Stealth (New Directions Paperbook)

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  I escape to a side street. I stop in front of a newspaper stand. Pictures of actresses on the covers of magazines, like al-Kawakib, al-Athnain, and Mesaamarat al-Geeb. I pick up one with a picture of Tarzan on it. The salesman scolds me and grabs it out of my hands. I buy a notebook of songs for five millimes then keep walking. Stumping my foot in the dirt, I notice a round piece of iron. I back away from it. I make a point of going around the shop of the sheikh of the quarter. Finally, I come to the house. I ring the bell but father doesn’t answer. I ring again and Mrs. Tahiya opens up. She says: “Your father’s gone out. Close the door behind you.” She leaves me alone and heads for the kitchen. I close the door to the apartment. I push on the door to our room and find it’s locked. I have the key. I go in and put my satchel on the desk. Take off my clothes and put on the pyjamas with the shiny buttons. I go back to the door. Stand at the threshold listening. I come out into the living area.

  The sound of the primus stove is coming from the kitchen. I take light steps out toward the hallway. I avoid looking in the direction of the toilet. I come close to the door of the kitchen. Cling to the wall. My head leans out with care. She’s sitting on the little kitchen stool and peeling cloves of garlic. There’s a plate of ful beans next to her. I take a step back towards the living room. I go around the table to the door to her room. It’s open. I go closer. On top of the bed, there’s a blue patterned dress and on the floor are white shoes with high heels. On the wall a big picture hangs in a gilded frame. In it, the constable wears a military uniform. He’s smiling. He has a high fez on and it is leaning to the left. A chiffonier to the right has a big mirror over it in a pale-colored metal frame. The mirror is sitting on the top of the chiffonier. It has a crack at the top of the glass. On top of the chiffonier many things are scattered including a box of chocolates. Would she notice if I took one? I prick up my ears. She’s singing in the kitchen: “the day we met, we two . . .” Her voice comes closer.

  I back away from the door to the room. Stop next to the door to the skylight. I can look down into the window of Um Zakiya. It is closed and darkened. She comes into the living room. A cup of tea is in her hand. She heads towards her room, and waves at me to follow her. She sets the cup down on top of the chiffonier. She opens the box of chocolates and takes out a piece wrapped in shiny gold foil. She hands it to me. She asks about my mother. My face goes red. I don’t answer. She’s sitting in a chair in the middle of the living room and her thick hair is hanging down over her shoulders. She’s crying: “Ahhh! My head!” Her face looks like she is in pain. My father gives her a piece of ice. She puts it on her head and presses it.

  She lights a cigarette. She leans over the mirror set against the wall. She combs her hair and studies her features. She twists her hair in a bun on the side. Her finger spreads a bit of lipstick over her full lips. It’s the first time I have seen a woman putting on make-up because mother never used it. Her lower lip is cracked, with drops of blood trickling from it.

  I am under a spell watching her. With each movement, her face becomes more beautiful. My eyes meet hers in the mirror. I turn red. I suddenly come forward, saying: “Mama Tahiya, you’re very pretty.” She takes me in her arms and pulls me to her chest. Her clean smell with hints of Lux soap creeps up my nose. She covers my face with kisses, planting them on my eyes, cheeks, and mouth, saying: “You’re pretty too.” She pulls me back from her chest and studies me. She stretches out her finger towards my mouth and pulls apart my lips, then she tugs on the lower one lightly as though she’s tickling a small child. A serious smile flickers in her eyes. She pulls me in again. She says in a hushed voice: “I have a son who’s two years younger than you.” I ask her: “Where is he?” She says: “With his father.” Tears start welling up in her eyes. All of a sudden, her features brighten and she laughs.

  She pulls me away from her and points to my cheeks and lips: “Your face is covered in red. Look.” I come close to the chiffonier and look up into the mirror. She leads me next to her and sits down on the edge of the bed. She brings me between her legs, takes a wet towel and wipes off my face for me. She runs her fingers through my hair. She starts to pick through it while she sings. I kiss her on her soft arms and shoulders. I ask her to tell me a story.

