find no one else.

— And why can't you stand him?

— I don't know. I cannot come to an understanding with him. I cannot.
Both companions fell silent; then Nuha raised her head and said sharply: Impossible! How can a girl marry a man she does not love?

And she went on: “The same problem came my way, and I refused. I refused flatly to accept a marriage I had no inclination for. But I have fallen into something worse. I work in a teaching post, and I suffer torments from the principal's harshness, her tyranny, and her ignorance.

There are teachers who humor her whims, and so she grants them her favor; as for me, I am incapable of flattery and self-abasement. I cannot” — she said this in a tone close to weeping.

The two companions cried: But then... leave that post!

— Would I find a better one? I find some consolation in the salary.
— But what use is a salary against the humiliation of the soul and the affront to one's person!
— You are right. I must think of a suitable solution. I shall leave teaching. I shall take up nursing, or office work. I must find other work...

And Su'ad said: I too shall refuse this man, and devote myself to the study of painting. How can they expect me to kill my feelings? How can I live in an atmosphere of perpetual lying and hypocrisy?.. It shall not be!

We parted, agreeing to meet in two weeks' time. But the two weeks passed and we did not meet. News reached us of Su'ad's marriage to the man she loathed, and in the card she sent us there was a phrase that bespoke surrender and indifference. We met her after her marriage, and behold, she was contented and cheerful, as if money had lent her a look of appetite and languor, and doubled her weight.

I once met Nuha in one of the shops, and I glimpsed in her eyes a rigidity I had never known in her before. The old gaiety had left her, and she had decided to stay in her post because, as she said, she feared change and plunging into new problems. She dreads not finding anything better, and she cannot bear idleness and retreat into the narrow world of the home, which she can no longer endure.

I used to invite her to take trips with me, and she would beg off; and I saw that she had surrendered, little by little, to a mechanical, sluggish life. As for me, I have gone on dreaming of a long journey after the model of “Su's” journey; and I do not know — shall I too bury my dreams as Nuha and Su'ad buried theirs? For no reason except that we lacked that boldness we had known in the girl we admired. And because our culture lay in words and imagination, not in action... Or perhaps there are other reasons...