Stories from the Diaspora

Mashriq & Mahjar 4, no. 2 (2017), 98–123 ISSN 2169-4435 Paula Abood is a community cultural development practitioner, writer, and educator. Email: paula@paulaabood.com Paula Abood STORIES FROM THE DIASPORA I I am the birds of October, The flocks of migration I am the first woman in the new country Who will dare love me?1 Hawa got the wanders a lifetime before and took off from the Old Country. It was not unheard of in a time of famine that a girl like Hawa would head for the open city. She had been a silk girl from the age of eight and the sole breadwinner for her extended family. By the age of seventeen, she set out to convince her mother that she could earn a trunk of money if she moved to the New World. Hawa’s mother remained silent, unable to conjure a life for Hawa outside the village. Hawa took that as consent and set out for the port of Trablous. Like many an emigree before, she endured the dankness of steerage, but looked to the porthole of her future. Fresh off the boat, Hawa established herself in no time with the help of those who had come before. She peddled her wares selling silk stockings to cocky farmers’ wives and itinerant sex workers. As she walked the roads and dirt tracks of the New England highway, she wondered if this was the same fine silk she had spun from the mulberry trees of her girlhood. She used to say peddling made her contemplative because she would walk for days without speaking to anyone. And when she did speak, she mastered the only phrase a street seller needed, –Buy something lady. Stories from the Diaspora 99 Those days came to an abrupt end when Hawa was caught picking apples from an orchard in an outlying district. She was hungry bordering on delirious having not eaten much for two days. When she spied a paradise of red apples, she did not think taking a pocketful would be grave. The white farmer who had stolen the land three generations before had been on the lookout for what he called “thieving blacks.” Before Hawa could take a bite of the succulent fruit she had craved since leaving the village, the colossal brute grabbed her by the hair and flung her to the ground. He strung her up a tree branch by her thick long plaits. Hawa screamed and screamed but to no avail. She was left to hang by her hair for the rest of the day, eventually timing out from shock. It wasn’t until an Aboriginal woman passed by that she was let down as gently as was possible. Hawa never peddled the dirt road again. She cut her hair and returned to the city to open a sly grog house. She became wealthy in her own right and was able to send money back to the old country for decades. Everyone knew all about Hawa, but nobody passed judgement because she helped so many new arrivals. She picked up English in time becoming proficient in the vicissitude of Western ways. Street English, shopfront English, speak English. She learnt her lessons well. She had done her time in the New Country. She even bought Australian. But now it was enough. She imploded that red hot Gulf War January and she was not the only one. Racial explosions happened all over the city. Cousin Louie got the sack for talking back. Old Moussa became embroiled in a fight and had to be restrained. Even timid Tawfiq chased some redneck down the street with his industrial strength broom. And poor Ahmad, he couldn’t be saved. Those who smell the soil of Ahmad’s grave will have musk scented breath for the rest of their life, but the catastrophe poured on me could night the day.2 Hawa had never before shown interest in the politics of the day. Now she brooded all night about Pax Americana. She listened to the radio and became depressed. Her demeanour underwent a dramatic change. She stooped more and more as each and every smart bomb was unleashed on the city...