A Tear for My Friend Fouad Suleiman

It truly pains The Woman's Voice to carry to its readers in the far corners of the earth this ill-omened news, because of the high place its former editor-in-chief held in their hearts, in appreciation of his bold, living literary art, and of his struggle and his devotion over two full years...

And this tear of Edvick Jureidini Shayboub's, for her departed friend, is but the repayment of some part of his claim upon her.

... At dawn on December 14, this nation was thunderstruck, and literature and poetry were bereaved, by the death of Mr. Fouad Suleiman...

... The nightingale has fallen silent from song. He died in the flower of his youth, at the summit of his literary glory, of an incurable disease that defied medicine, leaving in the hearts of his kin and his loved ones an aching grief, and leaving behind a stricken life's partner and three young branches: Rabi', Walid, and Wisam.

I doubted You, O Lord — I doubted Your compassion and Your justice. This is the third time in my life that I stand before Your holy face, my strength failing, my faith shaken. Grant me then, O God, from Yourself an ample understanding, for I cannot comprehend Your wisdom in some of Your works! And forgive me, O my God....

*

Fouad, dearest of friends,

Yesterday your body embraced the soil of the white hill at "Fih," and was joined to its mother, the earth, in an everlasting union...

And tomorrow, when the village has been washed a thousand times by the rains, and the white hill breaks forth in a thousand colors and a thousand perfumes, your fragrance will breathe upon the air, and the wings of the winds will carry it to every place on earth...

*

Yesterday we were guests of your sweet village... hundreds... teeming thousands, all of them streaming to "Fih" to bid you farewell, Fouad... Did you see them — broken, humbled, rigid, nailed to the ground, without life enough in them for the flicker of an eyelid, seared, choked by tears, holding back sob upon sob... It is the helplessness of weak, abased man before the tyrannical power whose essence we do not know. Is it true that it is God? Is it true that the tender, merciful God allows Fouad to drain those great draughts of pain, only to arrive at last at this heartrending end?

*

O Fouad!

In the terrible storm there died upon your lips the aching cry of "Akh," sent up in broken, convulsive gasps from your wounded throat... while the doctors around you, perplexed and dazed, treated you with every remedy but the healing remedy they did not know!..

And amid the shrieking of the storm and its violence, amid its winds and its rains, the processions of the young — your friends and your students — bore you from the hospital to the heart of the capital, the tears of the sky toying with their hair, while their own tears boiled within them and overflowed upon their cheeks... Whence had this calamity come upon them, whence?!

And in that same storm, thousands of mourners poured toward Fih, bearing armfuls of roses and lilies, crosses and wreaths, and with cold, trembling fingers heaped them upon your precious tomb, while in their bleeding hearts a knife cut deep!

*

And memory carried me back, Fouad, two years — or perhaps three. It is as if you were before me, reading me your piece in memory of your comrade the poet Elias Abu Shabaki: "He Died in the Storm."

And suddenly you stopped reading, lit a cigarette, and said to me in earnest, knitting your brows in that way of your own: — "I am a storm, Edvick — would that I might die in the storm!"

And I hastened to murmur: "After a long life!"

And we laughed together, unheeding; and we did not know that the fates, which had been listening to you, had stopped their ears to my plea... Else why did they fling away your tender youth like this, and not hear the fervent prayers rising from the temples, amid the incense and the censers — prayers which the supplications of the faithful wife and the innocent little ones could not aid, nor those of thousands of loyal, loving friends?

★

... Is it true, Fouad, that our eyes will never again fall upon the radiance of your face? Is it true that we have been deprived of your voice, spreading gladness through the house, jest after jest, pleasantry after pleasantry?!

... And who is left to thought after you, O Tammuz? Literature and poetry have been bereaved, and in them you were nothing less than a peak among peaks, looking out from your heights in loftiness and pride!

And how great you were, Fouad, in your mind and your understanding, and in your heart.
... You never once strove except for the common good, and never once did your own interest come before the interest of others. Blessed be your soul — how generous it was, in giving and in bounty... in bounty and in giving.

★

And I shall not forget — never shall I forget — your last charge to me... The echo of your steady voice is still in my ears, saying: —
"Edvick, your nerves are strong. Stay by Josephine and help her to bear the blow!"

Yes! You knew that you were setting out on a journey; and your anguish over your health, and over your life as it faded and went out, was not fiercer than your solicitude for Josephine, the beloved wife to whom you were faithful and who was faithful to you...

And I promise you, my friend, that I will be to Josephine the loving sister, lightening for her the bitterness of the cup, and lifting her up so long as my wings can help me rise... and we shall not stumble, God willing...

As for your little ones and mine — they are all brothers and sisters. Love will not run scant; it pours upon them from the hearts of brethren and comrades... And how many they are, Fouad — a flood of love and fidelity... And these seeds of yours, good in their very element, are your trust in their keeping; they pledge before God to tend them with good and faithful care...

★

I doubted You, O Lord. I doubted Your compassion and Your justice. This is the third time in my life that I stand before Your holy face, my strength failing, my faith shaken. Grant me then, O God, from Yourself an ample understanding, for I cannot comprehend Your wisdom in some of Your works!.. And forgive me, O my God!