ترجمات أدبية

The Unknown Visitor[1]

by Ali Al-Kasimi

Translated by Hassane Darir

(Professor of Translation and Terminology, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakech) and revised by W Richard Oakes Jr. (PhD-University of Edinburgh, Independent Scholar)

***

In the last week of his bitter struggle with cancer, he sat in his private suite in the big hospital, surrounded by all his visitors: family members, relatives, friends, students, admirers, and all those whose presence he had requested for one reason or another and even those whose presence was not requested. A brave smile filled his face as he continued to tell one joke after  another, so that their laughter erupted and an atmosphere of joy spread, as if the crowd had met on a happy occasion, such as a wedding, circumcision, or the birth of a child, rather than to bid farewell to a dear one who would leave to the other world in a matter of days or hours. Here humor blended with seriousness on the threshold of death.

I pretended to smile and follow what he said, but in fact, I was trying hard to understand something, to decipher a mystery that has puzzled me for weeks, during my frequent and prolonged visits to him, or in other words, during my semi-permanent stay in his hospital ward, during the past four months that he has been there. He had traveled almost every month to Paris for treatment for five successive years, but the treatment did not work, and one day he fainted, so they carried him to this national hospital.

What puzzled and worried me, and made me feel helpless and jealous at the same time, was that his right eye  glanced toward the entrance of that ward from time to time, as if he was waiting for someone or something to come, but his left eye feared the arrival of that expected visitor and did not want his/her presence. One of his eyeballs was summing that unknown and the other was warning it not to come.

Thirty years of good company, comradeship, intimate friendship, and even pure brotherhood, in addition to the similarity in our family background, education, experiences, and common profession were enough to make me and my friend, Sidi Mohamed, able to understand the desires and feelings of each other, just by looking into one another’s eyes. The eye is a window into the soul. Sometimes, in the presence of others, we communicate with each other through our eyes. We express desires and requests, feelings of acceptance or rejection, satisfaction or indignation, joy or sadness, without uttering a word, and without the others realizing what we are doing. It is enough for me to look into his eyes to understand what he wants, and it is enough for him to glimpse at my eyes to comprehend my feelings. I penetrate into  his deepest thoughts, and he penetrates into my depths. His secrets are mine, and my secrets are his. Neither of us hides anything from the other.  Our hopes are the same, our concerns are common, and our feelings are identical, as if we have become one being or one soul dissolving in two bodies, just as the poet says:

I am He whom I love,

and He whom I love is I:

We are two spirits

dwelling in one body.

If thou seest me,

thou seest Him,

And if thou seest Him,

thou seest us both[2].

Because of all of this, I was worried when I could not grasp that incomprehensible situation: His right eye longs for the arrival of the unknown comer, and his left eye does not want him to come.

Perhaps it was my raging sadness that crippled my intuition. Perhaps it was my recent fatigue that impeded my cognitive capacities. That is why I gathered all of my mental and spiritual powers today. I focused my gaze upon him without him realizing it, because he was busy with his visitors. I have clearly and unquestionably learned that his right eye was hastening the unknown visitor to come, while his left eye was discouraging him.

In all my philosophical and psychological studies, I have never come across a similar case in which the mind of a person  was so sharply divided, and the will was so clearly broken. At that moment, only two cases came to my mind: A drawing and a line of poetry. The drawing engraved on one of the walls of the ruins of Babylon represents a two-headed snake, with each head thrusting forcefully in the opposite direction. The verse by an ancient Arab poet describes a terrified wolf that sleeps with one of its eyeballs, and guards against death with the other. It is, at the same time, awake and asleep.

I did not accept defeat, for I was not less determined than him. For five years, he has been in a fierce battle with cancer, which attacked his bone marrow fiercely, and necrotized his bones until they became like pieces of glass full of cracks, much like a spider web that would collapse to the lightest gust of wind and fall like scattered fragments, as his doctor told me while describing his condition. Nevertheless, he comes out of his room twice a day to walk in the hospital corridors in a desperate attempt to restore life to his crumbling bones. He then returns to the reception room in his ward in the hospital to take a middle seat in the  lobby, welcome his visitors, and tell them anecdotes, jokes, and funny stories.

People not only loved him for his light spirit and lofty morals, but they also loved him because he never coveted his neighbor’s possessions. He had overcome his own greed and purified himself from impurities, so that he became pure and transparent like a polished mirror. From his eyes as he spoke with a smile, I realized that the pain was intensifying. He gives me a meaningful look and smiles. He wants to teach me how one dies with dignity. So, I send him a look that says: 'Just as he lived with dignity.' Then, without catching anyone's attention, I slip into the adjacent nurse's room and ask her to bring him a painkiller tablet dissolved in a glass of water, so that his companions will not notice that he's taking medication. The head physician in charge of his treatment informed me that it's his last week.

