UNIQUE LOVE
By
Keifha Nasrallah
I don’t know how much time has passed since I first began trying to convince my uncle of the idea of marrying his daughter. I was only 22 years old when he refused for the first time. He didn’t give any reason at the time. His refusal was certain. One year later, I tried again. Now, the matter was more than the prospect of marrying my cousin. It became like a challenge between me and my uncle, or at least I thought so. He said he wasn’t fond of the idea of marriage between relatives. I was not convinced of this excuse.
.
A love relationship had also developed between me and her after I had worked on redeeming the relation between both families represented in the two brothers, my father and my uncle. I grew fond of her good character and her pretty face. She, on the other hand, found what she had wanted in a man in me, at least according to what she had said. She found the character, the religiousness and the knowledge she was seeking for. Two years later, my uncle passed away. Out of my great passion and my insistence on conquering my dream and desire, I proposed to her and asked for her hand in marriage from her eldest brother only one week after her father’s death. In all honesty, frivolousness and taking advantage of the situation were apparent in the manner in which I proposed to her. Thus, the matter was delayed yet for another number of years.
It was no longer stubbornness and persistence and most of all love that was putting her in my path. Things were different now. I was at an age where there weren’t many perspective brides to propose to. I was twenty-five. Aside from that, everyone in the village knew that Ruba and Badr were meant to be together. The whole village knew of this-- its people, its walls, its trees. Our affair became like a tale. My cousins inherited hate for me, which made it all the more exciting. I was granted a scholarship to Kuwait in 1963, which was four years after my first proposal to Ruba. The village that knew of my story also knew that I was going to refuse the scholarship.
On a beautiful dawn she came. It was the last time I would hear her footsteps. She came in the last hours of the darkness before the dawn. She woke me and my sister up. She asked to have a talk with me. “Buzz off!” she said. “I have grown bored and tired of you. I no longer want you. Nor does my family. Your persistence and your insistence are driving other men out of my way. You are ruining my life and you have ruined my reputation as well.”
I left to Kuwait and I got married there. Five years later, I went on a vacation to my village. It was revenge time. I was going to get back at her. With my wife and my son at my side, I was going to prove to her that the silliness of youth that was between us had gone and that I was fond of my wife and son. She showed up in front of me. She was in our garden picking some fruits. And what a beautiful sight she was! Her appearance was brighter than the dawn. I said to myself, “This can’t be real!” I was taken by her as if I had seen her for the first time. My sister later informed me that Ruba never got married and that she’d never stopped loving me. She was surviving on a memory, which I was too stingy to keep.
Here I’m sitting alone in my pretty village, Ruba’s village. I can’t say anything. I had learned that she had only said the things that she had said on that beautiful dawn to encourage me to travel so I could earn my living, which ceased to bring me any pleasure. Especially after I had learned the truth about her feelings.
Ramallah, 1967
-- Badr Ali
The previous paper I read was on a separate paper that was inside for collection of poems for Ibn Zaidoon. This letter was found with a page that had a famous poem on it. The poem said,
“You left, so I left. Since then, I haven’t been able
to sleep, for I’ve been longing for you and my tears
haven’t dried.
Our enemies were spiteful towards the love we had
between us.
They saw us drinking our love with enjoyment, and
they supplicated that we’d choke on our drink.
The Decree answered their wish with ‘Amen.’ ”20
My father used to read in it in his last days, which were two weeks after his arrival at his family’s in the village. As for me, I had come to the knowledge of what was in this paper three months ago in 1993. When I had asked my aunt about it, she told me that Ruba had been instituted in a nursing home after her nephews had become fed up with her. What’s amazing and sad at the same time is that my father didn’t burden anybody or make anyone suffer the consequences of what had happened, not his wife nor his sister and not even Ruba, whom he was so ashamed from. Ruba had to suffer the grief of parting with him and the grief of his death from agony and distress thereafter.
And the days wrap up the lives of many people who are loyal and devoted, who no one knows about their loyalty and grief
Translator: Asmaa Kurdieh
Editor: Lena Annette Winfrey
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