Hasan Abu Khalil
11/12/2006, 12:00 PM
[The Slope
By
Ghassan Kanafani
Transalted by
Hasan M. Abu Khalil
Muhsen, the teacher, was slowly and reluctantly walking down the long corridor leading to the classroom. It was his first experience teaching. Not knowing what to do once he entered the class, he tried not to think about that moment.
He had spent the night before lying awake in bed until morning, restless, thinking about it. “It is difficult for a person to stand up in front of people, and to do what? To teach them! Who are you to teach them? You, who have lived your whole miserable life without being taught a single useful thing by anyone, do you think that you can teach anyone anything useful? You yourself believe that school is the last place that a man can learn about life. So what do you think now that you have become a school teacher?”
In the morning he went to the headmaster’s office to sit there listening to the other teachers while they discussed the same issue that worried him, but with a different attitude.
- What shall we do if the children haven't got books?
- A professional teacher can find a way to conduct his class without books.
- "You can ask one of the students to do it for you, if you can not", the headmaster snidely remarked.
"Here's the headmaster giving the teachers lessons in order and obedience within the first minute of school time. He collected the fees last week and grasped them in his hand, and he is going to grasp our souls now", teacher Muhsen said to himself.
He sipped his tea and left.
The long corridor was filled with the clamoring of children. Teacher Muhsen, walking with heavy steps, felt that he was spirally into a future that held a lot of fuss about nothing, a future with nothing but commotion and absurdity!
"I have a nice story, Sir".
A child slouched down in the last row shouted out, offering a good solution to the confusing situation. And before being given permission by the teacher to tell his story, the child was out of his seat standing at the front of the class before his comrades, wearing short pants a few sizes too big for him, and a shirt made from an old fashioned lady’s garment, and thick black hair dangling down to his eyebrows.
“My father was a kind heartened man. His hair was grey and he had only one eye. He poked out his other eye while stitching up a shoe with a thick sole. He had been leaning over the shoe struggling to out the big needle through the sole of the shoe, but the sole was too thick. He pushed the needle with all the strength but to no avail. He kept pushing harder and harder but it was no use. Then he held the shoe to his chest and pushed with all his might and suddenly the needle burst through the other side and poked him in the eye.
My father was a kindhearted man. His beard was not long, nor was it short. He used to work a lot, and he excelled at his craft. He always had many shoes to mend and make good as new. But my father did not have a good shop, and had no one to help him with his work. His shop was a box made of wood, scrap metal and cardboard. It only had room for him, some nails, shoes and the anvil. It had no space for anything else, not even a fly could find room in there. The customer had to wait outside that box until his shoes were mended.
The box was located on the slope of a hill that was overlooked by a mansion owned by a rich man. No one could detect the location of the box form the balcony of the rich man’s mansion, as grass grew on soil that covered the roof of the box. And so my father did not fear being expelled from his place, as he would have been had the mansion owner discovered his hideout. The mansion owner never left his mansion. His servants used to bring him everything he wanted. Those servants kept Abu Ali’s secret from their master in return for getting their shoes mended for free.
My father, Abu Ali, kept working without fear or hesitation. It turned out that he could mend people’s shoes so skillfully that they looked like new. And so more and more shoes were brought to him everyday, and he would spend all day long and half the night working continuously. He used to say to my mother:
“Tomorrow the children will go to school.”
“So you can get some rest after all your hard work.” She would reply.
The child returned to his seat, but none of the students moved or said a word, which made teacher Muhsen yell at them:
“Why didn’t you applaud your friend? Didn’t you like his story?”
“We want to know the rest of it.” replied the students.
“Is there a rest of it?” the teacher asked the boy.
A month ago my father had heaps of shoes to mend, so he could not go back home. My mother would tell us that he worked all day and night without leaving his box. He had no time to spare to leave it. The rich man used to sit on his balcony eating bananas, oranges, almonds and nuts. He used to throw the peels through the balcony rails down the slope of the hill. The servants couldn’t see my father’s box for all the peels. My mother said that he was so absorbed in his work that he did not notice what was thrown over his box as he once had. Mostly, he stays in his box working hard on mending all the shoes that he has to deliver on time, and when he finishes he will come home, she said. But I think that he died there.
The students applauded, and the child returned to his place and sat in his seat quietly. The sixty bright, gleaming eyes began staring again at the teacher, Muhsen.
