Saeed by Amir Sommer translated by Jessica Cohen
This is a story about Saeed, which my father told my mother before they’d even considered bringing me into the world, and my mother told me one day when I was trying to heat a pita on the stove. To be precise, Baba told Mom the story back when they were just coworkers. At the hospital. And this is what he said:
I was the oldest of seven siblings in the Darwish family. We lived in a ground floor apartment, in the downtown area that you think looks like nothing but warehouses. My father worked for the Haifa municipality, and my mother stayed home taking care of all of us, cooking the earth of heaven in her pots, cleaning, and teaming us up in pairs and groups so that it would be easier for her to watch us. At first, I was always with Saeed, playing soccer or drinking hot tea and chatting. He was only two years younger than me. We were the oldest of the boys. But that’s why Mom decided to split us up. I had to take care of a few brothers and sisters, including Nasreen, who was the youngest. Apart from that, I was also responsible for our rooster. Yes, I had a rooster, even though we lived in the city. (Don’t worry, I’ll say more about that later.)
Saeed, on the other hand, was put in charge of Kais, who was the most mischievous and ill-behaved sibling, and of Amal, who was actually the firstborn but we didn’t really consider her an older sister because I was the first boy, and since she was a girl, we were supposed to take care of her even if she had peered out at the world a few years before we had. As you can imagine, this drove a wedge between me and Saeed, and if you’re wondering why I’ve never mentioned him before, the point at which the answer begins might be right here. Because Saeed had to stay in one room with some of the siblings, while I was in another room, or sometimes outside in the yard, with the other siblings. And with the rooster, who was the undisputed superstar of our block. Which, in those days, looked like a favela, except with Arabs. Inaal tizi, it’s a good thing you didn’t see the lower city of Haifa in those dark days.
At some point you could see the changes that each group went through. My group was more of the glasses-wearing kind and we were studious at school. Saeed’s group put more work into recess than into class. Especially Kais, who made his biggest contributions to the family whenever someone got into trouble with a neighborhood bully and there was a potential fight. Other than that, just a lot of action and unnecessary drama. He was like a Tasmanian devil. Saeed couldn’t calm him down. On the contrary: he seemed pleased about it, egging Kais on from the sidelines. Amal changed, too. She got married younger than expected and fled to her own family. Her husband was a toxic man who beat her.
One day Amal called us. She was the mother of two babies by then. She was dead scared that her husband would overhear her. We had to go and rescue her, so we kicked into high alert. Of course, Kais was a major asset in the rescue operation. I was more the brains and the listening ear. Saeed was the infantry commander, if you could call it that. He gave orders to that crazy Kais, who was acting all Sylvester Stallone. He never could see the border line between Rocky/Rambo and life outside the TV screen. I even thought for a minute that Kais was keener to beat up Amal’s abusive husband than to get her out of there. He was a real hothead, that one.
Later, when we grew up, each of us went in a different direction. Our group went to academic institutions, medical school at the Technion, and bigger salaries. Saeed’s group kept working downtown in all kinds of appliance stores and insurance agencies. It was lousy. The rift between us grew bigger and bigger. So much so that it turned into a political agenda. Listen, it’s not easy to be a Muslim Arab in the State of Israel. I don’t have to explain that to you, a new immigrant from Romania. You can sense a fraction of it yourself, on your own flesh—you, a blond woman with fair skin. Just imagine what it’s like to be dark-skinned and speak with an accent that dwarfs all your problems the minute you have to pronounced the letter P and what comes out is B. The Jews in Israel hate the Arabs, there’s no arguing that. But at least I still had hope for dialogue, and also a lot of respect for the Jewish world. I felt Israeli, or at least I wanted to be. I loved western culture, with its tall, modern buildings, its new technology, and its bouncy disco music. Especially Abba.
