The Lion

Farhad Pirbal
Translated by Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse and Jiyar Homer

Standing at the window of his room, a chill breeze tousling his hair, he spared a glance for the snow piling up on the sill and sighed, “That’s it then. This is my life now: always this cold and wretched wandering from this little room to the rooftop and from the rooftop back inside, like a prisoner.” Other refugees, people he considered friends, from Sri Lanka, Chile, Iran, and Lebanon, who had lived isolated out here for months before he even arrived, told him it could be nearly a year living like this on the island; after that, God only knows which far-flung city of this arctic country they might dispatch him to.

Just then, he heard a ship’s whistle: little by little, until it came into view from his window, the ship edged away from the island’s shore. It was their island’s ferry, leaving, like every other evening, loaded with refugees headed to Copenhagen (Copenhagen!), another cold and empty island. And just what would he do if he went to Copenhagen? Who would he see?

Standing at his room’s window, he watched the ship splashing and spuming away, little by little drawing away from their shore. Irritable, currycombing his own heart, he muttered, “Really. So what if I go to Copenhagen? What can I do there? Who do I know? Who knows me?”

Just a few days ago, he’d had this gut feeling, “You shouldn’t just sit in this room. Come on. You should get away from this island for a little while, like everyone else. If nothing else, go get some fresh air.” So, with other refugees, from Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Poland, he got on the ship and went to Copenhagen.

The ship docked at Copenhagen’s Vesterport at three thirty in the afternoon. As he disembarked, he calculated that he had, like every other refugee, until six thirty in the evening (so three hours) until he must be waiting again at the port: to catch the boat and return to his island to eat dinner and sleep.

When he reached Copenhagen’s bazaar, at four o’clock in the afternoon, he had no idea where to go or what to do. He searched and sauntered down the city center’s streets, same as his first visit to Copenhagen’s bazaar, same as his second visit, same as his third, same as every time he’d come: lonely, no cash, no currency, a stranger, a wandering child, his eyes searching the stores and their colorful displays, his glance lingering on the golden six- and eleven-story apartment buildings. Eager, thirsty, when he could, he loosed the sling of his glance at the reddish-blonde, silken-haired girls. And when he tired, he sat down on a cold garden bench. Rested, he stood to walk once more, eyes roving, exploring until he exhausted himself once again. And in the end, when he made it back to the walking district along the shore, to Vesterport, he felt a fatal strangeness and solitude. A strangeness and solitude that gnawed noisily on his innermost soul. And back on the ship, on the way back to the island, he heard the refugees, some in broken English, others in Persian and Arabic, insulting the Danish people, spitting on Denmark’s weather. One of the Iranian refugees, who seemed more educated than all of them, turned to a Lebanese refugee and said in English, “Ibn Battuta, on page 285 of his travel journal, wrote: ‘Denmark has foul language, foul weather, and foul manners.’”

The raucous, foul-mouthed refugees filled him with disgust; not even back in the island’s cramped dining hall, not even mid-bite, did they leave off from their fighting, rioting, and insulting. So strange. So, really, why had Miss Anneli, the supervisor of the island’s refugees, commented the other night, “You have a lovely name”? So strange. Miss Anneli, as soon as they met, with her lovely smile, had drawn closer to him to ask, “What’s your name?”

He had said, “Sherzad.”

Miss Anneli, always curious, then asked, “Sherzad … and does that mean anything in Kurdish?”

“Yes.”

“And what meaning is that?”

“A lionhearted man.”

I still don’t get it. That woman, why did she say, “You have a lovely name”? Was she just trying to show a refugee kindness? Yes, perhaps, so that if nothing else, for a moment or two, the clouds of the disquiet and foreignness he felt would clear.

Miss Anneli, before the evening she commented on his name, had glanced at him a few times with growing curiosity. The first time, he had stood alone on the beach, leaning against an old shipwreck, dispirited, despondent, gazing at the far-flung horizon of the Baltic Sea, his eyes brimming with foreignness. Suddenly, Miss Anneli brushed past him, taking in his sorrow-wracked posture with eyes that held questions, compassion, and mercy. The second time, he was on the building’s rooftop, once again on his own, a thick, black coat draped over his shoulders. He sat on some piled gravel, huddled against the cold, head bowed as he contemplated a feeble, bony chicken pecking the ground beside the gravel, searching for worms or grain. Just then, Miss Anneli passed by with a sisterly glance full of compassion and the most lovely smile. Yes, it all comes down to this: people in various states of loneliness and brokenness and misery getting pitied by others.

Agh! Poor Sherzad! Twenty-nine years! Twenty-nine years full of comfort, courage, and love, twenty-nine years he had lived, full of delight and pride … and so, that’s, well, that’s that … today, on this far-flung island, far from his country, far from his childhood, far from the paradise of his youth, miserable, he weeps over his solitude and brokenness! Agh! A sigh of remorse escaped him as he hung his head and left the window to sit at the table in the middle of the room.

