{"id":33479,"date":"2024-07-05T10:07:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T08:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=33479"},"modified":"2024-07-05T10:07:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T08:07:17","slug":"a-blind-window-on-childhood-a-short-story-by-hamoud-saud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/a-blind-window-on-childhood-a-short-story-by-hamoud-saud\/","title":{"rendered":"“A Blind Window on Childhood”\u2014a short story by Hamoud Saud"},"content":{"rendered":"
What does one really see? A blind grandfather peers into the darkest reaches of his family.\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hamoud Saud<\/span><\/h4>\n

Translated from Arabic by Zia Ahmed<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you see behind the door?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnother door.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd behind that door?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA house.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s in the house?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA large tree in a courtyard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s beyond the tree?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA mountain in the distance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s on top of the mountain?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA rundown fort.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDid the warriors come down from the mountain?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see any warriors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDid they leave their rifles in the dustbins of history?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s behind the fort?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA cannon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen everything stops. I don\u2019t see anything. Nobody can see that far away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut I didn\u2019t ask you about the entire scene, just what\u2019s behind the door.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot fair! You pulled me in with all these questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you consider questions to be a trap in the game of story and scene? Are you looking for a scene to nourish your limited imagination? No matter. Let\u2019s put all that aside. Let\u2019s rearrange our thoughts, even though I don\u2019t see things clearly, in all their fineness. Or perhaps I don\u2019t see them at all. To be honest, I don\u2019t like things to be arranged or categorized neatly. Here I am, sitting by the <\/span>mihrab<\/span><\/i>, feeling the light falling on me. For years, I\u2019ve been thinking about light. I sense it\u2019s coming from the east, but I want to confirm with you. You know the directions so well since you go to school now. Me, I\u2019m not so sure. Do you know the path?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe path to where, grandfather?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGood question. Let\u2019s lay aside the path and your questions for the moment. Let\u2019s start putting things back in order and take a different path to the details of the scene. The wall I\u2019m leaning against is the western side of a tiny mosque I built in 1979. There were no walls then. This place was as open as our souls, immense, surrounded by mountains, with tents made of palm fronds pitched here and there. Electricity hadn\u2019t arrived then. My children and I used to pray here. Then, things got scattered. Time and childhood flew by. Some of them traveled overseas, while others went to war, never to return. The walls grew and became houses, which in turn begat more walls and more secrets. The windows of childhood closed prematurely. I got a room, with a small farm on the south side and an electricity connection. I first felt the breeze from an electric fan in 1989, but I never saw the lights come on. Dear child, the blind are a forgotten footnote in the manuscript of the sighted and their haste, a crutch abandoned in darkness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut grandfather, what does this wall have to do with that door and the trap of questions?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to understand the beginnings of things, you must create their memory and history. So let\u2019s rearrange the scene again: what\u2019s in front of you? Give me details.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA white door, open.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s behind the open white door?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnother door, green, made of iron.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what\u2019s behind the green iron door?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA white house, with a blue water tanker parked beside it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you see on the white house\u2019s wall?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA black line, running down from the gutter to a little bicycle.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat line is a deep sadness in the house, burrowing into the souls and hearts of its people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know, grandfather?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe blind are more perceptive than you, child. Put aside your questions. Let\u2019s restore the story. Remember that haste spoils the pleasure of speech. Must we target the story\u2019s fragile body with these arrow-like questions? In which case, there\u2019s nothing to narrate. You\u2019re just restoring the details of a blurry scene that you don\u2019t see in your memory, trying to grasp the roots of questions to create fragile and scattered tales. Questions are pillars holding up the story and clinging to the roots of speech. You see things in front of you, whereas I brew their history in my memory. There\u2019s no story without history, no history without perception, no perception without pain. Only the blind, women and madmen can truly grasp stories and their roots.