Saeed and his group were less into all that. To be honest, even though they had blue identity cards like regular Israelis, they began to privately define themselves as Palestinians. They believed they were Israelis only because they had to survive daily life, make a living, not be trapped behind a wall and subjected to military campaigns. We, on the other hand, really did believe we were Israeli. Maybe second-class citizens, but still part of the collective. We did also have a few moments of understanding: sometimes I knew, like they did, that the Jews would never fully accept me. That they’d keep stabbing Arabs in the back to their dying day. But sometimes Saeed’s group realized that belonging to the Palestinians was also a disaster, because most of them were religious and too nationalistic. Boneheads with respect shining out of their asses. Traumatized people who shouldn’t be handed the reins. Allah yerachmo—God have mercy. Actually, the Zionists are like that, too. It might have something to do with this sacred land, rather than with the people who walk on it.
At some point we stopped talking, until eventually it was only me and sweet Nasreen who stayed in touch. Each of us chose our own path. The “Saeeds” might have seen us as traitors who were kissing the Zionists’ asses. But we preferred to keep our distance from them. We didn’t need all the troubles they brought. You couldn’t trust them not to screw one of us over just because of their twisted agenda. Ya wali.
The rooster. So, the rooster was one helluva find. Kais brought him home one day to slaughter him on Eid el-Adha. I decided there was no chance that could happen. It was exactly the same day when Nasreen bought herself a necklace with a peace pendant at a nearby kiosk. When she saw the rooster, she pounced on him and hugged him. Sweet girl. I didn’t have the heart to tell her. So I suggested that we go for a walk with the rooster, just as if it were a dog, and in fact what we did was kidnap it. (But don’t worry, our motives were pure.) We stole the rooster from the “Saeeds.” Tensions climbed in the house. We disappeared till evening, by which time we were sure the area would be riot-free and we’d go back to a table set for the family dinner. We got home and sat down as if nothing had happened. Kais made a “just you wait” gesture with his hand. His eyes were telling me: Tayeb, fine, I’ll slit your throat the second Mom and Dad turn their backs. I was so anxious. Meanwhile the rooster sat on a chair next to me, pleased as punch. His crest looked like Fareed al-Atrash’s hair. He knew how to get fancied up for special events. That was our joke.
He quickly became a neighborhood celebrity. All the locals knew him and thought he was incredible. He was everyone’s alarm clock. Each morning, at exactly six—I have no idea how he knew—he would do his kukuriko!!! And all the windows would open up. Some neighbors cursed him, others just woke up and thanked God. Mashallah. And as if that weren’t enough, every time we hung the laundry out to dry, we’d find the rooster lying on the lines. Literally lying on his back, like it was a deck-chair by a pool. It was his room. He would stretch out like a human, sunning himself. What a joker.
At some point, the rooster started walking down the street with us like a pet (and not only because we got him out of that crazy Kais’s hands). He was our flex, the way kids cruise around the neighborhood when they get their license. When the girls walked the rooster we improvised a leash out of a long shoelace. But with me, he was unleashed: a noble savage. Sauntering past the cars, buses, stores, restaurants. Strutting around with his head held high and his chest puffed out. He was Rooster the Great. Dominant. Social.
One day when I was nine, I walked into our kitchen and the rooster followed behind me, like a person. I remember that Mom was out that day, she’d gone to do something with the girls. Saeed came in, all self-assured, like he was the chief of the family. I sat down at a little folding table and drank tea with fresh mint. It had been ages since it was just the two of us like that, me and Saeed. It felt pretty strange. But I realized that he wasn’t so excited to hang out with me. I thought to myself: I don’t need to deal with all this now. So I pushed my chair back to leave, but when I turned around, I saw Saeed about to warm up a pita on the gas stove. As his older brother, I wanted to tell him he’d better not. He should wait for Mom, she hadn’t taught him how to do that. But I knew he’d get into a fight with me like a moron. Because I wasn’t his big brother anymore: I was the rival team’s coach. It was Maccabi Marwan vs. Ha’Poel Saeed. Which was a shame. If it were up to me, we could have united and been the Darwish sports club.
