By Luc Watelet (October/Bad Luck/Compass)
The merchant tells his men about discussing peace instead of war. They respond with a loud chaos of angry voices. A child screams in the background and Dabke music continues to fill the air.
“Where is the American man?” the merchant asks in my direction trying to bring his voice above those of his men.
“I don’t know!” I yell back.
“OK! OK!” the merchant calls to his men, “I HEAR YOU! I hear you! Please, quiet down!”
As the men slowly calm down, the child’s cries can be heard more piercing. “Can you go check on that child?” he asks me, “I’ll deal with my men.”
I walk in the direction of the child. He’s all of 5 or 6 years old and he’s running after a goat waving a stick in his hand. “Hey!” I yell in his direction, but he doesn’t respond. The goat, on the other hand, comes right at me and hides behind me so that the child runs into me and we both fall on the ground.
“What are you trying to do?” I ask him.
“Rih al khamsin! Rih al khamsin!” he screams at the goat…
A woman passing by bursts into laughter and as I am trying to sit up, I ask her what he’s saying. “It’s the name we give to a violent wind mixed with sand… It lasts many many days and can be deadly. He’s calling the goat by that name!”
“What has she done to you?” I ask him.
“She bumped into me and I fell and I got sand in my mouth!” He says upset.
“How did she do that?” I ask him.
He slaps his hand on his butt.
“So then you bumped into me… should I run after you with a stick?”
He looks at me taking me seriously for a moment. He gets it and makes a face.
“I am scared. I don’t want my dad to go to war.”
“I don’t want that either.”
“But he said he has to. I don’t want my dad to die.”
“Where are your parents?”
The boy holds on to me tightly and cries. In that moment, I think he really believes he will lose his dad and I imagine he feels abandoned. I may mean more to him than I mean to myself. I feel this often; I could die, it would mean nothing to me, but it would mean an awful lot to others. I choose not to end my life because I think others take hope and inspiration from it. I don’t want to let them down or do to others what my parents did to me. The boy has calmed down. He looks at me with curiosity.
“What’s your name?”
“B. L.”
“Bielle?”
“No! The letters B. and L.”
“You just have letters? Are you going to get more letters to make a name?”
I laugh. “No! My mom was very sick; she died soon after I was born. My dad left the hospital when he heard, and had a car accident. They had not given me a name yet. I was sent to an orphanage and people called me B. It’s for the word they call children from parents who aren’t married.”
“What word?
“I don’t want to say it out loud!”
“And L.?”
“… it’s my parents’ last name.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I ran away without asking.”
“Bad Luck!”
“You’re funny! You like playing with words?”
“I’ll call you Bielle!”
“You like making things better!
“That’s what my mom says! My birthday is February 8! What’s yours?”
“The day my parents died, October 10, 1964.”
“You’re a gift from your dad and mom to life!”
A gift! I never saw it that way … more like a burden … Can I really learn to see my life as a gift, not just to others, but to myself?
“I also have a gift!”
“What is it?”
“I only show it for a good omen!”
“Where are your parents?”
“My mom is dancing! My dad is planning war with the men over there!”
We walk to the group of people playing music and dancing. A colorfully dressed woman walks toward us.
“What happened?” she asks me.
“You must be his mother!”
“This is Bielle, mom!” the child says excited, “She’s my new friend! She was born on October 10, 1964!”
“Your son was upset and your husband asked me to go check on him while he spoke to the men back there!” I tell her.
“You know not to ask people’s birthdays, son!” she says, “It’s sacred!” Then, I notice her dark eyes, intense, inquisitive yet kind, probing my soul, “Now that I know… Let me ask you something. You get energy from getting the job done, you want to master getting the job done and you want to teach us about getting the job done. What’s this job that needs to get done?”
“You can tell all that from my birthday?”
“Much more … I can tell you have a big heart.”
“I love it when you do that, mom!”
“Can you go play a while son? I want to talk with Bielle.”
“OK, mom!” The boy says cheerfully. He gets something out of his pocket and waves it at me. I recognize the shiny object. It’s a coin.
“You have come at this time. It’s about the war, right?”
I remember my conversation with the merchant. Everything points to my role in avoiding a war. If Rumi were here I would ask for guidance. He said I would do my soul’s work here. I need to follow my inner compass.
“In part,” I tell her, taking off my veil.
“When will you start? The tension keeps rising…”
“I have started. Let the men argue. They’ll tire.”
She smiles. She takes my arm like we’re old friends and takes me to dance. The thought I might become a man then makes me nervous.