Everyone’s eyes are fixed on him. The turbaned sheikh is there in his jubbah and caftan. So is Refaat Effendi with a copy of today’s Al-Masri folded up in his hand. Father asks again: “How are things?” Maged Effendi thinks for a second, then says: “Like any marriage.” Abdel ’Alim cries out: “Are you kidding? Tell us all about it. But first, what are you drinking?” “Fenugreek tea, with milk.” Abdel ’Alim calls to Abbas, who is standing on the porch of the shop and tells him to bring fenugreek.
Maged Effendi says that she was the one who had asked him to marry her, but on the condition that he never take a second wife and that he never eat garlic or onion at night. Father comments: “She’s right on that point.” Maged Effendi keeps going and says that he has to admit she has her good points. She helps him out with money when he’s short and when he comes back home at the end of the day, she has dinner ready for him, including all kinds of fruit, even if they’re not in season. The house stays clean, and his clothes are always washed.
“So what are you mad about?”
He says he cannot control her, that she pops up whenever he thinks of her, then just as suddenly, disappears whenever she feels like it. She reads his mind before he even has a thought, making it impossible to keep any kind of secret from her.
The fenugreek tea arrives and he takes a sip. Abdel ’Alim leans over and whispers in his ear. He answers back: “Beyond your wildest dreams.” Then he turns to everyone and says: “She does whatever it takes to make me happy and keep me from getting tired of her.” Some nights, she even asks him what type of woman he wants, then she takes that shape on to herself. This time a blonde foreigner in a bikini, that time a belly dancer that looks just like Tahia Karioka, and the next time in a short tartan skirt, like a student just back from school.
Silence surrounds the group. A woman comes in wearing a black wrap. She turns her back to us and asks Saleem for 50 dirham worth of halva. Everyone turns around to look at her. Her wrap clings tightly around her and the lower part of her leg shows from underneath it. Father’s look fixes on her full, bare calf. He loosens his coat and puts his hand in the watch pocket of his waistcoat. He lifts his left hand to his mouth and brushes his finger across his moustache as he exchanges a smile with Hajj Abdel ’Alim.
Maged Effendi pushes himself to his feet: “Pardon me, everyone. I have to go before she calls me.” He leaves the shop in a hurry. I take back my chair. The turbaned sheikh says: “Real girls can’t find husbands anywhere, and he goes and marries a genie.” Refaat unfolds his copy of Al-Masri. He flips through its pages, then sees something and stops. “Listen to what Duriya Shafiq is writing: ‘The danger of spinsterhood is haunting the young women of Egypt because its men are on strike against marriage.’ ” The sheikh says: “That woman has gone too far. Ladies are crowding men out of jobs. The last straw is that girls from good families are being hired as airline stewardesses.”
Hajj Abdel ’Alim leans over to father and whispers something. Father answers back: “She just won’t do. The whole time she sits on the balcony holding a Coutarelli cigarette. She can’t cook or clean. She gets a jar of water and throws it on the floor and that’s that. She thinks she’s still out in the countryside, throwing water around to get the dust to settle.” A minute later, he adds: “Today I yelled at her. She sat there jabbering all day. I couldn’t understand a damn thing.”
Abdel ’Alim suggests we all go outside because the shop has become stuffy. Abbas takes our chairs and lines them up on the pavement near the entrance. The light thrown across from the chemist’s shop sparkles around us. I get a half-piastre from father and go over to the shop to buy a Robson, a round piece of liquorice-flavored sweet with a blue chickpea in the middle.
When I get back, I find Dr. Aziz in my seat. His huge belly hangs over the top of his trousers. I stand between father’s knees. The doctor asks me about school. Father complains to him that I’m a picky eater. The doctor suggests that I drink Ovaltine and take vitamins. Father says: “I’m sick too. I have dizzy spells and I can’t get up from the bed.”
“Come by my clinic and I’ll take your blood pressure.”
Father asks Hajj Abdel ’Alim about the landlord’s promise to unlock the public toilet and let people use it. Abdel ’Alim says that he has spoken with them but it hasn’t done any good. He adds: “Why don’t you go use the hammam in Al Husseiniya?” The turbaned sheikh shakes his head: “Respectable people don’t go there. Don’t all of you know about what goes on there?”
