Papa Sartre: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)

by Ali Bader

  Ismail’s explanation for his absences couldn’t be further from the truth. He was not going to Abnaa al-zaman every day as he had told his friend the philosopher and as was confirmed by many of al-Sadriya’s inhabitants. The journal’s editor, Salim Malkun, was not a stupid man and would never have assigned to Ismail the responsibility of replying to the Arab World’s then most famous existentialist. He could not put himself in such an embarrassing position, as he knew very well Ismail’s weak style, his inability to write without mistakes, and his obscure, ridiculous ideas. A typical passage might read as follows: “Existentialism—what is existentialism? In reality it is an existential nausea, a type of nausea that Sartre, the father of the wonderful existential nausea, taught us. He wrote the novel Nausea in one month, as confirmed by the philosopher of al-Sadriya, who saw him in person in Paris and is married to his cousin.” The article would then be filled with a series of insults against all those who criticize existentialism. The names of Shaul and One-Eyed Jaseb were usually among them.

  There was no way a respectable newspaper like Abnaa alzaman could publish such rubbish. When Ismail used to read them to Abd al-Rahman in the presence of the dancer Badi‘a, in the midst of the hubbub created by the singers and drunks, the shouting of the prostitutes, the swearing, the overturned chairs, and the rushing servers, Badi‘a would pulse with admiration for this virile man. Abd al-Rahman felt the articles were missing something but was not able to pinpoint what.

  Abd al-Rahman found excuses for Ismail’s repeated absences, which soon became established fact. He was the only one to believe Ismail’s excuses and accepted that he was on an existential mission. Badi‘a had her doubts when she noticed Ismail’s lack of interest in Wazzeh, one of the prostitutes. She tried to draw the philosopher’s attention to Ismail’s absences, but it was in vain. He was convinced that Ismail was on an existential mission, a great undertaking, even though it consisted of writing meaningless articles—but then again life is meaningless. As long as Ismail did not claim to be a philosopher like him, he would tolerate his absences and expect him to defend the philosopher’s den and shut up One-Eyed Jaseb, Shaul, and others.

  I learned from more than one source in Mahallet al-Sadriya that Ismail paid frequent visits to the philosopher’s house during his absence. He established a relationship with his wife, whom Ismail truly believed to be Sartre’s cousin. He was convinced that as long as he could lie on the cousin of Sartre, the greatest French philosopher, it was as if he had slept with the whole of France.

  18

  A poor vagabond like Ismail had nothing but his virility to boast about, something that could attract a Frenchwoman who had had no sexual relations with her husband since they mutually lost their attraction to one another.

  Every evening he would saunter down Mahallet Abu Dudu, go past the Christian quarter, then the convent courtyard, and finally to the Jewish quarter. He wandered into al-Sadriya in front of the roosters’ cage, listening to the calls of the fruit vendors and watching the women wrapped in their abayas and those sporting the latest hairstyles.

  Shaul knew very well where Ismail went, so did One-Eyed Jaseb as he shouted praise for the apples he sold on his cart, and Hamdiya who sold her merchandise at the souk. Even Dr. Simon Bahlawan knew where Ismail Hadoub went in the morning and sometimes in the evening, leaving only a half hour before the husband’s return.

  The philosopher, on the other hand, continued visiting his mistress openly each night and experiencing his usual nausea.

  19

  Existentialism was the philosophy of choice for Iraqi intellectuals in the sixties, which explains why the arrival of the philosopher to Mahallet al-Sadriya was considered the greatest event of that decade; his presence filled a huge philosophical gap. The intellectuals of the time could not wait forever, for the appearance of a new major philosophy or a philosophical interpretation of an existing major philosophy. They were eagerly anticipating the arrival of such a historical event and were, according to numerous sources, lost in pseudo-philosophies.

