Story of the Month: I Am Alone!

— “Won't you sleep a little and rest?”

She shook her head slowly, absently; she knew no difference between light and darkness, and it was all one to her whether the birds sang or fell silent, whether the sun rose or sank!

Her husband bent down until his eyes were level with hers, took her head between his hands, and said: “Set your tears free — perhaps they will set your pain free!”...

She said, agitated: “If only I could, Rashid, and so relieve my soul of its slow strangling! And you, my dear — you have work waiting for you in the morning.”..

When she heard the sound of the bedroom door closing, she sighed sorrowfully, rose, and sat down by the window, staring into the darkness. Her tired eyes could not make out the white stone or the sleeping flowers that colored it, so she closed them and waited!..

At last the white phantom appeared to her and began to flutter over the garden beds and draw near the window, walking, flying, trying to cross to the inside, crying out for help: “To me, Mama — my throat hurts and I am almost choking!”

She struck her arms into the empty air, then fell back panting and trembling. The voice had been stifled, the phantom had vanished, and the fearful stillness came back to fetter her breath. She whispered in a shaking voice:

“When will you be able to come in and cross the window? When will you come back to my arms, Khulud? They are nothing without you, and my lap is empty!”

The mocking silence that followed her words appalled her, and she cried out, trembling: “O Lord, when will You call me to Your side? The one I love is with You — so take me to the one I love.”..

Before she knew it, her husband was standing with her, shaking her hard and asking: “Whom are you addressing, Najwa? Are you talking to the night, or to the silence?”

She raised to him a look worn thin by pain, and found no answer....

He spoke again, in a gentler voice:

“Najwa, talk to me — I am your husband, who breathes by your love and lives by it.” She felt her throat and said in despair: “What use is talking with you? You have forgotten her; you no longer remember her, and you will not let me speak of her.”

He wrapped his arms around her and said, his eyes glistening with tears:

“How could I forget Khulud, Najwa? I hear her voice in every movement, as though it had made of the horizon of my hearing a dwelling and a refuge; I see her phantom in every scene, as though it had chosen the reach of my sight for its sanctuary and its shrine..... But I have not forgotten you, Najwa; I have not forgotten that your presence has become my greatest consolation for her loss, and that your life has become dearer than everything of price!

She took refuge against his chest, weeping over it a weeping unlike all weeping — dry and burning!..

“I want her to come back to me, Rashid. My breast is frightened and terrified, craving the warmth of her little body; my heart weeps the pain of a dreadful emptiness whose cruelty none knows but bereaved motherhood! God blessed me and gave, after long barrenness and deprivation; He gave my soul the holy water to drink, and it grew drunk and elated! That water has broken off and run dry, Rashid, and I feel a thirst more deadly and deeper in its horror! Do you remember how joy carried you away the day you saw her when she was an hour old, and you set about kissing me, dancing and gleeful, your kisses falling one after another on my hair and my eyes and my cheeks?

“Do you remember how you gazed at our angel a moment and cried: We shall name her Khulud, Najwa, for she is immortality for us! And what do you suppose I gave her to drink with her milk, and fed her with her food? I gave her the blood of my heart to drink with every embrace and kiss, and I filled her with the juice of my spirit with every look and glance......

“Do you remember how I screamed at the doctor like a madwoman the day she once fell ill, and demanded that he do the impossible to cure her, as though he were God who grants and gives? He fixed me with a hard look and said: I am a human being like you, and I will do what lies in human power!... She recovered that time, and my heart went back appeased into my ribs; but today it spins between my sides, wild and terrified, seeking the one who lived in it and found rest there ... Would that deafness might stop my ears against her voice crying out for help ... And tell me, in God's name, how am I to forget the picture of her face growing red and congested, her hand squeezing her burning throat as she cried: ‘Mother, my throat hurts and I am almost choking!..’”

A great lump of pain began pressing on her throat and rising with her breath, and there broke from her an aching moan that shook her; and before her husband could raise his handkerchief, her pent-up tears came streaming down her cheeks, falling like rain longed for by the belly of the earth ...

*

She pressed her eyelids tighter shut against the sunbeams of the feast day, for she wanted nothing of the feast, its gladness, or its ringing. She had loved it when it brought joy and laughter to the one who had given her joy and laughter — not rigid and bleak, reminding her of the one who had gone before the feast could meet her, or she it.

“Khulud ... why do you not come in to me with the feast's joy in your hands and its radiance in your eyes? And your new dress, which you hung up with your own hand and made swear to stay in the wardrobe and wait to see what you would do with it? You have put on earth in its place, and the grave has lain down upon you, cold and heavy, denying you light and breath ...”

Talking to herself horrified her, and the truth frightened her, so she fled in alarm to her husband's corner, seeking escape — but where had he gone? From the window she saw him going about the garden flowers with water, touching them with eagerness and gentleness.. She went out into the garden, pressing on her head to smother a heavy, aching pain in it, and stood beside her husband, silent and at a loss..

— A blessed feast to you, Najwa..

