Story of Water and Fire

The On-and-Off Stage

I don't know how to describe this period that lasted about two years. It was filled with the sweet and the bitter, with hope and a sense of threat, with connection and separation. Rafa was neither an ideal I aspired to, nor the person I dreamed of, but the light that he sparked within me melted away all other images and conceptions, stripping me of any desire to withdraw. Rafa kept making me feel like our relationship was temporary, always remaining uncertain and hesitant. He clung only to his freedom and was preoccupied only with fleeing to the far reaches of the earth that allowed him to create art as he aspired. Something prevented him from living in harmony with Baghdad and its restrictions. And, despite this, I found myself utterly swept away with love for him.

After that special first evening we spent together alone, he told me he'd be away from Baghdad for a few days on a short trip. Yet, he surprised me the next day by opening the door to my office and standing before me, his eyes drifting to the open space beyond the window. I was delighted by his unexpected appearance. Without my asking, he explained, "I cut my trip short because I forgot some papers."

Then he added, "And I also returned for another reason," and fell silent. I didn't ask him what it was. Silence ensued, and then he hesitantly asked if I could visit his studio to see his latest work. His request was quite a surprise, if I don't say odd, for I knew his studio was in his family home. "One day," I replied, "why not?"

Many days passed before I heard from him again and he asked to meet. When we did, I found myself facing a different person. He was provocative, tumultuous, and aggressive. I felt as though I were being tested, that there was something contrived about his behavior. I kept calm and ridiculed his trifling talk.

We continued to meet, both in groups and alone. Baghdad's many cultural events also brought us together, and we spent much time conversing on the phone. Whenever he'd draw close to me, he'd then distance himself, and his behavior perplexed me. His calls would start off cold and indifferent, which I'd ignore and go on talking, and then he'd take off in lively enthusiasm. I never understood his hearty laughter, and as for his contradictory statements, they could raise to me to a peak and then crash me to the deepest depths. We had long conversations in which I purposely focused on his work and projects, what each of us were reading, and what we were doing. As we listened to each other, we happily discovered the points where our taste converged on the smaller details of life. I grew certain of his uniqueness among everyone I'd ever known.

I wanted to hear more from him and discover who he was, and the telephone was the best way to pull him into speaking. Through our conversations I learned that he suffered from states that worried and confused me: discontentedness, hesitancy, and an indifference toward everything. Nothing was clear to me in the beginning.

Once he spoke to me of a blue painting crossed with a line of red. Then he complained of his excessive use of blue. "Using it again means it's turned into a phenomenon, and I have to figure out the reason for it."

"What does the color mean to you?" I asked.

He replied that he didn't believe in naming colors. "Blue implies sorrow, or failure."

I reminded him of the diaphanous blue pulsing with life in the painting hung at the entrance to Jabra Ibrahim Jabra's home, without mention of its sexual innuendos. He was delighted by the praise and laughed softly. Somewhat provocatively, I asked, "Is it comparable to Picasso's blue phase?"

"No," he said, "the journey remains a long one."

That evening I wrote a poem, "Drawing Lines in Blue and Red," in which I envisioned red sweeping away the blue.

A few days later, he called and inundated me with loving words. With childish joy he proclaimed, "The rule's been reversed! I've been freed of blue, and my painting has turned red! Red has triumphed. And I want to see you."

"When?" I asked softly.

"Now, at this very moment."

"But it's very late. We can speak for a while, but . . ."

"No, no. I want this now." He let out his mighty laugh and I got flustered. I had to control myself before I could control him without dampening his enthusiasm. "Do you really see it as appropriate for me to go out with you at such a late hour?"

"Of course."

"Can you convince my family?"

After a moment of silence, he whispered, "No, most certainly not."

We ended the call. I was unsettled; half of me was overflowing with joy and longing, and the other half was asking where I was going with this man who was wild to the core. "Whims, whims, whims, I'm all whims," he'd said. "I eat when I want, sleep when I want. I leave the house and don't know when I'll return . . . I hate restrictions of all kinds . . . I was created to live without them."

