Today I sat with my cousin Ya’akub, to whom I confessed: “I love Sultana, I adore her.” I did not tell him that I have revealed to you the secret of my love. He thinks I should do so before I depart. When will I receive a clear answer from you? Ah, Sultana, have pity and do not let me go with an anxious heart and a worried mind. The anguish of parting is enough.
Nazim Ibn-Zaidoun was now joined by the Palestinian beauty from the checkroom. Playing the role of Khalil es-Sakakini’s beloved, she stood with a white rose in her long hair and declaimed the letter written by the thirty-year-old Palestinian in its original Arabic.
Rivlin cast a warm glance at his wife, who was listening with empathy to the words even though they were only sounds for her. The eyes of the translatoress were damp with tears behind their glasses.
“What did you think of the translation?” he whispered.
She shrugged disdainfully. “Who can’t translate such simple Arabic?”
“Simple but beautiful,” he said.
She looked at him suspiciously, then nodded slowly and, annoyed, took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.
She was not the only one moved. Opening the festival, the simple but genuine love letter of the Palestinian educator — a revolutionary in his thoughts and a romantic in his feelings — sent a shiver through the audience and made it want more. As Es-Sakakini’s last words faded and Ibn-Zaidoun signaled the musicians to strike up a sweetly plaintive tune, the first poets edged toward the stage for the contest.
The cleverly creative festival director, however, was not in any hurry. First he wished to build up the suspense, setting the bar for the young poets with classical, but still bold and lively, verse. He would begin with some eighth-century poems by “the curly-headed one,” as he was known, the great Abu-Nawwas, followed by excerpts from the ninth-century poet Al-Hallaj. Both men were rebels and possibly not even true Arabs, for they were born in Persia and lived and wrote in Baghdad, where Abu-Nawwas ended his life in a dungeon and Al-Hallaj by losing his head. Their poems, Ibn-Zaidoun announced, ratcheting up the audience’s expectations, would be read by the great Palestinian poet, who need not fear their competition in tonight’s contest.
The poet recited the classic verse in a voice rusty from tobacco smoke. Hebrew translations, prepared in advance, were then read aloud by Ibn-Zaidoun, who appeared to consider himself knowledgeable on the sacred language of the Jews.
Uktubi In Katabti, Ya Maniyya
When you write, my precious one, I pray you,
Do so with an open heart and a frank spirit and your spit.
Make many mistakes and erase them all
With it. No fingers, please.
Wet the page with the sweetness
Of your lovely teeth.
Each time I read a line you have corrected,
I’ll lick it with my tongue,
A kiss from afar,
Leaving me giddy and dazed!
Ya Sakiyyati
O you who made me drink the bitter cup
That made a pleasant life unbearable!
Before I bore love’s yoke I was well thought of,
And she, the one I love, dwelt in king’s chambers.
Then some evil-wisher waylaid me with love,
And heaped upon me shame and degradation.
Her scent is of the musk of sea-dwellers.
Her smile outshines the buds of chamomile.
She laughs when friends bring gifts of fragrances.
“Does perfume need perfume?” she asks.
They say, “Why do you not adorn yourself?”
She answers, “Any jewelry
Would dull my luster.
Did I not throw away my silver bangles
To keep myself from blinding them?”
Next, to assure the Israelis — who by now had blended invisibly into the packed audience — that they, too, had a role in the golden age of the Arabs, two poems were read about Jews, who in days of old had pandered to Muslims with forbidden pleasures.
Ind al-Yahudiyya
I went to Kutkebul laden with gold crowns,
Eighty dinars saved by my hard work.
In no time I had blown them like flies,
And pledged a good silk shirt,
A fancy robe, and my best suit
To the Jewess who runs the tavern.
No woman more modest, more gracious, more lovely!
“My beauty,” I said to her, “come, be a sport,
Give us a kiss and be done with it!”
“But why,” she replied, “do you want a woman’s love
When a boy,
All dreamy-eyed and smooth as a gold coin,
Is so much better?”
She went and fetched a lissome lad,
Bright as the moon, fresh-bottomed—
But I, I left that place dead broke
And down on my luck.
And though, my shirt lost to her wine,
She said in parting,
“Now be well,”
I tell you that I felt like hell.
The Palestinians roared good-humoredly. The Israelis, prepared in the cause of peace to share the blame for a cunning Jewess who had lived twelve hundred years ago, tittered politely.
Ibn-Zaidoun now put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and read, to the delight of the audience, another poem about a Jew.
Jitu Ma’a As’habi
I came with my friends, both fine young men,
To the tavern keeper at the hour of ten.
You could tell by his dress he was no Muslim.
Our intentions were good — I can’t say that of him.
“Your religion,” we asked, “it’s Christianity?”
He let loose a flood of profanity.
Well, that’s a Jew: It’s love to your face
And a knife in the back, anytime, anyplace.
“And what,” we asked, “shall we call you, sir?”
“Samuel,” he said. “Or else Abu-Amar.
Not that I like having an Arab name.
It certainly isn’t a claim to fame.
Yet I prefer it all the same
To longer ones that aren’t as plain.”
“Well said, Abu Amar!” we chimed.
“And now be a friend and break out the wine.”
He looked us up and he looked us down,
And he said, “I swear, if word gets out in this town,
Because of you, that I sell booze,
I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”