Mansoura Ez Eldin
Translated from Arabic by:
Wiam El-Tamami
His departure came without explanation.
His destination was remote,
he said, uttering a series of ominous sounds – the name of a city I had never
heard of before. His leaving seemed a matter of fate. In an instant I could see
the city he set out for, with its ashen streets.
There are no colours save
for the grey that cloaks much of the place, alongside hints of black and white.
Throngs of people walk slowly in the faded streets, wearing grim expressions
and staring at a still point ahead. A leaden silence bears down on everything.
There he walks, lost in
thought. And I, outside the scene, peer at him worriedly, sensing the arrival
of a giant with a black coat, sullen face, and heavy footsteps. Suddenly, chaos
reigns: people run in every direction, trying to escape.
I feel the earth shake
under the footfalls of the man in the black coat. I know he appears on the
streets from time to time, stepping powerfully with the aid of his ebony cane.
His sightless eyes shift over the faces ahead, until they fall on one that will
restore his vision. He points his finger at the face, and its owner vanishes
from existence. The giant returns to his blindness, awaiting his next victim.
This time, however, there
was only the anticipation of his coming, and the tremors that accompany him
wherever he goes. Within minutes, those who were running realized they had been
duped, and went back to walking as before.
I scanned the throngs and
found him walking with the same slow steps. I looked closer, in search of that
cunning-fox expression that characterizes him, but I could not see it. He
adjusted the black scarf around his neck, raising his head to the sky like
someone startled by raindrops on a dry day, then returned to his daydreaming.
He has been exploring the city since his arrival, wandering its
streets without stopping. He wrote to me excitedly that it is a city of the
world: ‘Every conceivable language is here. No nationalities, no differences.
You don’t even need to speak to communicate your thoughts!’ In the year that
followed, his letters became less frequent and said nothing about this city of
his – the city that seemed somehow out of this world.
Some time later, he went
back to writing about the city: long letters that contained nothing personal –
no information about him, no questions about me. Just extensive passages about
this city that bears no resemblance to the cities I know, written in ornate
script with small, carefully-drawn characters and an exaggerated attention to
style.
He wrote: they called it
the city of eternal sun. Its sun set only after the last inhabitant slept, and
rose before the first got up. They were all deprived of the night. They were
not even aware of its existence.
There was no giant then, or faded streets, or people running. Just
the perennial day and a fierce, barely-setting sun. The streets of the city
resemble each other so closely they are like infinite replicas of the same
street. Its Gothic architecture inspires awe: spired towers and prominent
arches; stark, imposing squares; screaming gargoyles with eyes wide open in
horror; and gardens – more akin to woods – pooling out along the city’s
periphery.
These are the same woods
from which the giant with the sightless eyes emerged – except, at the time, he
was not blind, and his expression was suffused with seduction rather than
sullenness. He moved about lightly then, speaking of a beautiful thing called
night; he had read about it in the books piled high in his cabin in the woods
and heard about it from the fishermen in the neighbouring lake.
They said they had seen it
in other cities, while working on big fishing boats in faraway seas. He closes
his seductive eyes and speaks of the night as though he can see it: ‘A great
darkness that not even a thousand lanterns can dispel – only soften it
slightly, imbuing it with even greater beauty.’ He moistens his lower lip with
his tongue, savouring the idea of night.
He left the city of the sun
in search of the night. He walked for hundreds of miles; days and weeks passed,
then years. He asked all those he met, describing it in muddled words.
With the passage of time he began to lose hope – but he kept on his
path defiantly, not once looking behind him. He walked for he knew not how
long, picking fruit from trees and drinking spring water, until he found
himself on the way back to his city.
He recognised it by its
tall spires and crystal domes that reflect the sun’s rays, giving rise to a
galaxy of brilliant suns. He could not tear his eyes away from their
frightening luminescence, until he began to feel the light seeping away. The
closer he came, the dimmer they became. At first, he did not understand what he
was experiencing; he assumed that the lights of the world around him were
slowly fading out. Only when he was submerged in total darkness did he realise
that he had finally fulfilled his quest. He had met the night face to face. He
was overjoyed, for now he would carry his own private night back to the city of
the sun.
