My First Love in Aden
Yemeni mp
Ahmed Saif Hashed
During my studies at the “Proletariat” Secondary School, I fell in love with a girl from Aden—beautiful, delicate, and captivating. She was my first love, a love never granted by fate even the chance of a fleeting encounter. It was a flame of longing that burned within me, unbroken, for three long years. I was the son of the countryside, weighted with modesty and haunted by a crushing shyness. My yearning smoldered beneath layers of silence, between ribs and broken wings. I was crucified upon a timidity unmatched, with no rival in its grip.
I would travel long distances from school to Al Qatea‘ Aden just to see her when she appeared on the balcony of her home. Fifteen kilometers I walked to reach her, and the same to return—sometimes part of it on foot, with worn-out shoes. I would return from these journeys—journeys that felt like conquests or pilgrimages—either crowned with triumph and joy if I saw her, or defeated and broken, carrying the anguish of a thousand stricken souls if my eyes were denied her sight.
I awaited Thursday with feverish anticipation, with a burning heart and a restless soul. I hastened the days, yearning for Thursday as one awaits the Night of Destiny or the joy of Christmas Eve. I would leave the school dormitory and cross that distance, just to behold her.
If I saw her, a cosmic confusion would surge through me, scattering chaos into every vein and limb. My hands would tremble as though possessed by spirits. My whole being quaked under the tremor of surging emotions. Then, little by little, I would gather myself again—only to be overtaken by astonishment vast as the sky. A new existence was born within me, wondrous and strange, as though a cosmic explosion had given life to a universe swelling inside my chest. Joy unfurled like a festival after dread and awe. My heart danced like a carnival in the heavens, then streamed down like rain. Those moments burned so intensely in my consciousness that I felt no one else in this world could possibly live them, or pass through them, but me.
Her balcony was on the second floor, while our relative’s house faced hers on the third. I lingered endlessly, letting the wait ink the balcony of my enamored heart. I would peek through the window whenever I found a gap in the minefield of watchful eyes, whenever a moment’s negligence granted me passage. I maneuvered and waited, my heart pounding, my eyes restless with the torment of long anticipation.
She would step out to hang or gather the laundry from the clothesline. At times, she emerged radiant, like a blossom in spring. Standing at the railing, she reigned as queen—her beauty her treasure, her allure her crown—stealing hearts and senses alike. My eyes would plead with hers, begging for mercy, yearning for a gift of grace.
If I glimpsed her but was barred by the presence around me from gazing freely—if ill-fated coincidence spoiled our chance—my turmoil betrayed me. The neighbors would take notice, and I appeared as though a bird had perched on my head. I would try to mask my confusion, to collect the fragments of my composure, but always failed—resorting to feigned ailments, pretending my joints and body were seized by fever. In that same moment, I waged a silent battle on two fronts: one with my own heart, inflamed with longing and shaken by disarray; the other with the siege imposed upon me by those nearby.
When I beheld her, my soul surged toward her like a wild horse, bound and tethered to an iron stake—muzzled, forbidden to move or neigh. My spirit yearned to break free of the body’s prison. Yet I was shackled, suffocated beneath the weight of ruins. I lived buried beneath the rubble of shame for more than a thousand years. My shyness, my dread, crushed my shoulders. I awaited her as one waits upon burning coals, just to steal a glance of a lover worn down by desire, to beg for a fleeting look or a strike from eyes as dazzling as houris. Ah, my poor heart, how much love you bore, how much torment and heavy patience you endured!
I watched her until my weary eyes blurred. I waited for hours. And if I were granted a single glance, I would fall—myself and my heart—from the seventh sky. My clouds would flash, and the heavens of my heart would rain showers of joy and delight. My soul would dance like a child beneath the rain.
For three years I burned with longing—drowning to the crown of my head in love for her—while she knew nothing of it, not until a brief moment before her departure. Three years, wasted in vain; what could I—or we—possibly do when the hour of farewell had already struck? The train had passed… the train had passed. And as the poet said: “The cruelest thing about the train is missing it.” My tender dreams withered into the tracks of emptiness. Alas, for the collapse of my hopes, which swallowed my very being, my four dimensions, and before all of that, myself and my grieving love.
Wretched was my fortune, steeped in misery and disappointment. The earth turned its mad face against me; the heavens turned their back in gloom. My stumbling fate trampled my blossoms with a thousand hooves. My vast hopes were devoured by loss. I became saturated with illusions, until illusion upon illusion grew into a calamity. O, what a ruinous defeat! There is no solace for such a blow. She departed forever, and grief made its dwelling in my soul.
My destiny piled disappointment upon me, refusing me even a single meeting with her. Misfortune seized the chances that might have been mine, and every lucky star abandoned me. Three long years my love lay bridled, imprisoned, and compressed into the deepest depths of my soul, fenced in by secrecy and iron barriers. And within me echoed a laughter like the explosion of grief in the abyss of my heart.
She left with her family from Al Qatea quarter. All roads lead to Rome, they say—yet my Rome left no trace, no sign, no path. Every way was severed, lost in the labyrinth of impossibility. She inspired in me a confession of rebellion, a revolution against absence.
I loved her to the edge of defiance. A tsunami of love swept me away, dragging with it utter failure. Accusations gathered against me, and even my own finger pointed, saying: Here passed failure. In me, revolt and rebellion erupted. Her absence shook the certainties I had clung to; questions rose against monotony, against dogma, against the void. I wrote upon the windowpane of my school dormitory the rebellion that had breached my silence, the pain that had forced my tongue to speak. And though my loss was heavy, though my grief immense, she still gave me the greater gift: she set my rebellion upon the very head of truth—or at least upon a fragment of it.
Yet my courage betrayed me. I never dared ask: what was her name? Shame crushed my shoulders, leaving me a heap of wreckage. I gathered the scattered remnants of courage from every corner of the earth, stood trembling before my overwhelming shyness, and asked our relative’s son. He told me. But my ears betrayed me, and shame smothered me. I never dared ask again. Ah, the treachery of memory! Was her name Linda? Or was it Randa? Did it end with an “a,” or with a long “i,” or perhaps with an “h”? Her name always eluded me, refusing to anchor itself in my mind, its letters scattered and lost to me.
Years have passed since then. Yet longing has resisted departure. I named one of my daughters Randa, and the other Linda, a safeguard, a way of making amends. Such is the madness of love, a madness we never fully grasp. Ah, this longing that defies forgetting, that stands unbroken against the passing of years, however long they stretch. Longing that refuses to die or fade away.
How much of a “traitor” I am in love, my wife, my beloved. How much of my life has been crowned with “betrayal.” Do not be angered—for you are the one who remains. You are the long companionship, the abiding presence in what is left of my days. Our certain love endures, and our long journey together has been tested by time a thousand times. We withstood great upheavals and storms; we passed through wars and survived the last one—its terrors greater than the Day of Judgment itself. How human I am, my wife, my dear daughters! Make forgiveness, pardon, and gracious mercy the final perfume of my tale—so that my weary soul may find peace and rest.
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