The Guitar Player

This memory still plays with my thoughts and my mood. I do not mean the sensory kind that moves quickly between what I see and what I hear, but that elusive one that descends upon your mood and thinking and returns you to years you had forgotten or nearly forgotten — that memory which stores the years of a life, its days and its nights.

This time, it seems, it took me back to the early years of my life, to my first city on the banks of its river.

Images followed one after another: the fishermen scattered along the riverbank in their small boats, two to each boat — one rowing from the edge, the other casting the net and then slowly pulling it back, waiting each time for a catch. But how many times does he cast his net in a half-circular motion, only to have it return empty except for the lead weights attached to its edges?

The river waves danced quietly, the tide at its highest. Other fishermen cast their lines and waited. The river played with the fishing lines, often deceiving some of the fishermen — they would pull in their lines to find nothing, because a playful fish had teased the bait and made off with it without being caught.

He asked himself: forty years ago, they were casting their lines and steering their boats in the same way, waiting with a patience bordering on devotion to the river, and they still play the game of fishing and waiting.

Here Sinbad passed, where the river opens onto the gulf. For years, the city received those who came to it laden with the scents of spices and incense, seekers of livelihood brought by passing ships to this city that offered them its warmth, its dates, and its kindness. This city is enchanted by the river — its moisture was sustenance for lovers and the hungry wearied by exhaustion, and its loving sun tattooed their foreheads with a tan that carried the scent of pollen and embers.

What brought him back to all these images if not this memory that transports him from a state of restless mood to images that restore clarity to his mind?

There is the announcer of the week’s film at the city cinema, playing the flute… A tall black man wearing black trousers and a white shirt, walking ahead of two men carrying a large wooden board with pictures of actors and scenes from the film… while he plays and calls people to come watch the film and enjoy its events. There were many cinemas in the city, just as there were many cafés scattered along the riverbank.

The flute reminded him of his father’s attempts to learn the oud with a man who made music and playing his profession, though he was advanced in age. His mother would often ask his father: couldn’t you find anyone other than this man, who sneezes and coughs and smokes cigarettes with that unpleasant smell, to teach you the oud? But she never heard a reply other than that this man was a good player and a master of his craft. Yet his mother never tired of repeating the question, and sometimes asking that they find somewhere other than the house for the playing and learning.

Back then, he himself was captivated by a picture of a young guitarist that he kept near his bed.

Sitting under the spell of his memory, a question came to him: what if he had learned to play the guitar? Perhaps he would have become a famous musician, leading a large band that toured the world’s cities, performing music of his own composition.

He also remembered that many years later, when he was working at a press institution, his friend Jawdat gave him a cassette tape of a Spanish guitarist. He imagined himself in a great concert hall, standing alongside an orchestra, playing his guitar — and when he finished a part of his piece, applause filled the hall as he bowed his slender body slightly and acknowledged the audience’s greeting. The next day, he would find his picture in the newspapers, writing about the genius of this southerner from a land that witnessed the birth of music in its temples and palaces.

He rejoices greatly and wishes his father and mother were there to share in this beautiful scene — one that perhaps haunted his father’s imagination as he learned the oud at the hands of that old man in their house on the riverbank.

But he notices again that his memory and imagination are deceiving him. He feels he can enjoy the music and creations of guitarists without leaving his place, and that his journey in the world of work was more luminous than the glitter of applause in closed halls. His memory plays with its storehouse, while he still sees in the cup a last sip — and the dregs of the cup have the taste of a kiss on cherry lips.