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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Death / Heartbreak / Loss
- Published: 07/21/2021
The Friend
Born 1946, M, from PA, United States“Listen to this!” Mustafa the Bedouin said to his friend Jabbar, as he began reading from the Al Baath Newspaper he’d bought in Damascus. His friend Jabbar, had always appreciated the latest news from the city. So Mustafa had made sure to bring it along as he always did when passing through on his way to the Bedouin camp in the Negev.
Here at Jabbar's, he could always count on being received hospitably and could spend the night after his long journey-if not because of friendship then at the least based on traditional Bedouin hospitality that demanded it. But of course, there was no need for demands. He and Jabbar were more like a brothers than friends. Yet, the usual greeting had not been offered. Instead, Jabbar had ignored Mustafa’s distant call of greetings as he approached on his camel which he had, as usual, whipped into a gallop.
Had Jabbar forgotten the-guest-comes-first tradition given the Beduins by God? No, that just couldn't be. Jabbar was too much of a devoted Muslim to have forgotten this basic rule that bound the Bedouin together as brothers, and which made life in the hard desert environment more tolerable for all. Yet, Jabbar had seen his approach from far off and had indifferently continued feeding his camels. So it was with a bit of unease that Mustafa continued to read the news to his usually-appreciative friend.
"Bambi Loutka, famous belly dancer better known as Temptress from the Dunes, performs each night at the Al Mah Hatah club. She has thousands of admirers who swoon over her. Eleven sheiks adore her, and have vowed total unconditional allegiance to her every whim."
Here, Mustafa paused in his reading to give time for the information to sink in. Then, he continued in a pompous tone of voice which usually elicited a guffaw from his friend Jabbar, but which now was met with an unsettling, somber silence.
"She is loquacious, but prude, and gracious with children who smile whenever she's near." Mustafa continued, adding wide sweeping gestures to accentuate the ridiculous grandiosity of It all.
"She promenades the streets regally, as if a queen, knowing that wherever she treads, her subjects will be there. But she has no husband. Yet, his epitaph testifies to her magnificent charms:
"Don't mourn me!" it reads, "Envy me instead, for I had sweet Loutka for a wife!"
Mustafa finished reading with a flourish, expecting the usual reaction. It had become a ritual of sorts. After the read, and the formalities, and the bantering were over, Jabbar would cheerfully invite him into his tent for a drink of camel's milk and the good cooking of his wife. So this time, the silence that followed his reading was totally unexpected as was his friend's almost total lack of response to his presence. The customary effusive embrace and ceremonial kiss on both cheeks had been negated, and this in itself, was an insult only offered an enemy. So It was in stunned silence then, that Mustafa waited for a response.
"Sounds like a filthy bitch to me!" Jabbar finally ad gruffly uttered while slowly continuing to fill the feeding trough for his camels with his back turned to Mustafa.
"Why so?" Mustafa responded with a worried frown.
"Nobody can be that perfect!" Jabbar gruffly shot back.
"Well, Jabbar, her husband said it all on his epitaph."
"Putrid foul camel spit!" Jabbar turned away from his task to face his old friend of thirty years with a scoul of what appeared to be profound hatred on his tanned face.
"She's a harlot and you know it!" he said and resumed his previous task.
"But why Jabbar? Because she dances and is famous? Is that justifiable reason to call a woman a whore? By Allah! You are talking strange today, my friend."
The two men now faced each other. Mustafa, the larger of the two, towered over Jabbar by at least a foot, and his broad shoulders made the younger man seem minute in comparison. He'd always known that Jabbar could occasionally have a foul tongue, but it had always been in jest and never this bitterly agitated.
"Why are you so upset my friend?" he Mustafa said in the most pleasant and understanding voice he could muster.
"Why do you defend the slut?" Jabbar responded while thrusting one accusatory left handed index finger close to Mustafa's wizened face. Mustafa flinched, of course, since the left hand is the hand used for wiping one's ass in Arab culture, and shaking hands or gesturing that close to another's face with it, is considered an insult.