The teacher, Muhsen, sent the child to the headmaster's office, and on their way there, the teacher asked him:
-"Has your father really died?"
- "My father never died. I just said that to end the story. Otherwise, it would never have ended. In a few months it will be summer, and the piles of peels will dry up becoming lighter and allow my father to move them aside from above him, and will come back home at once.
When they arrived at the headmaster's office, teacher Muhsen said to the headmaster:
- "I have a genius pupil in my class. I think he is brilliant. Let him tell you his father's story".
- "What is your father's story?"
His shop was too small, but he was skillful. Being famous for his work, the owner of the mansion which overlooked his small shop heard about him, and so he sent him all his old shoes to mend to make them like new again. All the servants were busy carrying the shoes to the small shop for two days. When they finished, my father had been suffocated under the heaps of shoes. The shop was too small, and it hadn't enough room to contain all those shoes.
The headmaster put his thumb in the pocket of his waistcoat, thought, and said:
- "This is a crazy child. We must send him away to another school".
- "But I am not crazy", said the child, " you can go to the rich man's mansion where you will see parts of my father's flesh stuck to his shoes, or you might even see his eye or his nose on the slope. Go and see".
- "I believe that he is a crazy child", replied the headmaster.
- "But he is not crazy", replied Muhsen, "I myself once had my shoes mended by his father, and when I went back to mend it again they told me that he died".
- "How did he die?" asked the headmaster.
"He was hammering the sole of an old shoe. That day, he pounded many nails into that sole to make it firm, and when he finished he found that he had nailed his fingers between the shoe and the anvil. Can you imagine? He was so strong that he could hammer a nail through an anvil, and when he tried to get up he couldn’t. He was stuck firmly to the anvil. The passers-by refused to help him, and so he remained stuck there until he died.
The headmaster looked at Muhsen again. He was standing next to the child, both standing side by side as though they were one. He shook his head several times saying nothing. Then he sat down in his soft leather chair, and began correcting his papers while looking at Muhsen and the child from time to time out of the corner of his eye.
النص الأصل في المرفق التالي:
http://www.arabswata.org/forums/uploaded/141_1165827565.doc
By
Ghassan Kanafani
Transalted by
Hasan M. Abu Khalil
Muhsen, the teacher, was slowly and reluctantly walking down the long corridor leading to the classroom. It was his first experience teaching. Not knowing what to do once he entered the class, he tried not to think about that moment.
He had spent the night before lying awake in bed until morning, restless, thinking about it. “It is difficult for a person to stand up in front of people, and to do what? To teach them! Who are you to teach them? You, who have lived your whole miserable life without being taught a single useful thing by anyone, do you think that you can teach anyone anything useful? You yourself believe that school is the last place that a man can learn about life. So what do you think now that you have become a school teacher?”
In the morning he went to the headmaster’s office to sit there listening to the other teachers while they discussed the same issue that worried him, but with a different attitude.
- What shall we do if the children haven't got books?
- A professional teacher can find a way to conduct his class without books.
- "You can ask one of the students to do it for you, if you can not", the headmaster snidely remarked.
"Here's the headmaster giving the teachers lessons in order and obedience within the first minute of school time. He collected the fees last week and grasped them in his hand, and he is going to grasp our souls now", teacher Muhsen said to himself.
He sipped his tea and left.
The long corridor was filled with the clamoring of children. Teacher Muhsen, walking with heavy steps, felt that he was spirally into a future that held a lot of fuss about nothing, a future with nothing but commotion and absurdity!
"I have a nice story, Sir".
A child slouched down in the last row shouted out, offering a good solution to the confusing situation. And before being given permission by the teacher to tell his story, the child was out of his seat standing at the front of the class before his comrades, wearing short pants a few sizes too big for him, and a shirt made from an old fashioned lady’s garment, and thick black hair dangling down to his eyebrows.
“My father was a kind heartened man. His hair was grey and he had only one eye. He poked out his other eye while stitching up a shoe with a thick sole. He had been leaning over the shoe struggling to out the big needle through the sole of the shoe, but the sole was too thick. He pushed the needle with all the strength but to no avail. He kept pushing harder and harder but it was no use. Then he held the shoe to his chest and pushed with all his might and suddenly the needle burst through the other side and poked him in the eye.