The kiss fell on her cheek; she smiled faintly and said:

— And to you, Rashid ...

Then she said again, gloomily:

— I hate these flowers: they did not die as she did, and they are still dewy and fresh.. Oh, Rashid, how did the feast dare to come while she is in the belly of the earth? ..

— Do you hate the flowers whose fragrance she used to breathe in the morning, and around which she skipped at evening and at nightfall? Strange! Do you hate these faithful roses that submit to the shears and consent to burn slowly under the sun so as to wreathe her grave and keep it company? As for the feast — welcome to the voice of God, and welcome to the mercy of heaven!..

A great shame came over her, and she whispered, her voice like a breath:

— I am sorry, Rashid. Pain has wrapped me in selfishness and filled me with hatred for every living thing that breathes.. For God's sake, let us go out today, anywhere outside the house — the loneliness is tightening its grip on my throat!.

And seeing how deep was the anguish that withered her, he pressed her to him hard, tender and anxious, and said:

— Come, my darling — to any place you wish ...

*

Nature wiped her brow with a handful of gentle breeze, and she relaxed, easy of soul, and leaned on her husband's arm, watching the bright green and the clear blue, and amid them the silence and the calm; and her thoughts began to slip away from her and rest ...

— Najwa, what are you thinking of?

The sudden question startled her, and she murmured:

— Truly, I am thinking of nothing in particular ... and I feel ease now, and peace ...

— Come, let us talk; talk in the presence of Nature is beautiful. Let us consider some particular matter — such as hearing the warbling of a child once more in our house, for instance. What do you say to that?

She moistened her dry lips and said faintly:

— Do you mean another woman's child, Rashid?

He took her hands in his and looked long into her eyes before saying:

— That is exactly what I mean. We adopt a child whose heart the hunger of orphanhood has gnawed, so that love has become more needful to him than food; or we take to ourselves a little body wasted by poverty, and he will be with us and ours, though he be not of us! In God's name, say yes, Najwa?

— But so quickly — when a year has not yet passed since her death?

He let go her hands in despair and rose from his place, walking away from her, from the wall of ice with which she had surrounded her heart, and from the ring of harshness she had mixed into her words! And shame came over her again, and sweat beaded on her brow, and she whispered to herself, trembling:

“Guide me, my God, onto the straight path, for I have become blind, seeing neither the evil nor the good that other people see ...”

*

Why had a certain dimness begun to show against the brightness of the little white phantom? Why did the phantom now stand far from the window, no longer trying to cross? And its voice — why had it grown faint and contented, no longer complaining of pain? Had “Khulud” begun to forget her night visits, turning little by little toward her unknown world on high? ..

She gripped the window to steady herself as she saw a white figure walking. It was approaching the door, not the window! She could not stand, for a violent shudder ran through her body; her call to her husband failed her, and she waited!.

The door was knocked a second time, and still she did not stir!

Her husband came out of his room, astonishment at her stillness speaking in his face! She did not turn toward the door, and she did not see the little girl standing there; but she heard a soft voice ask, weeping:

— May I come in for a moment?

She wanted to leap up and run at this intruder, screaming: “No, no — you are a lying phantom that deceives the eye!...” But she rose quietly and walked to the door, studying the questioner from behind her husband, who made way for the little one; and she asked her to explain herself:

“You two do not know me, but perhaps you remember my mother, ‘Umm Saber,’ who used to wash clothes for the people of this quarter ... She .. left the house days ago on a long journey, to join my brother, and ...”

And she wept; and the sobbing rose through the house where death had laughed before, and had insisted on keeping the echo!.

The child took hold of herself and murmured:

“I could not stay in the house alone — the fear almost kills me ...”

Then she turned her wide, dark eyes about and asked eagerly:

“I remember that in this house there is a little girl who promised me a new dress. I want no dress after today — but will you let me stay with you a few days, until the fear leaves me?

She lifted pleading eyes to Najwa and said:

“I shall be the best of helpers to you, Madam, in the housework, and I shall ask no coin for my work; I want nothing but company, for I am alone!..”

And it seemed to Najwa that the whole world was watching for her answer, that humanity in all its greatness was staring at her lips, and that her husband, with all his feelings and his heart, awaited her reply. So she lifted her head high and said with a smile, wiping the eyes of the little orphan:

— I shall be very happy to have you with us, and you will not be alone after today. As for the little girl you asked about, she too has gone on a journey — and whoever goes does not come back; is it not so, my little one?...

The child understood, and bent over Najwa's hand, kissing it and making a mighty effort to hold back her streaming tears ...

— Then you are afraid, like me?

— Afraid? Yes — if bereavement at its cruelest thrust can be called fear! We shall not be afraid after today. Look: the night is pitch black, but our night, from this day on, has no darkness! Is it not so, Rashid?.

And the husband answered the question with an embrace that enclosed the two of them, and it grew stronger and more tender when his wife added:

— Do you like the name “Khulud”? ... We shall call you by it, for we ... love it.