With another mnan, things would have been different, but a friend of so many years isn't tossed aside so lightly. So Mustafa bit his tongue, and gritting his gold-capped molars, bore the insult for friendship's sake. Nevertheless, he took a step backwards to show his displeasure. He couldn't help but notice how Jaabar smiled sarcastically in response to his retreat but, decided to cast it aside as insignificant. As if to add insult to injury, a desert dung-beetle was rolling its treasured sphere against his sandal, and a fly casually alighted on the tip of his aquiline nose.
"What is troubling you Jabbar. Haven't we been friends, for how long now?" Mustafa said, after brushing the fly away with the back of his hand and giving the dung beetle a good kick that sent it flying into the camel feeding trough.
"Thirty years!" Jabbar shot back with a malicious expression on his younger features, and once more defiantly waved the offensive left-hand in front of Mustafa's face.
"Has there ever been a problem between us?" Mustafa continued patiently.
"Is not your son my daughter's husband, and your daughter my son's wife?"
At this, Jabbar turned his back on Mustafa, and continued filling the camel feeding-trough. The silence cut Mustafa like a knife, and for a brief second, he imagined himself at the smaller man's throat with his scimitar. Briefly his burly hand played on its ivory hilt, but the he was overcome by a deep shame. This was his friend, practically family. So patience was called for in such cases.
"Jabbar! Don't turn your back on me!" he heard himself say as if from some distance.
Jabbar wheeled around suddenly:
"Or you will do what? Cut my throat as you did with all those others who annoyed you?"
Mustafa flinched as if he had been literally stabbed. It was a subject he desperately evaded even within himself, burying the bloody images and details deep within his psyche where they would not disturb his inner peace. Even his wife and children were strictly forbidden from mentioning them, and Jaabar knew it. He'd known it for years and had never once dared to mention it for the sake of friendship. But now, now he seemed intent on provoking him into a murderous rage. But why? Surely he knew he could easily crush him like he crushed a fig or break his back like a twig. So what great evil could have infused his friend to make him risk his very life such a careless way? What indeed had he done to deserve this savage wrath from such a loyal trusted friend? Mustafa took a long deep breath before he responded. Then , as if from a great distance he heard himself bellow:
"Spit it out!! Dam it!"
He hadn't planned to. But his anger had burst through, as if it were an untamed beast having its own mind and its own malevolent motivation. It was the same feeling he'd had in his youth when he'd rashly struck out only to realize later, that the deep wound he had inflicted was on his own mind-a mind that would henceforth have to struggle with a human life that he'd brashly terminated on a moment's whim over a mere quibble. What was it they had been arguing about? He couldn't remember. In fact, he couldn't remember anything beyond his hand on his scimitar’s hilt and its swift and deadly strokes that meted out death. Now the same feeling flitted across his mind, and it terrified him.
"Spit it out or what?" Jabbar said defiantly walking slowly toward Mustafa whose hand had come to rest unconsciously once again on the ivory hilt of his scimitar. Jabbar noticed it, and stopped short, and for a moment, his bravado seemed to drain from him as it drains from a drinking bladder when punctured. But then, as if a man obsessed, he came on again, face a mask of anger, fists balled up, and the veins on his neck bulging from some deeply submerged inexplicable rage.
"Kill me! What are you waiting for Mustafa? Is my life more important to you than the lives of those men that you wasted? Do it!" Jabbar shouted.
Mustsafa noticed that it was more of a plea than a command, and his grip on the scimitar eased on its own. Instead, he spontaneously embraced his old friend, and felt him suddenly begin sobbing deeply as if his very life force were being exhaled to the wind where it would be taken to Allah.
"She's dead isn't she?" Mustafa said suddenly noticing what he should have noticed from the start had he not been so distracted with readng the news to his friend, the valid reason for his friend's despair.
Just beyond the camel trough, Mustafa, for the first time noticed the mound, and noticed the absence of song that usually came from the small tent. It was a silence only now broken by the sobs of his friend whom he had almost kille due to his own infinite ignorance.
