Nazim Mizhir’s ‘Sad Heron’

Sad Heron

By Nazim Mizhir

Translated by the author, with Mennan Salih

 

But, without us knowing, he would return every summer and linger on the far bank, coming back to us year after year, stealthily slipping out of the water or suddenly swooping down like a silent angel.

When news of his arrival spread that first year, we eagerly pricked up our ears, longing to hear the beat of his wings. We wondered: what had reminded him of us and brought him back? How did he find his way to our remote village—and why? And how could such a thing happen at all? It was as though we were living in a dream we could not make sense of.

We learnt that he would come with the advent of the midday heat, when desolation spread and the morning ruckus of the village fell silent. He announced his presence in muted monotone, with hoarse muttering as he stumbled over a tin can here or a rock there, like someone walking blindly in the blazing glare of the sun.

We would try to make out a distinct sound from him, so as to understand what he wanted, or wanted to express. In the morning, those fishermen and shepherds who slept their heads out in the lowlands told us that they had heard a sound past midnight, a meek cry for help. It was hard to describe its true nature: as though it were a muffled yawn, only audible to someone straining their ear and holding their breath—only such a person could catch a fleeting hint of all those calls, as if they were whispered revelations from above the water or perhaps from the sky.

In the winter, he would peacefully slink his way to us like a breath of fog. He would peer into our unlit rooms without any one of us daring—even with a question—to disturb the serenity of his rounds. To and from he went; then he returned to stroll nimbly on the banks. No one heard anything from him except a murmur, something between a sigh and groan; so we ate, drank, and slept all of these years without asking him about the reason for his groaning.

And when some of us listened out one year, they shook their heads, saying: “We haven’t heard a peep from him this year! Maybe these are just the groans of an airplane passing by, far away, in one of the pathways of the sky.”

We all fell silent.

In the beginning, we considered his visit nothing more than an illusion or a daydream, until one evening the village dogs suddenly hushed and stared, bewildered, into the darkness. Then the faint sound of his footsteps in the water stirred us from our slumber.

Early the next morning, we found the soft traces of his feet stretching along the sandy shore. Shallow they were, as if he had brushed over the sand in haste, leaving behind what looked like the scribbles of his fingertips, as though he had tried to write something for us and failed.

Whenever he would come, silence settled over the desolate alleyways—everything struck dumb in reply to his own stillness. We saw nothing of him except the faintest flickers at the corners of walls, catching only fleeting remnants of his presence; he disappeared more than he appeared, forever receding from sight.

How desperately we longed to see him in winter whenever we felt his presence among us. We would care for him with the same compassion as we would one of our sons. Wherever we thought he might be, we left him a fire from our hearths and soaked pieces of bread, lest he eat worms or suffer from loneliness and cold, he who had just stepped out from either the water or from some gate in the sky.

That winter, we had never known any being so cold. During the long nights, we would listen to the hiss of his breath. And when he found some warmth, he slept standing, and his breathing grew calm—despite how cold his breaths stayed.

By morning, he would leave behind him a white mist on our windowpanes, as though offering us a trace of his features. On the doorsteps and rooftops of our closely packed mud huts, we would find remnants of things he had deliberately left: a strange mixture of fish scales, algae, shells, the feces of turtles and frogs, bits of straw, rings, worn wrist watches, eyeglasses, and rusty locks of hair. We were uncertain whether they were stained with clotted blood, henna, or with mud from the riverbank.

His arrival stirred our emotions and buried memories, churning our souls. We would turn to the photos hanging on our plastered walls and weep. We would wait anxiously if he was late by even a single day, then set off silently before the first light of dawn, in search of him. At sunset, we set floating candles dedicated to him out on the water. It was as though something within us was compelled towards him whenever his absence was prolonged, leaving a lump in our throats and no place for a smile upon our lips.

And so, we would take up our lanterns and torches, roaming from dusk till midnight, between deserts and shores, carrying tin cans to kindle fires. Some of us even climbed onto the rooftops with our lanterns, fearing that he had lost his way to us that year. And when truck drivers stopped at the edge of the highway, startled by our blazing fires, we would shout to them, “We’re not on fire! We’re not on fire! We’ve lost track of him this season; we fear he may have fallen victim to a fisherman’s net or hunter’s rifle!” At once, the drivers would direct their headlights across the water plains.

Then one night, as we frantically flicked our flashlights back and forth, we saw a light flare and fade on the distant horizon. We thought he was raising a wing in reply to our signal, and we began to call out to him until our voices grew hoarse. But to our dismay, we discovered that the light was nothing more than the moon’s reflection on the water.

We waited as long as we could and then returned, that night, to lie under our blankets, unwilling and unable to close our eyes, tossing from side to side, resting our heads on our sorrows and dreams. We left our fires burning bright, lighting up the land, the water, and the sky.

While we were sleeping, the flames licked into the reed thickets and spread to the farthest horizon, as if a dragon had passed through and breathed fire into our haylofts and livestock pens; and our buffalo fled, dragging fiery tails behind them. Some huts facing the wind were set ablaze. What dreadful terror we lived through, what emotion and grief.

And yet, what a daring, death-defying step it was when he suddenly appeared. He was magnificent that night, moving just like rising smoke. Still, we did not see him as clearly as Sahib did, the night guard of the fishing nets in our village; he saw and heard him up close, and said:

“He called me by my name, whispering like a child: Sahib! Sahib! How beautiful he was! If only you knew how lovely he shone, dripping with water and light. His eyes were wide like a gazelle’s, filled with longing and yearning. But—alas!—this time he walked unsteadily, his underside covered only in a veil of cloud.”

One spring, they said that the wind carried his ethereal image as he approached our huts. We heard the wind whistling through the cracks of our tin doors and wooden window frames. Our trembling hearts fluttered with awe and longing to meet him, though each of us had resolved at last not to frighten him, but to invite him to our homes.

Just before twilight, as we lay listening intently for the first strides of dawn, we heard a sound. It was not the wind’s screaming in the thickets, but a muffled, indistinct voice, a wavering attempt to call out in despair. How strange it was to hear that tone: more like a sob than a call. We all rushed out, men, women, and children. Our hearts were pounding with a mingling of fear and joy. This time, he came closer—no doubt—seeing and hearing us clearly and even knowing our names.

We saw him swaying in the wind like a frail reed. His strange appearance sparked wonder and marvel in our sleepy village along the water’s edge. When we gathered around him, none of us dared to speak or step any closer. We stood in silence, heads bowed, remaining still in awe. We were in no doubt that he had come this time for a purpose.

From where he was nearby, he stared at us for a long moment, then turned back toward the banks, where he fell motionless.

Nazim Mizhir is a short-story writer, novelist, and literary translator. Born in Diwanyia in 1955, he graduated from the Department of European Languages at the University of Basra in 1978. He is the recipient of the Sharjah Award for his first book, The Soul’s Garden (1999), and the Katara Award for the novel Wings of Fire (2020). His other works include the short-story collection Night Railway Station (2010) and a translation of Ray Bradbury’s Mars Is Heaven.

Mennan Salih is a translator, language consultant, and editor; she is also the writer of The Arabic Pages. A PhD candidate at the University of Westminster, she researches metaphors in Arabic literature through a psycholinguistic lens. Mennan—who is originally from Cyprus—has a keen interest in both modern and ancient languages, and is currently studying the Old Babylonian variant of Akkadian. She holds a BA (Hons) in Arabic and Linguistics and an MA in Advanced Arabic.