KurdishMedia.com

 By Sardar Aziz

 6/7/2003

In the picture she is sitting in one of two red chairs in my living room.

She is smiling, looking at me. I took the picture more than a year ago,

one evening when she came over to dinner – an Eastern kind of rice and okra.

When we started to drink wine, she asked whether we would also be drinking

wine with our meal. I told her that when I wanted to have a good relaxing

read I always have wine with it.

"You are mad, how can you have wine alone? Wine means company".

"That’s in France", I tell her.

It’s Sunday evening. The apartment that I live in is located at the top of a

hill. It’s quiet, very quiet. It’s my best time for writing and playing

music. I’m listening to an Arabic song saying, "Every one of us has

memories/ sometimes we remember them and sometimes we forget them/ but if

you ask me, you might not believe, she is my only sweet memory".

"You are my sweetest memory", I say to myself as I look at picture closely.

I kept a diary then, written as a task for an English teacher who was

teaching me English - although in places I reverted to Kurdish. The text is

full of mistakes, bloody grammar mistakes; its title is " Recalling the

Things". The account I look at is about our first date but starts when I

arrived back home, to my bedroom, alone. It says it was three o’clock in the

morning. I take off my wet clothes. I shudder from the cold of the room. My

single bed is frozen as well and I can feel the cold coming through my body

from my feet. During my medical years I learned that there are fewer blood

vessels in the feet compare with the rest of body.

The Arabic song continues, saying, " you who had a date with me tomorrow,

I’m here for tomorrow, I have already started to love tomorrow".

In the picture I took she is looking at a book about the Belgium painter who

painted the pipe and wrote under it, " It’s Not A Pipe". She is wearing a

blue coloured necklace - a colour that my mother maintained kept a man or

woman from jealousy; but for me it’s like an endless horizon – it makes me

feel relaxed. Her face looks like a full moon in a clear sky and her dark hair is as winter night.

In the diary I record that we went to see, "King Lear", in Cork Art Theatre

on our first date. I remember it as if it had happened yesterday. The hall

smelt humid and it was small. I felt I was hiding myself from a bombardment,

which was something that happened often throughout my childhood. But I

couldn’t tell her that. Instead I said ‘This is so small I feel I’m at my

grandmother’s birthday party.’ Even though my grandmother never had a

birthday party in her life! We sat beside each other and she smelled good.

She was wearing a colourful dress.She put her mouth close to my ear and

said, " I like small theatres. I don’t like to be in a crowd. I always feel

so lost". After a pause she asked if I had ever read anything by Sartre.

Yes, his play, I say. Close Up, which is about hell; his novel "Nausea" and

some of his philosophical essays. I tell her I love the story "Wall". We

laugh as we leave the theatre, confessing that we didn’t know what the play was about.

In her letter she talks about a lot of things, music, madness, silence,

novels, poetry. She also says, " I wish I could write like Sartre".

"My mad man". She started every letter with that phrase. Mad and madness was

a topic we had an endless argument about. It was a good opportunity to talk

about Foucault’s book, " Madness and Civilisation".

We repeated together its first sentences," Men are so necessarily mad, that

not to be mad would amount to another form of madness". She always smiled

and said it was Pascal who said that.

In a letter she goes on to talk about her piece of writing, this text,

indeed, is more a kind of poem than a short story. I did write once a short

story but you never saw it. Here I don’t care so much about my character,

his past and the reason of her depression. Neither am I really talking about

death in a philosophical way. That’s not the point. I wanted through the

magic and power of words expressing a feeling, a madness feeling.

The irony was, that nigh I was also taking refuge in language to help me

bring out the aftermath feeling of the date and make me sleep.

In my text I wrote, " I’ll write it down tomorrow in my red colour notebook,

it might be in future, I need it to make it a part of a novel or a story.

It’s always so, after a while of time you can fictionalise your daily normal event easily".

However, that night, I couldn’t sleep I had to recall every thing that

happened that day and chronologically.

Before for a long time when I went to bed, sometimes my candle scarcely out,

my eyes would close so quickly that I did not have time to say to myself: ‘ I’m falling asleep’. That night I couldn’t sleep even for a minute; I felt my head was like Wall Street. I need it to recall everything, as only way to bring out from my head and sleep.

Why do I have to recall it? Why do I have to write it down? Is it to feel

the same feeling that I felt while I was with her? Is writing able to do

that? However, the only thing I wanted that early morning was to sleep. They

say true love keeps you awake all night and makes you sleepless man.

Do I love her? Why do I love her? Love for me is simple, when I meet someone

after a short while I know whether that face can save me from loneliness or

not. She had that kind of face. She was able to make feel I’m not alone.

