Deir Al Lauz: Breaks Its Shackles and Embraces the Dream

By Lama Sakhnini

Two brothers embark on diverging paths in an attempt to reclaim their predestined lives. Omar is the actively extroverted scientist who trusts causation and motion. Basheer is the contemplative introverta simple worker who seeks meaning in stillness. Together, they symbolize the material and spiritual aspects of the no-win reality of the Palestinian diaspora.

Their story is simple and placid, like the innocent perceptions of the participating characters, but also as complex and deep as their torrential emotions. As the two brothers travel and balance new experiences with loyalty to their homeland, Basheer meets a young girl named Khawla whose choices could change everything.

From Palestine to Lebanon, then to Jordanand always back to the Land of CanaanOmar and Basheer represent the humanity of diaspora from perspectives old and new. Deir Al Lauz highlights many of the stages of contemporary Palestinian history while capturing the lively beat of its pulse as two brothers wrestle destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532027253

Lama Sakhnini

Lama Sakhnini is a Bahraini novelist and professor of physics at the University of Bahrain. She received her PhD from the University College of North Wales and is a well-recognized scientist with a number of publications in scientific journals. Born in Jordan, she is the author of two novels and a novella collection.

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Copyright © 2017 LAMA SAKHNINI.

The Palestinian Artist: Taleb Dweik

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-2724-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2725-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017912869

iUniverse rev. date: 10/24/2017

Contents

Breathe in Sunlight and Exhale the Darkness of the Previous Night

I Came to Harvest Olives

Omar Utters a Letter, a Number, and a Rifle—Basheer Gathers Rain

Bidwen Baheya Plants a Rose

I Mature at Full Moon and Flow at Moonset

The Thorny Road of Anticipation

Abu Omar Buried His Rifle

Zahra, the Forever Child

Awaiting Another Passing of the Carnival

1971

She Charged Her Weapon, and the Steel Joints Clicked

How Would You Know What’s in the Sky?

The Bitter Taste of Hope

How Many Hearts Must Burn Till My Nation Accepts Guidance?

Saniya! Did You Know?

When Love Is Misled

The Riddle Awaits Solving

The Grief Hidden behind Her Smile

Didn’t Your Heart Tell You I Was Waiting for You?

I Take a Turn around the Crescent to Make a Full Moon

Her Mother Sewed It for Her and Sent It to Ramallah to Be Embroidered

A Mechanical Atmosphere in the Room

Two Separate Roads with No End

You Will Receive Orders in the Next Two Days

No Thoughts, No Memories— Just Emptiness

Khawla Leaves, and She Looks Behind

The Hermit Sheikh Climbed the Mountain Once More and Did Not Come Down

I Will Call Him Omar

From behind My Hidden Tears and Suffocation, I Said Omar Did Not Die

To you, who taught me the magic of speech.

And to you, who released flocks of pigeons in my heart.

And a call.

Do not search for the village of Deir Al Lauz in an atlas. Instead, search for it in your memories and the memories of those who passed through it, as well as the memories of those who may reach it. There you will certainly find it.

I call on you to release it from its shackles of waiting and anticipation.

—Lama

Breathe in Sunlight and

Exhale the Darkness of

the Previous Night

He lay on his bed with frozen limbs, keeping a thin layer of air between himself and the mattress. He tried to relax. He loosened his limbs and sunk into the soft cotton. But his heart could not be relieved. It was beating loudly.

The night before, she’d been shivering, trembling, and pleading, Hold me in your arms. Don’t kiss me. I just want to hear your heart beating and feel your breath on my face.

He hesitated. He heard his heart pounding in his ears. He pulled her to himself. He hugged her head to his chest. There she stayed like a bird with broken wings.

Basheer, I love you, she whispered. I saw you in my sleep. I saw you as if in a nightmare.

He did not believe in dreams, but that time, he’d been scared by the terror in her eyes.

After his flashback of the previous night, he tried to relax, but he was cold. He got under the warm sheets and closed his tired eyes. Instead of sleeping, he saw her shadow haunting him. The night laughed at him. It was his tenth sleepless night.

He recited an evening prayer again. We reached this evening, and the kingdom belongs to God. Thank God there is no God but Allah, alone with no partner. To Him be praise—and He over all things. I ask You for the good of this night and the good of what follows it, and I seek refuge in You from the evil of this night and the evil of what follows. Oh, Lord, I seek refuge in You from laziness, aging, and senility. I seek refuge in You from the punishment in the fire and the torment in the grave.

Before he ended his prayer, her shadow died away, leaving him worried and wanting what he once thought was gone. He opened his eyes to the loneliness of the dark night with only the sound of his steel bed moaning under his weight. He kept still to not wake his mother, who was in the next room. He held his breath and tried to continue his prayer, but he lost the words and dozed a little.

When he awoke, her shadow was floating in his head again, and the taste of the discontinued prayer was still on his lips. He shut his eyes and went into a slumber. Then the voice of his dad awakened him. It won’t be as you want!

He looked around, but no one was there. He wondered whether that was a prediction of what was to come. He was saved by the call to the Morning Prayer and the chant of two nightingales on the windowsill. He jumped out of bed and prayed and prayed and prayed. It was the longest prayer he had prayed in years, the only cure for a hopeless, wounded heart.

Dim light snuck in from the bare window, casting shadows behind the furniture. He opened the window and let the cold, humid autumn breeze in. The two nightingales were standing on a bare branch of the almond tree in the garden. The female looked at him and then at her mate. They exchanged chants and flew off toward the rising sun.

He inhaled the fresh morning air and exhaled the darkness of the last night. His head cleared, but his heart was still wounded. His chest was tight, burning. If only he had believed his intuition, his brother would still have been alive. He had to live with remorse for the rest of his short life, the remorse of having been able to prevent Omar’s