Rise, Let Us Set Out from Here! (Story of the Issue)

...to that cloud that comes streaming from the south...

A story by Filib Muslim

Her night stretched long and she did not sleep; there had come over her what comes over one sunk in a dream: if she closed her eyelids for a moment, a restless phantom appeared to her with phantoms in its train; if she covered her ears an instant, a turbulent echo came to her with echoes following after; and if she folded those echoes away for a while within her, and those phantoms too, she felt as though a single face were stirring about her in revolt, as though a single voice were whispering about her in tumult, until it was as if she saw nothing but the face of Fawwaz gazing at her, and heard nothing but the voice of Fawwaz calling to her — whether she sat crouched by the hut, or went along the road, or stood upon the hill:

— Nahla!... Why should I not live with you, Nahla, and why should you not live with me?!... And were it not for you!... Do not be afraid!... And let not those ruffians frighten you!... For soon I shall return!... And morning, Nahla, is not far off!!!...

* *

And Nahla felt with her hand for that face, opening her mouth to answer that voice; but she flung herself to look out from the little window of the hut, and darkness had departed, and morning had begun to flood over the far-flung reach of the horizon!...

And she knew nothing till she had thrown off the thin cover, slipped on her two worn slippers, wrapped herself in her old torn shawl, and darted swiftly out through the cracked door, leaving her mother turning over on the mat and her father snoring away in his sleep!...

And her mother's turning, and her father's snoring, and all that was in the hut... none of this was absent from her mind as she looked at the town lying asleep on the shore of the bay, or at these orchards spread out over the plain, or at those bright hills, where trees stood on their slopes and leaned, and rocks reclined on their summits and slept; but she felt as though something of this wind that blew in her face, and of this mist that engulfed her a while and then was gone, and of those clouds that raced here and then banked there... as though something of all these had touched her eyes gently, and caressed her ears softly, then carried her on soft palms and set her down in the hut, where she had spent the happiest days of her life, and the most wretched!...

And as a flash passes across the expanse of the sky, those days passed through her mind all at once; then they began to come back, now slowing, laboring in their slowness, now hastening, laboring in their haste, until, as she began to weary a little, she cast herself back to that evening when she reached this bend of the slope, walking ahead of her helpless mother and father — all of them carrying the remnants of their belongings, and having left behind them three young men watering with their spilled blood the soil of their plundered village... And when they came to a few olive trees standing apart on the slope hedged round with rocks, her mother threw the load from her back and sank to the ground, panting, worn out:

— This far the Lord has helped me!...

And her father added, sighing and casting down his load:

— And this far my two feet have helped me!...

As for her, she said, setting down what was on her back and under her arm, then pushing back the hair that had tumbled over her face, and wiping with the edge of her sleeve the sweat streaming on her brow:

— This far... this far and no farther... and tomorrow we shall decide our fate!...

And when the morrow came, she woke to a rustling near her; she turned, and there was her father: he had gathered some stones and was setting them in a row beside a rock that stood between two olive trunks... while her mother appeared from behind the trees, carrying some dry sticks and branches; and she could do nothing but rise, calling out to them:

— The morning is Yours, O God!... What are you two doing?!...

The father answered, saying:

— Here we passed our night... and here we shall pass our nights!...

Then the mother added:

— We are building ourselves a hut — don't you see?!... Come, help us!...

And no sooner had her mother spoken the last word than she rolled up her sleeves and set to work at what the two of them were working at; and behold, stone clung to stone, and course rose upon course, and the stones and the courses joined the standing rock to the trunk of this olive tree and the trunk of that, until, when they had finished these two walls after some hours, they began to roof it over with the sticks and branches they had gathered, binding these to the thick leafy boughs, lacing those together lengthwise and crosswise, then coming down to the space between the two great trunks that stood close to one another, leaving a narrow door between them, and making a small window on the right and a small window on the left!...

