Cover

Other titles in Middle East Literature in Translation

Alfred Farag and Egyptian Theater: The Poetics of Disguise, with Four Short Plays and a Monologue

Dina A. Amin

A Brave New Quest: 100 Modern Turkish Poems

Talat S. Halman, trans. and ed.; Jayne L. Warner, assoc. ed.

Canceled Memories: A Novel

Nazik Saba Yared

Contemporary Iraqi Fiction: An Anthology

Shakir Mustafa, ed. and trans.

A Cup of Sin: Selected Poems

Simin Behbahani; Farzaneh Milani and Kaveh Safa, eds. and trans.

Distant Train: A Novel

Ibrahim Abdel Megid; Hosam Aboul-Ela, trans.

The Journals of Sarab Affan: A Novel

Jabra Ibrahim Jabra; Ghassan Nasr, trans.

My Thousand and One Nights: A Novel of Mecca

Raja Alem and Tom McDonough

The Pistachio Seller

Reem Bassiouney

The Virgin of Solitude: A Novel

Taghi Modarressi; Nasrin Rahimieh, trans.

Title Page

My Bird

1

This is Communist China. I have never visited China, but I think it must be like our neighborhood. No, in reality our neighborhood is like China: full of people.

They say you can’t see any animals in the streets of China. Anywhere you look, you see only people. That’s why our neighborhood is a little different from China because we have a stray cat that sits on the ledge of the balcony, and I think the third-floor neighbor keeps parrots. We also have a bird store down the street.

When we first moved to this house, I was determined to love it. Had I not made this decision, I would have never experienced this feeling. It was very noisy. The first day, to get us familiar with the neighborhood, Mr. Hashemi whipped his fourteen-year-old daughter. Curses in mixed languages poured out of his mouth like the pebbles in our backyard.

Maman says our neighborhood is like an attic: “You can find anything there!” She is right. Our street is full of riches, several bakeries and numerous grocery stores. So many that at first I was wondering which one to shop at, so as not to insult the others. There are many fruit and vegetable markets, enough for everybody!

But the sidewalks seriously dampen my love. They are so narrow and cramped that two people can’t walk side by side. You either have to walk ahead or behind. If you look down, you see spots. The pavement is full of spots, water spots, spit, oil, or crushed vegetables that are good for psychology students who like to read people’s minds.

Look around and you think it’s impossible to be proud of this scene, even with patience and understanding. Smoky rooftops and laundry that seems to be hung unwashed, tall and short buildings, very close to each other. Each alley has a number of unfinished buildings, and you can see beams, bags of cement, wheelbarrows, and trucks carrying dirt.