The Friend(Radrook)
“Listen to this!” Mustafa the Bedouin said to his friend Jabbar, as he began reading from the Al Baath Newspaper he’d bought in Damascus. His friend Jabbar, had always appreciated the latest news from the city. So Mustafa had made sure to bring it along as he always did when passing through on his way to the Bedouin camp in the Negev.
Here at Jabbar's, he could always count on being received hospitably and could spend the night after his long journey-if not because of friendship then at the least based on traditional Bedouin hospitality that demanded it. But of course, there was no need for demands. He and Jabbar were more like a brothers than friends. Yet, the usual greeting had not been offered. Instead, Jabbar had ignored Mustafa’s distant call of greetings as he approached on his camel which he had, as usual, whipped into a gallop.
Had Jabbar forgotten the-guest-comes-first tradition given the Beduins by God? No, that just couldn't be. Jabbar was too much of a devoted Muslim to have forgotten this basic rule that bound the Bedouin together as brothers, and which made life in the hard desert environment more tolerable for all. Yet, Jabbar had seen his approach from far off and had indifferently continued feeding his camels. So it was with a bit of unease that Mustafa continued to read the news to his usually-appreciative friend.
"Bambi Loutka, famous belly dancer better known as Temptress from the Dunes, performs each night at the Al Mah Hatah club. She has thousands of admirers who swoon over her. Eleven sheiks adore her, and have vowed total unconditional allegiance to her every whim."
Here, Mustafa paused in his reading to give time for the information to sink in. Then, he continued in a pompous tone of voice which usually elicited a guffaw from his friend Jabbar, but which now was met with an unsettling, somber silence.
"She is loquacious, but prude, and gracious with children who smile whenever she's near." Mustafa continued, adding wide sweeping gestures to accentuate the ridiculous grandiosity of It all.
"She promenades the streets regally, as if a queen, knowing that wherever she treads, her subjects will be there. But she has no husband. Yet, his epitaph testifies to her magnificent charms:
"Don't mourn me!" it reads, "Envy me instead, for I had sweet Loutka for a wife!"
Mustafa finished reading with a flourish, expecting the usual reaction. It had become a ritual of sorts. After the read, and the formalities, and the bantering were over, Jabbar would cheerfully invite him into his tent for a drink of camel's milk and the good cooking of his wife. So this time, the silence that followed his reading was totally unexpected as was his friend's almost total lack of response to his presence. The customary effusive embrace and ceremonial kiss on both cheeks had been negated, and this in itself, was an insult only offered an enemy. So It was in stunned silence then, that Mustafa waited for a response.
"Sounds like a filthy bitch to me!" Jabbar finally ad gruffly uttered while slowly continuing to fill the feeding trough for his camels with his back turned to Mustafa.
"Why so?" Mustafa responded with a worried frown.
"Nobody can be that perfect!" Jabbar gruffly shot back.
"Well, Jabbar, her husband said it all on his epitaph."
"Putrid foul camel spit!" Jabbar turned away from his task to face his old friend of thirty years with a scoul of what appeared to be profound hatred on his tanned face.
"She's a harlot and you know it!" he said and resumed his previous task.
"But why Jabbar? Because she dances and is famous? Is that justifiable reason to call a woman a whore? By Allah! You are talking strange today, my friend."
The two men now faced each other. Mustafa, the larger of the two, towered over Jabbar by at least a foot, and his broad shoulders made the younger man seem minute in comparison. He'd always known that Jabbar could occasionally have a foul tongue, but it had always been in jest and never this bitterly agitated.
"Why are you so upset my friend?" he Mustafa said in the most pleasant and understanding voice he could muster.
"Why do you defend the slut?" Jabbar responded while thrusting one accusatory left handed index finger close to Mustafa's wizened face. Mustafa flinched, of course, since the left hand is the hand used for wiping one's ass in Arab culture, and shaking hands or gesturing that close to another's face with it, is considered an insult.