And she saw her parents contemplating this standing-crouching shape of rock and stone and branches and sticks and trees, and it pleased her to enter this refuge, to stretch out on its floor, to gaze at its corners and its roof, and to let her eye wander over the horizon that showed through its window; but hardly had she done so when there appeared to her a young man, fresh of skin, climbing the slope and making toward them. When he was a few steps away he said, greeting them with the hand in which he carried an empty waterskin:

— Peace be upon you...

Her parents answered:

— And upon you be peace...

— Would you, uncle, direct me to the spring?...

— A spring?!... And what spring, my son?!...

— I saw a clear rivulet running down from the other side of this hill... and I supposed it came from some spring nearby...

— Perhaps!... But, truth to tell, I do not know... for this is our first day in these parts!...

And her mother cried:

— Come, let us look for water, then... we have forgotten to drink!!...

As for her, she said, coming out of her refuge and shaking off the chaff that clung to her hair and her dress:

— And we have forgotten to eat!!!...

The young man answered, looking at her, and on his lips a smile of wonder and mockery and pain:

— And what is there that we have not forgotten in these days?!... Tell me... are you refugees?!...

Her father answered:

— Yes, my son!... We are refugees!... And you?!...

— Like you... a refugee!...

— We agreed before ever we parted!... Come, let us look for your spring, my son!...

Her father said this, then pushed that stranger on before him, and the two went off to the other side of the slope; as for her, she went searching for what remained to them of provisions, feeling a hunger and a thirst she had never known before, until, when some time had passed, she heard her mother crying out to her for joy:

— Look!... They are back!... They are back, and the waterskin full of water!...

And she rose and went to them, carrying a bag holding some crumbs of bread and lumps of cheese and heads of onion; she thrust it into the hand of the young man standing before her, and snatched from his other hand the waterskin, and began pouring it down her throat; and when she had drunk her fill of it she said, handing it to her mother:

— Never have I felt the sweetness of water as I feel it now!...

The young man said, moving his gaze from the bag to her face:

— And never have I felt my craving for bread as I feel it now!... Truly, a man craves nothing, and delights in nothing, unless that thing has grown hard to come by!...

She looked up at him, and felt as though something in the glance of his eyes and the tone of his lips and the dignity of his face pierced through her own eyes and lips and face, then stole deep into her without her knowing or willing it; but she turned her gaze from him when her father's voice reached her, saying:

— Sit down, man!... Why do you stand there like a stranger?!...

— Thank you, uncle!... For a long while now I have not felt myself in a home... and among kin!...

He said this, then sat with them and they with him; they asked his name and he asked theirs, he talked with them and they with him — and behold, he, like them, had lost of his people those he had lost, and had been left alone in his exile, knowing no one and known by no one. And when this sitting together had gone on long, and that talking had gone on long, he said, as the sun was gathering in its light from the olive trees:

— What if I were to cast down my traveler's staff... and pitch, here, a tent of my own?!...

Her mother cried:

— A hundred welcomes!... Our house is your house!... And our freedom is your freedom!...

And her father added:

— To it this very hour!... Up...

And he rose upon the hour, that evening, and they rose with him; and there stood a small tent near the hut, keeping watch over it until morning... Then there were evenings and there were mornings; and tents were scattered along this bank, and huts strewn along that, and the slope teemed with old men and old women, with youths and girls, with little boys and little girls; a fire was kindled here and a fire put out there, and the wind blew heavy with smoke, laden with calling and praying and weeping, till it seemed that a semblance of life was breathing over a death that squatted upon the slope — where hunger was, and nakedness, and bare feet, and humiliation and disgrace — but for a measure of flour, a scoop of milk, a tin of meat, a handful of lentils or the like among grains, which they would watch for at the month's beginning or the month's end, when they would strike out through the ravines, tramp the winding paths among the orchards, then stream toward that quarter from which these things were distributed, in a crush of cursing and blows and the breaking-out of scuffles!... So it was... while they sought work and found none, and knocked at people's doors and they were not opened to them, and asked alms of the passers-by, going and coming, and were given nothing. So it was... and she could have wished her ears stopped, that she might hear nothing of what she heard, and her eyes put out, that she might see nothing of what she saw; could have wished to hurry her days on, or to hold them back, that she might stay them at every sunrise and every sunset, when she would see her young man off from afar as he left his tent in his rebellious stillness, and would welcome her young man from afar as he came back to his tent in his turbulent silence; and she feared for him from that revolt, and dreaded for him that tumult, passing her day in anxiety, spending her night in sleeplessness — until there came a long day, and then a longer night, and she went out into the open, leaned her back against an olive trunk, and let her gaze go out over the sweep of the slope: the scattered lamps glimmered faintly, then died away in the breath of the mist; the tender moon and the scattered stars sparkled, mirrored on the deep of the bay, then vanished into the light clouds that raced from one quarter to bank in another; the wind blew in soft wafting breaths, perfumed with the smell of plowed earth and the fragrance of the herbs, charged with the purling of the brook and the croaking of the frogs and the droning of the crickets; and through all this she heard the tread of sandals, and turned — and there was Fawwaz drawing near her, saying:

