Identities In the Night

They had dinner. They still had some food from home, and they bought some Arabic bread, khubz. It was new and interesting for Petra and there was nothing special in it for Ameen. It was strange for Petra how the boy kept the khubz between his fingers, how he ate it. She was looking at his every move. Ameen asked her:

"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It is interesting how you eat."
"Why? U do not have khubz?""We have, but I am not used to buy it. I eat only shaorma with it."
"But when I will go there, you will let me eat khubz too, right?"

"Of course" – said Petra. "I do know that this is a part of you. I do not want your identity to remain in Irbid. I want you to come with your language, your religion, your culture. I want you to come with everything that belongs to you, everything what is you. Come to me with your sejadah (carpet used for the pray), with Ummi`s rice recety, with your grandmother`s baklawa. Because all these are you."

"See? This is why I love you so much. Because you do not want to change me into European."

"Of course not. Why should I? No matter for how long will you live there, you will never be European. Man can not choose those two things that gives its identity. The mother and the place where he/she born. First we love our mother, no matter who she is, or how she is. Then we meet the world we born into through her. One day we get down from her arms and start our journey to discover the place we live in, then we start to talk the language we learn also from her. This is how our identity is written in the big book of the universe long before we can realize it. This is why you say ummi and I say édesanya. You say donia and I say világ.

"What is the world for you hayaty?" - asked Ameen and took another piece of khubz.

"My world is my mountains. All those little ways that bring me to the top, the sun which comes behind me, the wind that smells differently up there. It is also the city with all its little streets and big boulevards. And all the cars everybody hates. I love them all. I love the old square, the houses which are there for centuries, the medieval entrance called Poarta Schei, because every time I pass under it, it feels like having a walk in time. I love walking on the streets where every piece of dust and every stone is my friend. My world is the sound of church bells, the sound of the piano in the Black Church, the statues in the city, the walking street, I love the musicians who are always there and smile for everybody and sing for everybody. Beside the musicians there is a store where you can buy the best chocolate in the city. And not just the city, but it is the best chocolate in the world. This also belongs to my world. Just like all the hypermarkets, all the malls, and all those people who are there all the time and who are driving me crazy every time they want to pass, with all the things they just bought, right in front of me.

And the stadium...the matches. My favourite football team. Go yellow and black! I was very little when I first went to the stadium with my dad and grandfather. As a child, I enjoyed running between the chairs with my brothers, of course we did not have patience to stay in the same place for two hours. The only problem was when one of the teams had a goal and no matter how hard we asked, they did not want to replay, like we saw on TV. Many years passed, but even now I go with the same joy to the stadium. The spirit from there is very strong, and it is a part of me. And when I was at the match, the team never lost.

But not only these. The graveyard where my grandmother rests, is also my world. The place where she will be forever. My favourite poet is also resting in that place under the trees. Sometimes I just sit in these places and I find myself. And if I find myself, that means that it is a certain part of my life.

Grandmamas cake is also my world, just like her every word, every sentence, every move. When I was little, she was my refugee place. It was very good at both my grandmothers. They always did what I wanted and I was allowed to do all the things I could not at home. They brang me with them for years, and they loved it, because I was not crying for my parents. Never. I learned so many things from them. Things that people usually learn from their grandparents. They tought me to pray, they took me to religion hours, the first stories from the Bible were told me by them. Just like so many fairy tales. The best ones were the invented ones. Where the heroes lived in houses with wafel doors and candy windows."

She stopped and smiled. Ameen saw on her face that she loved telling these things. It was her life, her world, the world she wanted to share with her love, where she wanted to take him. She saw that Ameen finished eating so she started to put the food back to the fridge, and continued.

"And the family. Those who should be the closest to me. But I do not feel like that for so many times. My parents, with who I do not have a normal parent – child relation, and my brothers. I always hated that I was the eldest. Just like that I have no sister, and my brothers, beside the fact that are boys, were always on me. Probably I should tell you the most about this part of my world, but I can not. I will tell you more about this, but not now, OK?"

