In my village, a vintage lane, lane houses smell like bitter coffee; One of them is my grandfather’s house. In those houses, guesthouse are still full of their warm voices.
But not only that: the first guesthouse her door prays the heading for the pray direction, my grandfather’s guesthouse door hugs the sun, his neighbor’s guesthouse gate addresses the compass of the north. I wondered with myself: “Is it hatred?, They built their guesthouses in different directions envy? “. My grandfather’s spirit whispered to me “how ridiculous, boy”.
But Dad, what was your goal? At that time we – were calling Grandpa Dad: “Dad Yahya.”
we built our houses, our doors differed for – decency. “Dad yahya replied in his deep, quiet voice.”
For decency? But it was enough to withhold – sight, Dad.
The eye is a mugger, son, and their women are – our sisters. Our hens were laying eggs in each other’s houses, no woman ever claimed an egg. Our vines were open to everyone, to the near and strange, to the hateful and beloved. When our mattress were not enough, and it happened that guests came from the outside, the boys – your parents – were rushing to take heavy wool boards, to complete what lacked other guesthouse. Sometimes the fight can reach the stage of blood, and when one of the two neighbors is feeling the hunger of the other’s sons, he knocks on the door and puts the food in front of him, and then he leaves in haste, so that the other understands the magnanimity around. The harvest season gathered everyone, celebrating tiredness, celebrating love, passion for sickle nostalgia, tea cups of uniform size and colour, mixing. The sadness and the malice did not sleep, and the grudge could hardly sees dawn until it fade away. Somebody dies, so the village is sad, it’s flawed to turn on a TV, or a radio, the lost was gathering hearts. We sleep hungry with joy, we wake up early to catch the sun and say good morning to it, filled with its light. We pass the stories of grandparents , we wait for them to have time for us. Their tales refine our high morals. Even the villains of their tales had something of a nobility. We celebrate courage without exaggeration, the flirting unrudely, joke each other with a lot of respect. Ethics was simply our inherited reference.
Dad Yahya added: “And you… Are you still walking the same path?”
I went silent, broken, embarrassed, oppressed… I don’t know how to respond.
The spirit of Dad Yahya has faded, and with so much fracture.
