When I hear Nazem al-Ghazah* singing ‘The Mousayav
Bridge’ I hear echoes of Umm Farhan’s pure voice. A stocky woman dressed in black,
she lived in a hovel near the Jewish neighborhood. She used to sit in the
courtyard of the ruins, strewn with rocks and pigeon-droppings, and light a
fire beneath a charred pot. Her face was round, tattooed, her big eyes
accentuated by thick black kohl. I never saw here outside her house, which was
nothing more than a tall mound of rocks, with an opening covered by a piece of
faded fabric. Behind that fabric a tiny room survived, the remainder of the
collapsed dwelling, in which she lived with her son Farhan or, as everyone
called him, the Pigeon-Flyer. A flock of pigeons of all colors inhabited the hovel
with them and Farhan used to climb to the top of the mound to fly them with a long
stick. The stick was a palm branch with the leaves plucked off and a rag tied
to one end. The flock would fly over the hovel and respond to Farhan’s stick. It
would fly all the way to the fields on the other side of the river, turn to the
little gate at the end of town, then glide over the neighborhoods of Hithaween,
Ta’is, Mahdiya and Jibareen, and every time it approached the hovel Farhan
would gesture with his stick and the flock would continue lying through the
blue, the setting sun illuminating their flapping wing a in a spectacular
gleam. Each day, at a set time, just before the muezzin’s call for evening
prayers, Farhan would mount the mound as the pigeons responded to the clicks of
his tongue and soared off in a great clamor. Their flight went on only so long
as Farhan stood on top of the ruin; once he threw his stick down, the pigeons
know it was a sign to end their run and they would land all at once in the yard
where Umm Farehan fed them seeds.
The hovel had an aura of mystery. Umm Farhan and her son were not natives of
al-Hila and I don’t remember ever being told where they came from or when they
settled in that hovel. They were alien in their surroundings, secluded in their
own world, and the life of the town passed them by without touching them.
Neighbors never visited them and, in the Jewish neighborhood, the mothers used
Umm Farhan to scare their children. ‘Umm Farhan will kidnap you if you don’t .
. .’ My mother didn’t threaten me with
Umm Farhan, but she always warned me never to go to their place; like all the other
kid, I was drawn there to look at the beautiful pigeons. She’s a dangerous
woman, they told us, who talks to ghosts and demons. Farhan wasn’t popular either,
and mentioning his nickname was enough to make heads nod and faces grimace.
Somone who tended pigeons was considered a deviant; in those days, it was
almost like being a brigand or a pimp. And yet, no one harmed them, and everyone
always marveled at Farhan’s pigeons. Some folks would stop work when they saw
the colorful flock fluttering overheard and get ready for prayers even before
hearing the call of the muezzin; everyone knew Farhan performed his daily ritual
with astounding punctuality. Wearing a white dishdasha with black stripes
that reached down to almost cover his bare feet and wrapped in a thick camel-hide
belt, Farhan would stand on top of the mound and utter guttural exclamations
that only the pigeons understood. He produced other sounds too; whistles and
snorts and slurps and a choking noise, while the pigeons answered with all sorts
of gurgles and hums, flapping their wings, landing on his shoulders, and
putting their beaks into his mouth. Like King Solomon, Farhan could talk to the
pigeons, and this remained a wonder to the kids who felt drawn to him as if he
were bewitched.
But it wasn’t only the pigeons that drew us to Farhan,
it was the kites that he built in a rickety shed behind the mounds of rocks, not
visible from the entrance to the hovel. There we found him immersed in his
craft, looking serious, and he ignored our presence. He never reproached us or ran
us out, but we were awestruck by his silence and watched him mutely, afraid to
interrupt the magical silence. He built two kinds of kites, small light ones
that he sold us for two bits, and big decorated kites he refused to sell and
wouldn’t even let us touch. The big ones, known as Umm al-Sinatir, were
made of thick paper, usually conical, with variegated pipes and paper chains,
and a longtail that branched out into ribbons and had miniscule bells attached
to it. He’d fly these kites himself, when he went up to the top of the mound,
and they’d soar to the heart of the skies, spreading their wings like doves and
waving to the entire town from their majestic heights. At times he tied the
string to a wooden post and the kite would remain stable, unleashing its delectable
tinkling into the quiet night.
