I have been writing a novel over the past few years, which is very loosely based on thirty snapshots of real events in the Arab World over the past sixty years, told by different fictional narrators. It is a book I shall probably never finish. I had written this chapter below over a year ago, about a fictional event where a cartoonist is punished for a satirical cartoon (this scene is loosely based on the conflict in Syria and a similar event which happened there). The narrator below is the fictional cartoonist in question. After the terrible events in Paris this week, I felt compelled to share the chapter, which begins with the narrator explaining why cartoons are so successful for conveying a message.
A short story - Snapping fingers
Children see
before they speak, as John Berger once said(1).
What is a smile but a reaction to what a child senses, a deeply powerful visual
message, which surpasses any words, to the outside world. Although each sense
has its own place for deciphering the world, the visual sense can often be
deployed much quicker than our others senses. Every event in the outside world
ripples into our sensory sphere, at each point spreading its tentacles into a
different sense, until finally our brain processes a reaction. It is perhaps
for that reason that children so love cartoons, because of the way a cartoon
immediately has meaning without the need to delve further, a singular burst of
flow into the visual cortex, a gamete of vibrant colours, shining like rivers
of light and filled with caricatures. Sometimes I think that caricatures,
although seemingly grossly skewed perceptions of the outside world, are closer
to the way we remember images, than an oil painting faithfully rendering its
subject.
Unlike cartoons
aimed at children, the satirical variety can be interpreted on many different
levels, on a purely superficial level, but also a deeper more philosophical
level, a thousand words bundled into a single snapshot, catalyzed by humour.
That is the power of a satirical cartoon, that in amongst the beautiful
artwork, when the viewer takes a second look, the message surges through the
ether, like a man rising to the surface of the sea, frantically gasping for
oxygen.
For every
cartoon, the process of creation is the same, whatever its message. The
artist’s hand dips its brush in paint, later to sweep it across a page,
creating an image from nothing, but a mere spark of creation, leaving behind a
trail of joy. For every act of violence, the irrationality is the same,
whatever the message. The aggressor’s hand dips its sword in the fire, till it
burns red hot, later to sweep it across the artist’s hand, leaving behind a red
trail of blood. Why you may ask should the aggressor’s hand do this: is the
artist’s hand such a threat? I had thought the artist’s hand to be little more
than an irritant. However, today has taught me otherwise: what a tyrant fears
more than people losing their fear, is to be laughed at publicly. For with
laughter, loud, bellowing across the rooftops, rather than in the privacy of
homes, his time is finished.
My morning had
begun as it always does, a stroll through the ancient streets of Damascus, as
old as civilization itself, the very first imprints of mankind’s attempt to
tame nature. The mind is a powerful creation, but without inspiration, it dulls
and withers. As such, I used each moment of my stroll, to gather the
ingredients of inspiration, the smell of fresh bread lingering through the air,
the laughter of children being dragged to school, the sweet sight of beautiful
Damascene women, their hair fluttering crisscrossing in amongst itself creating
a shadow of intrigue as they walk past. My mind was a cross between a blur and
a high, tired by severe lack of sleep whilst also eager to begin my daily work.
The solution that day, as every day, was a burst of caffeine. It was just early
enough to contemplate sitting outside at my favourite café. Any later and I
suspect, it would have been foolhardy, for August is the month, when the
Damascene sun breathes fire, and the rain is a distant memory of the winter.
This year more than any the streets had been alive with fire, not from the sun
but from the hearts of my fellow Syrians burning for change.
I chose my spot
to sit. I could see all the regulars, most of them my friends and those not,
were at least acquaintances. I did not even need to order, as soon as the café
owner, Badri, saw me through his spectacles with its edges worn down by years
of usage, bandaged together by sellotape, he brought out my coffee. I nodded my
head in thanks and he smiled, revealing his teeth, all somehow arranged at
different angles and some missing. He never wanted to talk about what had
happened.
All I knew from
the others was that in the 1980s, he had refused to serve a man. The man had
been drunk and raucous, and had begun to swear and make lewd remarks at women
walking past. He returned the next day, more sober, but with some henchmen,
their hair perfectly coiffured and their faces filled with evil. Strange that,
the mukaharat are supposed to work in secret, but for them to be effective,
they have this unmentioned uniform, difficult to precisely describe, but
obvious to any observer. They sat at another café opposite, the whole day,
sneering at the café owner. When it was time to shut up shop, Badri could see
them walking across the street for him. He knew screaming would be useless. So
he accepted his fate. They placed his head in a headlock and proceeded to beat
him. It did not last long, but long enough, to do that to his teeth and he is
too poor to ever fix them.
Whilst I thought
of the misfortune that befallen Badri, I stared at the coffee cup he had broad.
