The Nameless Land: the Background

From the very beginning, The Nameless Land was always destined to be a visionary parable centering around the problem of sin and deceit. There could have been no avoiding it because at the time that I began collecting ideas for the work, I was living in the Old City of Jerusalem and clerking at a few of different Palestinian youth hostels. And living there in the early 1990’s, the city was abuzz with political and diplomatic intrigue due to the fact that the various relevant parties to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had only just met at the Madrid Peace Conference.

            Despite all the political talk and excitement in the air, the everyday concerns tended to dominate conversation—and a night clerk meets so many people and hears so many bits and pieces of dialogue. People discuss their relationships, and people would come to me with various complaints pertaining to rude, drunken guests who had accosted them in some way. Often, the tenants wanted to know advice about which moneychanger to use or just how much to pay for this or that item in the Arab market. The idea of haggling had many guests not a little bit tense because no one wants to be exploited or made to pay a touch too much for whatever the item might be.

            In those days, my journals and idea books came to include an earnest obsession with finding some way to mythologize all that tension and to make a real statement about how the fear of deceit informs the human condition. My obsession showed up everywhere—in my descriptions of the people at Abu Shanab Pizzeria and in my descriptions of the young couples and singles mingling in the lobby at the Petra Hotel.  

            In a sense, Jerusalem threatened to turn me into a misanthrope. And that had never been the intention. What attracts people of all walks of life to come to the Old City is a genuine interest in the spiritual—a hopeful sense that the Old City might help one to connect with their various beliefs and customs.

            That’s why the quiet moments tend to be so important to those who come to the city. Just think of the sounds, the music that a night clerk hears: by night the stray cats cry out in the cold breeze, and the cathedral bells toll from both the Greek Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. And then the voice of al-muezzin suddenly resounds with the call to prayer. In moments like that, the night clerk has no choice but to conceive of the artistic, the poetic. What a pleasure it was to try to describe the power of it all. Even then, I knew that the beauty of those moments demanded reflection and the sense that there must be some meaning to it all.

            A favourite memory: one morning while clerking at the Citadel Youth Hostel in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, I awoke to find that a massive snowfall had blanketed the city just the night before. No sooner had I stepped outside, though, than an overexcited, possibly confounded hummingbird appeared before me. There was no way to calm the poor creature, and when the delicate bird took off down the alleyway, there was way not to follow.

Slowly then, the hummingbird guided me through the Muslim Quarter and all the way to the Dome of the Rock. Oddly, there was no one around—so, the hummingbird guided me up to the sacred shrine. And for a moment, it was just the two of us: a humble writing student and a snowfall-mystified hummingbird.

            Despite the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem, my youth-hostel clerking days brought me plenty of quiet, spiritually-gratifying, found moments—plenty of interludes when the whole of the environment conspired to get me writing in my idea book. After waking up the guests who had signed up for the bus trip to Masada, it always felt so good to watch the sunrise and to try to describe the way the light fell into the Petra Hotel’s lobby. The man who managed the Citadel Youth Hostel, Auni Mustafa Atara would sometimes take me home with him to Ramallah. Sometimes we would pick olives, and sometimes we would just sit around drinking Turkish coffee. And even with the conflict raging all around, what moments of bliss.

            Oh, and one last memory: I remember walking through the Muslim Quarter and stopping to chat with a Palestinian tailor who worked with an antique Isaac-Singer Practical-Sewing- Machine. What a pleasure just to watch him work. Time and again, I asked how his family had ever even managed to acquire such a thing. “How did it get here?” I would ask. “Did it come via the Panama Canal, or did the Canal even exist yet?” Alas, the tailor did not speak very much English—and I never learned the precise story behind that sewing machine.

Ultimately, I cut the sewing machine from The Nameless Land. Perhaps there was just no appropriate place to put it. Still, the tailor and his sewing machine do show up—in a sense. Think of the way a tailor weaves the fabric together. It’s not that much different than turning an idea book into a structured tale. And both the tailor and the storyteller persevere no matter how many technical difficulties might transpire. Each seeks to do an honest day’s work and to earn his way. One offers a cloak to provide a little warmth. The other offers a tale to hopefully give direction to someone in need. 

M. Laszlo lives in Bath Township, Ohio. He is an aging recluse, rarely seen nor heard. The Nameless Land is his second release with Vine Leaves Press.