— Is it you, Nahla?!...

— Fawwaz!...

— What are you doing here?!...

— Nothing!... All I know is that sleep has fled from my eyelids... and that the hut holds no more than my father and my mother!...

— Unlike my tent!... whose emptiness longs for its second person!... Nahla...

He said this, and she knew nothing till his two arms were reaching out to her, and till she was nestling, trembling and weeping, between his arms, his lips straying over her hair and her ear and the sides of her neck:

— My Nahla!... Nahla!... We have a right to life!... A right like others!... Then why should I not live with you, Nahla, and you live with me?!... Why...

* * *

And Nahla stirred between his arms to wind her own arms about him, as his lips went seeking her lips; but she felt herself give a light shudder, for there had shown to her the other glow in the flood of the twilight, where the colors mingled on the horizon, then floated over the wooded rocky hills, and flowed down over the levels of the slope and the path and the spring!...

And she stood at the spring contemplating that world waking around her, and everything was as she had known it since her feet first trod this ground: these waters gushing from the cave, then running down their channel; these stones and thorns and grasses wet with the night's dew and the morning's moisture; these sparrows chirping on the boughs, then fluttering up in flocks and flying, free and unbound, toward the places of light; and yet, for all that, it seemed to her as though something like a desolate stillness and a dread silence had closed down upon those waters and stones and grasses and boughs and sparrows all together, as though something had altered them and changed them, so that they no longer had that splendor they had had a few days before, when she came early to the spring and filled her jar as usual, and then Fawwaz came to her, and the two went roaming that countryside, till they reached the ravine that winds toward the facing hill, where the apple orchard sprawls and the watchman's shelter sits squat, and she said, drinking in the breeze:

— How splendid this morning is, Fawwaz!... It is as though the sky kept festival, as though the earth were waking to the festival's joy!...

And Fawwaz said, half smiling and half frowning:

— That is because your heart has awakened, Nahla, and rejoices at a festival's coming!...

— And should not man rejoice at the dawn of every new day?!...

— Yes indeed!... by the very truth!... But those of delicate feeling and of fine sensibility are tormented in this world at such times as these; they find no splendor in a morning, and they find no splendor in an evening; rather the days become all alike to them, their days and their nights, save for a fleeting joy that lasts no short while before it adds torment upon torment to their hearts!...

She answered, stopping him, clinging to his arm, looking up at him:

— Why do you say this, Fawwaz, when I have always known you a nature all mirth and hope and aspiration?!... Fawwaz!... Be like these birds, beating your two wings!... Be like these flowers, breathing out perfume!... Be...

But he cut her short, saying:

— How often have I wished I were a bird, to fly away beyond these knolls and hills, and live free, in a land not this land and under a sky not this sky!... And how often have I wished I were a flower sprung up in the wilderness, remembering no past and dreaming of no morrow, finding life a passing moment neither short nor long!... And how often have I wished I were a pebble, or a grain of sand, or a mote of dust... for who knows, perhaps then I should feel no life, and be aware of no existence, and...