Ameen did not understand why Petra's face changed, but he knew there was not a good time asking too much. He felt that it was enough holding her hand.

"It is all right hayaty. I know you will tell me everything. And when ever you feel ready, I will be here and listen."

"I know. But I want you to tell me about your world now."

"Hm... My world is different from yours, and much different of how you, Europeans think it is. It may not have so many colors, but it is much more colorful. My world is my people who can not live where its place is, and the way it lived for centuries. My world is the world of the desert, where water is treasure, where the master is the sand, and everybody respects it. We know that from time to time it has to take what belongs to it. And we do not get angry because of this. All we say is that Allah wanted this way. My world is all the Bedouins, their tents, the smell of the goat milk. My world is Jenin, Irbid and Amman. With everything they have. With all the places I go with my friends. All the houses with flat roofs are parts of my world. And the family... Babba`s severe words which are full of care, that look that is only his, the way he tries to get his children on the good way. Ummi`s perfume as her hijab moves. The conversations I have with my brothers about what we saw on TV, Mona's innocence as she enters my room, sits on my bed and tells me to hug her. And above all these, what gives sense to everything, the mosques. The minarets are parts of my soul. As they raise to the sky, they raise to my faith too. And the call for the pray, the one you were afraid of, my dear, it embraces my every days, my holidays and it reminds me five times per day who I really am.

"How can we make one of these two, so different worlds?" - asked Petra.

"I tell you how. You are already a part of my solar system, and even more, you are the center of it. And all the things I just told you, move around you. Because in the last half of year I saw you in the sand, you smiled to me from the Bedouin tents, I felt you flying with the desert wind, you were in Jenin, in Irbid, I saw you once in a bus in Amman, you were with me at the family meals, and from now on every time I will hear the call for pray, I will see you face as you are not afraid of it anymore."

They talked like this till very late. They could not get enough of each others words. They wanted to know everything about the other one. They noticed it was dawn only when the mosques started to scream again.

"Ameen, it is five o`clock." - said Petra surprised.

"Yes."

"Pray."

"What?"

"I would like you to pray. Let us go to a mosque and pray."

"I can pray here too."
"Then do it. Please."

"OK."

He went in the bathroom, washed his hands, legs, face, mouth. Then he came back and started to think.

"What is wrong?" - asked Petra.

"Nothing, I just do not know where Mekka is."

He kept thinking for a few seconds, then he choosed a way and started to pray. It was not sure that Mekka was that way, but if somebody does not know, it is not considered a sin. He kept his hands strangely, said something then got on his knees. He said something again, then put the top of his fingers together, then touched the ground with his head. He did that again, and then got up. Petra was just looking at him and did not understand anything. She also used to pray, but only in herself. She did not get on her knees. She did not understand the ritual the catholics made, how could she understand what Ameen just did? But she wanted to see. She was wondering if he asked something from his god, or just followed the ritual. Ameen finished the pray and smiled to her.

"Thank you my love. I really missed this. You are an angel. - he said. But now it is really the time to sleep a little."

"Yes, we should sleep a little."

They got in the bed and were looking at each other. Petra was caressing his face. He was holding her.

"I always want to fall asleep this way." - said Ameen.

"Me too" – answered Petra in a sad voice and let those two tears flow on her face.

"What is it hayaty?"

"I do not want to loose you."

"Oh, my little, you will not loose me. I am yours. I never loved anybody like I love you. You are everything to me. Hayaty in the full meaning of the word. There is no life for me without you anymore" – he said, put his hand on Petra's chest and continued. "Do you feel this? It is my heart, the one you took from me and now it beats in you. It does not stop, it does not sleep. I live in you just like you live in me. And this is how it is going to be forever and a day.