Where are you now? What happened to you? I’ve too much to remember, the

sunny day in the university grass when we leant against each other back to

back, I was reading The year of Death Ricardo Rise and you were reading

Norwegian Wood.

We went to a cafe later and we spent the whole day talking and drinking

coffee. You told me I always talk about books, you didn’t let me to

talk

about you, you were so shy, I had to hide myself when you were playing

the

guitar.

Are you in Paris with your old nanny who disturbs your silence by

always

complaining? I’ll come to Paris; we can go to the "Le Dernier Metro",

to

continue our endless chat.

You might say, " first of all, let’s go to Jose Corti’s book store".

It’s a

famous Parisian second-hand see that, Foucault used to visit when he

was

young. Then you recall the story that we repeated hundred times. " One

day

Foucault went there and found a yellow faded book by someone called

Raymond

Roussel, then he asked Coti (the shop owner), who this man was? Old

Coti,

wearied by his ignorance and look at him with a generous kind of pity

and

told him everything".

In that afternoon we’ll go to St. Lazare train station, taking a train

to

Normandy and meet your mom, who doesn’t believe in God, I always find

it

easer to talk and have relationship with people who have nothing holy

in

their life. Your dad who loves photography and old black and white

French

movies, he might tell me more about Bresson and my beloved director

Vigo,

his short life, his poetic films, his anarchistic father.

You are wearing your silver necklace on, which there was a statue of a

hors.

I know you love riding. We’ll repeat the discussion we had about that

hors

who also commit suicide. I won’t repeat the story when I was a

guerrilla in

the mountains and our horse committed suicide. I know you’ll tell me,

nothing is normal in an abnormal situation. Despite my disagreement

I’ll nod

yes. Then we stay silent. We both believe, you should stay silent when

you

are facing a beauty and the sceneries outside the window are beautiful.

Two

Here I am in Paris. Sitting in the old Argentinean café near St Lazare

train

station. Some one called my name, Dara.

When I turned around, I saw her face. The face I once described looks

like

an ant. She was not happy about that, " you always have a crazy

imagination," she told me.

I remembered the day when we talked for the first time; it wasn’t easy

to

talk to her. She was always silent.

It was after writing class, when she collected her stuff; I saw that

book

which I was planning to read, The God of Small Things. I picked up the

book

and read the writer’s name, Arundahti Roy. "Have you read it?" she

asked.

"No I haven’t but I will read it soon." It’s more than a year and I

haven’t

read it. Every time I want to read I remember her then I don’t know

what I

am reading.

"Laetitia", I said.

We hugged and kissed with our lips. It wasn’t as tasty as when we did

it

first time in front of her door, in Magazine Street. It was early

morning,

raining.

When did you arrive? What did you do?

This afternoon, I came straight away from the airport to here.

Do you like Paris?

I see myself like Ayatollah Khomeini when he arrived here before the

Revolution. He kept his eyes on the ground the entire time, determined

not

to allow anything that was evil to impinge on his conscience.

"You are not; I don’t believe that, you liked me first time when I was

wearing a short skirt. You were saying, I like it; it’s a symbol of

freedom

and revolution, May 68. You always want to connect everything with

revolution".

She sat close to me, I looked at her with passion and I couldn’t

resist, I

put my hand on her shoulder. When I wanted to kiss her neck in the back

under her long ponytail hair I smelled apple

"Your perfume smells like apples."

"You don’t like it?"

I stayed silent, I couldn’t answer. I removed my arm and started to

drink my

coffee.

"What’s wrong? Are you allergic to apples?"

"You remember once you told me that music for you was beauty, purity

and

madness. Are you still playing with that passion?"

" Yes, I am, but why do you want to change the subject? Your face look

like

a gambler who has lost every penny, it also look like Becket’s, I know

you

like me to say that, so sad and so full of wrinkles, what happened,

tell me?

Did Paris remind you of something sad? As far as I know you always

liked

this city, however, there is a big gap between that picture in your

mind and

the real city."

I didn’t know what to say, how to explain.

"No", I said.

"You haven’t been in Paris before, you told me you were in Oslo,

looking for

me! That was hilarious." She started laughing. I wanted to laugh also,

at

least show my teeth. I couldn’t. I tried to remember that day.

"How was it?" I asked her.

"It was night we were in the old university bar, I asked you and you

told me

you were in Oslo searching, I said, searching for what. You said, you".

I wanted to say that I was searching for someone, pretty, hot, sexy and

smart like you. I couldn’t and there was no need also, I said that a

hundred

times before.

