The Locust and the Bird by Hanan Al-Shaykh

Author:Hanan Al-Shaykh [al-Shaykh, Hanan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-37836-1
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Muhammad, despairing that things might never return to the way they’d been, wrote me a letter. I had insisted that all letters be delivered by hand. I could no longer trust any of his old strategies – leaving a letter under a stone or in the bottom of a bag of bananas – so he handed it to the boy at the grocer’s, who gave it to Maryam. Since I could not easily leave the house, the letter slept safe for a few days in my bra next to my heart, until it was read to me by Fatme:

So, have we really forgotten the wonderful past, only to live in a miserable present? You’re mine, whether you like it or not. Your life is part of mine. Every day we spend apart is a loss without recompense. Come to me, Kamila, and I’ll ignore my family. Think only of the one who loves you, who worships you. I pledge myself to live for your sake. Come to me, Kamila. Life is short, our lifespan is not for ever. Your being so far away from me is a loss; your living at such a distance is like a void. Fulfil my wish, Kamila, and we will go to a world where no other human beings live, where we are alone, where flowers and shrubs beguile us, where there are swallows and nightingales …

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