Over the next six weeks, we will be publishing installments of Emile Habiby’s The Six-Day Sextet, which is available in an open-access, non-commercial translation by Invisible Dragoman. You can find Part One here.
From The Six-Day Sextet
By Emile Habiby
Translation by Invisible Dragoman.
2.
At Last, the Almond Trees Blossom
O Spring—return me to my country, if only as a flower.
— a song sung by Fairuz
“In the romantic days of my youth, I read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I idolized the character of Sydney Carton who sacrificed his life to save the husband of the woman he loved. He swapped clothes with the man and even took his place beneath the blade of the guillotine.
“My greatest hero eventually succumbed to oblivion. Other heroes came and went with the advances and retreats of life. At last, only one remained—Gringoire, the wretched tramp from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. They told Gringoire to take the place of the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda in order to save her life, but he refused. When asked what made him be so attached to living, he replied, There is nothing that makes me happier than to spend each of my days with a genius—namely me. What a beautiful thing that is!”
“What about Arab identity?”
“We’ve haven’t seen each other for twenty years, and the first thing you do is lecture me?”
Lecturing him is precisely what I meant to do when I brought up the subject of Arab identity to Mr. M. that night when he surprised me with his unannounced visit. It was a shock to see him at my door. I was suspicious, especially when he pleaded for me to listen patiently as he spoke.
We were two close friends throughout primary and secondary school. Together we founded our school’s very first, secret Anti-British League. The only members of the group were us, and its only lasting vestige was the habit of chain-smoking, which we considered to be one of the prerequisites of clandestine work. At the end of secondary school, we said goodbye to one other, over and over. The dark sunglasses we wore hid our manly tears.
After that, we went out separate ways. Mr. M. left to finish his studies at the Arab College in Jerusalem. He eventually returned to teach English at our local high school, which is where he still works.
Ever since Israel was established, our ties have been severed. He would not even say hello whenever we crossed each other’s path. At first our estrangement hurt, but then I got used to it. I cut him out of my life entirely. He reminded me of the kind of women who, when they’re young and single spend all their days reading books and then, as soon as they get married, stop reading—the kind who, after marriage, wouldn’t even pick up a newspaper for bathroom reading. That’s the kind of guy he was.
I used to sing duets with our friend about Khalid Bin Al-Walid’s military campaigns, Al-Mutanabbi’s elegies, and Al-Maarri’s blasphemies—in a nutshell, everything related to Arabness and Arab identity. But now, he was married to his job. And to hang onto your job in Israel you must renounce any links to people who cause trouble for the authorities. You must sever ties with friends and relatives, and cut out your own blood brother if need be.
One day he suddenly came knocking at my door. It was one of those nights not long after the Six-Day War. There he was, sitting across from me, after a separation of twenty years.
“Listen to me, listen to everything I have to say…” He began.
What lion now sprang in his heart? How did he dare to visit me?
Mr. M. picked up right where he left off, “Sidney Carton tumbled from my book of heroes about the same time I started shaving. However, the title of Dickens’ novel never left my imagination. A Tale of Two Cities. At first, I didn’t understanding its hold on me. But then I surrendered to it. It was more than that—it was an obsession that I carried around with me, caring for it and nurturing it. I treasured that story, the way you might wear an amulet your mother put around your neck as a child.
“At the beginning of this strange obsession, I began to write my own version of A Tale of Two Cities. A story of two cities from our country: Haifa and Nazareth. I wrote Chapter One and that was it, the story was over. Then I decided to focus on two subjects of study: English and law. But I didn’t follow through on both. I tried composing poetry in English and in Arabic, only to end up chewing on air in two languages at the same time.
“I had only one son, which pained me, since what I really wanted was a pair of them. You should ask your son about this. He’s a student in my class. He can tell you—every reading I assign them is paired: two books to read at the same time, two poets to memorize together, two literary topics to compare, and two hours for exams.
“That’s how much the dualism of that beguiling title—A Tale of Two Cities—rules my thoughts and sensibilities. No doubt you observed this, back when we were friends? Or have your forgotten that everyone else used to call me Double Chin?”
