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THE SHORT STORIES OF ZAKARIA TAMER factory and the cries and the hard faces that steal even the passing pleasure hidden in my eye. I will die. My footsteps quicken on the pavement, quicken and quicken, and the emptiness of my room confines me. I will die. I begin to swallow the small smooth pills and I smile a bitter smile. Only pills can save me from my misery: and kill me. I stretched out on my bed without taking off my clothes. The world withdrew from me with all of its despicable shouting, and the hidden black spot in my heart tore off its masks. It continued to grow until it transformed into an invincible spider – it was so easy for me to fall between its sticky legs as they wrapped around me and prevented me from moving. I rejoiced a little when the door opened, and I smiled happily. My white horse had returned! He drew near, and stood so close that I could smell the scent of the soil he had cantered over on his long journey. I tremble as I hear his neighing, calling me, and I cannot respond. In that instant, I was feeling strangely disoriented, as if I were a corpse floating on a slow moving river. Oh, how I had wished my errant white horse would return that I could mount him and leave his reins slack so he could carry me across prairies that have no horizon. The neighing rose up a second time. Unfortunately, he will leave alone if I do not accompany him. He will leave alone. I heard the door slamming and hooves tramping the earth in an angry rhythm and a sad neighing growing distant and gradually fading away. I said to myself: “I will wait one more time. He will return. He will get tired of wandering alone.” A woman’s voice reached my ear: “Don’t worry. My hot flesh will make you forget the entire world.” I said in terror, hiding my surprise: “Who are you?” She laughed and said: “I am your childhood friend – don’t you remember? You liked to press yourself against me and kiss me shyly.” I said: “Don’t trick me. You are an old whore.” She stared at me for a moment, stunned, then burst into tears. Embarrassed, I was struck by an overwhelming wave of sympathy and said to her in confusion: “Forgive me . . . I love you.” She said: “Say it again!” I said: “I love you. I love you.” 64 BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015
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THE NEIGHING OF THE WHITE HORSE She said: “When you say those words don’t you feel like a new, wonderful person is being born in your soul?” I said: “There is nothing inside me but spiders and deserted graves.” She said aggressively: “I hate graves. I hate you. I hate the whole world.” Then I closed my eyes, feeling a strange tiredness. In quick moments the world shrank and became a big rock hurtling through empty space with no land upon it. I remained alone, face to face with an ugly man who was coming toward me brandishing a drawn sword with a shining blade. He said: “I will kill you. This sword is ancient and claims a victim every night.” I said: “It’s like my city.” He said: “I will kill you. One day there will be no more victims and I’ll be the only person. Then I will become the victim, so that the sword can maintain its youth and glitter. I will kill you. You will enjoy a new taste as the sharp blade slides into your tender flesh.” He drew nearer to me, a smile on his face that terrified me despite the fact that it dripped fondness and love. My body drew back, trembling in a flood of crippling convulsions brought on by unmasked fear. I became again a child wandering through narrow, zigzagging alleyways. The child laughs happily and embraces everything with a mother’s eagerness. If only I had never grown up. I was defeated before I was born. I inherited the executioner’s sword. Burned down the homes of my yesterday. Squandered my tomorrow. Oh, Mother – the jasmine garden in my heart is dying. I’ll grow old. Oh, my star, that has gone out on the marble thighs of a woman. When will death grow old? The scarlet rivers wail silently in my desolate fields. The flute of winter nights plays surprisingly gently. A white dancer gyrates in blue clouds. A wounded nightingale alights on a branch of a lemon tree, its fragrance kissing a green window. Tired horses sleeping on shimmering asphalt. The dawn like a gallows. Slowly eating apples, women stretched out naked on silk cushions. Men made of cigarette butts. Summer dips its stiff fingers into my trembling blood and runs above abandoned cities. Your lips, my poor love, are a dimly-lit tavern toward which men returning from distant ports make their way. A train whistle in the tumultuous streets where three men loiter aimlessly, wondering: “Tonight BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015 65

THE SHORT STORIES OF ZAKARIA TAMER

factory and the cries and the hard faces that steal even the passing pleasure hidden in my eye.

I will die. My footsteps quicken on the pavement, quicken and quicken, and the emptiness of my room confines me. I will die. I begin to swallow the small smooth pills and I smile a bitter smile. Only pills can save me from my misery: and kill me.

I stretched out on my bed without taking off my clothes. The world withdrew from me with all of its despicable shouting, and the hidden black spot in my heart tore off its masks. It continued to grow until it transformed into an invincible spider – it was so easy for me to fall between its sticky legs as they wrapped around me and prevented me from moving.

I rejoiced a little when the door opened, and I smiled happily. My white horse had returned! He drew near, and stood so close that I could smell the scent of the soil he had cantered over on his long journey.

I tremble as I hear his neighing, calling me, and I cannot respond. In that instant, I was feeling strangely disoriented, as if I were a corpse floating on a slow moving river. Oh, how I had wished my errant white horse would return that I could mount him and leave his reins slack so he could carry me across prairies that have no horizon.

The neighing rose up a second time. Unfortunately, he will leave alone if I do not accompany him. He will leave alone. I heard the door slamming and hooves tramping the earth in an angry rhythm and a sad neighing growing distant and gradually fading away.

I said to myself: “I will wait one more time. He will return. He will get tired of wandering alone.”

A woman’s voice reached my ear: “Don’t worry. My hot flesh will make you forget the entire world.”

I said in terror, hiding my surprise: “Who are you?” She laughed and said: “I am your childhood friend – don’t you remember? You liked to press yourself against me and kiss me shyly.”

I said: “Don’t trick me. You are an old whore.” She stared at me for a moment, stunned, then burst into tears. Embarrassed, I was struck by an overwhelming wave of sympathy and said to her in confusion: “Forgive me . . . I love you.”

She said: “Say it again!” I said: “I love you. I love you.”

64 BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015

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