  It was in this condition of confusion and loss that Abd al-Rahman, son of Mr. Shawkat and the greatest philosophical mind of his time, appeared on the scene. Without him they would not have been able to put a radical end to this complex philosophical problem. He brought them an authentic philosophy, not a false one, a unique philosophy that was not a mere copy of French existentialism, or a passive artificial interpretation, but a creative Arabic interpretation of it. This all happened thanks to Abd al-Rahman’s constructive efforts in formulating and establishing this philosophy and his pushing it onto a path that its founder, M. Jean-Paul Sartre, would never have thought possible.

  20

  Following a philosopher differs from following a follower of philosophy. Abd al-Rahman was a philosopher; therefore, being his follower was not like being Suhail Idris, a follower of philosophy. With such a concept it is understandable that Abd al-Rahman was able to gather a large number of followers around him in the sixties.

  Abd al-Rahman’s withdrawal from upper-class society and the soirées of noble families essentially forced him to seek his public in the streets and to lower his standards in order to reach his followers. Being wealthy, handsome, young, and elegant gave him independence and power and moved him in the direction of instinctive pleasures. He was able to associate with those less fortunate than himself, such as Ismail Hadoub, and such actions provided proof of his correctness and humility. Ismail Hadoub, on the other hand, considered the matter a privilege for himself and an appreciation of his genius, which made up for his modest background. This motivated him to become intimately attached to the al-Sadriya philosopher. He spent wonderful days with him, walking behind him, carrying a notebook and a golden pen, writing down the valuable words uttered by the philosopher.

  On a cold January day, as it was raining heavily in Baghdad, Ismail stood in front of a café where the philosopher was sipping coffee. He wore nothing but a woolen sweater that Shaul had given him when he was working in his store. He was shivering from the cold, and as soon as Abd al-Rahman saw him he took off his black woolen coat and placed it on Ismail’s shoulders. “You represent to me what Simone de Beauvoir represented to Sartre,” he said. The public in the café heard those words and began spreading them everywhere. It became known that the philosopher took good care of his followers. He shaped them and made sacrifices for their sake.

  People were somewhat surprised by the intimate friendship between the two men. They were surprised by the existential image that conveyed truly the humanitarian side of this goodhearted existentialist, this nauseated person, this bright, energetic Sartrian who surpassed Sartre himself. Four years later Ismail Hadoub betrayed Abd al-Rahman and slept with his French wife. The scandal was known all over the country. Abd al-Rahman died, a homicide or suicide, and Sartre’s cousin returned to her country. Iraqi intellectuals everywhere declared that Sartre was embarrassed by the scandal. All that remained of Abd al-Rahman was the black coat on Ismail’s shoulders.

  21

  When the existential philosopher had lost his way in the metropolis of existentialism and before he had found the house he was looking for in Gay-Lussac Street, he encountered his destiny standing on the sidewalk wearing a dark red suit, a woolen coat, and a simple woolen hat. This is where he met Germaine, the woman he later married, and through her he espoused a whole nation.

  Before he met Germaine, however, he had a painful and sentimental experience with a young woman who was working as a waitress in the Café de Flore in Saint Germain. It was a story of a tortured love. She was, in a way, the miracle that mended a rift in the philosopher’s life. Unbeknownst to her she was the one who saved him from a horrible fate that would have led him into a wasteland. While Germaine took him to an environment of philosophy and unbelievable existential scenes, the Café de Flore waitress brought bitterness, confusion, emptiness, and sorrow to his life.

  The philosopher was enamored of the waitress the moment he set eyes on
her round and firm, protruding breasts, visible through the opening in her shirt. He imagined himself talking frankly to her about his feelings in order to stop the erupting volcano in his life. It was only his cowardice that stopped him and kept him away from these golden mountains that held him prisoner by their sweetness and attraction. Feeling helpless, he used to sit at a table, drinking beer or a cup of hot tea, his pipe lying on the table near Le Monde or one of Sartre’s books, watching her. He would sit there in silence, giving the impression of being a thinker who was pondering a wild and adventurous life. Deep inside him there was nothing but emptiness and sexual visions floating freely each time the waitress bent over to serve a table or toyed with the cross between her breasts.

