Cry in a Long Night by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

Author:Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781850773443
Publisher: Darf Publishers
Published: 2022-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Yet I felt Sumaya’s body touching me, and dreamed I was stroking her lips and breasts with my hands, and that my fingers were playing with her hair, spreading it upon the pillow, and drawing a lock towards my eyes and lips. I heard her say, ‘Two years, two whole years….’ And I said, ‘Ten years, twenty, fifty, why, why did you flee from me? Why?’ And she said, ‘I won’t flee again, I won’t flee, Amin.’

And again I ran my hand over the body lying next to me. What a wondrous fantasy! A real body. Is this how dreams come true?…Her belly…her waist…and suddenly I opened my eyes, and terror struck me. Every hair on my body stood up in fright, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, ‘Sumaya!!’ And the night was filled with my cry.

The reclining woman sat up and screamed, ‘My love, Amin, Amin.’

She bent over to hug me. I thought she wanted to strangle me, so I grabbed her arms to free them from my neck, and I yelled, ‘Who are you? Who are you?’

I jumped out of bed and turned on the light. The glare blinded me for a moment. My heart beat against my chest like ten hammers, sweat poured from my trembling body, and my mouth went dry.

Impossible, impossible. How many times had I spied a woman on the street and my heart jumped from thinking – if even for the briefest moment – that she was Sumaya. I saw Sumaya before me…sitting on my bed as she’d done in the past, almost naked, her hair spread in a wild halo around her face, where a bright pallor emphasized the height of her cheekbones and the wideness of her eyes. I hadn’t realized her eyes were so wide.

‘It’s me, Amin. Me, me…were you scared?’

I approached her, still doubting she was real, and said, ‘You terrified me. How did you get in?’

‘I still keep a door key…two whole years.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’

‘But you kissed me in bed.’

‘I thought I was dreaming.’

She laughed her silvery laugh I hadn’t at all forgotten, and said, ‘Come here…two whole years…on a night like this..’

She reached her arms towards me, and I didn’t know whether to fall between them or to grab them and drag her from my room and throw her out. But I collapsed on the bed. She took my head in her hands and kissed me. ‘I wronged you,’ she said.

‘What?’ I asked.

I felt my determination flagging, for the terror had left me. I surrendered to her dewy lips and the light smell of her sweat, which I inhaled like perfume. My hands began to reacquaint themselves with the parts of her body. But she resumed, saying, ‘My poor love. I wronged you.’

I realized then that she pitied me. The blood suddenly rushed to my head, my body rose up between her arms, and I yelled, ‘You wronged me? You betrayed me. You cheated on me.’ And I withdrew from her.

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