The remaining distance,
short though it was, was the most difficult in his long journey. He stumbled
and circled the city walls several times before he could get in. When he
finally entered, the city people were astonished by the sight of this scowling
giant with dark clothes and lumbering steps. They discovered that, with his
return, their city had been transformed into another: a pallid place, caught
between a day that had left never to return, and a night that refused to
arrive.
In the next letter my
friend appeared to have forgotten about his last one, repeating everything he
had already said, with minor adjustments, before continuing the story. The
giant with the snuffed-out eyes retreated to his cabin in the woods for a long
time, during which he did not utter a single word, instead listening to the
sighing of the trees, the twittering of the birds and the roar of the wind when
it blew. When he tired of his solitude and his silence, he took to the streets
with heavy footsteps that shook the ground beneath – leaning on his ebony cane,
sheltering behind his blind and sullen stare and armed with his experience in
listening to nothingness. His eyes shift over the faces ahead until they fall
on one that has the power to restore his vision. He points his finger, and its
owner vanishes from existence. The giant tries to gather in all the details of
the new world around him before he is plunged into darkness once again – but to
no avail. He returns, despondent, to his cabin and his waiting.
The city with its Gothic
soul takes root in my mind. Its identical streets and imposing squares inhabit
me. I dream about the gargoyles on its buildings’ facades, and awaken feeling
like someone who has roamed its paths. I get up at dawn, weighed down by what
I’ve seen. The giant moves in my mind, his expression transformed once again
from sullenness to seduction, as though inviting me to follow him.
Iread and re-read my friend’s letters. I pore over the elegant
script with its precisely-penned characters, and I think of how much he has
changed. He no longer bears any resemblance to the person he once was. The city
seems to have performed some mysterious black magic on him, driving him to
write without emotion, without purpose, without stopping. I send him letters
asking how he is, what he’s doing, whether or not he is planning to return. He
does not utter a single word in response to my questions, but continues to
write about the city that has cast its spell on him, transforming him into a
mere eye that captures the details of its surroundings and a hand that records
them tirelessly.
Instead of letters steeped
in questions that he skips over as though they weren’t there, I began to write
about my city. An invented city that lies between mountains clad in lush green
plants and trees, and a relentlessly raging sea that films the air with the
scent of iodine and whose waves, every morning, spit thick layers of salt upon
the beach. Built entirely on the precipice that sweeps down from the mountains
to the raging sea, the houses of the city appear to be in eternal freefall. Its
people are caught in a never-ending battle with gravity: they walk slowly in
ascent or descent, fearful of falling from this great height to the crashing
waves below.
I composed a letter for
every one I received from him, not commenting on what he’d written or asking
about him, and he – as always – appeared to have not even read mine. Then I
begin to write without pause, long letters preoccupied with details and penned
with care. I dispatch some and neglect to send most, until I stop corresponding
with him altogether, intent only on inking hundreds of letters that I stack
high here and there throughout my house.
I write, ignoring my aching
fingers and the pain in my hunched back, blurring the lines between my city and
his, between the Gothic architecture with its squares and screaming faces and
the perilous precipice with its houses resisting eternal freefall; between his
giant with the black coat and blind eyes and the people I see when I open my
window, walking cautiously up and down.
Ire-read my letters, strewn all around me; I contemplate my ornate
script with its small, carefully-drawn characters and exaggerated attention to
style, and I think of how much I’ve changed. I emerge from my house, surrounded
by plants and thick tangled trees, and come, in shock, upon my city with its
grey streets and stark squares and the leaden silence bearing down on
everything. Closing my eyes, I succumb to the darkness, and the scene opens up
silently before me. I see throngs of people moving slowly, staring at a still
point ahead . . . I see him walking, lost in thought . . . and I hear, loud in
my ears, the thud of heavy footsteps. Could it be coming from me? ?
The translation was first published by GRANTA Magazine
