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Boston Yellow Cabs by Nathalie Handal It was so quiet that I was afraid to listen to the whistling of the heater, afraid that my thoughts were too loud. Click to read Essay Profile of Author Bio of Author from ETG Essay, Late-breaking Developments Author's Comment on the ETG Experience Updated Bio Click to Purchase Send email to the author (The copyright on this essay is held by the author.  For permission to duplicate: copyright@cunepress.com)

Boston Yellow Cabs
I feel most at home when I am sitting in a Boston Yellow Cab. The ride from Logan airport to my apartment in that yellow cab brings me peace. It calms even the echoes of my breathing.

Every time I travel, I am comforted knowing I will be welcomed in a yellow cab. My addresses change, the concierge changes, the furniture changes, the bed sheets change, and even I change, but the yellow cabs are still yellow. I open those heavy doors, sit on those bouncing back seats, and feel a sense of relief. It’s like trying to convince myself that if one day I am lost, at least, I’ll find a piece of myself in one of these cabs. . . .

I was sitting in a yellow cab going to the airport to fly to Iowa. Isn’t there always a time for Iowa? Maybe not. Most people I spoke to asked me with their eyebrows rising, their foreheads wrinkling, "Why are you going there?" To begin with, I was invited by my friend Nastasia, who is Bulgarian and happened to be working in Iowa City. And why not Iowa?

Nastasia picked me up at the airport in Cedar Rapids. She had been in Iowa one month and had already gotten used to driving there, not that one needed any real time to know one’s way around. Anyhow, after driving in Beirut or Paris, where she had lived, pretty much anything was possible. We had met at a Lebanese Cultural Gala two years before, in France. Since then the two of us kept in touch. We had gone to where I am originally from, Palestine. Then we went to Boston, and now we were in Nastasia’s Jeep Cherokee driving in the pig state.

Before the sun departed, it gave us a majestic golden orange horizon with red waves in the middle of the skyline. We were driving through Welds, and I felt like I was entering a yellow kingdom. I had never experienced such unity of earth and sky. As it grew darker, I also realized that I had never really been in the night. An absolute silence, a sense that all is resting or gone . . . when only stars and moon remain. It was so dark that I could hardly see the road. It was so quiet that I was afraid to listen to the whistling of the heater, afraid that my thoughts were too loud. Nights exist in Iowa.

At one point, I asked Nastasia where we were going. Iowa City was only thirty minutes from the airport, and we had been driving for an hour. She told me we were going somewhere else for the evening and that it was a surprise. I was impatiently waiting to see whether that somewhere had electricity or moonlight. She suddenly turned left into a slightly dusty, narrow road. We drove for about five minutes, and there, in the middle of emptiness, stood a house with lights. Nastasia parked in the front driveway, we walked to the house, she opened the door, and five people stood up. "Welcome, welcome," they all said at once. They spoke with a heavy midwestern accent. I was a bit confused but relieved to have finally arrived. "It sure is good to be here," I said.

In middle America, in a remote corner, surrounded by Welds, I met a Palestinian family. There was Nessim, his wife, Marie, and their three children. Nessim was born in Palestine and immigrated to America in the 1950s. He first lived in Michigan where he met Marie, who was a student. They eventually moved to Marie’s home state, Iowa. After their marriage, Nessim got accustomed to life in America and didn’t want to go back to the instability in the Holy Land.

Marie and the children had slight knowledge of the Middle East—only what they saw in the news, what they read in the newspaper, and what Nessim had told them. But he had been away for forty years. Time and circumstances had created a large space between him and his family in Palestine. His parents had passed away, and he didn’t know where his only brother was. What was left of their Arabic heritage could be summarized in one word—food. They surely knew how to cook Arabic food.

While we ate, we talked. I told them of a land far away, yet close in the way it could still breathe around them, a memory, but a memory still strong enough to survive. I played the Arabic cassette I had with me. They loved the rhythm of the music. The youngest daughter was particularly excited. As Nastasia and I danced, she naturally followed. I observed Nessim, he was crying. They were lost tears, tears put away for many years that had finally found a window. I felt saddened by his expression. Was it regret or melancholy? The evening ended with the final note of the last song on my cassette. It was difficult to leave. There where hugs and kisses and a crying laughter which I didn’t want to hear.

When I got to Boston I sat in a yellow cab and closed the heavy door. Once again, I had changed a little. I felt a void. My moment in that cab, however, remained the same. The yellow cab filled the empty corners of my heart. By the time I got to my apartment, my yellow ride had already helped me return, return but not forget.

Profile
She’s a riddle. Nathalie Handal officially lives in Boston but she calls from Paris, tells you about her last trip to Spain and her next trip to Jordan—like the impossible homeland, her address is unattainable. One is sure to receive her letters, mailed from here and there, anywhere, everywhere on a planet that occasionally accepts her feet to stand. Whether doing literary research, writing, or acting as public relations person, she is devoted to all she undertakes. And one can never forget the way she moves her hands, head, and body to explain something; one can never forget her zest for life.

We are doomed the moment we go beyond the surface of her words, for we become captives of a voice that creeps into us. East and West, abayas and jackets, kafiahs and hats, a Palestine deeply rooted in civilization, and an unquiet, newly invented America.

I met her in Al-Kashkool Bookshop in London, the never Field (that’s the name of her long poem) and the whole Weld. Longing but content, calm but full of life, present but distant. Her opposite sides often come all at once—the contrast between her inner and outer self forms the portrait of a poetic character. Whenever you turn you will find her, or maybe not.

If you want to know her name just turn the page upside down.

—Lina Tibi

Bio

Nathalie Handal
Places of residence: Boston and Paris.
Grew up in: Boston, Europe, and the Caribbean.
Day job: Poet, essayist, and literary researcher.
Education: B.A. in international relations, M.A. in English and literature, Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts.
Serial publications: Graffiti Rag. Visions-International. Involution. En Plein Air. Poetry.
Current projects: Editing Modern Arabic Women Poets (an anthology). Editing Arab-American Literature (an anthology). Giving lectures and/or presenting papers on Arab-American poetry in Paris, Jordan, California, Rhode Island, and Malaysia.
Forthcoming book: My poetic sequence the never Weld will be published by The Post-Apollo Press in 1997.
Favorite books: Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 by Mahmoud Darwish and The Double Flame by Octavio Paz.
Languages: I speak French, Spanish, and Arabic.
Cravings: Dark chocolate and definitely coffee, coffee, and more coffee.
Pastimes: Traveling, reading, listening to opera, conversing with friends, and going to good restaurants.
Favorite thing to do: Stare out into space and let my mind wander.
Beliefs: Peace, equality, and lots of freedom.

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