“You were huge. Your cheeks were puffy…”
“Not at all—I was no different from you and had only one chin. But that nickname stuck with me because I was so fond of saying, ‘It matters not if the beard on the chin is combed or trimmed!’ Two beards. A Tale of Two Cities. This is that dualism, the amulet that I’ve worn since childhood.”
My old friend was a fastidious man. In his neatness and in his speech, he was extravagant with words, unconstrained. I let him do his thing, just as I used to in the past. Especially since I was still startled by his sudden visit. I wanted to know the reason for his coming here, then I began to understand his motive. It had to be for one of two reasons. Either, the war woke his conscience from its long slumber—and this had driven him here to explain to me, by way of this dualism of his, why he hadn’t talked to me in twenty years. Or else, someone had sent him to me for some reason, and he was trying to mesmerize me with talk of dualism in order to regain my friendship. I was quite suspicious of him and looked forward to him finishing what he had to say.
“It was the first time we were driving up the twisting switchback roads of Al-Lubban. It was after the June War, and we were heading from Nablus to Ramallah. As soon as we passed the first turn, a sigh slipped out. Tongue-tied, I gripped the steering wheel and exclaimed to my friends, ‘I’ve been dreaming about this winding road for twenty years! I’ve never forgotten this particular vista. I remember every switchback in this road. There are four of them—count them! These lofty mountains are what make the valley so green. There are ten of them—count them! And this pure air—it’s like a familiar perfume to me! It’s like inhaling a fragrance that has never left me. This place is my place!’”
Now, I understood why this poor man came to me after twenty years of separation. My dear childhood friend! Fate has been so hard on us! I’m sorry I ever doubted you! I almost stood to embrace him, but he couldn’t wait.
Mr. M. went on talking, “After insisting, my friends let me stop the car at the last turn, the fourth one. We got out of the car to breath the fresh air and to fill our eyes with the view of the valley nestled between the mountains. Almond trees covered everything. They should call the place Almond Switchbacks! Something inside me made me want to get down and pray. The scene dissolved into tears that filled my eyes. I felt everything a man would feel when the wonders of the world appear before him. It was as if I were reliving my childhood for a second time—not just witnessing my youth, but walking again through its fields. I inhaled that air and felt the blood of my younger days, with the scent of fresh bread and dry figs, flowing through my veins.
“But my friends would not let me linger there. They quickly tore me from the lofty heights of my switchbacks back down to the reality of my lowlands. One of my friends wanted us to get on our way immediately since our permits didn’t allow us to stop at Al-Lubban. Another teased me about my nostalgia, reminding us of a time, twenty years earlier, when I stopped at one of the switchbacks to relieve myself. We went on, talking the talk of teachers when they get away from their students and wives.
“The whole time, as we went to Ramallah, then Jerusalem, then Bethlehem, and then on the way back, I couldn’t help thinking about something that dumbfounded me. I desperately searched my memory to remember what had happened to me on this hill in my younger days. Whatever it was, it struck me when I stood there, and made me never want to leave the place again.
“But to no avail. Even when we passed it again on the way back, we flew by without stopping. One of my friends, seeing me worried, put his hand on my palm and said: ‘It looks a lot like the overlook of jessamine trees on the road from Nazareth to Haifa. Maybe you’re mixing them up?’
“With that, he lifted a heavy stone from my chest.
“For about twenty years, I’ve been going to Haifa twice a week to give extra lessons at one of its secondary schools. And each time, I pass the jessamine overlook coming and going. My friend was right—this simple interpretation made the most sense. Even though I was aware there was little resemblance between these two vistas, I also knew my weakness as far as A Tale of Two Cities was concerned. In my imagination I must have confused the two vistas, the almond and the jessamine. I accepted this interpretation and the heavy weight on my chest was gone.”
What a sad man—to sacrifice those memories he could no longer bear! I used to think that when you lost your conscience, your heart would turn to stone, immune to all palpitation and feeling. But that’s not it at all! When a man cannot kill his conscience, he kills his memory instead! But why did he come to me to tell this story?
And my old friend went on, “You’ll recall that I have many friends and acquaintances in the West Bank, from my schooldays and later on. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, politicians, a government minister, and people who wish they were ministers. I visited them all. We attempted to repair the memories and friendships that had been torn asunder. They went back to being what they had been to me twenty years earlier, each one a precious part of my life. Now, not a week passes by without me visiting one of them or vice versa. In the past, I imagined they had forgotten me, that they had pruned me from their life, like when you cut off a dry branch on a tree so that it will blossom.”