A fat priest wearing black robes comes up and joins us. His head is covered with something that looks like a plate with dark cloth wrapped tightly around it. He asks Refaat: “Has anyone read the new poem by al-Aqqad?” Father asks: “What’s it about?” “He sings the praises of the lips of the actress Camilia, the one that Akhbar al-Youm calls ‘the warm mouth.’ ” Dr. Aziz says that she has become the king’s mistress. Hajj Abdel ’Alim says: “Poor Queen Fareeda.” Refaat says that there was a watermelon seller calling out to the passers-by: “Royal watermelons!” Someone buys one, and the seller splits it open for him, it turns out to be a pumpkin, at which the seller explains: “Royal—King Farouk—watermelons.” Everyone laughs and I realize that it’s a joke.
I leave my place and turn around so that I’m behind Dr. Aziz. I look down at the newspaper in his hand. There’s a picture of an open police van with several young men inside being guarded by soldiers. The van is moving down the middle of the street. A Sawaris car being pulled by two donkeys tilts to the side. Refaat Effendi says: “The trials of Hussein Tawfiq and Anwar Sadat are almost over. After that, it’ll be the communist’s turn.”
He reads one of the headlines on the side columns: “The Egyptian Government Takes over the al-Qantara to Haifa Rail Line from the English.” I pull my head away when he folds up the newspaper. I peek inside the upper pocket of his suit coat where he keeps a white handkerchief. He has an uncovered fountain pen in it and there’s a huge ink spot on the end of the handkerchief. He says in an annoyed tone of voice: “The Jews are getting ready to fight, and we’re in our own little world. The government goes on its winter break then starts planning for summer vacation, and the leaders keep talking about something they call ‘positive steps,’ but none of us has a clue what ‘positive steps’ means in the first place.”
Hajj Abdel ‘Alim lets out an “ahem.” He says that people have lost trust in the political parties and their leaders.
Refaat Effendi gets ready to defend the Wafd Party and its leader, Mustafa al-Nahas. Father turns to him and says that he wrote a letter of complaint about the way social security payments were disbursed and sent it to Al Ahram, but they didn’t publish it. He explains that he took a big advance from his retirement money under a plan in which he could pay back the advance in monthly payments. Now the advance is all paid back and they’re still taking the payments. “It’s worse than usury. I’m thinking about suing the government.” The lawyer asks him: “When you asked for the advance, did you know that they’d keep taking payments out forever?” Father says that he needed the money badly at the time. Then the lawyer speaks in a decisive voice: “It’s a contractual agreement between you and the government. You agreed to their conditions. The contract is legitimized by the parties.” He crosses his legs, then adds: “Anyway, we can make a claim on the basis that the contract is punitive.”
Father turns to the priest: “Tell us, your holiness, when do we get out the Ouija board?” They sit around rocks made into a circle on the ground. Inside, there are triangles, squares, and strange words. The priest reads in a raised voice from a book as they watch the shapes. Father passes dishes of rice pudding around.
The turbaned sheikh makes a show of his anger. Hajj Abdel ’Alim turns to him: “God gave our lord Solomon use of the djinn. We’re just going to speak with djinn that are Muslim believers. We’re not asking for anything that’ll corrupt us either. We just want it to raise the treasure hiding under the earth’s surface up for us.”
&nbs
p; Father talks about what happened when he called on the servant of the “Latif,’ or holy God. He made a habit of doing it every night. Finally, he heard a bump in the living room over the sideboard, and an angry voice came to him: “What do you want?” And he was so scared that he didn’t answer, so the servant never came back after that.
Dr. Aziz says good-bye and gets up to leave. Hajj Adbel ’Alim asks him: “Are you planning on listening to the Um Kalthoum concert?” Father asks what her new song is about. The Hajj answers him: “It’s called ‘I Could not have a Generous Heart.’ ” The doctor says he will listen to the concert at home.
They chat about Hajj Mishaal. Abdel ’Alim says that he sits around counting out 100 pound banknotes the way ordinary people count change out from small bills. The turbaned sheikh adds that he traded in people’s salvage goods before the war.
