Some of the questions two young soldiers asked me
at the King Hussein border crossing checkpoint…
Were you born on a Thursday in Cleopatra
Hospital? Did you come out silently, as day-
break smudged the night sky? And why was
your father absent? What is the name of your
father and his father and his father? Do your
neighbours Mohamed and Faduma water
the orphaned houseplant whenever you are
away? Are you aware your parents first arrived
in Australia with their life savings wrapped in
brown paper, their only English the lyrics to
We are the Champions? Did your mother bring
two dresses, red polka dot and turquoise taffeta,
in her peeling 60s suitcase? Did you correct
her thanks God? Did she put up a fight when
you said you were leaving? When he left? And
how was your first Ramadan alone? Did you
miss the walnut maamoul and Allahu Akbars
tossed at you Eid mornings? Have you told any-
one about the Enid Blyton books you stole from
Stanmore library, because your mother worked
three jobs? If you flatten your gutturals is it still
Arabic? Why did your childhood best friend run
away? What man siphoned her dry? Why does
your grief stick to everything? Did inhaling an
onion help with the tear gas they threw during
the protests of ’03? What remedies did you inherit
from your ancestors? What skeletons? Who taught
you to roll wara2 3enab like that? Does 2am still
grab you by the throat? Amongst the Gitanes and
sewage and Roman ruins, can Beirut forgive its
people? How many times have you phoned your
mother since? Does your grandmother always boil
her water twice? And why are you still shocked
at how things (don’t) work there? What other
city turns its war bunkers into clubs? Its prayers
into curses? And why do the wretched always
sell roses on Bliss street? And how do you revive
the dead? Why did they take your brother? Could
you make out his face amongst the thousands
flickering in the waters of the Mediterranean?
Did he return months after the funeral to ask
you, what wrongs did I commit? What village
do you carry on your lips, balance on your
breath? Have you been to Jerusalem during olive
harvest season? Did you pick and press, before
the settlers gathered like acid in your chest and
poisoned the ancient trees? Have you tired yet of
the may Allah have mercys? Have they tired of
you? Were you afraid of the men with guns those
nights the power cut? Did you splutter your amens
and sweat out your tasabeeh? Do you remember
the countries you’ve lost? Do their crooked rivers
still cling to you? Did you hear the aunties, rusted
arms, coarse hairs on chins, call you lonely? Call
you nobody’s mama anymore? Did you tell your
mama you named him Omar Al Farouk, after the
revered warrior? Why did it end with your Great Love
Who Changes Everything? Did he make your wide
hips tremble with jazz and derbake? Did he linger
long enough on each letter of ya leil, ya ein and
the evening news headlines? Did your hurts trail
behind him like tangled fishing lines, too much for
the life he lived? And does weight like that settle
or lift? And what of the days you feel the earth
greying? And when will you stop writing about borders
and bloodshed and war and death and home? And
home? And home?
Read the rest of Overland 242
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