***
Kanafani lived and died according to his ideals. Yet, unlike many committed writers, he refused to impose an ideological scheme on his fiction in any but the most general terms. He believed that the role of literature in the transformation of society was different from that of other forms of writing, and it should therefore not be subjected to rigid rules applicable elsewhere. Thus, although his plays, novels, and short stories were written to serve the cause of Palestine, they have a universal appeal, thanks to his literary talents and his tenacity in preserving that freedom without which art is stifled.
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* Those who have seen the filmed version of the novella, Al-Makhdûcûn (The Deceived, 1972), will realize that the plot has been altered, so that the three Palestinians who in the book die in silence are shown in the film beating on the walls of their hiding place as they suffocate, to attract the attention of those outside. A film similar to the novella in its dénouement would have appeared glaringly incongruous at a time when the resistance movements were established.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE TRANSLATOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK ROGER Hardy and Muhammad Tarbush for the trouble they took in reading through the translation and suggesting improvements.
“Letter from Gaza” was published originally in Arabic in 1956; “The Land of Sad Oranges” in 1958; “‘If You Were a Horse …’” and “The Falcon” in 1961; Men in the Sun and “A Hand in the Grave” in 1962; and Umm Saad in 1969.
“The Falcon” and an extract from Umm Saad appeared in English in Middle East International.
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MEN IN THE SUN
ABU QAIS
Abu Qais rested on the damp ground, and the earth began to throb under him with tired heartbeats, which trembled through the grains of sand and penetrated the cells of his body. Every time he threw himself down with his chest to the ground he sensed that throbbing, as though the heart of the earth had been pushing its difficult way towards the light from the utmost depths of hell, ever since the first time he had lain there. Once when he said that to his neighbor, with whom he shared the field in the land he left ten years ago, the man answered mockingly:
“It’s the sound of your own heart. You can hear it when you lay your chest close to the ground.”
What wicked nonsense! And the smell, then? The smell that, when he sniffed it, surged into his head and then poured down into his veins. Every time he breathed the scent of the earth, as he lay on it, he imagined that he was sniffing his wife’s hair when she had just walked out of the bathroom, after washing with cold water. The very same smell, the smell of a woman who had washed with cold water and covered his face with her hair while it was still damp. The same throbbing, like carrying a small bird tenderly in your hands.
The damp earth, he thought, was no doubt the remains of yesterday’s rain. No, yesterday it had not rained. The sky now could rain nothing but scorching heat and dust. Have you forgotten where you are? Have you forgotten?
He turned himself over and lay on his back, cradling his head in his hands. He started to stare at the sky. It was blazing white, and there was one black bird circling high up, alone and aimless. He did not know why, but he was suddenly filled with a bitter feeling of being a stranger, and for a moment he thought he was on the point of weeping. No, yesterday it didn’t rain. We are in August now. Have you forgotten? Those miles of road speeding through a void, like black eternity. Have you forgotten it? The bird was still circling around alone like a black spot in that blaze spread out above him. We are in August. Then why this dampness in the ground? It’s the Shatt. Can’t you see it stretching out beside you as far as the eye can see?
“When the two great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, meet, they form one river called the Shatt al-Arab, which extends from just above Basra to …”
Ustaz Selim, a thin, gray-haired old man, said it a dozen times in his loud voice to a small child standing beside the blackboard, when he was walking past the school in his village. So he stood on a stone and began to eavesdrop through the window. Ustaz Selim was standing in front of the young pupil, shouting at the top of his voice as he shook his thin stick:
“When the two great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, meet …”
The child was trembling with anxiety, while the laughter of the other children in the class could be heard.