“But ours is a blossoming branch.”
“You’re right. At first, I hesitated to approach them. I didn’t know how to receive them. But I found something I wasn’t expecting—they longed for our old friendship, they cherished it! I discovered that they paid attention to what had been happening to us. They snatched news of us from the beaks of birds. They thought more of us than we thought of ourselves. I wanted to hide the fact that for twenty years, I’d withdrawn into a shell. I was surprised to find out that they could understand why I’d done it. They looked at me very differently than I looked at myself. They respected who I was, and I felt my own self-respect increase in turn. I could raise my head again, above all the blows we’ve taken.
“That’s why I say that they are such an important part of this life of mine, the one you used to know twenty years ago.”
“So did you visit tonight to publicly deliver this self-respect to me? Is that why you’re here?”
“No. I’m here to talk to you about something that’s been bothering me and keeping me awake at night. I told you that the switchbacks and overlook at Al-Lubban overwhelmed me—but not for long, because soon I was under the sway of the old amulet that I had worn all my life, the old tendency to think and reason in terms of pairs. Soon my mind was wandering back to that other overlook and its view of jessamine trees. I’ve traveled up and down the switchback road of Al-Lubban dozens of times since then. Whenever that strange and desolate sense of longing overpowered me, I would thus explain it away and put my conscience to rest.
“This went on until one day in February when my wife and son and I were coming back from visiting friends in the old city of Jerusalem. It was afternoon as we descended the switchbacks of Al-Lubban. The almond blossoms were just opening, and their white and red hues embraced each other in a vernal rapture while the surrounding mountains danced.”
“This is a poem. What language did you write it in?”
“The language of my eyes and heart. I need you to listen to me until the very end. My wife kept telling me to stop the car. She wanted to collect branches of almond blossoms to decorate the house. I ignored her until we got to the last and lowest switchback. There’s an ancient tree that grows there. I think it was there back in those days.
“We got out of the car and cut four branches that seemed to smile at us as we smiled back. My wife asked, ‘Will an almond tree grow if we plant the branches in dirt?’
“Right then, my chest became tight and I began to remember. Do you remember how we knew a guy who loved a girl from Jerusalem, or Bethlehem, or somewhere over there? Do you remember how much we loved his romance? It was much better than others—it had a story. We went on a trip and stopped by the tree at the Al-Lubban overlook. There was a house there. And chickens and cows. The house still exists but I didn’t see any chickens or cows. We asked the people who lived there for some water and came across a group of girls on a trip from Jerusalem who were cutting branches of almond blossoms. Our friend’s girlfriend was with them.”
“Then what?”
“I no longer remember how I heard, but what I remember is that it was a beautiful story. The girl cut a bough into two branches. She offered one to our friend and kept the other for herself. They promised each other to hold onto their branch and meet the following spring when the almonds blossomed again. He would bring his family and they’d ask the girl’s family for her hand. How did this beautiful story end?”
“Why are you so interested in their story?”
“I don’t know. But something is pushing me to open all the pages of my old friendships. It’s almost as if I’m trying to bind my present to my past so it never again comes untied. My past overflowed with hope. It embraced the world and everything in it. It was clean and wide open like the eye of a child. It’s as if I’m trying to attach myself to the threads of the past in order to rip myself from this present. Do I look like a drowning man clutching at ropes of air?”
“And then?”
“Ever since the June War I’ve been wandering, like a lost soul searching for old friends. Every reunion makes me yearn to reconnect with the others. After remembering the story of our friend, I’ve been searching for him. But none of my friends remembers his story. My hunger to meet him has brought me to an impasse. Now, whenever I reconnect with an old friend, I ask how he met his wife! I’ve asked everyone—no one’s left but you. That’s why I’m here. Put me at ease: can you remember?”
“You were always strange in your ways, my friend. But tonight you’re stranger than ever. Why are you driving yourself crazy about such a trivial thing?”