  She thinks for a second, then starts: “There was an old man who was very poor and had a son.” I look at her, suspicious. She keeps going: “They were living in an apartment on the second floor.” I know now that she means father and me. I am mad because she called us poor. I decide to complain to father when I leave. I step back away from her. She hugs me as she laughs: “Don’t be angry.” I step out of her hold, all mad. She gives me a pat and tries to make up. She says: “Come on. Let’s go out.” I say: “What about papa?”

  “He’s not coming until late. Get dressed, so we can go.”

  I go to our room. After a while, she calls to me. I tell her I’m putting on clothes to go out in. She says: “You don’t have to. You can just come in your pyjamas.”

  “What about shoes?”

  “Just come in your house slippers.” I go to her room and find she has put on the blue patterned dress and white shoes. She wraps a black shawl around herself. She smooths its edge over her head to cover her hair and wraps it tightly around her waist. She studies herself in the mirror, spinning around to see her back. I suggest that she writes a note to father to tell him that we went out. She says: “You write it. I don’t know how.” Mother sharpens the pencil. The tip breaks. She gives it to my father along with the sharpener. He puts the sharpener down, brings a razor, and whittles down the pencil with care. He never lets the tip break. She turns to a clean page in her big notebook.

  I write out the note and put it on top of our bed. I lock the door to our room and put the key in my pocket. We walk out of the building, turn left, and head up the street. The snack shop and the clothes presser’s shop. Heads turn to us. Eyes follow us. One of the men sitting in front of the dried fish shop yells out: “O Pasha!” I know that he’s calling out to us. I look at the ground. She keeps walking, sure of herself and carefree. Bags of cotton are set out in front of the upholstery shop. It’s brushed and made into rolls set in the middle of the shop. He sits in the living room. He beats the rug with a strap fixed to a large stick. Mother opens the window on to the courtyard to let the dust out of the house. He straightens out the sheet covers. I hide the scissors from him. He becomes crazy looking for them.

  We cross the wide street and pass in front of the church then turn towards a dark alley. There’s another alley at the end. A cart is set up in front of it carrying a barrel of pickles. A dark and dirty entrance. We go up some narrow stairs. A rotting smell. I stumble on one of the steps. She catches me with her hand and brings me to her. We stop in front of the door to an apartment. She knocks. A little girl opens the door, carrying an oil lamp. She leads us into a living room with no furniture. It opens on to a room with a wide bed in it. A woman is lying on it under the covers. She could be the same age as Mama Tahiya, or a little older. There’s a handkerchief around her neck. Mama Tahiya says: “What’s wrong with you, Sabah?” She answers in a hoarse voice: “Just a touch of cold.” She looks at me smiling.

  “His son?”

  Mama Tahiya starts laughing: “No. He’s my son.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “He’s the neighbor’s son.”

  She pulls off the cover and throws it on a chair. Sabah studies her dress. Mama Tahiya asks: “What is it? Do you like it or something?”

  “A lot.”

  “He’s the one who bought it for me.”

  She sits on the edge of the bed and I sit next to her. She grabs a picture magazine off the top of the covers. She opens it up to the fashion page and points to a silk dress with a flower pattern and ruffles covering it from top to bottom. Next to it there’s a handbag made from wicker. She says: “I’d like a dress like this.” Mama Tahiya answers: “It’s divine!” Sabah puts the magazine down and asks about the constable. M
ama Tahiya says: “They transferred him to the south.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the police went on strike.”

  “So why did they go on strike?”

  “They want to make the same money and get the same promotions as the army.”

  Sabah says: “The nurses are on strike too. They’re only making four or five pounds. What are they supposed to do with that?”

  “Don’t they get tips too from the patients?” Sabah says that her brother-in-law got knocked on the head when the police raided the Qasr al-Aini Hospital.

  “So what came of it?”

  “What came of what? They just fired something like a thousand nurses and put new ones in their place.”

  The covers slip down and she gets out of the bed. She is wearing a flannel gallabiya with long sleeves. The white background is patterned with tiny flowers. She leans over a primus stove near the wall. After lighting it, she sets down a small brass kettle for making Turkish coffee. She looks at me: “Shall I order a cool drink for you?”

