The Seventh Heaven
Written by: Abbas Al-Wais
Translated by: Ali Abdul Salam Qadir
One evening, it was past seven o'clock. Jalal sat cross-legged, taking a drag on a lit cigarette, cradling the spark in his palm. He watched the sun as it gently dipped toward the horizon. He closed his eyes. He saw Lamia. A heavy tear welled up in his eyes. He turned to his companions, absorbed in preparing food, and quickly hid his eyes.
He saw Lamia. Are you really underground now, being eaten by worms and having your eyes gouged out by lizards!
Are you really underground, while I breathe the dust!
O Lamia, is there an inch of Mandali that doesn't know us? Is there a willow that doesn't remember our hug!
Is there a river that hasn't smelled the fragrance of our bodies!
The silence of the trench, the majesty of the horizon, and death lurking for the soldiers at any moment reminded him of the most beautiful memory, when marriage brought them together for one night and the cannon separated them in the early morning of the second day. When she stood before him, he felt the stillness of the soul of things, with all their depth and purity.
-How many years have I longed for you, O most beautiful of Mandali's brides?
- I have caressed your mustache since you were a boy, my love.
Jalal withdrew from the heavy joke to the back.
-Lamia
Oh, Lamia's soul.
A drunkard has his sanctity.
- I know that.
Yesterday I swore to invite my friends to a feast like no other.
She grabbed the sleeves of his white Dishdasha and twisted them around his arm.
- And when will you invite me to a feast?
-When you turn off the lamp.
Where are you now, Mandali, Lamia, while enemy shells savagely chase the pigeons and sparrows?
- The silence is eerie, the earth is filled with tension, and the crows hover like death perched on our clear sky.
-Doesn't this roar worry you?
- It's war.
-Why war?
-This is God's will and destiny. There are things that are important and more important, like seeing thousands of children playing and old men and women in the sunrise telling thousands of tales of ancient heroism.
He saw the palm trees towering on the riverbanks, the fishermen in their boats, the farmers on the farms, their faces beaming with hope and confidence in the future. He saw all of that and felt a sense of unease. I asked him: "What will become of our small village if the war intensifies?"
Do you know that I ask myself if others in areas far from the borders feel the same anxiety as I do?
- How could they not feel the same as we do, when there are thousands of soldiers on the veils of hell in areas that have nothing to do with the borders?
She looked at his face for a long time:
Will you ever participate in the war?
Five minutes, Lamia, were the deciding factor.
A soldier next to him shook him. What's wrong, Jalal? Are you delirious? Are you afraid?
Wait a few minutes for me to tame the wild, jealous horse, and I'll be back to answer you.
I left you warm and returned to you cold as ice.
I left you as a single lantern and returned to find you as dozens of scattered lanterns. Should I kiss your torn body and cry? What vile shell scattered the fragments of your body on the blackberry, the tamarisk, and the tamarisk...
Weep, Jalal, for Lamia, for the whisper of love is silenced by the bombs. If only I had told you before you were scattered in space. Yes, I will share the sorrow in my head...
The soldier said anxiously, "Jalal, what's wrong? Why are you crying? Death is inevitable. Be brave, my partner."
He replied, sobs rising hotly in his head: "I am your partner... It's a beautiful memory that has come to comfort me."
The soldier clenched his fists as the company's chief sergeant cracked the chains with his fierce voice, "Comrades, don't let them pass us." It was a fleeting moment, escaping from hell to fall onto the earthen barriers. Bullets rained down, and between the bullets and the body, whose courage had provoked all its might, lay a sacred space where all beings prayed for the resurrection of the soul. He collapsed like a mountain as warm bullets pierced his chest. It was a delicious death awakening in which he heard the voices of his fellow soldiers. Through the faint gleam of his eyes, he saw the fields flourishing, the rivers overflowing, and the sun shining like a bride, shaking off the dust, wiping away the clotted blood, and leading him far, far away to the seventh heaven.