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGrandfather, you see faraway things even though you\u2019re blind. Sorry, but I can only see what\u2019s in front of me. Or what I can imagine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cVery well. Let\u2019s go back to the house then, specifically, to the wall. What do you see on the wall?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said, a black line descending from above.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes no difference if the line is descending from above or rising from below. In either case, it indicates the house\u2019s sorrow. If it\u2019s descending, then sorrow is eating away at the house\u2019s roots. But if it\u2019s ascending, then sorrow is extending into the house\u2019s spaces and eras.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCan walls be sad, grandfather?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll things have their sadness or joy, provided someone listens to them, ponders their pain without rushing or intruding upon them, without begging. For things reveal their memories, emotions and madness to those who befriend them, those who\u2019re skilled at reading their shadows. My child, things are like a mother\u2019s tender heart, or like the kindness of a dying grandmother.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cHow do you sense the sadness of things if you\u2019re blind, grandfather? How can you read shadows when you can\u2019t see?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true that I can\u2019t see, but I can feel. Even time\u2014which you don\u2019t feel\u2014I feel its sadness, its sheer joy at dawn. I feel the silence of things at midnight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut <\/span>how<\/span><\/i> do you feel, grandfather?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDear child, don\u2019t ask a blind man how he can penetrate the depth of things with his soul, for he has a sense of perception that the sighted cannot comprehend. Don\u2019t ask mountains about their magnificence and loneliness, don\u2019t ask widows about their sorrow, don\u2019t ask birds about their joy in the spring, for everything ultimately reveals its essence without being asked.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you say the wall of the white house is sad? Maybe that black line is happy <\/span>kohl<\/span><\/i> in its eyes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChild, whenever you see blackness on a white wall, think about the sadness of the people in that house.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut can\u2019t houses have both sadness and joy, grandfather, all mixed up together?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right, my child. Now, what\u2019s that blue water tanker doing by the house? Are people thirsty? Has the well I dug in the early seventies gone dry?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGrandfather, why does a blue water tanker mean people are thirsty? Are you making things up or telling me what\u2019s really going on? Is a black line on a white wall really sadness? What if another car was parked outside instead of the blue water tanker? What would that have to do with a well you dug a long time ago?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNever you mind. Children are always bored or in a rush, unable to comprehend the essence of things. Maybe you\u2019ll understand the game of possibilities in our story. Don\u2019t rush into this game without the safety rope of possibilities, so as not to fall into the pit of certainty or the trap of reality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand what you\u2019re saying. But I do see a blue water tanker parked outside by the white wall.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s leave the tanker where it is. Now, there are certain items that drivers usually leave on the dashboard. Can you go fetch them?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you need these items for your story, grandfather? Is it a game in your imagination?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDear child, stories need roots and small, marginal details. Details are like salt. Without them you can\u2019t taste a story\u2019s flavor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The moment the child went out the white door to run over to the blue water tanker, tears rolled down from the blind man\u2019s eyes into his white beard. He reached up and felt the wetness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The tears had disappeared in the whiteness of time and the dark of memories. Memories flooded over the man, who knew the things and places the child had asked about. Paths, journeys, famines, mountains, stories and years of drought passed through the blind man\u2019s life as wars raged and tribes skirmished. Before the man\u2019s recollection had extended too far into the distant past, the child returned with a sheaf of papers and a blue notebook. He sat down once again at his blind grandfather\u2019s side.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the child opened the blue notebook, wrinkled pages, old electricity bills and a blue pen fell out. The blind man started at the sound. The child picked up a piece of paper and read aloud some unfamiliar names and numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nasser bin Abdullah, 15 riyals. Salem bin Mohammed, 20 riyals. Al-Sharqi Sons, 10. Malabari Restaurant, 10.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The blind man became impatient. He said to the child, \u201cLook through the notebook. Water sellers keep their secrets in their notebooks, before they disappear into oblivion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The child flipped through the blue notebook, pausing occasionally to read more names and numbers. Somewhere in the middle, he saw a letter written in spidery handwriting. He tried to spell out the words. The grandfather remained silent, listening to the child as he struggled through the text.