  One day she bent over his table to clean an ashtray and remove an empty beer glass. His eyes fell on the rounded shape of her full breasts that were swelling beneath her white woolen sweater. She asked him what he was thinking about. Her question was God-sent, as he had long wanted to draw her attention to his superior intellect so that he might dazzle her with his philosophy and ability to penetrate the open horizons of his being, but he had not known how to do it. She took him by surprise. He felt a little nervous but managed to smile at her as his heart rate rose significantly and his voice rattled in his throat. He replied spontaneously and philosophically, “I have been thinking about Sartre’s opinion of women. He said that they could not do without men.” The pipe was shaking in his hand, his heart was beating, and his lips were trembling. The waitress laughed quietly, pushed back an unruly lock of blond hair hiding her blue eyes, winked at him and said, “Do you really need Sartre’s head to know this?”

  Her reply came as a surprise to him, such a totally and unexpectedly straightforward and hurtful answer, a little mocking even. He had expected her to open her mouth and say, in amazement, “Oh! Are you a philosopher?” Then the wheel of his fortune would have turned, moving from sadness to happiness. She would have stood on the threshold of a huge change that would have led them to an almost total melding. She would have learned to bring to light the hidden, mysterious, and incomplete side of her personality. Through his continuous efforts to express his secret self, she would have discovered the secret lying dormant in his soul. It was obvious that something bothered him and he needed a romantic relationship that would guide him to important people and those strongly biased in favor of their own ideas. But the answer he received was shattering and thus reduced him to shards scattered across the floor. He turned extremely pale as she turned her back and disappeared behind a door. All that remained in his imagination was the memory of her thighs, softly shaking. With trembling hands and grinding teeth he gathered his newspapers, books, stuffed pipe, and eyeglasses and left the café, catching the last breath of his failure.

  22

  He angrily pushed open his apartment door and threw himself on the bed, where he remained for a very long time. He felt defeated, as if he had been involved in a scandal. He pounded the pillow with his fists, saying, “It is my fault. If I weren’t so stupid I wouldn’t have said what I said. She embarrassed me. She should have been nicer to me.”

  He felt as though his head was cloven in two and each half offered a solution—not a guaranteed solution but at least a solution. He felt torn, crushed, victimized. It was at that moment that he became aware of his tragic fate, the way he had in Baghdad with Nadia Khaddouri. It happened at a difficult period in his life, a time when he felt rejected, odd, and dismayed. He had to choose a way to find the courage to confront the savage monster roaming loose within him. He did so, but not until the following day.

  23

  At noon the following day, in rainy autumnal weather, Abd al-Rahman left his apartment in a hurry. He welcomed the refreshing breeze that hit his face and moved through his hair. He kept his hands in his raincoat pockets and lowered his hat on his forehead. He kept his eyes on the road in an effort to avoid walking in the puddles and headed toward Saint Michel to meet an Iraqi friend who had been living in Paris for many years.

  The grass in the Jardin du Luxembourg was wet and fragrant, the streets were slick with rain, the buildings had been washed, and the trees revealed their dark green color. Abd al-Rahman met Ahmad near a telephone booth at the corner of the street. They walked toward Rue Monsieur le Prince in silence. Abd alRahman’s facial expression revealed his disturbed state of mind. He felt humiliated and disappointed and he wanted his friend’s advice on what his next step with the waitress should be, while recognizing his own gaucherie.

  “I want to make a plan,” he told his friend angrily, “I want her to regret what she said to me. I want to change her mind.” Ahmad asked his friend for a cigarette. It was obvious from his reaction that he was used to the way the philosopher spoke. He asked whether there were reasons for his interest in her, to which Abd al-Rahman responded, “I’ve had enough of prostitutes, that’s why. Do you understand?” Ahmad realized that the philosopher couldn’t resist his physical attraction to that woman. He knew that he wouldn’t let go before he slept with her, though he was not in love with her. He was a jealous man but unable to make a decision.

