Mahmoud Darwish 1971
First published: in Diary of a Citizen without a Country, 1971.
First published in English: by Fifth of June Society and Arab Women's Information Committee, Beirut, Lebanon.
Source: The Freedom Archives.
Transcribed: by Zdravko Saveski.
—'Give me a tank as a birthday present, darling, or a cannon or any kind of weapon.'
—I'll give you a tank, love, so that I can try something new and sleep in it with you.'
—'No, I will sleep with you in the open air on the bank of the Suez Canal.'
—'Ha ha ha'
—'Ha ha ha'
You walk through the streets, you sit in a cafe, you take the bus, and you keep silent. No one need ask you for the revealing details on your identity card: your silence speaks for itself. It is the only attitude that you are permitted to adopt when you hear that sort of Israeli lovemaking. The time of sweet words has ended... I will give you sweet nothings and the moon...No.
What an immense gulf between the imagination soaring unhindered in the desert and the imagination structured by modern technology and victory. Words of love are now interwoven with current affairs and the latest inventions of new weapons. Pleasure no longer comes from nature and the Arab in Israel finds himself backward even in lovemaking. It has taken him a long time to learn how to address his love with roses. How many aeons will this creature require to be trained in this new approach? My darling...I will give you a tank.
What are you thinking of? How they manage to have children in tanks? How they manage to have fun in tanks?
This is the secure Israeli home. This is the love-nest. And this is the future.
At 4 a.m. you are awakened by the doorbell. You know who the visitor is. But sleep is more powerful than the police. At 9 a.m. you go to work, you sip your coffee before reading the paper. The usual visitor turns up and says: 'Come with me.' You ask him: 'Is this an arrest ... or a questioning?' He says: 'I don't know.' You ask him whether to take your toothbrush and shaving things and a change of clothes and he answers: 'There's no time!'
You sit before the officer. He tells you politely, sitting under Herzl's portrait: 'It is a great honour for me to arrest you.' You return his compliment: 'And it gives me great honour to honour you. But would you be kind enough to tell me what the accusation against me is.' He says: 'You are accused of the explosion of a water-melon at the entrance to the circus, and of endangering the security of the state.'
A water-melon, the state, and the circus—what a rare harmony.
The period of legal detention is over. Everything there is legal! You expect to be taken to court, and look forward to seeing your beautiful city through the bars of the police van. You even carry your credulous hopefulness, as usual, so far as to expect release. 'Wait a bit.' You protest, on the fringes of the law, and they tell you: 'We will not keep you one hour after the end of the detention period. What do you think? Here we keep strictly within the law...This is Israel and not the Arab world.'
You think of the Arab world for a little, and mix daydreams with your choking misery...And you wait. What are you waiting for? The investigating officer or the Arab world?
Finally they put you in another room. There you find officers and an old woman. One of the officers asks you: 'Do you speak Hebrew fluently?' Then he reads out the list of charges: you are accused of working to destroy the state of Israel. You ask: 'Do you mean the state or the water-melon?'
The ugly old woman tells you: 'Respect the court.' You show amazement: 'What court?' She screams with a voice that rises from a stagnant swamp: 'This is a court and I am a "judge".'
At that point you realise for the first time that they have so much respect for you that they have moved the court to the prison for your sake. But you reject this unparalleled honour and assert that the court remains a prison. The session ends with your rearrest.
You chat with the driver in fluent Hebrew. And your appearance does not betray your race. The driver asks: 'Where to, sir?' You say: 'Mutanabbi Street.' You light a cigarette for yourself and for the driver, because he is polite. He suddenly says: 'Tell me, how much longer will this shitty situation — we are sick and tired of it.'
You assume that he is sick and tired of the state of war and the increase in the income tax rate and the price of milk. You say: 'Yes, you're right, we are all sick and tired.' He continues: 'Till when will our state preserve those stinking Arab names. We must wipe them and their names out of existence.' You ask him: 'Who?' and he says disapprovingly: 'The Arabs, of course.' You ask him why, he says: 'Because they are filthy.'
You realise from his accent that he's an immigrant from Morocco, and you ask him: 'Am I really so filthy? Are you, for example, cleaner than me?' He is astonished by your question: 'What do you mean?' You ask him to use his intelligence but he remains incredulous: 'Please,' he says, 'be serious'.
