Stella Gaitano Translated into English By Asha El-Said

Extracted from:
Running Away from the Salary
By: Stella Gaitano

Translated by: Asha El Said



............................envelope arrived at the end of the month I felt
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nauseated. My uncle’s smile and gold ornamented fingers became a sign of burning to me. I fell into an acute state of depression and stopped going to work. But the salary came absolutely regularly; enveloped in a sarcastic yellow smile! When I learnt that most Government Organizations were run that way, I felt great disappointment. I raged with anger and waited for a catastrophic happening... but nothing happened! Eventually, I quit my uncle’s Organization. I resigned. I established a small enterprise with some friends; we offered consultations in many different fields. We also imported electronic appliances. It was a pleasant shock absorbent and a vent for my physical and mental energy. What disrupted my serenity was the arrival of the envelope! It would reach me where ever I went. I find it on my desk, in my car, under my pillow.... I would throw it at their faces, or give it to the poor. I even flushed it down the toilet once, but to no effect. All of this, however, didn’t affect me as conversations with friends about corruption! I would deflate like a wild flower and become irritable to the point of losing control of my anger and wretchedness because of that salary. In the end, here I am carrying my black rucksack, my Alternate Home National Passport, and a decision to abandon my Home Land, my people, and my salary!
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I went roaming in the streets for a goodbye. Something unusual stopped me as I was passing one of the mountainous curves. I saw a group of dusty women banding their waists and heads with dampened pieces of coloured cloth. They were breaking the mountain rocks into small pieces to be used for building. They sell this strenuous toil very cheaply to feed their children! I approached one and asked her how much was a sack-full؟ She answered with great pleasure, ‘’thirty pounds and if you take more we reduce the price.’’ I learnt that to fill a sack she needed two to three days of torturous work. I also learnt that most of them were widows of soldiers killed in the war or poor wretched penniless abandoned by their husbands in homes filled with deprived children. I took out the yellowish envelope and distributed the salary between them. I bought all the fragmented and whole sack-full of rocks. I did not take them; but like he who catches a fish and returns it to the sea; I returned the rocks to the mountains. The air was heavy with the dust from the rock breaking process, or the tyres of cars that speed by on sandy roads. A lot of the dust hung to my hair and eyelashes like a halo of light. The women circled around me and I knelt in the middle filled with joy. Then they streamed like water towards
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their homes. Their reverberating laughs soothed the anger in my heart until it vanished like smoke into the horizon. I sat alone in the middle of the rocks like a repelled monk scrutinising my city from above... What a beautiful sight! I could see the houses scattered around, with their slanting roofs reflecting the light here and there like mirrors thrown by playful kids. The rich green leaves, the laughter of the happy women for receiving a few pounds. All that awakened something inside me that whispered in my ear to be as solid as the erect mountain behind me. The sun crowns me every morning and the rain washes my sorrow. I pulled out the Alternate Home Land Passport and put it on the rock where I sat. I left it there to the wind blowing open its pages. I turned my back and flowed like water towards my city, careful not to spill over, and sticking to the leaves and slanted roofs and beautiful girls’ hair plaits.

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