How could I keep up with this flow when I was a person who made a thousand considerations for every step I took? I'd always sought a tender heart to reassure me, not to daunt me. Yet how could I resist the charm of this sweeping tide?

We chose a small table in a quiet and cozy corner of a Karrada café, far from prying eyes. He asked me what I feared.

I looked into his eyes. They were sharp, showing no tenderness. Rather than expressing fear of my fate with him, and his mood swings that bewildered me, I expressed fear of the misunderstanding that often dominates human relationships, the eternal conundrum of people misunderstanding each other. Perhaps what I said was a bit strange to him, and more like a philosophical dilemma.

"Wonderful, that will lead you to utmost confidence! But if you want to understand me, you'll have to enter the world of madness."

I don't know why I didn't take these words seriously: "enter the world of madness." It was most likely contrived, a flexing of muscles and a performative call by the likes of those holding that all poets should resemble Rimbaud or Dylan Thomas, that all artists were bohemians freely roaming the earth without inhibition. I'd always made fun of Dylan Thomas's often-quoted reply to a girl who'd asked him, "How can I become a poet?" He told her to be a prostitute.

What I found loveliest in Rafa was a sincerity he could not hide; it was his most splendid characteristic. Yet, at that time, I still hadn't been able to determine where I stood with him: I had no doubt fallen for the artist, and now was falling for the person, but I hadn't made a decision. I found him churning within my depths like a storm moves through a deep valley, tearing everything from its place. He changed so much within me as I followed his lead. In our conversations, we often reached the pinnacle of understanding as we discovered the points of strength and weakness within us.

"You wouldn't be doing what you are now without me, if it weren't for my invitation and my instigation," he bragged. I wasn't comfortable with the arrogant tone in his voice. In utter confidence I replied, "That's not true, this was my decision. I wanted to be with you."

On another occasion he asked me, "Do you cry?" I told him, "Crying melts the soul and purifies it."

"When do you cry?"

"When a feeling raises me to its extreme. Yesterday, for example, I was listening to Spanish flamenco, with Nati Mistral reading and singing the poetry of Lorca. There was fire and sorrow in her voice, a life force as present as that found in the poetry of Lorca. Beauty is poetry, in that it's the spirit that kindles life in anything. And this is how, in my isolated life, I experience moments of intoxicated rapture that stir me. I'm swept up by it, and then awaken to find myself trapped between walls, consumed by loneliness and impotence. And so I cry."

Rafa's solo exhibition at EA Gallery, Baghdad, 1966

Poster for Rafa's graphic art solo exhibition at EA Gallery, Baghdad, 1966

Graphic art exhibition at The Gravura, Lisbon, 1968

When I spoke to him of beauty, he'd listen intently, his eyes shining captivatingly. Having connected with something in his fiery soul, I'd find him calm, compliant, and free of affectation or contriteness. We shared a lot about ourselves. He spoke to me of his travels and of his relationships with places, events, and women in Beijing, Lisbon, and Beirut, and we'd discuss them both seriously and in jest. He enjoyed speaking freely with me, devoid of any self-consciousness. Once I tried to speak similarly of myself, but he placed his hand over my mouth. "I beg you, I don't want to hear about it. I know you better."

He began insisting that I visit his home studio in his father's house, and I was eager to enter his art world, so I went with him. It was the second time I'd been to their spacious home. The first time I'd been invited to lunch with friends: Dia al-Azzawi, Tariq Ibrahim and his wife Dr. Fardous, Mekki Hussein, and Saleh al-Jumaie. On that visit I'd admired the modern style of their home designed by architect Hisham Munir, and we sat in the reception area with its comfortable, modern furniture designed by architect Rifat Chadirji and made by Abdel Amir al-Najjar. Rafa had supervised the construction of their family home, and the furnishing of the dining and reception room.

In the...