Short Story | Staring
On a crowded Damascus bus, an empty seat waited for him, and a child he had never met. Between them was something that resembled what had once existed between him and his grandfather at sunset — a staring that needed no explanation.
I stand alone at the bus stop on “El Thawra” Street — the one that carries me after work toward “Bab Sharqi”. Something unusual for three in the afternoon in the middle of Damascus, the hour when office workers pour out and laborers break for lunch. When the bus arrives, I find a single empty seat. Strange, too — I am accustomed to not finding decent space even for my feet inside these buses. I did not waste much time in wonder. I climbed in, claimed the empty seat, and breathed out slowly.
The seat waiting for me sits in the left-side single row, and in the seat directly ahead of it, a middle-aged woman holds her young son — no older than three. And just as the moment and the seat had been singular in their nature, so was the child. He was utterly transfixed by everything the wide window offered his eyes, as though this were his first time aboard a bus — or his first time leaving home at all. He stared through the glass with a delight so full you could almost feel his soul dancing between his ribs. His beautiful face, his handmade woolen clothes in bright mismatched colors, the little cap covering most of his hair — they held me long enough that thoughts came rushing in and I drifted away, without once lifting my gaze from him.
Near the front door, in the side-facing seats, two university girls sat deep in a conversation that showed no sign of ending before their stop — or before the second coming. But one of them may have been drawn away from it by my own absorption in the child, and she drifted into watching me, without my noticing at all.
When my parents died I was still a teenager. An uncle took me in to live with him in our distant mountain village. After ongoing friction with his wife, I was moved again — this time to my grandfather’s house. He was old by then, worn down by the accumulating variety of his illnesses, which left him in no condition to object to anything I did. I believe now that even had he known everything, he would not have objected. I could sense in his quietness and his long silences a man who perhaps carried some regret — for a life spent entirely in labor, in securing a decent future for his children, having forbidden himself from remarrying after his wife died, long before I knew him.
He would wake in the morning to share breakfast with me before I left for school, then return to his bed and remain there until the sun softened toward the west. Then he would come out to the house’s open terrace overlooking a valley that stretched toward the horizon, and sit watching the sun as it descended and its light began to bend and break. I would sometimes sit near him and look at him as he sat there — an hour, sometimes two — without shifting his gaze. Had I not known he had lost most of his sight, I would have scolded him for it.
I believe my grandfather is the one who taught me this habit. Some might call it rudeness — staring — especially if the one you are staring at happens to be a young woman.Today I find myself unable to fully explain him. Condensing the story of a man who sat watching a sun he could barely see, while I watched him waiting for him to look away — that is not something a few lines can hold.
Something made the child climb up onto his mother’s lap until his face was level with mine. He met my stare directly, pulling me back from wherever I had gone, and I smiled at him. The old delight I had seen when I first sat down grew larger — he began to play with me, hiding his face against his mother’s shoulder and peeking out again. I laughed. The university girl who had been drifting in our scene laughed too, at my laughter, and that laugh caught my attention and I noticed for the first time that she had been watching.
The child resumed his game, and I began to play back — making faces, then sticking out my tongue. He placed his small hand over his mouth to tell me that was rude. But then he grew bold and stuck out his own tongue, and put one hand on his nose, mocking me in the most gently childish way. His mother finally turned around, looked at me for a moment, smiled, and turned back — leaving the two of us to our game.
Among the few natural and beautiful things still permitted here is playing with strangers’ children — the kind of warmth that needs no introduction and no permission slip. And so I thanked God that what held my attention was a child’s game, and not a young woman’s glance, as I mentioned.