  Mama Tahiya says: “No, we’re leaving right away.” She gives me a sweet. Mama Tahiya says: “I heard they’re planning on closing the houses. They’re saying they’re a violation of religious law.”

  “And they just figured that out?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Sabah says: “The doing is all up to the Lord. He doesn’t forget his servants.” She pours the coffee into two glasses. They sip at it without talking. Sabah lights a Hollywood brand cigarette. She gives one to Mama Tahiya. She asks her: “Is he planning on marrying you?”

  Mama Tahiya answers while inhaling her cigarette: “Don’t know.”

  I make it to the square then head off to the right. I cross both Qamr and Ahmad Said streets. Follow along the tram line down al-Zahir street to about half way. Cross the street running right in front of a Jewish snack stand. I spend two millimes on a tube of roasted white melon seeds. They’re smaller than the large brown seeds but they’re cracked and have their own special taste. I put the tube in the pocket of my pyjamas.

  I go back towards the square then stop in front of the tobacconist on the corner. I buy a pack of cigarettes for father. The salesman gives me a green pack instead of the yellow one I asked for. I go back home, tripping over a water jar in my path. Mud covers my twisted sandals made from tire rubber. I wipe them across the steps to the front door trying to get rid of it. I turn the key in the door to the apartment. The lamp in the living room still lights up the room as when I left. The door to the constable’s room is closed. The sound of the radio comes floating out from behind it. The door to our room is also closed. I put the pack of cigarettes on top of the sideboard. I come up to the wash basin. I take off the sandals and wash them.

  I pick up the pack of cigarettes and head into our room. Father is sitting cross-legged on top of the bed. His eyes are red and he is frowning. He’s always this way after he wakes up from an afternoon nap. I hand him the pack of cigarettes. He blows up in anger: “Didn’t I tell you ‘Tuscany’? Now you’ve gone and brought me Tuscanilly.” I say the salesman gave me that pack. “Don’t you have a tongue to tell him what you want? You’re totally useless all the way around.” I offer to go back to the shop and exchange the pack. He cools off a bit and says: “That’s okay. Maybe he doesn’t have the right ones. Make me a cup of coffee.”

  I go out to the living area. Stand in front of the sideboard. Take down the small brass coffee kettle. I put a spoon of coffee and another of sugar in to the kettle. I pour in the water from the jug and take up a spoon to stir it all together. There’s an alcohol stove sitting at my eye level. I take off the brass cover and strike a match to light the flame. I set the tiny coffee kettle on it. Mama Tahiya’s door is still closed and the sounds of the radio still echo behind it.

  I step over toward the door to the skylight. Um Zakiya’s window is shut. I hurry back to the coffee and wait there patiently until it starts to bubble up. I pull away the kettle before it boils over. I put it back over the flame a few more times then put the brass cover back on to put out the flame. Carefully, I pour the coffee from the kettle into a cup then pick it up and take it to our room. I’m walking slowly to make sure not to shake the cup so much that the coffee loses its frothy head. He takes the cup from me and I bring him the jar of water. He takes a loud slurp from it. Mother raises the jar up in the air and pours water into her mouth without her lips touching the edge. I try to do the same and get my clothes all wet.

  He lights a cigarette. I sit at my desk. Pour some seeds from the tube out in front of me. I open the English reader. He finishes drinking his coffee, gets off the bed, and throws a towel over his shoulder. He lights a lamp and heads towards the bathroom to wash for prayer. When he comes back in, he stretches out the prayer rug on the floor. He prays the sundown prayer. He pulls open the glass doors to the balcony, and pushes out the wooden shutters to open them too. He drags the desk chair over to the narrow balcony, sits down, and lays his right arm on its metal railing. I stand next to him. Mother comes in with a cup of coffee singing: “I am in love and I bring you your coffee.” My father slurps the coffee loudly. He lights his black cigarette. He sits next to the open window. He leaves his cigarette sitting on the ashtray. Gets up to pray the sundown prayer. He comes back to relight his cigarette. A gas worker appears at the top of the street. He leans his ladder against a lamp post, climbs up, pulls open the glass pane of the lamp, relights it, closes the glass pane again, and comes down. He puts the ladder on his shoulder. He moves to the next lamppost.

