Going to the Village

Tomorrow we are going to the village, up above, Fouad.

Our soul has wearied of this cramped city...

Last night a storm blew down upon our quarters... and what a storm it was: it tore out the ribs of the windows, broke the joints of the balconies, wrenched off the doors. Rains, snows, a roaring rebuke, whirlwinds, thundering, a blast in every corner, a muttering in every passage... And I looked out... and the great bell was tolling by itself... the dome of the church was shaking... and something of the cross was burning.

My eyes closed... I was afraid... and I slept...

A city... we hate sleeping in this city, Fouad.

Who can sleep in the storm?!
Who can hold his heart still and drowse?!
...And I slept — and rose to peer out into the bitter cold.
My hand trembling, my ribs trembling.

...And a thunderbolt fell upon the cross, upon the dome, below, into the sanctuary.

The lamps were shattered, the candles were put out, the rock of the altar shook.

I heard no human voice that night.

...I heard the sound of a glass being shattered...

Asleep — all the people asleep.

Even the night: for the moon, up above, was a cold glory, in stillness and fear.

My eyes closed, and I did not sleep...

Tell me, by the life of "Rabih," Fouad — where were you that night?!

I searched for you... I do not know how I searched for you?!

Who carried you to my house??

Where did you come in?! You took my head and struck it against the wall: "Up, let us go up above; it has worn me out, this graveyard, this city"... and you pulled me —

— Gently, Fouad...

...And you pulled me by my chest, by the coils of my chest; then you thrust your whole hand into my heart, and squeezed; then you took the iron of the cross — where did you get the iron of the cross? — and struck my face with it. "Give me blood... I have no blood left... give!"... And your eyes closed, and you slept...

The storm went mad with us... Did you not hear? — as if a passerby were calling...!! Who?!

A wind whistling and never panting... rains pouring down and never tiring... snows falling and never resting...

...A world... an earth as though something had dropped out of it... The call vanished into the edges of the night; the echo was lost in the tossing of the storm.

And I bent over you, shaking you and you would not stir, moving you and you would not move, striking your face with my bleeding face and I could not see you... And I looked up and found no one... I went out onto the overlook, and behold, the sky was clear; and behold, the morning rooster was crowing; and behold, the streets of the city were bursting open with passersby... Not a roof had fallen in the whole quarter!

Tomorrow we are going to the village, Fouad. We have there a plot of land, and a patch of shade, and an old stone arch, and a bell that does not toll by itself in the night, and a lamp. As for the jars, they are full of oil. As for the censers, they are full of embers and incense. As for the village threshing floor, it overflows with grain... To the village, Fouad, up above... we shall drink and dream and pray; then, when we are tired, we shall dig a resting place for our heads, to sleep in and be gone — and "Spring" will sprout up in us.

The dome of the church in Ras Beirut — the dome of the clock, Fouad — stands as you left it, washing itself in the waters.

How wretched are the strangers who die in the storm, far from their homes, far from the oak of the monastery at the top of the hill.

...We shall never meet again, save in the mountain...

Elias Zakharia
December 14, 1951