It turned into a tense moment of the kind that even if I ever forget it, I’ll always remember that it did occur somewhere out there in the space of time. Saeed put the pita on the burner. He tried to light the gas with something I couldn’t see, and the second he turned the dial with his left hand, there was a huge explosion. Boom! A giant flame leapt up. I took a step back, and I could already see Saeed’s face burning right in front of me, vanishing into the flame along with my brother. And he screamed—how he screamed. At first like a whiny little kid, as if he’d lost all the rough edges of the past few years, and then like a newborn baby, and finally like something that doesn’t exist anymore, something long gone. It was terrifying, and then I couldn’t hear him at all because the fire got louder. As I talk about it now I can actually see it. Ya…
I won’t go into all the details with you now, because it’s 10:45 and our break’s almost over. But I had to do everything myself: pull Saeed away, call the fire department, see his face all gone, call an ambulance, fetch my sisters who were home, and call my parents. You know, the big brother.
What I do need to tell you before we go back to work is that, for some reason, what I remember more than anything else are the moments in the hospital. Even more then the firefighters trying to put the fire out or the police questioning us. We came right here, to Rambam Hospital, and some people in white coats came and took Saeed. I looked after my siblings until my parents arrived. I was the only one who glanced into Saeed’s room. And what I saw were methodical, harmonious movements, serenity within the chaos. Generosity. Those tall people with their white clothes looked like angels. Until they told me: “We’ll have to remove some skin from your brother’s rear-end and put it on his face.” I replied: “From his ass?!”
As you can understand, it was thanks to them that Saeed has skin on his face. Yes, yes, I’m not kidding you, it was from his butt. Oh, how he screamed…
A decade later—Mom finishes the story—your father became the director of the emergency room in that same hospital. Oh, and one more thing: don’t ever play with the gas stove.
Now I’m the one telling the story again. Not my father. I’m saying this so you won’t be confused. And in case this isn’t clear yet, I come from a household with a few religions. My father’s story is Arab, like him, but I’m also Jewish.
Yirmi is my big brother. Or rather, my half-brother. From my mother’s first marriage. An Ashkenazi through and through, with glasses. He witnessed all kinds of things in the relationship between my Baba and our mother. Things that happened before I came along. But he didn’t see all that much, because there are only five hazy years between us. He was still a boy when he got knocked out by the divorce, and that blurred his vision for a while.
When my parents aren’t listening—or more to the point, when Marwan, my father, isn’t listening—Yirmi calls me an Arab-nigga. Because he’s blond and I’m not. But there was one time when he had a different bullet in his cartridge.
On a cold night in February, we all piled into Baba’s car. We were wearing dress shirts, except Mom, who wore a black dress and a thick gold necklace that matched her blond hair. The whole journey (and also earlier that day), Yirmi kept whispering to me: “You’re going to see someone with an ass on his face.” Every so often I elbowed him. He giggled and made an expression meant to illustrate an ass-face, something I have no idea how to describe to you. It was like someone was huddled in a hoodie, and underneath the hood, instead of the face, there was a smooth bottom. Like in that South Park episode where Cartman persuades Kenny to take a portrait of his butt instead of his face on picture day.
When I heard that, I got slightly nauseous, which was a problem I always had at that age, especially before going to school. It didn’t help that Baba suddenly slammed on the brakes. I felt seasick. Baba turned around and asked in an authoritative voice: “What’s going on back there? Should I open a window?”
“No,” I answered in a squeaky voice, “everything’s fine.”
Meanwhile, Yirmi, on my right side, made a peculiar face, with puffed out cheeks and cross-eyes. Dad started driving again and Mom murmured something about the radio: she probably asked him to change the station. Too much talking for her. Yirmi whispered: “He has an ass instead of a face. Try not to throw up or laugh when you see him, okay?”
I kept quiet.
“Okay, Jimi?”
