That Summer (ذلك الصّيف)
By Ameer Hamad (tr. Amine Bit)
Why am I thinking of her now? Is it the weather? Is it the bike of this little girl and her short hair?
When I moved to our neighborhood, all of the kids had already met before. Then, she moved. The time we knew each other was very short, like a fish getting caught, it barely begins to taste the bait before the fisherman puts it in the cooler.
Her name was Tina, and you can imagine the effect of that name on a child that had gone his whole life only hearing names as thick as tree trunks! A name fit for two gazelles to prance through! A name that fits its bearer!
She always tied up her black hair, before she cut it in our last week together, and I don’t ever remember seeing her hair styled or not tied. She would often put an athletic cap on her head, and when afternoon would pass she would flip it around as if she was giving permission to the night to become a hat. Her short pants would reveal her two legs, marked by the wounds of summer like two rivers filled with colored fish, and she would put her hands in its pockets.
I remember the day that I first met her, I was fighting with my mom, as usual, because of my score on some exam, maybe my mom yelled at the time:
“Let the kids in your school get ahead of you, there’s only a .2% difference between you and the second in your class, go ahead and be the worst!”
“Let them get ahead of me, I don’t care, but there is no one who can beat me on a bike, I’m the fastest one in the class!”
“On a bike? What are you going to do when you grow up you ass! Ride bicycles?”
“Yeah, it’s the best, and you’re the ass!”
No doubt that slap was powerful, because she sent me flying until I hit the ground.
Tina approached. She held out one of her hands, holding an apple, and the other hand with salt and said:
“It’s really tasty with salt. You’re a man, and men don’t cry.”
“I’m Saleh, not ‘man’, what’s your name?”
“I’m Tina.”
“Really? That’s the first time I’ve heard that name.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot. Your bike is nice, do you race?”
Was she really that fast? Or was I purposefully staying behind her to see her ponytail moving at the rhythm of the two changing pedals?
We bought ice cream and laughed on the grass. She told me I was the slowest boy she had seen in her life. I excused myself by saying that she’s a girl, and that I was afraid that she would cry if she lost. She laughed mockingly at me.
She had a sister that was much older than her. The two of them were always fighting, and I would hear their voices when I would pass closely by the door of their house. Her mother was graying and Tina would tell me that her mother hated her and would always take her sister’s side, and afterwards would start sobbing: “If only he were here!” I never saw her father, and I didn’t push the question.
“What did you put on your chain?”
“You don’t know Handala you idiot?”
“…”
“This boy was drawn by Naji al-Ali. A very small boy, like me. Everyone turned his back on him. Did you know they killed him?”
“Why?”
“Someone shot him because he wouldn’t let others control him, and I’m like him. I don’t follow anyone’s orders, even if they shoot me.”
“And how do you know all this?
“Naji told me before he left.”
I didn’t know at the time that Naji was the name of her father, and I didn’t recognize whether her chain was a souvenir from him or not. I wanted a chain like hers. My mom said that chains were only for girls: “Are you a girl?”
“There’s a bird in your hair!”
“Let him be, my hair is his sofa. When he gets tired of the sky, he sits on it.”
“Are you selling Handala?”
“Never! It’s the thing I love the most. Do you play Al-Zaqta (Tag)?”
At that time our relationship started to strengthen, but then Abdallah, a boy from our neighborhood, grabbed my attention. I hadn’t noticed him until he started to play with and talk with Tina too much. Tina was two years older than me, and he was older than her. No doubt his modern, red bike with multiple gears made my blue bike “Automatic”–an almost consolatory name– look like a children’s toy in front of a truck that would wipe it out in one fell swoop. And when we raced, Tina was the prize. I swear the word “three” didn’t finish until he reached the end of the road. His bike had a bell that made many different sounds, and my heart thumped like a church mass when I saw her riding on his back.
They fought one night. The older children from the neighborhood grilled some potatoes in the mountain that was close to us. The potatoes were burnt. We gathered around the fire. We started to sing, and told stories and jokes too. Tina was sitting close next to me, and Abdallah on the opposite side. She put her head on my shoulder, and spoke to me, both of her eyes shining with sadness:
“You’re my brother, I don’t have any brothers besides you.”