I looked around, scanning the faces one by one. They are all there. I know them all. Not one of his fans is absent. And not one of his loved ones is missing. So, who then is the one who he anticipates? The problem for me is no longer about my inability to comprehend the contradiction in his eyes; the challenge I face now is to uncover the secret of the anticipated visitor that my friend does not want anyone to know about. In other words, what hurt and troubled me is that my intimate friend kept a secret from me. I have not withheld any of my secrets from him.

The flame of challenge ignited within my chest. I must know that secret. The love of exploration deeply rooted in a person's soul is what elevated them to the summits of knowledge, and it is what tormented them multiple times. I will not let him bury his secret with him. I will break that shell to retrieve the pearl. I will find another way to uncover that secret without begging him for it. Clearly, he does not want to reveal it even to those closest to him, but keeps it hidden even from himself – by that, I mean from me. I will employ my second technique. The first technique, which is the language of the eyes, helps in grasping desires, requests, and emotions, but it does not enable me to understand exact expressions or specific names. In the latter case, I usually resort to my second technique called mind reading.

The essence of this technique lies in my ability and his ability to read thoughts – his thoughts or mine – without the need to express them in spoken words. This method first caught my attention when I was a boy, and my father took me to the city of Alexandria in Egypt during the summer vacation. One night, we went to a dinner-theatre where two "magicians" appeared on the stage. One of them descended towards the audience while the other remained standing on the stage, blindfolded, with his back to the audience. The first magician approached me. Perhaps he chose me because I was the youngest person in the audience, or maybe he recognized from my features that I was not Egyptian, but rather that I was a tourist who was visiting Egypt for the first time. He politely asked me to give him my passport or identification card. So, I handed it to him.

He started reading the information written in my passport silently, without moving his lips. Then, his second companion standing on the stage raised his voice, announcing the information being read by his colleague.

Name: Ali bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi

Nationality: Iraqi

Occupation: Student ... etc.

Shortly after, the first magician turned to another tourist and did the same thing.

I turned my face toward my father, my eyes shining in amazement and sparkling with admiration as I asked him:

- Isn't this a trick?

- No trick at all. They are reading thoughts, just like others can read lips, for example.

The lip reader uses their sight, while the mind reader uses their insight. It does require some mental harmony, training, and focus.

At that moment, the boundaries between magic and reality faded away, and imagination embraced reality, in my view.

- But, Father, can I, for example, learn to read thoughts?

My astonishment grew, and my joy expanded when I heard my father say:

-  Why not? I can help you with that.

My father had studied religious sciences at the 'scientific' seminary in Baghdad and was involved in spiritual exercises and Sufism.

After returning from Egypt, my father began to train me in mind reading. This art is slightly different from telepathy, which is the transmission of thoughts and emotions from one mind to another at a distance without using known sensory means. Mind reading is performed with both parties present in the same place. My father explained to me that thinking differs from the idea or ideas, as thinking is the mental process that crystallizes into an idea formulated as an internal linguistic sentence that settles in the mind. Linguists call it the intermediate language. When that sentence moves from thought to expression, and the individual articulates it with the tongue, lips, and the other speech organs, it becomes spoken language, picked up by the ears of the listener, transmitted to the brain to be interpreted, comprehended, and assimilated.

My father's exercises reminded me of the exercises my piano teacher used to introduce me to musical notes. She would play one of the notes on the piano, and I had to name it. I hear the note and say:

- Re.

- Try again.

The teacher says that and replays the same note, then I say:

- Fa.

- Try again, listen carefully.

She plays the note again.

- Mi.

- Yes, well done.

At that moment, I feel relieved.

My father followed a similar method. He would form a small idea in his mind and then ask me to read it. I would summon my inner insight and focus on his mind, like he taught me. Gradually, the idea would take the form of a linguistic sentence, and I would read it with difficulty at first. But with repetition and practice, I became able to read his thoughts with ease.

Now, here I am sitting in front of my friend in his hospital room. Two days have passed, and I'm continuously attempting to understand the puzzle: his right eye shows anticipation of the unknown to come, while his left eye warns him and is afraid of his arrival. I must use my second technique, 'mind reading,' to solve the riddle. However, I hesitate for two reasons: the first is the mental strain that accompanies this technique, due to the energy expended in concentration, and the second is that my friend also reads thoughts. Strangely enough, he also learned it from his father, who studied religious sciences at the University of  Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, which is the world’s oldest university. Didn't I mention that we are alike in our hobbies, morals, habits, education, and even our family backgrounds?