  The balcony across from us is closed and dark. The window next to it is opened and lit up. We know it is a guest room that is only opened when they have visitors. Its curtains are rippling. There is a pale light in the apartment on the second floor where the iron merchant lives with his two wives. The light is in the first wife’s room. It’s put out and then comes on in the room of the second wife. The voice of Um Safwat screams at her son. Our Coptic neighbor Abu Wadie, appears coming out from the entrance to the alley. He wears a dark suit. He carries sacks under his arms. He stops in front of the door to our house, and calls just like every night: “Wadie!” He exchanges good evenings with father. His wife answers him from the apartment above ours. Just like every night, he says to her: “The basket.” She lowers it down to him so he can put the sacks in it. The basket goes up slowly. He comes in to the house.

  Father leans his head over so he can see Sabry Effendi. His oldest daughter Siham has on a sleeveless nightshirt. She’s leaning over with her chest against the edge of the window. Behind her, her sisters are making a commotion. Her eyes are fixed on the entrance to the alley. She pulls back inside when the young man who lives in the room on the roof appears. He’s a handsome engineering student. His skin is white, like the foreigners, and he wears glasses with gilded frames.

  Father draws back his head. He watches the window next to the balcony across from ours. The breeze is wafting through its curtains. There’s a chair with a high back and a man in a dark-colored suit is sitting in it. There’s a low table in front of him with little black things in rows arranged on top of it. He turns them in his hand and then puts them back carefully.

  He says: “I wonder if that’s the groom?” We know that Hikmet is supposed to be having an engagement party today. Father tells me to turn off the light. We sit in the dark with our eyes fixed on the window across from us. Abu Zakiya comes up from the direction of the entrance to the alley. He’s thin and dark with grey hair. One of his eyes is closed all the way. He walks slowly, as though he is tired out. He’s so quiet by nature that you hardly hear his voice. He does not notice us before he goes into the building next door. Father says: “How strange that they found each other.” He means his wife, who is white and much younger.

  He stretches out his head and focuses on something: “What are those things over there?” I try to follow his gaze. Are they glasses of sherbet punch? No one’s going near them. In fact, there’s no sign of
anyone else around, as if no one is in the room but the man in the chair. No one is ululating and there are no sounds of a party. Father says: “It could be little lumps of hashish for a hookah.” After a while he adds: “That’s weird. Look harder.”

  I balance my glasses again and take a harder look, but I can’t make out the black things. Father suggests that I wipe the lenses of my glasses. I go back into the room and wipe them with the bed sheet. I go back to the balcony. The man is still sitting looking at the little things in front of him. Father stretches his arm out to me without turning toward me. He whispers: “Loan me your glasses.” I take them off and hand them to him. He brings them close to his face without putting them on. He shakes his head, then he hands back the glasses, saying: “It’s no use.”

  He prays the afternoon prayer. He sits me down in front of him on the bed. He rests his glasses on the end of his nose and, from the geography book, begins to explain to me the difference between straits, a gulf and an isthmus. He scolds me for forgetting. He’s annoyed. Gives me memorization exercises. He dresses and goes out. I hear him ask Mama Tahiya if she will look after me and say that he’ll probably be out until late.

  I listen to his steps falling on the stairs and wait to see him come out into the lane, then I leave our room. Mama Tahiya is hanging her laundry out on the clothes line strung between the entrance to the living room and the door to her room. She has brought out a bucket of water and is cleaning the room and washing down their door with soap. I bring her jugs of water from the sink. She wipes down the floor of the living room while singing, “I’ll meet him tomorrow and the day after . . .” She brings in the primus stove from the kitchen along with the small wooden foot stool that sits just inches off the ground. She puts them both in the middle of the guest room next to the washbasin made of zinc. She brings in half a cup of sugar from her room. She adds half a cup of water to it and stirs them for a long time, then pours the mixture into a small metal pan. She puts it on the fire, pulls the end of her dress up between her legs, and sits down on the stool. Fading sunlight comes in from the window to the skylight. It falls across her bare knees.