I met Ramzi at a classical music concert at the Friends Boys School. I had invited Nassar, an acquaintance via ArteEast whose writing I had translated with a friend earlier that year. He brought Ramzi, and introduced him to me at intermission. Ramzi attempted a phrase or two in English, then launched into his life story without further ado in eloquent, earnest Arabic. The words poured from him in no general direction, his speech devoid of gestures, his empty eye-sockets gazing past me. He had escaped from Gaza with a day pass two years ago and had been hiding in the West Bank ever since. He had no West Bank ID and couldn’t get one, so he couldn’t pass any of the checkpoints. His wife and children were still in Gaza. He had tried to get them out but to no avail. “My people have suffered so much, and all because of the Israelis, all because of the occupation,” he repeated rhythmically in between each verse of his story. Nassar stood by with an unreadable expression on his face. Had he introduced me to Ramzi to drive home even further the desperate plight of the Palestinians? Or had he perhaps not realized that Ramzi would impart this diatribe? I murmured sympathetic responses, increasingly aware that he required none. Eventually another man standing by listening – perhaps another Gazan – intervened and whispered to him,. They clasped hands and drifted back towards the auditorium with barely a dip in Ramzi’s monologue.
I sit behind the three of them, Ramzi, Nassar and the new man, watching them listening to Brahms Piano Trio No. 3. Ramzi’s head cocked in concentration. My friend Emile and I had discussed the waking dreams that classical music can inspire; what mental images, or impressions rather, could Brahms bring to the mind of a blind Gazan? I didn’t get a chance to ask Ramzi, because when we left the concert hall, the second movement of his concerto of memories and opinions began.
As we separated from the noise and crush of the crowd, Ramzi began to direct his narration towards me more specifically, and registered for the first time, with delight, that I could speak Arabic. Another theme thus wove its way into his streaming solo (as with the other themes, he first devoted a whole verse to developing it, then recapitulated it every few minutes): how wonderful it was to meet an American who spoke Arabic! what a lovely person I must be! and a Sagittarius born in the same year at that! and what did I think of Palestine? and did I find it beautiful? and was I happy here? and he hoped I was “happy” in his beautiful country. (This, mind you, mixed in with the continuing themes of his hardships.) Nassar held Ramzi’s elbow on the other side and whispered an ostinato of “daraj . . . daraj . . . daraj” (“step”) alerting Ramzi of changes in elevation. Ramzi’s feet stumbled through the instructions as if disconnected from his rhythmic, gushing speech.
Ramzi has never seen his country, but was resolute in his frequent declarations that it is the most beautiful in the world. He began a litany of places that we must visit together, describing each as more enticing than the next.
“You know, you are speaking with a beautiful woman,” Nassar informs Ramzi.
“I know, I can tell that she is beautiful,” Ramzi nearly giggles with joy, his smile twitching with a brief shyness. I am beginning to wonder what impressions the notion of ‘beauty’ makes on his mind, and what particular elements inspire it – voices, kind words, smells, warmth, breezes, descriptions of visual attributes from other processed in his own private language. Later, sitting at Zan, a bar in downtown Ramallah, Ramzi explains.
“I have never seen color, of course. But I don’t need to; I know colors from having heard so much about them. I know when I hear green that it is associated with trees and plants, when I hear blue that it is associated with the heavens and purity, red is the heart and love, white is peace and innocence . . . I have learned all of these. All colors register “signifieds” (he uses the Saussurian term, in Arabic: “madluul”) in my mind the same way it does for others, without having seen them. You know that you don’t have to see something or someone to know them, or have a feeling of knowing them. For example, I have never met Barack Obama but I know him through his words and his actions, from what people say about him, from the feeling that he gives me. I love this man, I think he will do good in my country and everywhere. He is kind and intelligent, and respects Islam. I would like to write him a letter about my situation, do you think he would read my letter? I think he would have to read it, because he is a good man. I know these things, and I think of them when I hear the words, ‘Barack Obama.’ But I have never seen him. Colors are like this to me, I know them, and have known them all my life, but only in what they signify to me.”
Ramzi lives and thinks in a pure Saussurian world of signifiers and signifieds, without images, without visual memories. While the rest of us are beholden to images’ impact on our reasoning and understanding, Ramzi inhabits a world of symbols. Even his name, “ramzi”, means “symbolic”.
In his blindness, Ramzi has mastered one of the most complex systems of symbols I know of: classical Arabic. Without having ever seen the sloping script, the short vowel symbols floating above the stream of connected letters, he speaks the ancient language with a clarity unparalleled in most Arabs I have met anywhere, on the level of university professors. It occurred to him at some point in our conversation to switch to classical or “Modern Standard” Arabic, called fuS-Ha (“the most eloquent”), which he supposed might be easier for a foreign student of the language. He explained that his background as a radio announcer accounted for his mastery of spoken fuS-Ha, and set off on a lengthy cadenza to prove it.