He has only three days left to live, as the doctor informed me. All the loved ones, relatives, loyal companions, and old students surround him, even some of the doctors and nurses take breaks in his room. My friend, whom I used to call 'the heart hunter,' charms them with his words and captures their hearts. I looked at him, and our eyes met. He understood from my gaze that I would attempt to read his thoughts. He smiled at me in a particular way, and his eyes sparkled with a certain gleam. I got it. He is challenging me, as if saying, 'My secret is in a house whose keys have been lost and the door is sealed.'

He's kidding me. No doubt about that. He's playing games with me. He is always playful, even in our ordinary conversations. In his speech, he uses alliteration and assonance, he uses a lot of homonyms, he uses vague phrases, he invests his linguistic research for inimitability and challenge. But I won’t let him this time. Enough is enough. I will show my abilities too. I will break the seal, remove the door, and demolish the walls. You know who I am. No, my dear friend. You have crossed the threshold of humor. Now it’s time for seriousness and truth. Death is the only constant fact in this existence that does not accept joking. And yet, you continue to wear the clown’s costume and persist in laughter and amusement. No, my friend.

I closed my eyes and focused my inner sight on his thoughts in order to read them. I was not able to figure out anything. I tried again with even greater focus. And wow. There was nothing to read. His mind is devoid of any idea I can pick up. What can I say? Even the fetus in its mother's womb is not devoid of the impressions of the sounds and events from the outside world. Its tiny mind is not a blank page like your vast intellect now. Enough of play, for I am not in a state that allows me to play.

He smiles at me and continues talking with the others.

He defies me and I accept the challenge. I need to focus harder and make a greater effort to attempt something unprecedented: I will try to read his emotions before they crystallize into intermediary linguistic forms. There is no doubt that he was deliberately preventing his emotions from manifesting in his mind. He kept them hidden there in the depths.

I spent the whole afternoon experimenting. Sweat was pouring from me, and my temperature rose. One of the doctors  in attendance noticed me. Even the hospital doctors started spending their break times in his presence. He charms them with his speech. He is the greatest magician. I left the hall. The doctor followed me.

- Nothing, I said. I am fine.

But I am not one to be discouraged at the first failure. I will try tomorrow morning since all visitors have left, and it's time for dinner. I will leave too. I don't want to see the nurse feed him with a spoon, as his hands have been paralyzed for two days. But I will return tomorrow morning. The doctor estimated that he only has one or two days left, and I must find out his secret, which he refuses to reveal to anyone.

I tried to sleep well that night, preparing for my final battle. But I didn't succeed. I woke up early. I took a cold shower to awaken all my powers and senses. I headed to the hospital in the early morning, before the sparrow chirped, before the lark departed, and before the sun settled in the middle of the sky.

I found him alone. Our gazes met. The nurse came in carrying breakfast.

I asked her to leave. Something inside me preferred to be alone with him. I hand fed him, and we remained silent. Not a word. However, we were in a constant conversation with eyes, even though reading eyes today was much harder than usual, because tears were held back in our eyes. This has been our condition for the past four months. As soon as we are left alone, stubborn tears overwhelm us.

Unwillingly, my eyes begged him to reveal this unknown visitor. No response. His eyes were empty. Neither refusal nor acceptance. That's his habit. He never refuses anyone's request. So generous is he with everything. But what is this piece of information that he doesn't share with me? I looked at him. He understood from my eyes that I will do my utmost to uncover that secret.

I fell silent. I focused my tearful eyes on him entirely, not just on his eyes or facial features, but on his whole being. My intense gaze penetrated his pale skin, shattered bones, and weakened chest cage. I penetrated to the core of his heart. I participated with its faint beats in a funerary symphony. I leaked into his blood flowing slowly and fatally, I focused more and more.

My forehead is sweating. Fever ignites in my body. My heartbeats intensify crazily. My vision becomes blurry. I see him leaning in his chair in an unnatural way. He closes his eyes. His head hangs over his chest. His body is moving forward. He collapses from his seat to the ground. I see nothing else. The world darkens in my eyes. I, too, fall unconscious. We end up lying on the ground side by side.

***

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[1] This short story is a translation of  القادم   المجهول by Ali Al-Kasimi. It is the fifteenth in the short story collection Time to Leave (أوان الرحيل, under translation).

[2] From The Mystics of Islam, by Reynold A Nicholson (Routledge, Kegan Paul, London, 1914).