Over there was Kuwait. What only lived in his mind as a dream and a fantasy existed there. It was certainly something real, of stones, earth, water, and sky, not as it slumbered in his troubled mind. There must be lanes and streets, men and women, and children running about between the trees. No. No. There were no trees there. Saad, his friend who had emigrated there, worked as a driver, and come back with sacks of money, said there were no trees there. The trees exist in your head, Abu Qais, in your tired old head, Abu Qais. Ten trees with twisted trunks that brought down olives and goodness every spring. There are no trees in Kuwait, Saad said so. You must believe Saad because he knows more than you, although he is younger than you. All of them know more than you, all of them.
In the last ten years you have done nothing but wait. You have needed ten big hungry years to be convinced that you have lost your trees, your house, your youth, and your whole village. People have been making their own way during these long years, while you have been squatting like an old dog in a miserable hut. What do you think you were waiting for? Wealth to come through the roof of your house? Your house? It is not your house. A generous man said to you: “Live here!” That is all. And a year later he said to you: “Give me half the room,” so you put up patched sacks between yourself and the new neighbors. You stayed squatting till Saad came and started to shake you as milk is churned to make butter.
“If you get to the Shatt, you can easily reach Kuwait. Basra is full of guides who will undertake to smuggle you there across the desert. Why don’t you go?”
When his wife heard what Saad said, she glanced from one to the other and began to rock her baby again.
“It’s a risk, and who knows what the outcome will be?”
“What will the outcome be? Ha, ha! Abu Qais, says: ‘Who knows what the outcome will be?’ Ha, ha!”
Then Saad looked at her and said:
“Have you heard what your husband says? Who knows what the outcome will be! As though life were like eating yogurt. Why doesn’t he behave like us? Is he better?”
She did not raise her eyes to Abu Qais, who was hoping she would not.
“Do you like this life here? Ten years have passed and you live like a beggar. It’s disgraceful. Your son, Qais, when will he go back to school? Soon the other one will grow up. How will you be able to look at him when you haven’t …?”
“All right. That’s enough.”
“No. It’s not enough. It’s terrible. You are responsible for a big family now. Why don’t you go there? What’s your opinion, Umm Qais?”
His wife was silent, while he thought: “Soon he too will grow up …” but he said:
“It’s a long way.