“If I have correctly understood the situation, it is good and right that we speak only fuS-Ha! What is your opinion of this proposition of mine? I find it to be a most excellent and suitable plan, but only if it pleases my lovely new friend, and she finds it to be as excellent and as suitable as I in my humble opinion have found it to be.”
After a few more minutes of such oration, I manage to interject in passable fuS-Ha that I did indeed find it to be an excellent and suitable proposition, and he began a new speech expressing his joy in all of the flowery locutions that high classical Arabic has to offer (“I am delighted a great delighting, it pleases me a great pleasing, what a joy of all joys it is to . . .”). Despite the repetition, I had to remain vigilant, for he would suddenly direct a trick question at me to test my knowledge of Arabic grammar. When I answered correctly, the thrill would send him off on a lengthy reflection on my mastery of Arabic, although I had likely only uttered twenty full sentences, albeit containing the constructions that Ramzi considered to belong to the highest possible level of fluency. Eventually, his interest in hearing me speak fuS-Ha induced him to give me the floor more often, but he monitored my speech for points to correct or praise. His responses thus consisted of linguistic observations rather than reactions to content, but I suppose one could call it a conversation.
As Ramzi’s enthusiasm for our ceremonial exchange escalated, I realized how much it must mean to him to be demonstrating his prowess in formal Arabic. In Gaza, his education and resolve had allowed him to found and host a radio program for the handicapped. Here in the West Bank, his isolated and uncertain situation had relegated him to the bottom of the employment chain: a street tamarind juice-seller. These unfortunate men wander the streets downtown during the high shopping hours with heavy metal canisters of syrupy brown juice strapped to their backs, their plaintive cries of “tamar-hindi bi-shaykl, tamar-hindi bi-shaykl!” ("tamarind juice for a shekel!") blending with the bustle of traffic. To boot, tradition dictates that they wear the clownish dress of bygone Ottoman courts – shiny red, gold-tasseled shirts with puffy sleeves, matching pantaloons and “tarboushes,” cup-shaped tasseled hats.
Ramzi refused to admit to any shame about his most recent line of work. “People should work at all different levels of society,” he avowed. “Otherwise how can they know and respect their fellow men? They cannot. ‘I am thankful to my God’ (he says this phrase in English for emphasis) that I have had the chance to work at many different jobs. Yes, my current job, selling tamarind juice, may not make a lot of money. At times, it is tiring. But thanks to my God, I have work and I am serving my society. Thanks be to God. And tomorrow, if you find yourself downtown on an errand, perhaps, perhaps, you will happen upon me at work – what a lovely surprise that would be, if you were to happen upon me at work! – and I could give you some tamarind juice.”
I assured Ramzi that I would keep an eye out for him the next day, but picturing him feeling his way through the merciless crush of bodies and cars with his walking stick in a clown-suit at high noon was uncomfortable to imagine.
The next day as I elbowed through the crowd with my laptop (the internet in my apartment on the blink, on my way to an internet café), the tamarind sellers’ cries echoed with particular stridency. I told myself I couldn’t bear to see Ramzi humiliating himself this way, but my eyes disobeyed and flitted past the identical costumes to the faces. Eyes popped back at me.
Until there he was, feeling his way on the corner of al-Nahda and al-Quds Streets, calling with as a lusty a shout as any, “tamar hindi bi-shaykl!”, his tarboush cocked on his head. But then I was walking by, without stopping, in a moment of revelation that he would never know I had passed.
I made it about seven steps then turned around and went back. “Ramzi,” I called him, lightly touching his shoulder. “It’s Anna.”
It took a moment for this to register, then delight and greetings abounded. Before I could protest, he was fumbling for his plastic cups to pour me a cup of tamarind juice. He successfully topped off a glass and extended it shakily towards me, smiling with all the pride and encouragement of a mother presenting her child with a birthday cake ablaze with candles. Shoppers stared at the spectacle as they passed: a white girl with a laptop receiving a lecture in formal Arabic on the salutary qualities of tamarind from a blind street vendor.
I sipped at the would-be elixir, listened to the lecture, and considered the possibility that Ramzi enjoyed his job. Perhaps in not being able to “see” the things we do – the silly tarboushes, the busy, annoyed faces of the crowds – Ramzi is able to “see” himself as providing a service that people need. And go home with money in his pocket, knowing that he has worked and supported himself another day.
“You only have the right to work, not to the fruits of your labor.”
-Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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