‘Jimi’ was my childhood nickname. It was a name that foresaw me launching my life somewhere outside the Middle East. Mom gave it to me after I put a picture of Jimi Hendrix up on my door. It was just something I’d found by the neighborhood soccer field, and I had no idea who the guy was, but I liked his mane of hair. Because it looked like mine. Ever since then, I was Jimi. Sometimes James, when Mom was in a bad mood. It might also have been because I never really connected with the name my parents gave me: Meir. (Seriously, Mom and Dad? That’s the best you could come up with?) Even though it had a slightly racist undertone, I accepted the name Jimi lovingly and didn’t ask too many questions. Just the way I accepted the invitation to my dad’s brother’s wedding. Meaning, my uncle Saeed’s.
That was the second time I saw Baba’s brothers and sisters, and the first time I saw his whole family. So many Arabs, holy cow. They danced the dabke. All kinds of circling and clapping hands. The energy in the wedding hall felt like a hurricane, with everyone whirling around in circles, even the chairs. Mom felt out of place. She held my hand. Probably so people would see she had a dark-skinned boy and that way she’d fit in. It was all too much for her, poor thing. She was the only one who washed her hands before each course was served. The only one who used the silverware that had been placed next to her plate. The only one whose blond hair wasn’t dyed.
“You’re about to see a Palestinian who can fart out of his face,” said my half-brother Yirmi, who is now an officer in the Israeli army. “Try not to get your picture taken with him, because then he’ll have to smile. And you know how an ass-face smiles, right?”
I thought to myself: A Palestinian? Like the ones on the news from the Intifada? I have an uncle like that? No way—that’s terrifying.
And then my dad told us to get up from the table. We stood in an almost-military line, preparing for the arrival of a mysterious man with an ass-face. His leather shoes clicked on the floor like a tap-dancer’s. Tap tap tap. That added some spice into the tension. All I could see from my height were his feet. Mom whispered, “Jimi, don’t embarrass me.” My brother gave me a punkish little slap on the back of my neck.
“Hey! Ouch!”
The whole family made the same chilling Shhhhh! That was for me, of course.
“James,” Mom whispered, “don’t embarrass me. And straighten your posture. Left shoulder up.”
The footsteps sounded closer than ever. His shadow looked tall, even from a distance. Yirmi whispered, “He’s coming. Get ready.” Then he made a loud farting sound. My mother ignored it; she always let it slide when Yirmi pulled a prank. His parents were divorced, after all. He was the gifted child with the pure-white skin: the only one she had.
And then it came, and oh no, the nausea was about to leak out of my mouth. I could feel it climbing up my throat, dancing on my tongue, while I thought about a hairy, unwiped butt that had turned into a person’s face with thick eyebrows.
A tiny stream of nausea escaped my lips. Baaaah. And like the crowd at a soccer game, the three heads of my family made a human wave in my direction. They gave me a panicked look. Their hair stood on end like a cat in danger. Remnants of the nausea kept playing out of my mouth. And then, like in the moment when God is revealed to the prophet, the most beautiful man in the universe appeared before me. A tall, dark man wearing a tuxedo, like at the Oscars, with a curly head of hair like Jimi Hendrix’s, and green eyes that said something even when his lips were sealed.
No sign of past scars or childhood traumas. No peculiar skin. Only symmetrical, elegant beauty. An aesthetically-pleasing human form. The most handsome man in the universe, without a doubt. More beautiful than the views from Highway 1 connecting San Francisco with Los Angeles. More beautiful than the first moment when you can breathe again after being congested for weeks. More beautiful than the moment when enemies make peace and do not look back in anger.
“Boys,” said Baba in Arabic, “this is my brother Saeed.”
Amir Sommer is an award-winning poet and author. He’s half Palestinian and half Israeli. The mixed religions and nationalities in his family is considered a taboo in both Israel and Palestine. These days, he’s working on a new collection of short stories called “Disco for Peace.”
17 June 2022
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