“Trivial?! I realize now that cutting my ties with the past is what broke my back and put me in that shell I was hiding in. What is this past I’m talking about? It’s not a period of time. The past is you, and him, and her, and all those friends. The painting of the past is drawn by all of us together. Colored by us, each with our particular hue, until it becomes that burning, young image embracing the world and everything in it. I can’t restore this past until the various parts come together again, with all their colors. The smile on the lips of this image is our friend and his love story. Without him, what past remains? If Gioconda’s smile were erased, what would remain of her portrait? A happy ending for his story would be that of a reunion, the lover coming back to his beloved. A tragic ending would be their separation for all eternity. I think this story is the truest expression of our vernal past—I want it to come back as the spring does after every winter.”
“I see you returning to A Tale of Two Cities, the two branches, the lover and his beloved, and the happy and tragic endings. Life is made up of strands that are knitted together, not loose and separate. What about your imagination, spurred on by vernal longing for towering mountains? Maybe it imagined all this?”
“My imagination is awake, that’s true. I want it to never go back to sleep again. That’s why I am looking for this friend of mine. So, am I to understand that you don’t remember him?”
“Let me try. If I remember anything, I’ll be in touch.”
Mr. M. went away, more worried than I’d ever seen him in my life. I stood there, also more worried than I’d ever been. For minutes after he’d gone, I had to hold myself back. I nearly went after him to shake his memory out of its death.
But am I one to bring the dead back to life?
Of course I remember this beautiful love story whose protagonist Mr. M. so desperately wants to recall. How many times have I asked myself, “How could someone kill a love like that in his heart?”
After the June War, I went to visit this faithful woman in Jerusalem—or Bethlehem, or somewhere “over there,” to use Mr. M.’s words. She showed me the desiccated almond branch. She’d kept it this whole time. When she retold its story, it almost began to burn red and white again. She told me that he’d come to visit her with some of his fellow teachers. The entire time, he’d been talkative and full of joy. She said she’d brought them into her library so they could see the collections of books and rare objects she’d gathered over the years. He noticed the almond branch and asked her about it. She told him that the almond trees blossom in February. He began to talk instead of apricots and their brief harvest season. She was shocked by this.
But now, after Mr. M.’s visit, after listening to everything he said, I understood everything.
I am sure that Mr. M.’s forgetfulness is genuine, and that his desire to remember is sincere. By some strange, hidden force of will, he truly forgot that he was the protagonist of the beautiful love story. That it was his smile that lit up the days of our youth. Is it my duty to remind him and put him at ease like he asked me to? Why should I put him at ease? Would this give him any comfort?
If his self-respect had grown, as he told me, he will find this story and read it. Would he remember at that point? Would the ties to his past be restored? Would he snatch his soul from the present?
Finally, the almond trees blossomed and they were reunited. Spring itself smiled, and fate began to laugh.
Part one: Masoud’s Cousin Makes Him Happy
An uncopyrighted translation of Emile Habiby’s Sudasiyyat al-ayyam al-sitta, originally published in Al-Jadid (Issues 4-9), 1968. This is an open-access, non-commercial translation by Invisible Dragoman.
Translators’ note:
This translation of Emile Habiby’s The Six-Day Sextet came about in the following way. In a 2017 seminar on Arabic novels, I had the pleasure of teaching a small group of talented students: Kevin Chao, Fouad Saleh, Molly Simio, Andrew Slater, and Uma Mencia Uranga. As a collective final project, each student chose one chapter from this work to translate. I took one for myself. We edited each other’s work for accuracy and style and I edited them again for continuity.
After securing translation rights from Habiby’s estate, we submitted this manuscript to various publishers. Initially, there was some interest but after months of conversation, nothing came of it.
Covid arrived and years passed. As our translation of this remarkable text gathered digital dust on a hard-drive, we learned that there were disputes concerning Habiby’s estate and that the permission we’d been granted was itself likely disputed.
As we faced the likelihood that our work would never be published, we decided to share it in a non-commercial form. Given the author’s political commitments, we imagine that he might approve of our decision, but God knows best.
The striking images, composed by Habiby’s artist friend, Abed Abdi, first appeared in the first Haifa edition: Sudasiyyat al-ayyam al-sitta wa-qisas ukhra Haifa: Matba‘at al-Ittihad al-Ta‘awuniyya, 1970). They are copyrighted and used with the artist’s permission.
This translation is open access. Please feel free to read, store, and distribute for your personal, non-commercial use.