I remember being happy at that time. I felt that my bike was suddenly equipped with a race car engine, and I had just beaten Abdallah in the race.
It rained that summer. Our mountain was covered with fluffy dust that shone under the sun. The bulldozers dug into it to put up an ugly construction that, after a year, had hid the sun from us. And because it rained heavily, the mountain became a sea. We stopped at its stones. Tina caught a fish that the bird had guided her to. And when she tried to catch a bigger one, she slipped on a wet stone, and a big wave caught her. Without realizing, I threw myself in after her.
I didn’t learn from the first time I drowned: we were in the Dead Sea, and my father had bought an inflatable boat. He got on it with my cousins and they left me in the shallows. I followed them without hesitation, until I felt the air replacing the sand under my feet. With that, I started to drown. I swallowed a lot of water, and they all roared with laughter, saying “the first person to ever drown in the Dead Sea!”
I’ve drowned twice, then: where a rock does not drown, and in a hole close to home, but I swear I wasn’t ever scared for my life the second time. One of our neighbors passing by saw us and saved us. My father slapped me for the first time in my life. I swallowed my tears as if I were drowning in the sea, because I remembered I was a “man.” My father stopped me from riding my bike, and from going outside the black gate of the square in front of our building, so it was on Tina to come to our square so that we could play together, but she was preferring new mountains, and the company of others.
I didn’t know when the hole dried that our story would also start to. She said that her mother wasn’t able to pay rent anymore, and they were going to move to a new house.
“Are you taking the bird with you?”
“The bird? He doesn’t come anymore. It seems he doesn’t like blood!”
“Which blood?”
“You’re still young, but when you grow up, you’ll understand.”
She was wearing long pants. She shook my hand for the first time, and whispered: “I’m never going to forget you.” She got on her bike that she said her mother was going to sell. Her hair was still tied.
She got off her bike. She got in the car. And for the first time since my punishment, I went past the black gate. I was really fast, but the car was faster.
I stopped close to the door of her house, my father’s palm shining on my cheek. It seemed that all the tears I had been holding back, remaining somewhere digging a hidden river, overflowed, when I saw Abdallah returning from the direction the car had gone, with the Handala chain around his neck.
When I moved to our neighborhood, all of the kids had already met before. Then, she moved. The time we knew each other was very short, like a fish getting caught, it barely begins to taste the bait before the fisherman puts it in the cooler.
Her name was Tina, and you can imagine the effect of that name on a child that had gone his whole life only hearing names as thick as tree trunks! A name fit for two gazelles to prance through! A name that fits its bearer!
She always tied up her black hair, before she cut it in our last week together, and I don’t ever remember seeing her hair styled or not tied. She would often put an athletic cap on her head, and when afternoon would pass she would flip it around as if she was giving permission to the night to become a hat. Her short pants would reveal her two legs, marked by the wounds of summer like two rivers filled with colored fish, and she would put her hands in its pockets.
I remember the day that I first met her, I was fighting with my mom, as usual, because of my score on some exam, maybe my mom yelled at the time:
“Let the kids in your school get ahead of you, there’s only a .2% difference between you and the second in your class, go ahead and be the worst!”
“Let them get ahead of me, I don’t care, but there is no one who can beat me on a bike, I’m the fastest one in the class!”
“On a bike? What are you going to do when you grow up you ass! Ride bicycles?”
“Yeah, it’s the best, and you’re the ass!”
No doubt that slap was powerful, because she sent me flying until I hit the ground.
Tina approached. She held out one of her hands, holding an apple, and the other hand with salt and said:
“It’s really tasty with salt. You’re a man, and men don’t cry.”
“I’m Saleh, not ‘man’, what’s your name?”
“I’m Tina.”
“Really? That’s the first time I’ve heard that name.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot. Your bike is nice, do you race?”
Was she really that fast? Or was I purposefully staying behind her to see her ponytail moving at the rhythm of the two changing pedals?
We bought ice cream and laughed on the grass. She told me I was the slowest boy she had seen in her life. I excused myself by saying that she’s a girl, and that I was afraid that she would cry if she lost. She laughed mockingly at me.
