Hammamet, Friday, June 26, 2015 (afternoon) gratus quod menti quolibet ire licet (I am grateful that the mind journeys where it wills) Ovid, The Black Sea Letters, III, V. v. 48 After the shattering news of the attacks in Sousse, I decided to go to the place that I had revisited in my mind endless times since I left Tunisia. It has always offered me solace. I rented a motor bike. More beast than bike and much too heavy for me to lift to make it stand upright. The owner insisted that I wear a helmet and kept telling me that I shouldn’t worry: Hammamet was a safe place. So many people had said this to me since I came off the bus that was supposed to take me to Sousse. Doubts began to creep in. In some moments I did think that my long orange blouse made me a perfect target. Why didn’t I wear dark colors that day? But I brushed the concerns aside. Attacks such as the one in Sousse were planned long in advance. There were no armed bands roaming around the country and waiting for a possible target. I started at a low speed but grew bolder after a while. As I drove towards Nabeul where my father had once managed four hotels, I wondered whether I would recognize them. The bus did not pass by them the other day. At some point I saw a sign saying ‘Zone Touristique.’ It sounded right, especially since the road was headed towards the sea. I turned right and then left. Within minutes I spotted the Hotel Mimosa, one of the four. Parallel to it run the train tracks. All I needed to do from there is to wait for the train bridge over the oued (streambed that only has water in the rainy season), where the road stops. Our home was the last one on the right. I only spotted the train bridge once I found myself already on a parallel bridge and saw the wide oued below me. So, the road now continues and follows the tracks all the way to the city. I made a U-turn and headed straight for our last home in Tunisia. It looked different. You could tell no one lived there all year round. The new owners built a wall around it. One could still see the house but it seemed so contained. Also, the access to the beach was gated. Before, the house was open from all sides, and the breezes whispered through the slender oleander leaves. I got back on the bridge and over the dry riverbed. On the right, above the sea stood the Marabout (shrine) of Sidi al-Mahrisi. Its white dome crested by a half-moon rested on a cube-like structure. Like other marabouts on Tunisia’s coast, it guarded the land against invaders from the sea. There were now many new beach homes in its vicinity but no one was out in the street. However, a skinny tiger cat greeted me affectionately and never left my side. It was as if it had been waiting for me. I leaned my heavy bike against the fence and walked slowly towards the shrine. Its whitewashed walls shone in the sun. I used to sit hours and hours on the rock on which the marabout was built, with my back against ancient mosaics that once ornated the bathroom of a Roman home. I used to imagine the ancient villa that must have once stood above the rock and children rushing into the sea.
I approached and saw the mosaics were still there and also the bathtub, exactly as I remembered it. But there were iron bars protecting the site. Probably, a good thing. My favorite mosaic had always been the beautiful Nereid riding a gigantic hippocampus. I had a story for her. She was carrying away the soul of a sailor that she kept safe inside the medallion hanging from her heavy necklace chain. What used to be my rock was now covered with a semi-circular platform enclosed by iron rails. Certainly convenient and safe, but you couldn’t let your legs dangle in the breeze. How right Ovid was to suggest that in our minds we are at liberty to journey to the places we call home. The actual location may be far away, changed, or even lost, but the one we chiseled onto our memory remains. All I needed to do is to close my lids and stand still. I was then able to recall instantly the image of myself sitting on the rock above the sea looking in the distance. I had done it thousands of times in all these years. But now I was able to hold the image in my mind while actually standing on top of my rock with my arms stretched. I felt complete. As old Vitruvius put it, the square and the circle have to be harmonized, but he never revealed how it should be done. The marabout’s cube (earth) and dome (heaven) had modeled it, but I hadn’t paid attention to the transformation that arises from their interplay. I suppose each one of us has to find his or her own unique formula. I took my farewell from Sidi al-Mahrisi with a heavy heart thinking that I was not going to visit it another time before leaving Tunisia. When I returned to the hotel, I called up Neïla and told her that I was going to stop by for dinner. When I closed the phone, I realized how natural it felt to just say ‘I’m on my way.’ I was hoping that no one on the bus to Nabeul would mention the Sousse attacks to me. Luckily, the bus was almost empty. It was close to sunset, when Muslims are anxious to be home and break the fast with their families. Hafed waited for me at the end of the bus route. His first words were ‘Did you hear about the attacks?’
3 Comments
Mustafa
8/18/2015 09:22:07 pm
A really inspiring post about your trip to Tunisia. This place looks amazing! I´d love to visit it some time.
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12/14/2019 03:53:10 pm
I know that was hard for you to do this, but it was what you needed to do. This memory that you revisited was not the best, but it is important. Once you start being able to relive these days, it is when you become a better person. It will take a lot from you to face these memories, but once you get past them, then it is just smooth sailing. I hope that you can get past it quickly, man.
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11/12/2022 09:29:15 pm
Yard away safe themselves. Hear between walk scene group past surface. Benefit after image.
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