"Tell me Dara, what happened, why have you suddenly become sad? Is it

me,

the city, people, weather, what, just tell me please?"

How can I describe it, you wear that perfume to make me feel good. You

don’t

know what it means to me. Remind me of what.

What can I describe?

Can I describe how five thousand women and children smelt the same and

died

with in a minute? I was thinking of leaving. Looked at her face, she

had a

heart breaking sadness. I stayed.

Three

"What’s this cold continent famous for?"

"Brutality and arms trade", she replied.

Now let me tell you a story, which connect both of them.

One day in spring more than a decade ago, in a sleepy town among the

mountains, in the place, which does not exist on the world map, called

Kurdistan.

I know that, you showed me some pictures in the Internet; I never

believed

there are mountains and snow in that part of the world. That helped me

to

understand your very softness and hardness on the same time.

It was Friday the16th of March; at 11:45 a group of aircraft came and

started bombardment. They repeated this twenty times that day. Those

aircrafts were made here, darling. Worker work there and they are proud

that

they have a job.

"Let’s go somewhere else", she suggest, "place we can walk, Luxembourg

garden".

We left the café I had a last look. I told myself, Jurge Luis Borges, I

like

you. We were silent in the tram. In the garden she said, "Go on then?"

All the bombs that were dropped that day were cyanide, Sarin, Soman and

VX.

Germans made them; people who believe that whatever augments the

feeling of

power, the will to power, power itself in man, is good.

We reached the toughest part of the story; I didn’t know how to tell, I

was

sweating we sat down. She was looking at me to continue.

"Those gases smelt of apple!" I said it quickly and I took a deep

breath.

We sank into a deep silence. I was comparing the motivation of the

German

companies and her. The desire to be embraced by her is a desire for

life,

relation, love and being accepted by others. Meanwhile the companies

mixed

the gas with that smell to make people inhale more and make sure it

killed

them.

How can I handle that, one smell, the bloody apple, reminds me of

catastrophic events and love.

"You don’t have to feel any bad; it has nothing to do with you, its all

my

history and me".

"The history you never made it, it is always made by other for you",

she

said, and continued, " During school years when we study the Second

World

War, after all that happened should those people ever participate in

hurting

others".

That was a kind of relief; I felt I found a way to talk. I hugged her.

After

a short of silence she said, "tell me do those gases naturally smell

like

apples?"

"No, they mix it with it".

"And why did that happen"?

"It happened during the war between Iraq and Iran. When the Iraqi lost

their

control over the town, they bombarded it with chemical weapons".

"Why was there a war there?"

"To create the markets for Western companies. In this planet that we

live

in, eighty percent of the population are suffering to create a welfare

life

for the minority twenty. And that’s dated back to the first day when

white

men left his cold continent".

"How can so small a minority control that big majority?" She asked.

"Isn’t that the history of human being?"

"Then it’s natural?"

How can suffering be natural, how can killing be natural? It became so

because of the advance in industry. When the ships departed from the

ports

in Europe and arrived in the new lands, they always bombarded the place

first, and then they went in. Blind massacre was the method and it’ll

remain

so. This advance in technology and merciless killing creates that, it

is not

natural."

After a time of silence she said, "Then now it’s a time for that

majority to

be themselves and to represent themselves".

"You remind me of stupid Marx when he said, ‘Eastern they cannot

represent

themselves, they have to be represented".

"By the way you didn’t tell me the name of the town"?

It’s Halabja, not only with its first letter does it shares a lot with

Hiroshima.

I try not to forget it, she said.

"It’s time for me to go".

" It was lovely to see you again"

We hugged but I didn’t kiss. She said, " I didn’t inhale sarin". Then

we

kissed and I left.

In a tram I brought out my book and started to read. (On 1 June 1731, a

ship

called Diligent set sail from Brittany. It was weighed down with Indian

cloth, cowry shells from the Maldives, white linen from Hamburg, guns,

ammunition and smoking pipe from Holland, kegs of brandy from the Loire

valley, and with the all important supply for the crew: firewood and

flour,

dry biscuits, fava beans, hams, salt beef, cheese, white wine and

water.

There was one other item to be loaded: 150 slave irons with their locks

and

keys, manufactured from Nantes).

I couldn’t read anymore. I put the book back in to the rucksack, and

start

thinking about Leatitia. Will we meet again in future? Should we think

only

about our individual problems? No, I can’t, that’s nonsense. It is a

way to

make you small, weak and alone. If happened one day I lived with out

considering others then I became also fascist. I will continue love her

but

I might not see her.