Part One: Emile Habiby’s ‘The Six-Day Sextet’
This work, by the towering Palestinian author Emily Habiby (1922-1996), was translated by Elliott Colla and a few of his students; it has been made available open access. Over the next six weeks, we will be publishing the sextets here at ArabLit.
From The Six-Day Sextet
By Emile Habiby
Translated by Kevin Chao, Elliott Colla, Fouad Saleh, Molly Simio, Andrew Slater, and Uma Mencia Uranga
Masoud’s Cousin Makes Him Happy
Why are we, O father, Why are we… strangers?
Do we not have in this universe Friends and loved ones?
—a song sung by Fairuz
Masoud had never been as happy as he was on the morning of that blazing hot July day, when he went down to the street to announce the conclusive evidence that he, too, had uncles and cousins.
Masoud, who is known among us by the nickname Fijla — Radish — is one of the kids in our neighborhood. He’s ten years old, give or take an inch or two. But he’s no child. And you shouldn’t talk down to him as if he were. If you do, you’re likely to hear something from him you won’t like.
Masoud understands politics, though his political activities are very particular. Like when he deflates the right tire on the police car, the one that parks over there by the Copts’ Wall, then jumps back behind the wall to hide. There’s also a lot of evidence indicating that he was the first to coin the phrase, “Arabs are gold,” especially while his older brother, Massad, went on and on saying, “Arabs are shit.” Masoud doesn’t like his brother very much.
Children: let me tell you the story of how happy Masoud, Fijla, was on that blazing hot July morning. A little bird told it to me. Children are astonished to learn that birds give away their secrets to grownups. And they’re astonished to discover that grownups are children who grew up.
The night before that day of great happiness, a strange, fancy car with huge tailfins arrived in our neighborhood. The car bore blue West Bank plates and a mellifluous horn that scattered children as it went along. Masoud was among those who’d been scattered.
Of all the houses in the neighborhood, this great airplane of a car chose to park in front of Masoud’s. None of us here would say it’s normal for luxury cars to park in front of our houses. The only vehicles our dull neighborhood knows are the construction trucks and jeeps which can’t turn around except for over in the gully.
Nothing unusual about any of that. In our neighborhood, we’re all from the same clan, or rather: the flayed limbs of one clan. The only time we get a dignitary visiting us in a car is when Eid al-Adha falls just before local elections, or when a bigshot needs us to settle a fight with his competitor over the gasoline pump. Sometimes, on the Sabbath, a Jewish big-wig might visit us on his way to Tiberias, to ensure that his cement delivery arrives at six o’clock on Sunday morning.
As I was saying: All of us in the village come from a single clan. Everyone, that is, except for Masoud and his family. His father, Abu Massad, works as a fireman in the village. As a family, they came out of nowhere, without any uncles, paternal or maternal. Or as those of us with big extended families would say: without problems or troubles.
When that luxury automobile stopped in front of Masoud’s house, the boys scattered. The natural thing for them to do would have been to run around the car, checking it out and writing insults with their fingers on the dusty windows. But when Masoud saw the car parked in front of his house, he stopped dead in his tracks. The other children stood there, no less astonished. What was this car doing, parking there in front of Fijla’s house? What did these visitors have to do with Fijla, a boy who’d been cut off, root and branch?
Masoud didn’t care that his mates called him Fijla. He didn’t even care how the nickname got stuck. His mother called him that, too, just as he called his buddies by their nicknames. This boy was Soldier, that one Cockroach. They didn’t even know their math teacher’s given name, only his nickname, Heehee.
Fijla loved radishes. He liked the custom of giving people nicknames, because it created an equality among everyone, whether or not you had a clan. And most of all, he loved the idea of having uncles on both sides just like everyone else did.
After dragging his heavy legs home, and after storming into his house in a fit, he met his uncle and cousins for the first time in his life. They had come to visit their uncle, Masoud’s father, all the way from Silat al-Dahr in the West Bank.
At that moment, Masoud grasped that he was not cut off, root and branch. He was not alone in this world. More important than this discovery was the idea of showing it off to his buddies.
This set in motion a series of firsts for Masoud.
For the first time in his life, Masoud found that his mother understood him and did not argue with him. At dawn, she awoke and opened his wardrobe and dressed him in a suit, complete with long pants.
For the first time in his life, he did not argue with his mother, but washed his face without dragging his feet. He acted politely around his cousin, Sameh, who was about the same age and who pronounced the letter “qaf” emphatically.
For the first time in his life, he ate breakfast without spilling anything on his shirt.
For the first time in his life, he found his older brother, Massad, slipping coins into his and Sameh’s pockets.
At last, Masoud grabbed his cousin’s hand and they went out into the world!
The series of firsts continued. For the first time, he heard the boys say Hello! to him, for no particular reason. They went on helloing him from the moment he left his doorstep until he got to Abu Ibrahim’s store. Masoud went into the store to buy ice cream for his cousin, and for himself of course, without having to listen to a single curse word. Enraptured with all the helloing, he almost poked Ratiba’s daughter, but his cousin from Jordan beat him to it. Surprisingly, her brother—we call him Nosy—pretended that he didn’t see it and didn’t care. The fact that Masoud’s cousin, a stranger, beat him to poking her made Masoud feel even closer to him than if they slept in the same bed every night.