My father was a kindhearted man. His beard was not long, nor was it short. He used to work a lot, and he excelled at his craft. He always had many shoes to mend and make good as new. But my father did not have a good shop, and had no one to help him with his work. His shop was a box made of wood, scrap metal and cardboard. It only had room for him, some nails, shoes and the anvil. It had no space for anything else, not even a fly could find room in there. The customer had to wait outside that box until his shoes were mended.
The box was located on the slope of a hill that was overlooked by a mansion owned by a rich man. No one could detect the location of the box form the balcony of the rich man’s mansion, as grass grew on soil that covered the roof of the box. And so my father did not fear being expelled from his place, as he would have been had the mansion owner discovered his hideout. The mansion owner never left his mansion. His servants used to bring him everything he wanted. Those servants kept Abu Ali’s secret from their master in return for getting their shoes mended for free.
My father, Abu Ali, kept working without fear or hesitation. It turned out that he could mend people’s shoes so skillfully that they looked like new. And so more and more shoes were brought to him everyday, and he would spend all day long and half the night working continuously. He used to say to my mother:
“Tomorrow the children will go to school.”
“So you can get some rest after all your hard work.” She would reply.
The child returned to his seat, but none of the students moved or said a word, which made teacher Muhsen yell at them:
“Why didn’t you applaud your friend? Didn’t you like his story?”
“We want to know the rest of it.” replied the students.
“Is there a rest of it?” the teacher asked the boy.
A month ago my father had heaps of shoes to mend, so he could not go back home. My mother would tell us that he worked all day and night without leaving his box. He had no time to spare to leave it. The rich man used to sit on his balcony eating bananas, oranges, almonds and nuts. He used to throw the peels through the balcony rails down the slope of the hill. The servants couldn’t see my father’s box for all the peels. My mother said that he was so absorbed in his work that he did not notice what was thrown over his box as he once had. Mostly, he stays in his box working hard on mending all the shoes that he has to deliver on time, and when he finishes he will come home, she said. But I think that he died there.
The students applauded, and the child returned to his place and sat in his seat quietly. The sixty bright, gleaming eyes began staring again at the teacher, Muhsen.
The teacher, Muhsen, sent the child to the headmaster's office, and on their way there, the teacher asked him:
-"Has your father really died?"
- "My father never died. I just said that to end the story. Otherwise, it would never have ended. In a few months it will be summer, and the piles of peels will dry up becoming lighter and allow my father to move them aside from above him, and will come back home at once.
When they arrived at the headmaster's office, teacher Muhsen said to the headmaster:
- "I have a genius pupil in my class. I think he is brilliant. Let him tell you his father's story".
- "What is your father's story?"
His shop was too small, but he was skillful. Being famous for his work, the owner of the mansion which overlooked his small shop heard about him, and so he sent him all his old shoes to mend to make them like new again. All the servants were busy carrying the shoes to the small shop for two days. When they finished, my father had been suffocated under the heaps of shoes. The shop was too small, and it hadn't enough room to contain all those shoes.
The headmaster put his thumb in the pocket of his waistcoat, thought, and said:
- "This is a crazy child. We must send him away to another school".
- "But I am not crazy", said the child, " you can go to the rich man's mansion where you will see parts of my father's flesh stuck to his shoes, or you might even see his eye or his nose on the slope. Go and see".
- "I believe that he is a crazy child", replied the headmaster.
- "But he is not crazy", replied Muhsen, "I myself once had my shoes mended by his father, and when I went back to mend it again they told me that he died".
- "How did he die?" asked the headmaster.
"He was hammering the sole of an old shoe. That day, he pounded many nails into that sole to make it firm, and when he finished he found that he had nailed his fingers between the shoe and the anvil. Can you imagine? He was so strong that he could hammer a nail through an anvil, and when he tried to get up he couldn’t. He was stuck firmly to the anvil. The passers-by refused to help him, and so he remained stuck there until he died.
The headmaster looked at Muhsen again. He was standing next to the child, both standing side by side as though they were one. He shook his head several times saying nothing. Then he sat down in his soft leather chair, and began correcting his papers while looking at Muhsen and the child from time to time out of the corner of his eye.
النص الأصل في المرفق التالي:
http://www.arabswata.org/forums/uploaded/141_1165827565.doc