The Tragedy

Said the emptiness that was left to her: "Greater than all you ever sang, May, is a song at a child's bed that you never sang — how you longed to sing it.
Greater than all you ever did, May... your life. Your life has been lost, and here you and I are alone."

... That was a night...
as though it had broken loose from the days and the nights and the hours.
No after and no before.
Only a night hung alone, between earth and sky... turning upon itself.

— 1 —

The dark brow against the windowpane, like a piece of glass turned to ice.
And the girl's eyes straying in the night, and the palm trees whistling a funeral whistle.
... And the girl did not turn her eyes from the night, and her lashes brimmed with tears.
And in the darkness stretched over the earth and in the sky — in her tears — there loomed before her the cemetery of strangers, beyond the palm trees, thick with phantoms. And in it the graves, shrinking and lengthening... graves of marble, and graves wiped level with the ground.
And behold, one grave among them, a new one, rises from the dust and walks in the night... creeping, creeping...
And the grave keeps creeping, bearing at its head a cross of stone, and in the cross the heads of a man and a woman... And the grave draws near the girl whose cold brow is pressed to the cold glass, and clasps her to itself with a violent clasp; and the girl gasps, and faints...
That night, "May" had buried her mother over her father's dust...

— 2 —

On the morning of the next day the girl walked through the rooms of the Cairo house, seeking her dear ones in their warm rooms, and found only the phantom of the new grave, looking in on her from behind the walls and the windows... and the two wings of a great black bat, beating her brow and her heart and flailing about her house.
And she nearly sank down and collapsed.
Why does the shadow of this fearful grave cling to her?
Death. But she had not feared it before this day.
And had she not reckoned that she must lose her parents at some hour of time?
Then why?
She did not know...
And she went on pacing to and fro like a phantom creeping, while the deep darkness wound her round and round.
And suddenly her mind lit up...
The one beyond the sea.
The one who lives in colors and melodies, in love and tenderness — could he not be to her a mother and a father and a brother and a son...?
Why not? He understands her, and in his understanding of her is a sweetness she has known in no other man... in his heart is a perfume she has not known in the airs of men!
His fragrance fills her room and her book and her pen. His high forehead bends over her papers in the night...
His long black lashes drowse upon her book, and on some nights they brush the lashes of her eye!!
Why not...
She would have everything after that, and she would answer him...
She would answer him in his sickness, and be to him the mother and the sister and the wife...

And her heart shone... why not??

And the girl bent, in her deep grief, writing to that absent one, the one beyond the seas, mourning to him her mother — the last beloved shade of her kin, that had hovered over her life. And she was weeping...

And through her tears, the dark vision came back to her... In the fog, and the waves, from the far end of the sea, another grave appeared to her, walking on the waves and in the fog... drawing near, and still drawing near, until it reached the borders of Cairo...

Here it is on its way through the quarters...

Here it is entering the courtyard of the house...

Here it is in her room...

Here it is...

Days later there came to her, from beyond the sea, the death-notice of that one whom she had counted a father and a brother and a mother and a sister and a husband...

■

What have you done, May?... said the fearful emptiness that was left to her, winding round her...

They were alone, the two of them — "she" and "the Emptiness."

I snatched you from your mother's womb to press out the fruits of your youth and to shake the tree of your riper years, till not a leaf nor a fruit should remain on you...

I filled your house with glory and fame, coming to you from every quarter.

I left the men — poets, and men of letters — at your feet, May, balls rolling in the courtyard of the house...

I bound velvet and silk upon your head, and I bound a black ribbon upon your heart...

I opened to you the chambers of gold, and the doors of hearts, and you entered into them, May; and I made you forget your own heart, and you closed it upon the emptiness that is I...

I diverted you with ink and paper, and you blackened thousands of shining pages — and you blackened your heart, and nothing cried out in it but the desolation that is my sister...

I am the Emptiness, and Desolation is my sister...

What do you mean, May, to history?

What might history say of you, May...? What can it say!?

A tree heavy with good things, scattered down in the winds!!

A vessel touched by perfume: the fragrance grew rich within its heart, and no heart ever breathed it..!!

A heart of gold, of gold's purity, turned into a bounty neither sold nor bought.

Womanhood in the loveliest of its vessels, disfigured by pride...

Who are you now, May...?

A severed string in which no melody rings...

A poor, simple woman who squandered her life in the emptiness.

You say:

And this flame that I set alight among the Arabs — who but I, among the women of the Arabs, set alight its like? I carried the West to the shores of my country.

Who among women but I has done this??

You say: I alone am a summit among the Arabs...

In my age woman became a summit.

No, May: you are feeding your heart from the wounds of your heart...

Greater than all you ever did, May, is your life — you have squandered your life...

Greater than all you ever sang, May, is a song at a child's bed, which you never sang — and how you longed to sing it...

Greater than all you ever did, May, and all the wounds among people you ever soothed, is sweat you might have wiped from a beloved's brow — how you longed to do that, May... and you never did.

Your life was lost in the pride of fame.

And here am I, and you, alone...

No one is left to you but me, May. I am your father, and I am your mother, and I am your brother, and I am your husband... We shall live together forever...

And wherever you journey on the earth, none shall be with you but me — I, the Emptiness.....

And never after today will you write anything great, May... except your life with me...

■

... And in the most magnificent of tragedies, in the cruelest cut a knife can make in flesh! —

in all that is in man of pain, and desolation, and darkness; in all that is in man of savagery and genius, of flame and ashes —

this great woman wrote the tragedy of her life.

Beirut, October 19, 1949