There was a small mirror on the table, propped up next to an apple and a slice of grilled chicken. Today, in the dining hall at lunch, as at every other meal, he couldn’t help but be disgusted by the refugees’ constant riot. A Lebanese refugee at the table picked a fight with a Sri Lankan refugee. They fell on each other, a riot broke out, and though he knew he couldn’t finish his salad, he packed his slice of grilled chicken and his apple in Saran Wrap, put them in a bag, and got up. He took them back to his room and put them on the table.

Sitting, silent, he stared at the slice of chicken and the apple in front of him. Suddenly, he grinned.

Suddenly, he was a kid again! He saw himself clearly walking through their orchard with his mother. A naughty boy, as he walked, he kicked the apples that had fallen, whatever his feet could reach. His mother scolded him tenderly, “Sherzad, my boy, this is a sin! Stop kicking the apples!”

And here, now, today, after all those many years, on this arctic island in the middle of nowhere, his daily lunch is always a slice of chicken and just one single apple! Just a single apple!

He planted his elbows on the table. His claws, this side and that, clutched at his skull. As he looked back, a sob caught in his throat. He raised his head and looked at himself in the small mirror on the table: a tangle of hair, a fistful of beard, two thick, drooping eyebrows slowly growing together … and his eyes, so strange! Each day more sunken.

So strange! This evening, in front of the mirror, with his disheveled appearance and his withered soul, he looked exactly like the mournful, broken lion he had seen in his village nineteen years before! Now, he remembers it as if it were a dream. One evening, he was at home with his mother, aunt, sisters, and brothers, eating near the hearth, when a lion, a long rope trailing after him, crept into their courtyard to collapse on the porch.

“A lion so dispirited and powerless? So faint? So miserable? Let me see no more.”

His little sister’s eyes, when they lit on the lion, flew open wide. She leveled a finger, pointing outside, and screamed, “Lion!”

It was the first time in their lives they’d seen such a wonder: late one evening, a lion creeps into their courtyard to collapse on their porch! And with their father, for years gone on a journey he’d yet to return from.

His mother, when her eyes lit on the lion, sprang to her feet; she attacked the door handle, slammed the door shut, and threw the deadbolt. Then together, they all rushed to the window. He, his mother, his aunt, and his younger siblings piled on top of each other, in a tangle of questions, fears, and exclamations, each trying to get a glimpse of the lion. And the lion, exhausted, spent, and whimpering, just lay against the porch walls. In the moonlight, his muddled, dirty mane managed to shine. Blood leaked from his forehead and both temples and from his skull, down around his ears, viscous anguish drip, drip, dripped.

How strange! It seemed the lion had come from a long way off and saw their porch as a peaceful shelter where he could rest a while. Perhaps he had been driven away by others. From time to time, with his bloody mane, he shook himself. He chafed feebly against his rope, his limbs shaking, but couldn’t rid himself of it.

Agh! Now, here, on this island, Sherzad imagines himself as the lion of his childhood. Agh! In his entire life, he had never seen himself so miserable, alone, and broken. His aunt, he remembers, had pressed herself up against the glass, nearly putting herself through it, to see the lion. She said, “This lion … must be, war broke him.”

His mother, as if begging for mercy, said, “A lion so dispirited and powerless? So faint? So miserable? Let me see no more.”

His little brother, all in a rush, asked his mother, “What is that long rope wrapped around his neck?”

And his little sister, whose fear hadn’t yet faded, said, “Mother … he must have escaped some prison.”

For nearly half an hour, they stood beside the window and contemplated the lion. And the lion on the porch stayed sprawled in the same spot; he didn’t dare—he couldn’t even—lift his head to look around. From time to time, he waved his hands weakly around his head, trying to shoo away the flies that had settled on the bloody wounds at his temples—and even at that, he sometimes failed, flies still buzzing around his head and swarming his wounds. From time to time, he changed flanks, settling down once more with a wounded sigh.

In the end, his mother could no longer bear the sight; she stood with sudden resolve and said, “I am going to give him meat.”

His aunt protested; she did not approve. His younger siblings, feeling the same, gathered around their mother, climbed into her lap and shouted, “No, for God’s sake, don’t go!”

His mother said, “Enough.” She bundled up a slice of grilled chicken from last night’s leftovers and an apple in some Saran Wrap and opened the door. “I’ll just go put it in front of him,” she said.

His younger siblings and aunt, all together, silent and wide-eyed, watched their mother from the window as slowly, so slowly, with hesitant steps, she approached the lion. And the lion lay still against the porch wall.

A terrible silence, springing from fear, disquiet, and shock, took hold of them all. Through the window, they saw: their mother stood before the lion, holding out the Saran-wrapped apple and slice of chicken. Then, steadily, she bowed and placed the apple and slice of chicken on the ground.

They couldn’t believe their own eyes. Open-mouthed, agitated, in shock, they waited impatiently for their mother to come back to safety, when they could let loose their happiness and riot and laugh.

Suddenly, a strange laugh, almost a roar, rose from the window. He started, as if returning to consciousness from an otherworldly dream; tired and weak, he raised his head to look at the apple and slice of chicken before him, feeling fatal misgivings and misery, sorrow about to shatter him.

Mitte Grand Island – 1985