The fruitseller who walks around the quarter passes by. He calls out that he has oranges from Jaffa. Father buys two okas’ worth. He tells Refaat Effendi: “Who knows when we’ll see these again?” We get up after a while. The entrance to the house is dark, as always. Our apartment too. There is a faint light at the entrance to the storage room, like the glow from a candle or an oil lamp. Father knocks on the door. He takes out the key and opens it. The door to our room is open, but the room is pitch black. He calls out: “Um Muhammad!” but she doesn’t answer. He calls her again. I hang on to his clothes. We go into the room and he turns on the light. He comes back out. I follow him. He wanders through the nooks and crannies of the apartment, calling out: “Um Muhammad.” There is no sign of her. We go back to our room. He looks around for her bundle and cannot find it. He says: “The old crone has taken off.”
He looks through the dresser trying to make sure she hasn’t stolen anything. I sit down at my desk and open up my composition notebook. A visit to the zoological gardens. Hassan the sea lion. Cheetah the monkey. Sayyid Qishta the hippo. Mother wears a light coat over a patterned dress. We walk over paths of colored pebbles. We sit down at the tea stall. Suddenly, mother jumps up, saying: “We have to get away from here. We have to go back now.”My father tries to calm her. She keeps repeating: “Something terrible is going to happen. We have to go back the way we came.”
I tell Maher that a relative of mine owns a car. Gallal steals my gun and refuses to give it back. He pulls me by the collar of my suit jacket, tearing the lapel. I promise him that father will tell the principal and have him punished. He says: “Go to hell.”
We all go to the large auditorium to watch the film Tarzan in New York. I walk next to Lam’aiy. Taller than me. His face is ruddy and a yellow fuzz covers his legs. I invite him to sit next to me, but he’d rather sit in another row. I take out my glasses and wipe them off with a handkerchief. I watch the movie in a magical trance. Then we go back to our classroom. We all take our satchels and go down to the drawing room. The teacher wears a suede jacket. Easy and kind of quiet. He can draw anything in an instant with no problem. The drawing desks are arranged in an open square. Three sides of it are our rows. The fourth is his table in the middle of ours, underneath the blackboard.
I throw my satchel on the ground. I sit at one of the tables and put my composition book on top of one of the slanted desks. The teacher writes on the board: “I watched the grand procession last October.” He sits at his table. He opens a wide notebook filled with thick paper. He throws himself into his drawing.
I take out my pencil and sharpener and open up my notebook. We walk downhill until we get to the florist’s shop, then we stroll towards the square. We cross it and stand on the sidewalk in the middle of the crowd waiting for the grand procession. If we get lucky, we’ll see the king in his red convertible.
I draw a camel. It looks more like a donkey. I try to erase it, but its lines are still visible on the page. I get up and look for Maher, but I can’t find him. The teacher is still absorbed in his drawing. He seems not to know that we are there. One of the students goes up to him and asks for help. The teacher answers him then fills his page with quick line drawings. The student goes back to his seat. He puts the notebook in his satchel, picks it up and, heading towards the door of the class, sneaks out.
I put the sharpener on the point of the pencil and turn it several times. The point sharpens, then breaks off. I sharpen it again. Another student wants help from the teacher. A third one follows him. A fourth and a fifth. Each of them leaves the class after he does their drawing for them. After a while, our numbers dwindle until I find myself sitting alone. I take my notebook and go to him. I put it in front of him without a word. He neither looks at me, nor speaks to me. He draws a camel bending down with one stroke of the pen. I steal a glance at his notebook. Country houses in a row. Their fronts are drawn with careful detail. I go back to my seat. I put the notebook in my satchel, pick it up, and head towards the door. I turn around to look at him. He is absorbed in his drawing.
We scatter at the front door of the school. A sky full of clouds warns of rain. The breeze smells nice. The pavement made of colored gravel. The wall surrounding the Jewish school. A colored poster advertises the film Sanity Takes a Vacation, starring Mohamed Fawzi, Layla Fawzi, Bishara Wakeem, Abdel Salaam al-Nabulsi. The film Bol-bol Effendi is playing at the Corsal cinema with Sabah and Fareed al-Atrash.
