Aden, the City I Loved

Yemenat 

Ahmed Saif Hashed

Aden was my first refuge. My first love bloomed in her embrace, and my wife, the mother of my children, is from Aden. The most beautiful half of my life was lived in Aden, and the sorrowful half, too, belongs to her. The remains of my brother rest in her soil, as do one of my daughters and two of my sisters. Aden is a part of me, and I am a part of her, inseparable until the end of days. No decree, nor even death itself, can uproot me from her heart.

My awareness was shaped in Aden. My most meaningful education took place there. My first sustenance came from her, and both my first and second migrations were toward her. In Aden I found sanctuary and homeland, family and beloved ones, and memories still fresh and tender, defying time and change, stronger than forgetfulness itself.

I love Aden that once was: the Aden of love and deep yearning, of memories wandering through the hidden caverns of the soul and flaring like passion in my veins. The longer I am away from her, the greater my longing grows—for her, for her people, for the gentle kindness of her spirit. How I despise this war that has been thrust upon us, keeping me from her for more than eight long and heavy years.

The memories of Aden rise before me, radiant and luminous. Whenever my present days blur into sameness and disappointment, I return to her in thought. Those memories have become part of my being, the thread of my essence that cannot be severed. They remain alive and youthful, unfaded by time, even the sorrowful ones and even my lonely days there. They have aged like fine wine, easing the burdens and sorrows that weigh me down today, shackled and unwilling.

* * *

Aden was the city I endured the toil and fatigue of travel just to reach, braving the heat, the dust, the wind, and the sun’s scorching glare upon my face. I would breathe in the fumes of burning gasoline until nausea and dizziness overcame me, my heart leaping to my throat as though to escape my chest. I would feel as if my insides would spill out, fighting off the weakness of my weary body, my limbs trembling, my bones aching as exhaustion ground through them. Cramped within the narrow space of the car, I could barely move, my body twisted and stiff. Sharp pins and needles pressed behind my ears, at my temples, and along my jaw. Sometimes my jaw would lock when I opened my mouth to spit out the gathered saliva, leaving me for moments with my mouth agape.

I would do everything in my power, drenched in sweat, just to delay the inevitable moment of vomiting, to postpone it a little longer. Even the anti-nausea pills I used to buy from the only pharmacy in Towr Al-Bahah before boarding the car on some of those journeys failed to stop the sickness. Instead, their effect would reverse, making me vomit more violently, to my astonishment and confusion.

I often wondered how the world, with all its discoveries, had still not found a better cure than this useless medicine. Yet none of it—neither the sickness nor the exhaustion—could stop me from yearning for Aden, from aching to see her again. I would defy the endless miles and endure the harshest fatigue just to bring the caravan of my longing to my beloved Aden.

The journey to Aden was always arduous, yet I never hesitated to undertake it despite the hardship and strain. Each time I traveled, I grew impatient for the moment of arrival. How often I wished for a flying carpet to race against the storm of my longing and carry me to her in a rush of wonder and speed. I wished I could have Buraq or an Ascension, or the saintly power to cross the distance in the blink of an eye. I wished I could command a jinn to take me to her in an instant. Such was my consuming, restless yearning for you, O Aden.

Whenever I approached Aden at night through Towr Al-Bahah, Khbt Al-Rejah, and Al-Waht, her glittering lights would captivate me. As soon as I reached the outskirts of Al-Waht, I would awaken fully, gathering my scattered self, shaking off the weariness, the sickness, and the fatigue that had clung to me through the journey.

Joy would flood my being; the tightness of my face would ease; and all my senses would revive the moment I reached the asphalt road where the dirt track from Al-Waht met the main road from Lahj to Aden. I would gaze upon the people, the passing cars, the growing buildings, the pulse of life along the way until I reached the heart of Aden, rich and vibrant.

Each time I traveled there, it felt as though I were discovering her for the first time. With every arrival, I felt as if it were my first, not my tenth.

When I left Aden to return to my remote village beyond the old borders of the two Yemens, I would contemplate her deeply, memorizing every detail of her face. With sorrow and regret, I would ask myself again and again: Will I ever see again what I see now? Will I live long enough to return to Aden once more? Will I ever come back, or is this the last time my eyes will behold her? I would begin to miss her even before I left, and continue to ache for her the moment I did. I feared I might never see her again, haunted by dark possibilities wandering through the corridors of my mind and the chambers of my fears.

Aden was the city that stirred my emotions even from afar. How often I was moved, when distant from her, by the voice of the singer crooning:

“Aden, Aden, if only Aden were a day’s journey away,

What would I do with a night when sleep won’t come?”

And by another song:

“O bird, fly to the port of Aden,

Love has grown, longing has grown, and sorrow has grown.

I cannot bear this separation;

Each day feels like a year.

Aden, paradise of the world, embracing every art and joy.”

* * *

The Aden I loved is the one my friend and teacher, Mohammed Al-Lawzi, once described:

 “Aden is the jewel of cities, our star that rises within us and never sets,

the lily of joy, the tender blossom of promise.

She comes to you in serenity, offering herself in love, jealous only that anyone might draw you beyond her orbit.

Aden is the wonder of creation, the marvel entire.

Only the passionate lover truly knows her, for she pours her very soul into him.”

I loved the Aden sought by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, who came yearning for freedom and work, choosing her over France. Though he cursed her at times, complaining of her harshness, he eventually grew to accept her and confessed that she was “the best place in the world.” Aden kept her promise to him after his death, naming one of her beautiful beaches in his honor and turning his old home into a center for creative and poetic exchange.

I loved the Aden that the Sudanese poet Mubarak Hassan Al-Khalifa preferred over the glittering city of Dubai. The poet and scholar who could not find comfort in the lands of snow found warmth and belonging in Yemen’s Aden for thirty-four years, as a professor, writer, poet, and critic. He lived within her, and she within him. He wrote books there and poems about her and for her, his voice forever echoing her name in verses of love and longing:

“Aden, your love has conquered my heart,”

“Distance, O Aden,”

“To My Beloved Aden,”

and “Beautiful Aden.”

I loved the Aden that George Habash came to in fear, fearing for her fate, weeping for her like a grieving father, striving to save her from the catastrophe that would soon descend upon her on January 13, 1986—a day of blood and sorrow whose grim shadows still haunt us to this very day, long after we thought they would fade. Upon Aden, the tragedy fell, and with it, it seemed, a curse—one that still refuses to lift or leave her to this day.

I loved the Aden of loyalty, the haven that sheltered the free spirits of the Arab world and beyond. Among them was the Iraqi professor Tawfiq Rashdi, who came in the mid-1970s to teach in her universities. When he was assassinated, Aden rose for his sake as no other nation would. She rejected every offer, every bribe, and every promise of support in exchange for silence. Instead, she put the murderers on public trial, broadcasting it openly and revealing every truth before the world. It was a political scandal of unprecedented scale, a crime that exposed both the killers and the state behind them.

The Aden I loved is the one I belong to, the Aden of humanity, kinship, and kindness.

The Aden of coexistence, of hope and work, of refuge and love.

The Aden of longing, passion, life, and memory.

* * *