I
I wake in the morning to the sound of the alarm, stretch my legs and feet, my neck, my arms, and set about making my bed. I go down to the kitchen, make tea in a few minutes, and open the kitchen curtains so the sun can come in with its warmth and rest on the kitchen table. I might eat something, or I might rush to get ready, change my clothes, and step out, within twenty minutes, into the morning of Basra. I walk under shady trees, surrounded by sweet breezes from the streets winding over one another, and reach the bus stop. Here it comes. I board the bus and sit in my usual seat by the window, gazing at our gentle streets, at the sprinklers and the golden gleam of the grateful grass, and taking in the movement of the city on this beautiful morning.
The driver chats with the passengers about the origin of this street's name, about when it was created; they guess what the name means, "Umm al-Naʿaj" ("Mother of Ewes"), and what the place was before it was named "Wufud Street." They conjure up its old shape and its old people, and return to their present after passing "Umm al-Naʿaj" by a long distance. Oil production in Basra's fields has been cut back, and the passengers on this bus are a countable few, since oil fields are no longer the fashion of the age. And we are all waiting for the last field to close, the Burjesia field.
The air in Zubair was never as sweet as it is today; since the fifties, since the first vanguard of the British and their greed for what lies beneath the ground, people here have suffered the blackening of the air and of the breath. Nor was the sun ever as kind as it is today; here it is, lulling our way through the Burjesia field, when fifteen years ago it lashed it. The native tamarisk trees are grateful that we preserve their right to the land; the sparrows and bulbuls are grateful, the vipers and lizards are grateful. And I am proud of my work, proud that I am among the last few responsible for closing these gates of hell that the British opened.
I get off the bus at my department, the "Conversion Division," and walk the long distance between the gate and the building beneath the giant tamarisk trees. Here in the department we dismantle what remains of the pipes, the tanks, and the systems that used to store oil and carry it to the ports. I fill my chest with this air. Who would have thought that this air was the cause of the war? Who would have believed that this air is Helen of Sparta? People did not accept the fact that the air was held hostage by production, and that the source of the money that keeps the economy alive is killing us. We fought much, to own our right to the land, and we fought again, to own our right to the air. We lost hundreds of thousands; fighters of cancer, victims of safety failures, victims of gases... our people and our families. But today we are stronger, and we will not allow people to be enslaved or the land to be killed.
II
This future that you do not believe in, I long for. This air that you find silly and ordinary, these pains that fill your body and turned your heart to stone, this sun that turned your hair blond: unimportant, and so are my wishes for a land that loves me, and loves you, and makes you laugh. Numbness is eating your soul; you will not care about a love I believe is my salvation, and your salvation; our salvation. I urge you that we read The Great Gatsby, hoping you will grasp Gatsby's wonder at something delicate like a rose. That we look in the same direction, even if only in the imagined world of a novel.
My love, that we live together, work together, share food from the same plate, drink from the same cups, that a cat's meow make us laugh, and that a new glossy anthurium leaf dazzle us. But you chase distant buildings. And the robots call to you in their language, and offer you zeros and ones to lure you into going to them.
Faraway lands call to you, and Layla and I are fleeting figments of dreams in this place that imprisons you. And it pains me that you abandoned me, and her, before she was formed; that you saw nothing endearing in my longing, and that I am a nuisance. Just so. You will depart into God's vast earth, chasing your dreams. And I will speak to -your ghost- and to her -in my womb- daily, about what I am waiting for.
III
My dear daughter Layla. My dear daughter Layla! How I love your name! I hope your future, your life, your present will be as gentle as your name, smiling as I imagine you. Dear Layla! I fight my life for your sake. I do not want to bring you into poisoned air like this. Into brackish, bitter water like the water I bathe in. Little Layla, this city is killing me, and I do not want it to hurt you as it hurt me. The sun is harsh, the air is dusty, and the last of the old trees, I remember seeing them ten years ago. Layla, I am not withholding life from you; I long for you. I long for you and your sisters. But I am stuck in a city that worships oil. In a city that does not believe in your future.
Layla, our future, mine and yours, I want it sweet, and I want the dust, the smoke, and the passing cars not to choke you. I want you to have air. I want the streets your little feet will walk on to be paved and shady, with trees older than you. Dear Layla, I want to hold your little hand, and for you to be in a nursery near me when I work. And to see you at lunchtime. In your colorful clothes and your hair that I braided into small braids.
A future in which I will not be late for you, in which the world will not consume me, in which no exhausting job will keep me away from you morning and night. That we grow up together, travel the world together, read together, that I tell you stories about our city, and repeat in your ears, every night, how we saved the city, how we closed the roads, how we closed the fields, and how we demanded our freedom, and your freedom; how I demanded your future. How I took it from life by force.
Beautiful Layla, little Layla, how I wish we could live together, that you could know my mother and father, that you could know my sisters and brothers, and that we would not be two displaced women in faraway lands. Little Layla, I fear for you. But I dream of our future together. I dare to dream of living together. Little Layla! And that your homeland be your homeland, that you be a whole human being in your homeland, and that the earth protect you always.
Layla, when you grow up, I will tell you about the river I grew up beside; I will show it to you, and we will walk on its shores, and you will love its cold waves when you dip your little feet in them, and we will search for the "rakat" together, and for the small creatures as lovely as you. We will gather shells, and I will tell you how I, with your grandfather and his aunt, roamed and played and gathered shells under an azure sky. And I hear the rustle of the palms and my father's voice telling how our land is the Garden of Eden.
And when you grow up, you will read more, and I will give you my old, ancient manuscripts, and you will laugh and wonder how I have memorized them despite the years. And I will tell you about my faith in love, and how we are created for love, and how I love you, and worship life through you. How you are my prayer, my prayer and the limit of my faith, that life deserves to be lived.
Layla, I wish fate were braided around my fingers, like your golden hair; but it trembles, slips, and always escapes. And I fear for you, while you are now kept and safe, in my womb, before creation, Layla. I love you and will love you before you exist, and I will keep you safe until the time comes, until time softens, until this future exists, in which we are, you and I, together.
