Beyond Love

Pages 51-100

B e y o n d L o v e | 51 Cold wind slapped our tired faces, carrying with it the fates of the murdered. An officer came out. Shaking steps hastened, and tears petrified. He read aloud the names of our dead, every name preceded by the word traitor. He requested that only one person from each family enter to sign the acknowledgment of the body’s receipt. I was frozen in place, my teeth chattering . My uncle entered with some of the men. They all disappeared behind the gate, leaving the rest of us to our sadness. No one wept. No one cried out. Everything was forbidden, and the silence whipped our dismayed souls. After a little while, the coffins came out, one after the other. They were put on top of the cars and went their separate ways. My uncle sat next to the driver, and I sat next to my mother in the backseat. The way to holy Najaf was long and hard. I felt as though I were swallowing fire; it ran down my throat and burned my intestines. I didn’t dare look at my mother after we picked her up. I feared that if I looked at her, I would hurt her even more deeply. My uncle, the driver, and I had carried the coffin and gone home to pick her up. I waited in the car while my uncle walked into the house. The neighbors stood on their thresholds or stared from their windows ; no one dared to share our grief openly because everything could be observed; every place was filled with furtive eyes and dirty hands formulating secret reports. My mother walked out with bowed head, holding my uncle’s hand for fear of falling. She didn’t look at the car’s roof; perhaps she wanted to delay her cries so 52 | h a d i y a h u s s e i n that she wouldn’t break down in front of everybody. I was surprised that she didn’t cry out and didn’t say anything till we left Basra. Then she unleashed all the cries that had been pent up inside her; she slapped her cheeks and ripped the pocket of her tunic. I tried to hold her, but her deep sadness had exploded like a volcano and gave her incredible strength. The driver stopped and turned to her: “Say nothing will happen to us except what Allah has decreed for us.”7 Still she continued weeping and crying throughout the long journey. I began sobbing along with her; then I calmed myself and looked out the window , hoping to find a way to save my exhausted soul. Alongside vast deserted areas stretched the marshes, their banks dotted with black-and-white birds; the small birds were the size of starlings, and the big ones the size of crows or storks. My mother’s cries became increasingly sharp and high. She began hitting the door of the car unconsciously when suddenly a strangely shaped bird crashed into the windshield. The driver, who had been imploring my mother to stop crying, jumped back startled, and the car swerved. He stopped the car and yelled angrily, “You see, we could have died, all of us, in the blink of an eye. Thank God the road is empty at this time; otherwise, it could have been a disaster.” My uncle leaned over the seat and put his palm on my mother’s head, saying, “Weeping will not bring the dead back. Please, the car was about to roll over.” 7. Qur’an IX, 51. B e y o n d L o v e | 53 My mother stopped crying—not because of what my uncle had said, but because she didn’t want Nadir to die twice. The car devoured the road at a tremendous speed, as though consuming the earth. None of us objected to the driver’s crazy speed. From time to time, I heard my mother’s sighs and her silent, burning weeping; then I would look out the window again. The road stretched out with distant trees, scattered spikes, mineral ponds, enclosed fields, and herds of cows and sheep. From afar there loomed buildings sunk in fog, and I could see men walking with knee-high boots along little streams and freshly plowed land. A car carrying a bier occasionally sped past. When...