She had a sister that was much older than her. The two of them were always fighting, and I would hear their voices when I would pass closely by the door of their house. Her mother was graying and Tina would tell me that her mother hated her and would always take her sister’s side, and afterwards would start sobbing: “If only he were here!” I never saw her father, and I didn’t push the question.
“What did you put on your chain?”
“You don’t know Handala you idiot?”
“…”
“This boy was drawn by Naji al-Ali. A very small boy, like me. Everyone turned his back on him. Did you know they killed him?”
“Why?”
“Someone shot him because he wouldn’t let others control him, and I’m like him. I don’t follow anyone’s orders, even if they shoot me.”
“And how do you know all this?
“Naji told me before he left.”
I didn’t know at the time that Naji was the name of her father, and I didn’t recognize whether her chain was a souvenir from him or not. I wanted a chain like hers. My mom said that chains were only for girls: “Are you a girl?”
“There’s a bird in your hair!”
“Let him be, my hair is his sofa. When he gets tired of the sky, he sits on it.”
“Are you selling Handala?”
“Never! It’s the thing I love the most. Do you play Al-Zaqta (Tag)?”
At that time our relationship started to strengthen, but then Abdallah, a boy from our neighborhood, grabbed my attention. I hadn’t noticed him until he started to play with and talk with Tina too much. Tina was two years older than me, and he was older than her. No doubt his modern, red bike with multiple gears made my blue bike “Automatic”–an almost consolatory name– look like a children’s toy in front of a truck that would wipe it out in one fell swoop. And when we raced, Tina was the prize. I swear the word “three” didn’t finish until he reached the end of the road. His bike had a bell that made many different sounds, and my heart thumped like a church mass when I saw her riding on his back.
They fought one night. The older children from the neighborhood grilled some potatoes in the mountain that was close to us. The potatoes were burnt. We gathered around the fire. We started to sing, and told stories and jokes too. Tina was sitting close next to me, and Abdallah on the opposite side. She put her head on my shoulder, and spoke to me, both of her eyes shining with sadness:
“You’re my brother, I don’t have any brothers besides you.”
I remember being happy at that time. I felt that my bike was suddenly equipped with a race car engine, and I had just beaten Abdallah in the race.
It rained that summer. Our mountain was covered with fluffy dust that shone under the sun. The bulldozers dug into it to put up an ugly construction that, after a year, had hid the sun from us. And because it rained heavily, the mountain became a sea. We stopped at its stones. Tina caught a fish that the bird had guided her to. And when she tried to catch a bigger one, she slipped on a wet stone, and a big wave caught her. Without realizing, I threw myself in after her.
I didn’t learn from the first time I drowned: we were in the Dead Sea, and my father had bought an inflatable boat. He got on it with my cousins and they left me in the shallows. I followed them without hesitation, until I felt the air replacing the sand under my feet. With that, I started to drown. I swallowed a lot of water, and they all roared with laughter, saying “the first person to ever drown in the Dead Sea!”
I’ve drowned twice, then: where a rock does not drown, and in a hole close to home, but I swear I wasn’t ever scared for my life the second time. One of our neighbors passing by saw us and saved us. My father slapped me for the first time in my life. I swallowed my tears as if I were drowning in the sea, because I remembered I was a “man.” My father stopped me from riding my bike, and from going outside the black gate of the square in front of our building, so it was on Tina to come to our square so that we could play together, but she was preferring new mountains, and the company of others.
I didn’t know when the hole dried that our story would also start to. She said that her mother wasn’t able to pay rent anymore, and they were going to move to a new house.
“Are you taking the bird with you?”
“The bird? He doesn’t come anymore. It seems he doesn’t like blood!”
“Which blood?”
“You’re still young, but when you grow up, you’ll understand.”
She was wearing long pants. She shook my hand for the first time, and whispered: “I’m never going to forget you.” She got on her bike that she said her mother was going to sell. Her hair was still tied.
She got off her bike. She got in the car. And for the first time since my punishment, I went past the black gate. I was really fast, but the car was faster.
I stopped close to the door of her house, my father’s palm shining on my cheek. It seemed that all the tears I had been holding back, remaining somewhere digging a hidden river, overflowed, when I saw Abdallah returning from the direction the car had gone, with the Handala chain around his neck.