For the first time, Abu Ibrahim, the owner of the shop, said, “Good morning Masoud!” (Not Fijla!)
Then the man tossed out the crucial question, “Who’s that with you?”
“My cousin. He’s the son of my Uncle!” (Masoud stressed the “u” in uncle until he almost coughed.)
The children gathered around him in a circle.
“Your uncle? Your father’s brother? His full brother?”
“My real uncle. Not once removed or anything.” “Where’s he from?”
“The West Bank.”
Now, Fijla had a first cousin by way of a real uncle who lived in the West Bank and drove an airplane of a car. Now, Fijla went back to being Masoud again. He felt like he wanted to treat everyone to ice cream, even if just a lick or two.
But Masoud’s firsts did not last long. Nosy did not want to let the afternoon pass so smoothly.
Even though Nosy had countless uncles on both sides of his family, he was blinded by cousin envy. Or perhaps he wanted to avenge the poking of his sister. All of a sudden, he surprised the crowd, “King Hussein’s father can go to Hell.”
“Your father can go to Hell.” “To Hell with Jordan.”
“To Hell with Israel.”
This fierce argument went on between Nosy and Masoud’s cousin and threatened to restart the Six Day War. It would have, too, if not for the fact that the boys couldn’t figure out whether to take this or that side, and if not for the efforts of Abu Ibrahim who calmed both parties down.
As for Masoud, he never hesitated, not for a single moment. Despite what he heard at home from his sister, the one we call The Philosopher, and she was in no less than Tenth Grade. Despite the insults his ears heard on the radio, he decided to stand with the King, because the King was his cousin’s King, and because the King had been beaten so badly that they had to withdraw. Masoud readied himself for battle, but the ice cream melted on his shirt before he even had the chance to lick it.
He grabbed his cousin. They left the store, but stayed close by the house. Masoud always prepared for retreats. Nosy and the other kids came by and the atmosphere became friendly again. The boys began to show Sameh around the neighborhood.
This is the new mosque. People in the neighborhood paid for it and built it, not the government.
Nosy added, “A week ago, they brought Egyptian officers to pray in the mosque.
We kicked them out. Why did they betray their country?”
As they were sitting there at the doorstep of the mosque, Masoud felt that, with his cousin beside him, he was in control of the situation. So he brought up politics again, “They have to withdraw.”
The boys mumbled, “They have to…” “And the Russians are on our side…”
The boys murmured, “Our side… our side…”
Some of the boys noticed that Soldier had just arrived. They cried out, “This is Masoud’s cousin. He drove here from from the West Bank in that shiny car!”
Soldier repeated the question, “Is he your first cousin?”
This time it was Sameh who answered, “Of course I am, what else would I be?!”
Soldier was not used to someone else being the center of attention. But now here was Masoud with his cousin from the West Bank. Soldier shouted, “The radio just said that war is breaking out again at the Suez Canal.”
Sameh said he wanted to go home immediately.
The children said, “It’s going to happen soon.”
Masoud took his cousin back to the house.
That evening, the strange, fancy car—with its blue plates and mellifluous horn— left our neighborhood. Masoud became Fijla again. He went back to playing barefoot in the alley. From time to time he would pronounce the letter “qaf” a little too hard so that it came out of his lips more like a coughed “kaf.”
Kids, I don’t want you to take from this that Masoud went back to how he used to be. Not at all. Masoud became like all other kids, with relatives on both sides of his family. He was no longer cut off, root and branch. He went with his father and mother to the West Bank, where he visited his uncles. His uncles from the West Bank came to visit him.
Like the rest of the kids of the neighborhood, he was certain they’d withdraw. With the rise of each dawn, he believed that the day would soon come. He listened, mouth wide open, as his sister, The Philosopher, talked on and on about the certainty of withdrawal.
He loved Sameh like no one else and he listened avidly as his cousin spoke about his brother who worked as a pharmacist in Kuwait and who visited Cairo, where he had personally attended one of Abdel Halim’s concerts.
Masoud’s sister laid out her political philosophy as she helped him with his schoolwork and when she put him to bed. He asked her about all the issues on his mind, and she gave him answers. He was as adamant about withdrawal as she was, and just as confident that it was sure to happen, no way around it.
But there was one question he did not ask his sister, for fear of a slap (and he hated fighting with her) or for fear of something inside himself.
“When they pull out will I go back to how I used to be? Without a cousin?”
Then he would sleep and dream of Sameh and of his brother in Kuwait, who had been to Cairo and attended a live concert of Abdel Halim.
Emile Habiby (1922-1996) was a Palestinian communist leader and a giant of Arabic letters. His writings, inspired by Arab heritage and folktales, have gained him a wide international audience that mostly centers on his brilliant 1974 novel, The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist. But while Habiby was not a prolific author, he did write several other significant works, including The Six-Day Sextet, Kafr Qasm, and Saraya, the Ogre’s Daughter. He was buried in Haifa as he requested in his will, with the words “I remain in Haifa” inscribed on his headstone.
Elliott Colla writes: “This translation of Emile Habiby’s The Six-Day Sextet came about in the following way. In the Spring of 2017, I had the pleasure of teaching a small group of talented students in a graduate seminar on the Arab novel. As a collective final project, each of the five students chose one chapter from this work to translate. I took one for myself. We then edited each other’s work for accuracy and style before I edited them one more time for continuity.”