After he looks at your identity card, he is convinced that you are an Arab. He says: 'I didn't mean the Christians—I meant the Moslems.' You say that you are a Moslem; he says: 'I didn't mean all Moslems...I meant the villagers.' You tell him that you are from a very backward village that was bulldozed by his state and totally erased from the map. He says: 'All honour to the state!'
You get out of the car and decide to walk home. Compulsively you start reading the street names. Indeed, they have erased the names; Saladin has become Shlomo. And you wonder: Why have they preserved the name al-Mutanabbi? You read the name for the first time in Hebrew and find that it is 'Mount Nebo' and not al-Mutanabbi as you had always assumed.
To forget your political miseries for a moment, you try to send a card to a friend.
You go out to look for an attractive card in Haifa, the city with its feet in the Mediterranean and its crown in the sky. And what do you find? Not a single picture of a rose, not a single picture of a beach, a bird or a woman. All these have disappeared to give place to tanks, guns, aeroplanes; the Wailing Wall, the occupied cities and the waters of the Suez Canal. And when you do happen to glimpse an olive branch, you find it is drawn on the wing of a French fighter jet.
And if you see a pretty girl she's bristling with arms; always in a city's background stamps the soldier's boot. Your heart sinks to the ground. And all that remains for you to do is to shrink into a gap in the crowded street, to make way for the thousands of grasping hands reaching for these coloured postcards...to send to the Jews of the world this message of the historical rebirth and the legendary return.
And you send nothing to your friends except the silence of the heart. A silence that never reaches them.
Suddenly the carnival in the street catches up with you and the lights pounce on you as they used to do when you were leaving the darkened cell. And hordes of children-doves, but bristling with arms. The game is arms, pleasure is arms.
And you? There is nothing in your childhood and youth except a wooden horse.
You pick up the telephone and ask for the officer in charge of civilian affairs at the police station. You know him very well and you ask his news and joke with him. Then you beg him to give you a permit to travel for one day. He tells you: 'Make your application in writing.' You leave your office and present an application...and then you wait for an answer. One day...two days...three days. You still have hope because they haven't said no as they usually do, but you still have to wait and your appointment in Jerusalem draws closer. You ask them...you beg them...you plead with them to tell you anything...to tell you 'no' so that you can cancel your appointment. They say nothing. You tell them that you have only a few hours before the appointment, they tell you: 'Come back after an hour to get the answer.'
You go there, and you find the office closed. You naively wonder why they should feel embarrassed about answering. Why have they not simply said no as they usually do? You get angry and you decide—foolishly—to apply to the State Security Police...and you travel.
The next day they convoke you before an emergency military court. You wait your turn listening to fantastic tales:
An Arab woman works in a kibbutz. Her travel permit forbids her to alight at any station on her route, and for some reason she was once forced to alight, so they arrested her.
Some young people who were only allowed to use the main street once went down a side street, so they were arrested. The court does not acquit anyone. Prison and fines. Fines and prison. And you remember the story of the old man and the donkey and the permit.
The old man was ploughing a field. He hung his coat on a tree. And the permit was in the pocket of his coat. He discovered that his donkey had wandered off his land into another's. So he hurried after it, was stopped by the military police and arrested, because he had entered state land without a permit. He told them: 'I have a permit...in the pocket of my coat on the tree over there.' He was arrested and sentenced.
And you remember the death permits. Peasants had to sign a piece of paper shouldering responsibility for their own deaths should these be caused by mines exploding in an area used by the army for manoeuvers...This piece of paper releases the state from all responsibility. But the peasants were thinking of their daily morsel of bread rather than of future death. And indeed, those who died, died, and those who lived, lived. And the state despaired of the living and the dead and just confiscated the land. And you remember also the little girl who died in her father's arms in front of the military governor's office, because the father was waiting to get a permit to go and get treatment for his sick child.
And you feel thankful because your sentence is merely two months' imprisonment. And in prison, you sing your country, you write letters to your girl, and you read articles about democracy. And you read tales of freedom or death and you neither free yourself...nor do you die.
You read the ads in the newspapers, and you rush to the cafe's telephone: 'Madam ... I read an ad about your apartment, may I see it?' and her laugh travels down the wires and her eagerness fills you with hope: 'The apartment is excellent, sir, on Mount Carmel; the rent is only two hundred pounds. It's a golden opportunity, come and reserve it immediately.'