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear father and mother, I want to send you this letter although I\u2019ve never written a letter to anyone in my life before. Even when the Arabic teacher asked us in class to write a letter to a friend, I wrote about friendship instead. He got angry and punished me by making me write it out five times. I didn\u2019t write a love letter, or a goodbye letter, or a letter to the government to ask for something. I don\u2019t like to ask the government for anything, although our government loves those who ask for things. So that\u2019s why I\u2019ve never written a letter in my life.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Roads take people to their homes and destinations, and I\u2019m writing to you while standing by the side of a road, burning with loss and longing for you. I\u2019m trying very hard to make sure people don\u2019t see my tears. I miss you both very much. Mother, I miss your voice at dawn. Father, I miss you at morning prayer before your coffee. I don\u2019t know what the point of life is without you. Everything seems gray when your loss is piercing my soul. All things wither in your absence. Even the tree in the courtyard of our house is lifeless. I miss you so much.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The blind grandfather tried to hide his tears from the child, who didn\u2019t understand the reason for tears, or his grandfather\u2019s relationship to the letter and the water tanker. Silence swaddled the space. The child looked at the tears falling on his grandfather\u2019s white beard, trying to figure out why he was crying. He was afraid to ask and make his grandfather cry even more. He thought of asking him about the doors again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGrandfather, why are these doors open toward the white house? Why is the second door green? Have you told the entire story now?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The grandfather stroked his beard for a while, feeling its moisture. Then he said: \u201cLoss and sadness can\u2019t reconstruct a story, my child. Rather, they break the story apart and fray its connections. The doors are open so you can see how time\u2019s arrows tear things apart. As for the second door\u2019s greenness, you should be grateful that it soothes the savagery of cement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

After he\u2019d stopped crying by the blue water tanker, the man who\u2019d written a letter to his dead parents in their white house came inside the mosque. He prayed in silence, while his blind grandfather and the child stood behind him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Shadows of the Story<\/h4>\n

A tree rooted to the foot of a nearby mountain listened sadly to the conversation between the child and his blind grandfather, not understanding the full story, grieving at the grandfather\u2019s tears and sorrow. It had known the grandfather since it had been a sapling, seen him walking the paths at dawn, heard his tales around the warmth of winter stoves. To reconstruct the story of the blind man and his grandchild, it called out to the large tree in the courtyard of the white house, the same tree the grandfather had asked about earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDear tree, guarding the house\u2019s joy and sorrows, why did the grandfather cry so much, as if he were a child?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAh, distant tree, guardian of the dawn, friend of afternoons: every house has its secrets and its wounds. You know the grandfather better than I. You saw him as a youth, whereas I\u2019ve always been bound to this house of cement. But I can tell you this: no man in the twilight of his life should have to see his child depart before him. I understand what happened to the man praying at the mosque. When faced with death, human beings are like children, no matter how old they get. The praying man lost both his parents on one day. Now he feels like he\u2019s lost everything. In his dreams he sees his mother calling him. His eyes, like Jacob\u2019s, have whitened with sorrow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the man had performed his last prostration in prayer, the house tree fell silent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The man who\u2019d written a letter that he\u2019d never send emerged from the mosque with his blue notebook.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*The blind grandfather is a recurring figure in Hamoud Saud\u2019s short fictions. \u201c<\/span>Nafitha Litafoolat Alaa\u2019ma<\/span><\/a>\u201d [\u201cA Blind Window on Childhood\u201d]<\/span> originally appeared in Al Faisal, a monthly cultural magazine established in 1977.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Omani writer Hamoud Saud\u2019s short story \u201cA Blind Window on Childhood\u201d translated from Arabic by Zia Ahmed, reveals a family’s secret history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":582,"featured_media":33624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,2995,3644],"tags":[3645,3646,2401,3647],"coauthors":[3648,3649],"class_list":["post-33479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-short-stories","category-tmr-43-summer-fiction-24","tag-blindness","tag-family-secrets","tag-oman","tag-questions","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n"A Blind Window on Childhood"\u2014a short story by Hamoud Saud - The Markaz Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Omani writer Hamoud Saud\u2019s short story \u201cA Blind Window on Childhood\u201d translated from Arabic 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