It was thin and spindly, with a small protruding handle. Inside it, lay coffee,
its colour the darkest shade of brown possible, nearly indistinguishable from
black. I stirred and stirred the coffee with a small spoon. I looked up across
the street, and could see three men seemingly waiting for something, their
backs perched against the sand washed wall of another coffee shop. Smoke
trailed from the cigarettes precariously hanging from their mouth. I could see
their cigarettes perceptively rising and falling, in tandem their breathing,
which forced them to suck in clean air, before expelling it, tainted by white
smoke. They seemed disinterested, with everything, except the Damascene women,
who passed in front of them. Occasionally, they would look up at me. As if in
unison, they would squint, trying to focus their sight on me. I continued to
drink my coffee, quicker than I ordinarily would, forcing my mouth to bathe in
the bitter taste of Arabian coffee. Even with many spoonfuls of sugar, the
bitterness was still perceptible, rather than some faint memory of an
aftertaste. Sometimes, sweetness in whatever quantity is unable to glide
through an atmosphere filled with despair. As the coffee’s taste permeated
further through my consciousness, I noticed the three men across the street,
continually looking at me, no longer seemingly distracted by Damascene women. I
thought it was time to go. I slipped a few coins onto the table to pay for the
coffee. Jumping up, I immediately started walking further on. Behind me were
the three men, whose young legs were carrying them much quicker than my old
legs. I kept trying to walk on quicker, but it was futile. Sometimes we can
ignore our age, but at times of our greatest need, our age is reminded to us
forcefully. As the crowds thinned, they became closer, the scent of violence
seemed more forceful than ever. Finally they had driven me into a lonesome
alleyway, where the only light lay above from the heavens, but to my left and
right, forward and back, there was nothing but the emptiness of darkness. My
wary feet had begun to ache, my heart was beating far too fast for a man of my
age, as my body forced my pace to a near halt. I turned. They halted. What
little light my eye could gather, was reflected by my pursuers eyes, glowing
white, broken by their pupils, which appeared to be little more than dots. They
stood next to one another, such that together, they seemed to coalesce into a
single being, wide enough to dominate the whole path. I could not make out
which of them was taller, indeed which of them was fatter than the next, as
each seemed to be an identical copy of the other.
“Why have you
been running from us?” mused the man to my right, the words coming out of
mouth, spaced by short gaps. He stepped forward, just enough such that the
sunlight was able to catch his face. Emerging from the darkness was a face, as
bland as it was colourless. The only colour I could decipher from his face, was
that of his brown eyes. The rest of it had a whiteness, which seemed outside
the norm of the spectrum of colours afforded to human skin. It was more like
that a bleached sheet of paper, than that colour usually sees in skin. The
glint of his golden touch served as the only break for my eyes of the colour
white which made his face, and the blackness of the shadow surrounding him. The
other two men remained quiet, but I could hear their hands moving towards their
pockets. The rumbling of change from their pockets, was swiftly replaced by
that of a snap, which was rather too similar to that sound I grew accustomed to
in the army years ago, the sound of a gun being made ready to fire. In my mind,
these two men, became the quiet ones, whilst the man talking to me, was in
effect the speaking one.
“I didn’t know
who you were,” I replied, knowing this to be a feeble excuse.
“You knew
precisely who we were,” the speaking one said, grinning in such a way, that I
was unable to ascertain whether it concealed a grimace. He raised his right
hand, clicking his fingers as he did so. Slowly, he extended one of his fingers
so that it pointed directly at me, a silent order for the quiet ones to begin
their work. Like hungry animals, they swarmed towards me, grunting in near unison,
their faces still largely cloaked in darkness. I closed my eyes, thoughts of
the Almighty began to flood my mind.
I
opened my eyes. Greeting them was a hand, clenched into a tight fist, skin
stretched tightly over the hands knuckles, so that the bone was visible
underneath. Then only pounding. Pounding. It came towards my face repeatedly,
buffeting me from side to side. Then the fists appeared to multiply. It was
though a thousand fists were coming towards me, flying in such a way to inflict
maximum damage. I could feel blood, running down my face, its iron taste
trickling past my taste buds. Their faces began to be peppered with red specs
of my blood, Syrian blood. With each strike, their faces became more red than
white, my eyes becoming more glazed over with a mix of blood and tears. At some
point I fell, I cannot remember precisely when. It was when I fell, that the
smell of leather and shoe polish became more obvious. Their shining shoes
struck my jaw, several times. How many times I don’t know, it was simply enough
times to deliver their message.
In
all this time, of punches and kicks, blood spilling, they had forgotten my
hands, the source of my voice, until I heard the leader cry:
“His
hands!”
From
that point on, their efforts to destroy my hands, far outweighed any possible
violence they had previously inflicted on my face. All I remember is the sounds
I heard, my eyes could no longer remain open, as though my instincts were
telling me, close your eyes, close them now, and the cliché will be true: it’ll
become a scene played out in your nightmare, rather than in reality. I was very
nearly tricked, for at the time, I couldn’t feel the full intensity of the pain,
that came in my hands later.
There seemed so
many sounds. The sound of snapping, like that of a shutter coming down in a
camera, but much louder. The sound of grunting coming from them, like animal a frenzy
at feeding time. The sound of violence has many forms, but silence is not one
of them.