You forget to pay for the telephone call in your hurry. The lady takes a liking to you, she shows you the apartment, you agree about the conditions of payment and the date when you can take possession. And then, when you sit down to sign the contract, a bolt of lightning strikes the lady. 'What!, an Arab? Sorry, sir ... Call me tomorrow.' The same story is repeated week after week, and you discover that you are proficient at two things: journalism and apartment-hunting, and every time you go home disappointed, gazing at the balconies of the houses... reading their history... and you ask about their absentee owners, blown away by emigration and exile. How many a man built a house that he was never allowed to live in? The owners of these houses still carry the front-door keys in their pockets and in their hearts, waiting to return. Return where? Should one of them ever return to his house, would he be allowed to open the door with his key? Or would he be able to rent one single room in his own house?
And they tell you Zionism has never committed a crime, all it did was bring a people without a country to a country without a people. And you ask them: who built these houses, what mythical creatures built these houses, in which legends? At that point they turn their backs on you...and bring forth more children to live in stolen houses.
You ask for a passport, and discover that you are not a citizen...because your father or one of your relatives fled with you to safety during the days of the Palestine war [in 1948], when you were a baby. And you discover that any Arab who left his country during that period and who returned clandestinely has lost his right to citizenship. You despair of getting a passport and you ask for a laissez-passer. And you discover that you are not a resident of Israel, because you do not have a residence permit. You assume that this is a joke so you go and tell the story to a friend of yours, a lawyer: 'I am neither a citizen here nor am I a resident. Then where am I and who am I?'
You are flabbergasted to hear that the law is on their side, and that you have to prove that you exist. And then you realise that you may exist metaphysically, but legally you do not.
You meditate on the law. How terribly naive we are when we assume that law is an instrument of justice and truth. Law here exists to implement the government's will, and is tailored to the rulers' requirements.
And I existed in this country before the coming of the state that denies my existence! You realise once again that truth becomes a fantasy if it isn't backed by force and that force transmutes this fantasy into reality, and you smile at the law which grants every Jew in the world the automatic right to Israeli nationality.
And you try all over again... You put yourself in the hands of God and the law. You manage to get a certificate attesting that you exist, and you get a laissez-passer. But from where do you pass? You are a resident of Haifa and the airport is near Tel-Aviv. You ask the police for a permit to travel from Haifa to the airport, and are refused. The lawyer and members of parliament intervene, but the police still refuse. Then you imagine that you are more cunning and intelligent than they are, and you change your route, deciding to travel from Haifa Port on the grounds that you have the right to go to the port, and you feel very pleased with yourself. You buy a ticket and you pass through passport control, health and customs and no one stops you.
Near the ship they arrest you, and conduct you to the court. You still insist that the law is on your side, this time. But then you discover in court that the port of Haifa is part of the state of Israel and not part of the city of Haifa, and they remind you that you are not allowed to go to any part of Israel outside Haifa. And the port—according to the law—is outside Haifa, and you are convicted...
You tell them: 'I want to confess to something very important, now that I have understood the law: Gentlemen! I swim in the sea every day, and the sea belongs to the state of Israel and not to Haifa. And I do not carry a permit to breathe the air. And the sky that I see above Haifa does not belong to Haifa, and I do not have a permit to move among the summer breezes...'
And they smile.
Festive occasions! History attacks you viciously. Defeat and defeat and defeat, and the Arabs celebrate all their days. You wish you had been born on the 29th of February so as to remember your birthday only once every four years. And you think: our days erase our days because there are so many occasions and dates. No day remains free for victory in the calendar. All the days are booked and—and this is the reason for our continuing defeat: when one day in the calendar falls vacant...then we shall be victorious.
But tonight is your birthday, and you want to snatch a bit of pleasure to escape from the miseries of every day. You invite your friends...you conspire against sorrow with a drink, a little music and cutting jokes. The music grows louder...You dance...and the girls' laughter rises to the neighbours' windows. At midnight the police arrive, they investigate the identities of the people present and they threaten you with arrest: 'Be polite. Stop behaving like savages.' You ask the reason, the policeman says the neighbours have called him in to restore quiet. We tell him it's a birthday. He says, 'It's none of my business!'
'Oh, good neighbours! Why didn't you warn me that my happiness hurt you? Why don't I complain when your music reaches me every night, when will you get off my back, oh my neighbours?'
But before you go to sleep, you become convinced that the neighbours were right. In the morning you apologize to them, saying: 'Forgive me so that I can forgive myself. I have no right to celebrate as long as you are my neighbours.'