In a few minutes Ameen was sleeping deeply but Petra could not fall asleep. She just watched him walking between his dreams. Her thoughts did not let her sleep, in her mind she was in Irbid, she crossed the street in front of the house, walked across the Hashemit street, then the University street and went in a little coffeeshop. She orderd a coffee and a croissant and she watched how the students came out from the university, they all had books in their hands. A few came in the little coffeeshop. Boys and girls. A boy and a girl sat beside her. The girls, let us say Sahaar and Samaa wore black hijabs. The boy, let his name be Jamal, jeans and a tshirt. They talked about a Persian poet who has a strange name and wrote a poem abou a girl whose ashes became a cup and people drank from it. They talked about love, and they put the whole universe into four lines of a poet.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" - Samaa asked.

"I am not."

"Yes you are. She was, right Sahaar?"

"Aha."

"Leave her alone girls. She is westic. I can see on her. Europe? Amerika? Maybe Australia? Only those are looking like that." - said Jamal. "They all think that their perfect world is upon ours. That everything is good at them and everything is bad at us. It is all about this, right little girl?"

(Oh my god, what is that he wants from me?)

She was not thinking like this at all. She had no problem with Arabs or anybody else. She was not American, nor Australian, and she was European only geographically.

"What is it? Can you not talk anymore? You think that if our sisters and mothers wear hijabs, they are less or do not worth so much? You think those women who are on the pages of the Playboy are better? Samma, Sahaar, tell her, because as far as I can see, she does not understand."

Petra was almost crying. She did not understand why this boy, whose name means beautiful, was talking like this to her. What he was saying was not beautiful at all. She felt guilty for not being Arabic, for not wearing anything on her head, for wearing some stupid trousers and a purple blouse.

"Stop it Jamal" – Sahaar said. Then she asked Petra`s name, and continued: "you know, we are constient of the fact that our dressing code is strange to you, but it is something absolutely normal for us. Maybe it is not after the trands given by the great fashion houses of Paris, Milano or New York, but I only feel myself as being myself when I wear the hijab. In the mosques it is forbideen to enter without something to cover the head, and there we feel who we really are. We are like Allah wants us to be. That does not mean we do not have the same life that has every woman on every corner of the world. We work, we can get very high positions, there have woman ministers in almost every Arabic country, and the prime minister in Pakistan is also a woman, though the country is Muslim. We make sports just like other women do, just look at the world champion in athletism who came from Bahrain and won the gold medal with covered head.

(Petra did not ask anything, and though she got answer to many of her questions. She knew exactly what Sahaar ment by being themselves. She knew that feeling... Yes, the mountains again... But she did not understand Jamal`s behaviour. Why was he so rude to her? Maybe he had bad experience with westic people. Yes, it has to be that, because Arabs do not talk like that. But there are all kind of people everywhere.)

"See?" - he asked.

"Well, Jamal, I am perfectly constient of all the things I just heard, but I guess you push it a little too far. I did not say anything. Good or bad about your country, religion, you or the women from here. I have no problem with hijab. I know its meaning, but I think that it should be wore only by those women who feel it that way. On the other hand, I am on the side of her majesty Queen Rania al Abdullah, who is covering herself in the mosque, where she goes to pray, but who wears the clothes of famous designers when she is in any meating with the great personalities on earth and she fights for education and human right. What is it Jamal, are you surprised that I know your queen? Maybe in Europe also live some people who are opened to know things about those who are not like them too. You know what your problem is? That you try to put these thoughts into my brain. You think that if the wind blows free in my hair, I was on the pages of man magazines? Or that I come to Jordan only to take a bath in Aqaba? It is not like that. Not like that at all."

On Jamal`s face there was a mixture of anger and surprise.

Ameen opened his eyes and saw that Petra was not sleeping.

"You are up?"

Petra was smiling.

"Guess where have I been. In the University street in Irbid. Then she held her love and whispered: God, how difficult it will be... and how wonderful...