At the Border (A Story)

March 26.
Lord, forgiveness! My God, mercy!
Today I committed the greatest crime and the gravest sin...
I shed no blood, I severed no head from any body — and yet I killed... I killed with my tongue... with wild, mad words...
I killed a heart and shook a soul from its roots...
I do not know how to flee from myself! I do not know how to tear my torment out of my breast...

March 27
Yesterday he did not speak to me at all, and this morning at the table he said to us suddenly: "I have resolved to travel — to America, perhaps."
My father asked him, laughing, not believing:
"Why?"
He did not lift his head from his plate as he answered:
"A change and a variation"... How still he was as he said it — how dead!!
They rose and gathered around him, objecting, bewildered, asking the reason; he refused to answer or state his motives. My sister Dalal cried:
"I will go with you if you go — I swear it."
He laid his hand tenderly on her arm and said in a hoarse voice: "Do not oppose me, if you truly love me."
She whispered, weeping: "Love you? I worship you, Sabah, and I boast to the world of having you for a brother — so how can I let you go away, how?"
And I fled, before I could be asked the reason...

April 3...
Bewilderment torments them... He has not told them what happened between us, and I have not told them, because I am a vile coward...
I did not sleep last night, thinking of my crime. I knocked at his door at dawn, and when he opened it and saw me he stood frozen, saying nothing. I said, agitated:
"Forgive me, Sabah — do not punish me by going away"...

He did not answer... He was looking far away...
gazing into emptiness...
I stepped back and returned to my room, despairing, anguished...

April 10...

He is preparing himself for the journey...
He does not speak to me, and when he speaks to our two sisters his eyes weep fire...
What shall I do, Lord, to bring life back to his heart? I will confess what I did! I will confess what I did! I will confess — so help me, my Lord...

April 12

Today I stood before my father and my mother and Dalal and told them everything... He stood at the window, looking far away... gazing into emptiness...
And they froze in their places, looking on and not understanding, so I cried:
"Don't you hear? I broke the oath and betrayed the secret we vowed together to keep... I told him that he is not one of us, that his origin is as unknown as his mother... You named him 'Sabah' because you found him one summer morning at the trunk of a tree, a weeping, hungry infant... Mother, don't look at me like that... Father, please, say something..."
He came toward me, white-lipped, pale-faced, and said in a voice like ice:
"Why did you do this? Why?"
I answered, trembling: "For the sake of a girl we both loved... I wanted to belittle him in her eyes and dissolve his very person, and so I committed a crime I never intended... I don't want him to go, Father! I love him and I don't want him to go"...

Then Dalal slapped me; I felt my cheek and turned my gaze away from her...
"I will never forgive you this as long as I live. I loathe you."
And I fled... fled without looking at his blazing eyes weeping fire...

April 16

They plead with him and he does not listen to what they say! They shout and threaten, and he bows his head and bites his lips...
He has resolved to go, and made up his mind... His life among us is over... I ended it — with feverish, mad words, for the sake of a girl! How strange! I do not think of her now; I have come to hate her... I think of him — the creature I have known as a brother, sharing name and father and mother and sisters, ever since I first knew life... What have I done to your heart, my brother?! Into what hell did I hurl it, burning it without mercy?

April 26

The day of his departure draws near, and the day of my punishment advances upon me little by little, like the steps of an executioner...
He is like one who stands at a border, afraid to go forward and dreading to turn back... Turn back, my brother, for beyond the border lurks the fearful unknown in which there is no mercy; come back to us, and we will help you to forget...

May 5.

Yesterday there came a sudden knock at the door of my room, and he entered... I sprang to my feet, not knowing what to say... He laid his hand on my arm and said with feeling:
"Forgive me my harshness. In truth it was not you who hurt me. The culprit is fate"...
I nearly leapt for joy and clapped with delight. But I mastered myself and said, gripping my golden joy with strength and resolve: "Then pardon fate — and us, Sabah. Stay with us, and do not be a harsh judge of the mistakes that fate commits"...

He remained silent, and my heart pounded in dread...
"Sabah, do you remember when we were small and climbed the mountain? Together, helping each other up? The day we saw a big worm, and I jumped in terror and tumbled down? You knelt on the ground beside me and spoke slowly, so that I would understand every letter you said, as if you were the elder and I the younger:

'If I were in your place I would have trodden on it with my foot and climbed on... I do not run from annoyances or difficulties that cross my path. They are like this worm: if it tries to harm me I kill it, and if it goes its own way I leave it.'... That is what you once said to me — so why do you want to run from a difficulty that has risen before you today? You taught me courage, and I hate to see you a coward today... My father knew nothing about you when he lifted you from the ground as an infant, but today he knows that you are the maker of his hopes and his wishes, that your life is part of his life and your happiness is all his happiness. Mother sees the rising of the sun in your face; without you she knows no gladness or delight in life... Dalal worships you, and the letters of your name never leave her lips... Rajaa follows you from place to place like your shadow, singing when you are there and scowling when you are away... Are you listening to what I say?" He hid his eyes with his hands and cried out in a wounded voice:

"Why do you torture me so? Everything has changed now... Ever since you told me the truth, I keep picturing you all gathering around that cast-off child, showing him the compassion you show every deprived creature; and he gives you his heart and his love, and you give him your hearts and your love, day after day and year after year... You pitied first, and then you loved — and so I became one of you. I was not one of you from the beginning, to be loved as a father and mother love the child before it is even born... And my mother, who laid me down at the trunk of the tree — where is she today? And why did she cast me into the unknown with that dreadful cruelty? So now — my father was my father in the eyes of nature, and not in the eyes of God?! Let me go; I shall never be what I was. I shall remain in a hell of stubborn questioning, from which neither Heaven nor you can save me with an answer..." I could not answer, so I threw myself upon him, and we wept together; and at last I was able to say: "You will not go. You are too merciful to sentence us to a long, everlasting grief."

May 16

The day after tomorrow the steamer sails...
The day after tomorrow we fall silent, with the silence of the grieving and bereft.
I nearly go mad as I watch him walk about like a dream, his senses dulled, his glances bewildered... How I long to shake him and shout in his face:
"Don't you see what you are doing to yourself and to us? You will become a lost soul and we will become criminals — and woe to you and to us from that torment"...
Poor Mayy! She was alone with him for two hours yesterday... I do not know what she said to him; he came out afterward in silence, and she remained alone, staring into emptiness...

May 17.

My God! How merciful You are! My God, how generous You are!

He will not go! He will not be lost... and he will not cross the border...

We gathered around him this evening, our heads bowed, bewildered, unable to speak, and he sat silent, his brow knitted, looking at Mother... Then he sprang up suddenly and knelt before Father, crying:

"Father, here is the ticket. Tear it up and throw it far away, for I am not going. I will stay with you..."

A feast day that hour was! A holy, matchless feast! We wept for joy, and he began to sob like a child... Then our eyes met, and we smiled! How precious it is, my brother — that sweet smile of yours. How precious your love, and how dear you are to my heart... my poor, rejoicing heart, which committed a crime and will atone for its crime with its love for you all life long.