The pigeons’ breathtaking flight, the kites’ distant chime, and Umm Farhan’s
pure voice singing ‘The Mousayav Bridge’ adorn my most beautiful memories of the
city of my birth with a dim and pleasing pain:
The town sleeps quietly and
My eye knows no slumber so
I asked a star in the night so deep,
Oh why, oh why won’t
My love come back,
Rescue me, oh merciful folk,
From the menacing scorners
Who left me alone
On the Mousayav Bridge.
A song that grew in the fertile valley of the Euphrates, by the banks of the river
and in the palm groves, in the wheat fields and Bedouin encampments, a song of
sorrow that infuses the heart of infinite yearning. The Great War carried
Farhan away in its storm. The Turkish governor laid a heavy hand on the
populace, his troops raided homes, handcuffed the men and dragged them into
long lines, like cattle to the draft. Some said he escaped and was never
caught, others said he was drafted and died in the war. The uprising against the
Turks spread all along the middle Euphrates, and in spite of the cruel
oppression and public hangings, the flame of rebellion did not die out until
the Turksleft. Those were days of fear, and Umm Farhan was left all alone in the
ruins, her voice no longer pure and piercing to the quick but rent by sighs and
soaked in tears, the voice of a desperate elegy. Umm al-Sinatir no
longer flew in the sky, and her chime no longer carried a lullaby to those
sleeping on the rooftops. The pigeons no longer flew in their festive circles
and the men no longer matched their prayer times with Farhan’s climb to the top
of the mound. We moved to another house, outside the Jewish neighborhood, and
shortly after that I myself moved to Baghdad to continue my schooling. On one of my visits I found the ruin all empty,
with only cats slinking among the rubble. No one could tell me what had become
of Umm Farhan.
The wheel of destiny never tires of turning. In the
meantime, a second World War broke out, and many people were washed away by its
rumbling waves. I remember that in 1944 I visited one of the local cafes on the
Karkh bank of the river, to meet the poet Mula ‘Abud al Karkhi, near the Karkh
newspaper building. Mula ‘Abud owned the paper and was editor in chief. Al-Karkh
played an important role in the struggle against British rule in the twenty and
thirties, thanks to the editor’s poems, in colloquial Arabic, that covered the
front page. His tongue was sharp, and no word, no matter how crude, was too low
for him to attack someone who aroused his age. Many maintained an air of
caution towards him, trying to ingratiate themselves by giving him all kinds of
gifts just to avoid his poisonous arrows. When I met him, he’d already closed
al-Karkh, due to old age and ailing health, but he kept publishing poems in
other newspapers. And it was one of those that he happened to come out with a
poem of mockery against the mayor, full of obvious hints and insinuations of
corruption. The mayor’s cronies advised him not to sue the man, but to try and
shut him up by other means. And since the poet’s ire was the result of a
construction permit denied to one of his relatives, I was asked, as the chief
engineer, to negotiate with him and propose some minor changes in the building
plan so it could be approved. I didn’t embark on this mission willingly, but to
my surprise I found a pleasant conversationalist who like to tell jokes. The
disagreement was settled easily and, the following week, al-Karkhi published a
eulogy for the mayor, arguing that one of his noblest traits was his sense of
humor!
I only came to tell of al-Karkhi and his mischief in order to finish the
portrait of Farhan that I began. I was distracted from my conversation with the
poet when I heard the proprietor of the café call one of his waters Farhan. I looked at the tall thin man, dressed in a
striped dishdasha and a camel-hide belt. He and no other, as if he’d stepped
out of the underworld and begun walking among the café guests in his bare feet,
a serious look on his now meager and wrinkled face. I called to him, and asked
if he was Farhan the pigeon-flyer and kite-maker, and he started at me
indifferently without replying. And when I went on to remind him of his days of
glory, a dim spark came to his eyes, and he muttered: ‘Let me be, god have
mercy on your father.’
That was my last meeting with Farhan. A lonely introvert washed off his command post atop the mound by the ebb and tide to spend the rest of his days in a noisy, filthy café. What remains? The memories remain: the marvelous flight of the pigeons, the chime of Umm al-Sinatir, and Umm Farhan’s elegy still making the heart strings tremble.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjeypR0Gr
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