Two Travelers to a River
Two Travelers to a River
Mahmoud Darwish, translation by Fady Joudah
I see love five meters away. Sitting on a bench at the gate of those who travel to unimprovised destinations. The airport is crowded. The French young man and the Japanese young woman are strangers in the crowd. Wrapped up, it seemed to me, in one blue cloud. Swapping sleepiness without turning to what’s around them. She looks at him, when he lays his head on her shoulder, with a silken look, careful not to pierce him. As if she doesn’t want him to see her see him, as if they were at the beginning of love, embarrassed to let him know how much she’ll love him. Then they alternate the watch … He looks at her when she places her head on his shoulder, the look of one who’s vigilant over an antique fragile crystal. And when the looks meet, diaphanous and longing, she gets up to get a bottle of water. She gives him a drink as if she were breastfeeding him, he gives her a drink as if he were kissing her. I fold the novel I was reading for the journey, to see love from a distance. A tremor goes through me and revives me with a wave of a secret fragrance that blew my way from a Japanese woman and a Frenchman. Both are as delicate as a gazelle and a doe. He said nothing to her. She said nothing to him. They were satisfied with the interludes of silence in Japanese music. Maybe they are not old enough to speak about their state of vanishing, one into the other. Or maybe she did say something: The river that we will cross after this journey passes by our house. And he said something: The river we will pass after this journey is our house
(From the current issue of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Arts and Letters)
Mahmoud Darwish, translation by Fady Joudah
I see love five meters away. Sitting on a bench at the gate of those who travel to unimprovised destinations. The airport is crowded. The French young man and the Japanese young woman are strangers in the crowd. Wrapped up, it seemed to me, in one blue cloud. Swapping sleepiness without turning to what’s around them. She looks at him, when he lays his head on her shoulder, with a silken look, careful not to pierce him. As if she doesn’t want him to see her see him, as if they were at the beginning of love, embarrassed to let him know how much she’ll love him. Then they alternate the watch … He looks at her when she places her head on his shoulder, the look of one who’s vigilant over an antique fragile crystal. And when the looks meet, diaphanous and longing, she gets up to get a bottle of water. She gives him a drink as if she were breastfeeding him, he gives her a drink as if he were kissing her. I fold the novel I was reading for the journey, to see love from a distance. A tremor goes through me and revives me with a wave of a secret fragrance that blew my way from a Japanese woman and a Frenchman. Both are as delicate as a gazelle and a doe. He said nothing to her. She said nothing to him. They were satisfied with the interludes of silence in Japanese music. Maybe they are not old enough to speak about their state of vanishing, one into the other. Or maybe she did say something: The river that we will cross after this journey passes by our house. And he said something: The river we will pass after this journey is our house
(From the current issue of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Arts and Letters)