I walk beside the wall of the school until I come to the corner. The tall windows are open. I look down over tables set up in messy rows, with grains of wheat scattered on top of them. A strange smell. A few steps and I find myself in front of our old house. The clouds part the way for bright sunshine. The iron door is closed. The windows are closed. Mother gets up and goes out to nurse my sister. My father wears a robe over his gallabiya, and he has replaced his nightcap with a fez. He goes along with me to the road. We walk along the quiet street. We pass a monk wearing a white outfit. His pale face is sunburned. My father winks at him and stammers in French: Coamantalleefu? We go about half way up the street, then turn back. I walk close to the wall of the garden of the convent school with its thick trees. I steal a look inside. My father stands waiting for me. I know he’s watching me. I pretend to be all wrapped up in watching what’s around me. The light of dusk starts to break up. He calls to me in a commanding voice.
I cross the street. I stand under one of the two windows. One is the bedroom window, the other the dining room. Next to it is the alleyway, which the window of the guest room and the steel-grated kitchen window look down on to. The alleyway ends at the storage house for the barrels of molasses. That’s why the yellow-striped hornets gather there. One of the children manages to catch one of them. He ties its stinger with a thread.
A private car with an arched roof comes by, moving up from the part of the street that dead ends into the square. It heads down a side street that goes toward the shanty town. It stops in front of the villa a few doors down from our house. A plump man gets out wearing clothes of the countryside underneath a loose-fitting aba. The same man is in a white jacket, blue trousers, and white shoes, with a strikingly beautiful woman in a green dress, on his arm. There’s a sunken spot at her temple near her ear. My father says that it’s the remains of a green tattoo that peasants have. The two of them come out of the door of the villa. The children and I stand on the pavement across the street. We try to sneak a look inside the villa. There’s a small circular garden with cactus plants rising up out of it.
The sun disappears. Three fat monks pass by in dark brown cloaks. Around each of their waists, there is a long rope, tied in front, with the ends dangling. A cart moves along carrying spools of paper. Two fat nuns in white clothes. A horse-drawn cart. We run behind it shouting at the driver: Mr. Love Juice. He raises his whip and tries to strike us, as he insults our parents. We notice a boy and a girl walking together under the trees. We yell at them: “Mr. Young Buck, leave the doe alone.”
I know that I’m late and I’ll find father mad and waiting for me on the balcony. He’ll scold me for tearing the collar of my suit jacket, then we will sit toget
her and eat leftovers. Then he will go to work in the kitchen and leave me alone, sitting behind my desk. Before long, the night will take over without me having enough time to get my homework done.
I start walking again without much enthusiasm. I go out to the square and I cross it. I stop in front of a poster advertising a special screening for students of the film The Conquest of Egypt, at the Cosmo cinema. The Rich and the Famous at the Majestic, starring Mohamed Abdel Mutlub, Ali al-Kissar, Haggir Hamdi, Abdel Fatah al-Qusari, and Ismail Yasseen.
I enter the alley. I notice father in front of the house across the street talking to its doorman. He waves at me to go inside the house. Abbas sits at the entrance on the steps next to his regular bottle of cheap red whisky. I walk around him trying to keep away from his putrid smell. I go inside the house. The sound of a radio. Abdel Wahab is singing “The wheat tonight, on the night of its harvest.”
His voice filters out from inside the apartment. The door is open. The light in the hall is on. The washing line is hanging from the top of the constable’s door to the top of the door to the living-room. A short woman with light-colored skin and bare arms hangs up wet clothes while she sings along with the radio. The hall is clean. The tablecloth on the dining table is washed. The top of the sideboard is shiny. The door of our room is open a crack. I go in and put my satchel on the desk. I go to the glass doors to the balcony. Father is still talking to the doorman. He leaves him and heads towards our house. I hear the sound of his careful steps on the stairs outside. He closes the door to the apartment behind him. He comes into the room. Closes the door. I ask about the woman who is hanging the laundry. He says she’s the constable’s wife.
He comes over to the balcony and stands next to me. He studies the house across from us. Lights a cigarette. He walks back to the door of the room. Returns again to the balcony. After a while, the doorman appears at the entrance of the doorway across the street. He crosses the alley and comes towards our building. Father goes to the door of the room. Opens it a crack. He waits a while until he hears knocking at the door of the apartment. He goes out to open it. I move towards the door that has been left open. I stretch my head out, being careful that he does not see me. I can see him whispering with the doorman. He gives him money and turns to come back to the room. I rush to my desk. Father comes in and says that the neighbors on the balcony across from ours want to see me.
Stealth (New Directions Paperbook) Page 6