  Abd al-Rahman asked his friend if he had found out anything about her. “Yes,” said Ahmad, “I’ve learned some important things about her.”

  “Tell me,” said the philosopher.

  Ahmad filled him in. “I learned that she has an Algerian friend named Si Muammar.” Abd al-Rahman stopped suddenly in the middle of the street. A cigarette dangling from his lips, he asked, “Is that so?” Ahmad nodded and added with a relaxed smile, “It is true, and I can get to know him.”

  “What about me?” asked Abd al-Rahman, with a strange look. Ahmad explained his plan, “Of course, of course, I’ll get to know him for your sake.”

  The prospect of reaching her at any price was a torture for Abd al-Rahman. It took him back to his bestial nature, where instinct dictated his behavior. He wanted her by all means, at any price, whether it required begging, raping, killing, betraying, or torturing her. He left Ahmad near the newspaper stand and went to satisfy the call of nature in the pissoir at the end of Odeon Street. Peeing brought a sense of comfort and relaxation, and his mind fixed on the sight of the crumbling wall of an old church and a flock of pigeons flying from the roof of a building nearby. He rejoined his friend, feeling relieved and even a bit elated. The sky began to clear, and the sun was breaking through the clouds, warming up the puddles in the streets. Everything around him looked beautiful: the facades of buildings, the flowers in the squares, the cafés trottoires with their colorful parasols, the vegetable market, and the newspaper kiosks. His anxiety was washed away, and he recovered his old sense of comfort. He watched with joy as the streets came to life around him. SaintGermain-des-Prés stretched in front of him like a velvet carpet. He did not mind the blowing horns, the blinking red lights of the street bars, or the rush of pedestrians that filled the place this time of day. Women dressed in their going-out clothes emerged from side streets smoking cigarettes, their lips colored bright red with lipstick. He shouted in Ahmad’s face, “I’ll get to know her through Si Muammar, won’t I?”

  “Certainly,” replied Ahmad.

  24

  The philosopher was convinced that if he could talk to her even through her friend, he could win her over. He wasn’t short on means to court her, but he didn’t know the path to her heart. Once she was with him he could employ his many unfailing methods: a promenade at sunset over the bridge crossing an icy river, being alone with her in a room filled with the sound of music and the smell of coffee, together watching ducks floating on a pond. He would rush her with a list of terms that revealed complex values such as: ‘existence,’ ‘eternity,’ ‘time,’ ‘absurdity,’ and ‘nausea.’ She would undoubtedly be seduced by this oriental philosopher who had come to Paris equipped with a powerful philosophy and who had memorized the entire philosophical lexicon.

  Her own compatriots lacked this quality, and what does a waitress wish for more than to beco
me friends with a philosopher? She’ll regret having made fun of him that one time in the past. She will kneel at his feet and admit her ignorance. Once she learns that he is the philosopher’s student and he himself is a philosopher, she’ll want to get close to him, love him, and discover his inner force that she once almost inadvertently destroyed. Abd al-Rahman reflected aloud, “Who is this Algerian compared to me!”

  “No one” said Ahmad.

  The philosopher wondered, puzzled “Why did she befriend him then?”

  Ahmad offered, “Maybe because he keeps her.”

  This was no challenge to the philosopher, who explained his plan, “If this is the case, I’ll take her out of the Café de Flore. I’ll even buy the café for her.”

  There was only one other thing the philosopher wanted to inquire about, but he was a little embarrassed to ask. He took his hands out of his pockets, adjusted his glasses and walked gracefully, showing off his youthful body. He considered those characteristics central to his relationship with women. Then asked, “Is this Si Muammar handsome?”

  Ahmad laughed loudly. “No, not at all. I saw him a few times in the Latin Quarter. His face looks like a cognac bottle.”