ALIENATED

Alienated

Rafi (Selman) Al Saffar

 January. The light grows paler at the approach of evening. Lonely, sitting near the window, watching the snowflakes that fall in dancing rhythms to fill the space and cover the ground. She says enquiringly:

“What would you like to eat for dinner?”

Attempting to clarify his attitude, he says that a weird heavy depression lies on his chest, capturing his breaths, and almost about to strangle him. She appears at the door of the kitchen. She raises another question:

“Beer or wine?”

He looks at her recollecting a few lovely moments.

“Maybe a glass of wine with a piece of sausage stuffed with cheddar.”

Her voice comes through the telephone strict and decisive:

“Don’t get out. It is too cold outside.”

She stops for a moment as if chewing something in her mouth. She adds:

“Do you hear me? Don’t get out. I’ll bring you all your needs.”

Through the window, on the opposite side of the street, he imagines that he has seen something moving under the snow. It is not a dog, though Sofia, as everybody knows, is infested with them. It is smaller than to be a dog, completely covered with snow, and it has been moving in short closed circles, then it stops.

A taxi passes, white on top, yellow on the sides. Though he loses its trace, he remains drawn to the spot where that thing moved for a while then halted. He is now wholly alert of that creature which appears to be struggling to find a way out of his unexpected trouble.

Another potential comes to his mind. It might have lost its last breaths and died. Life has come to its end, and therefore, there is no need to seek survival. In other words, it is now outside the world of living things. But, no. There is still some movement under the snow.

The falling snow flakes draw short straight lines penetrating the light coming out of a lamppost hanging on top of the same area. Precisely beneath the post is the spot where something moved under the snow for a while then came to a halt.

In spring, when the sun has the opportunity to go through the scattered clouds and spread a thin sheet of cold light on the walls, over the wet trees and on the shrinking faces, he is suddenly obsessed by a weird desire and invites her for lunch at Bychristo on top of the mountain Vitosha.

They take the cable cars with its open seats and fly over the green valley where the whole area is covered with trees and bushes, and the snaky narrow path moving up with them towards the climax.

He gazes into the cold space outside, with his face attached to the glass of the window, and his eyes tied to the moving spot under the light post. All of a sudden, a weird determination starts to grow to fully dominate him. He moves away from the window, swiftly snatches his coat from the hanger,  and in two fast movements, puts it on while he paces towards the main door.

She is trying to insert the key into the door lock when he pulls the handle. Their eyes meet for a while. She asks:

“Where are you going?”

He says looking away from her face:

“I won’t be late.”

“But where are you going?”

He repeats his words while going down the stairs with short fast steps:

“I won’t be late.”

In the street, the cold wind loaded with snowflakes surrounds him and harshly beats his face. He stands there in the pale darkness examining everything around him though his main focus is on the thing that has moved under the snow for a while then suddenly comes to a halt. Mesmerized in his place, all his thoughts intensify on the next step he is supposed to take. But his legs are captured with abrupt hesitation.

The street is completely deserted. With short careful steps, he  slowly approaches the edge of the street, and stops there. He looks right, then left to make sure that there are no cars coming from both sides. He is about to step ahead to cross the street, when the door of a building on the other side opens and a short back-bent woman appears. Standing in the dim light coming from inside, she looks around as if seeking something specific. It has been too hard for him in the pale darkness to recognize the woman’s features clearly. After examining the nearby place desperately, she raises her head to broaden her search area. Her eyes stops at the other side of the street where he is standing looking at her. She raises her hand waving to him, and as he imagines, that she is calling him.

Despite the hesitation that has captured his legs, he eagerly wants to interact with that woman. He pushes his right leg forward where the snow is mixed with the mud, and it is a deep hole where all his foot is soaked in. He feels the cold penetrating his skin, but he does not care too much and moves ahead to the other side of the street, and specifically where the woman is standing, not far from the spot covered with snow where that thing has moved for a while before it comes to its final halt. He enquires while approaching the edge with precautious steps.

“Are you looking for something, Madam?”

He stops near the light post. The woman moves ahead slowly, gazing at him as if to make sure of his identity. She asks him:

“Do you live here? Do I know you?”

He replies while taking his hand from the pocket of his coat and pointing to the back, whereas his eyes meanwhile examining the collapsing body of the woman who was almost at the end of her eighties:

“ I am a new tenant in that building.”

The woman keeps looking at the man with her weak eyes, and maybe in a state of surprise because he has addressed her in Bulgarian though his complexion assures that he is of a different race. He repeats his question:

“Are you looking for something?”

The old woman nods her head looking around again. She says:

“Yara,….my cat…

She raises her hand as if to draw her image in the air. She adds:

“White with black spots on her eyes. I used to open the door for her to….you know, and she often comes back after a while, but today she didn’t.”

Before he has the opportunity to comment or say something, she asks him:

“ Have you seen her? Have you seen my cat?”

While gazing into the woman’s face, his neck’s muscles stiffen, and he says nothing. But his eyes moves cautiously towards the targeted spot beneath the lamppost. Is it her cat that now lies under the snow? He finds no courage to pronounce that scary thought which might be a hard shock to the poor old woman. She repeats her question:

“Have you seen her?”

He takes his hands out of his coat’s pockets and moves a step ahead. He raises his arms in the air and says:

“No, Madam, I haven’t. Indeed, I have just come out, and I am on my way to the supermarket to do some shopping.”  

Damn. He inserts his hands again into the pockets of his coat, bending his head looking at the pile of snow near his feet. What if the cat is still alive, and leaving her buried under the snow for a longer time could lead to her death. Shouldn’t he take the initiative and save the poor cat immediately? He adds realizing the very difficult situation in which he finds himself:

“She might have gone up to the roof, or entered another flat. Have you asked the neighbours?”

Her wrinkled face shrinks. She replies in a sad tone:

“No, I haven’t. But she has never done something like that before.”  

What then precisely happened? He raises his head up thinking and contemplating. The poor cat comes to pee and shit under the lamppost, but unluckily, the gathering snow on the lamp shed falls at that moments and buries her. He says:

“Try. Just ask them. ”

The old woman moves around examining the place then walks toward the building gate. She says:

“I will.”

She stops, looks at him and says:

“I live on the first floor, and my name is inscribed on the door: Romiana Ivanova. If it happens that you see her on your way, please bring her to me. She is so friendly.”

Paralyzed in his place, totally losing the ability to move even after the old woman has disappeared, though she has left the door open hoping that her cat might come back to her. Meanwhile, he starts losing his wish to leave the place to gradually turn into a witness for the burial of a creature that destiny has chosen him to witness its last moments before death.

Arabic Version: Abudhabi, UAE, 07/06/2014

English Version: Anshan, China, 29/11/2015