With another mnan, things would have been different, but a friend of so many years isn't tossed aside so lightly. So Mustafa bit his tongue, and gritting his gold-capped molars, bore the insult for friendship's sake. Nevertheless, he took a step backwards to show his displeasure. He couldn't help but notice how Jaabar smiled sarcastically in response to his retreat but, decided to cast it aside as insignificant. As if to add insult to injury, a desert dung-beetle was rolling its treasured sphere against his sandal, and a fly casually alighted on the tip of his aquiline nose.
"What is troubling you Jabbar. Haven't we been friends, for how long now?" Mustafa said, after brushing the fly away with the back of his hand and giving the dung beetle a good kick that sent it flying into the camel feeding trough.
"Thirty years!" Jabbar shot back with a malicious expression on his younger features, and once more defiantly waved the offensive left-hand in front of Mustafa's face.
"Has there ever been a problem between us?" Mustafa continued patiently.
"Is not your son my daughter's husband, and your daughter my son's wife?"
At this, Jabbar turned his back on Mustafa, and continued filling the camel feeding-trough. The silence cut Mustafa like a knife, and for a brief second, he imagined himself at the smaller man's throat with his scimitar. Briefly his burly hand played on its ivory hilt, but the he was overcome by a deep shame. This was his friend, practically family. So patience was called for in such cases.
"Jabbar! Don't turn your back on me!" he heard himself say as if from some distance.
Jabbar wheeled around suddenly:
"Or you will do what? Cut my throat as you did with all those others who annoyed you?"
Mustafa flinched as if he had been literally stabbed. It was a subject he desperately evaded even within himself, burying the bloody images and details deep within his psyche where they would not disturb his inner peace. Even his wife and children were strictly forbidden from mentioning them, and Jaabar knew it. He'd known it for years and had never once dared to mention it for the sake of friendship. But now, now he seemed intent on provoking him into a murderous rage. But why? Surely he knew he could easily crush him like he crushed a fig or break his back like a twig. So what great evil could have infused his friend to make him risk his very life such a careless way? What indeed had he done to deserve this savage wrath from such a loyal trusted friend? Mustafa took a long deep breath before he responded. Then , as if from a great distance he heard himself bellow:
"Spit it out!! Dam it!"
He hadn't planned to. But his anger had burst through, as if it were an untamed beast having its own mind and its own malevolent motivation. It was the same feeling he'd had in his youth when he'd rashly struck out only to realize later, that the deep wound he had inflicted was on his own mind-a mind that would henceforth have to struggle with a human life that he'd brashly terminated on a moment's whim over a mere quibble. What was it they had been arguing about? He couldn't remember. In fact, he couldn't remember anything beyond his hand on his scimitar’s hilt and its swift and deadly strokes that meted out death. Now the same feeling flitted across his mind, and it terrified him.
"Spit it out or what?" Jabbar said defiantly walking slowly toward Mustafa whose hand had come to rest unconsciously once again on the ivory hilt of his scimitar. Jabbar noticed it, and stopped short, and for a moment, his bravado seemed to drain from him as it drains from a drinking bladder when punctured. But then, as if a man obsessed, he came on again, face a mask of anger, fists balled up, and the veins on his neck bulging from some deeply submerged inexplicable rage.
"Kill me! What are you waiting for Mustafa? Is my life more important to you than the lives of those men that you wasted? Do it!" Jabbar shouted.
Mustsafa noticed that it was more of a plea than a command, and his grip on the scimitar eased on its own. Instead, he spontaneously embraced his old friend, and felt him suddenly begin sobbing deeply as if his very life force were being exhaled to the wind where it would be taken to Allah.
"She's dead isn't she?" Mustafa said suddenly noticing what he should have noticed from the start had he not been so distracted with readng the news to his friend, the valid reason for his friend's despair.
Just beyond the camel trough, Mustafa, for the first time noticed the mound, and noticed the absence of song that usually came from the small tent. It was a silence only now broken by the sobs of his friend whom he had almost kille due to his own infinite ignorance.
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