Crucifixion: Nathalie Handal on being Palestinian, writing and enduring love

In the latest in our series of essays on what life and work are like for writers around the world, Nathalie Handal describes an existence where hearts race so fast it’s hard to find time for grief

By Nathalie Handal for The Writing Life Around the World from Electric Literature, part of the Guardian Books Network

I sit by the window and wait for her to finish her story. She has the posture of a ballerina. Her honey-colored eyes against her hot magenta headscarf offer a striking contrast. We are on a bus at the Bethlehem checkpoint en route to Jerusalem. The anthology of Arabic verse I’m carrying inspired the exchange. She tells me that each time she enters Damascus Gate she recreates the day that changed her forever. Then adds that she has eleven versions so far. I don’t know what she is speaking about and for a second the sky’s paleness distracts us. She explains:

I memorize. I’m addicted to memorizing. I memorize the exact pitch in the voice of the kaak seller, the gleam in my sister’s eyes when she meets the sun by the window, the circumference of the circular window. I memorize Al-Mutanabbi. I just memorized the face in the red Toyota Corolla that passed by us. I memorize street numbers, abandoned neckties, books. I memorize him. His charcoal eyes. His full lips. Square chin. White teeth. I forget him. I keep re-memorizing him. Together we wrote poetry. Threw the fear in the mountains we never could get to.

I forget he memorized with me. Once we memorized Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s work, and as we started Ghassan Kanafani’s stories, the half-moon insisted we memorize it first. We were happy in our craziness. We ached. I memorize the way my hands get cold and my heart beats aimlessly as if it’s broken. I forget I remember him. And his Lifta. Forget the rain caught in the yellow light of night. I forget the pen he gave to me. The one I left with him so that he could keep giving it to me each time we met. I forget I never saw him again. Forget why he didn’t memorize the world and stayed with me—a strange soul who memorizes to keep the empty rooms in every blank page of my notebook away.

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