He asks me: “Did anything come up?”
I answer: “I’m not sure. There’s some scribbling in the corner.”
He sounds worried as he asks: “In English?”
“Don’t know.”
He takes it from me. He studies it then gives it back to me saying that the scribbling is just a rust spot. He reads the book and then flips through a few pages.
“Did anything come up?”
I shake my head. He says sadly: “I don’t know what happened. Are you sure that you’ve washed?” I say I’m sure and he shakes his head like he’s all confused.
He flips through the book then stops at one of the pages. He takes a sheet of paper and writes a few words on it. He folds it up and hands it to me: “Keep this in your pocket always.”
I want to get up. He stops me: “Memorize that invocation. Say it with me.” He recites: “By the right of these noble names, Kahi’adh, hem ‘asiq. Dumb and deaf and blind, for they will not return to Him.” I repeat the invocation after him. He tests me. He makes sure I know it by heart. He tells me to recite it seventy times as I enter the oral exam. Then I repeat the word “Kahi’adh” letter by letter. After each letter, I curl up a finger from my right hand. When my turn comes before the examiner, I raise up my hand, unfolding them in his face. The magician takes out his things and spreads them around in a big circle. We gather around the circle. He pulls a long chain of colored handkerchiefs from his sleeve. He raises a bottle of gas to his mouth. He takes up a long steel pole with a flame burning at the end of it. He opens his mouth and blows up a flame like a rocket launching. He promises us we’ll see a snake coming out of its egg if we pay him. He passes through us holding a tambourine with his monkey tied to him by a chain. He finishes the pass through then shakes the tambourine. He announces that what he has collected isn’t enough. He takes his things and leaves.
Chapter Three
She unfolds the sheets and pillows over the edge of the balcony. He screams at her: “The mattress first.” She drags the sheets and pillows to the side. She comes back into the room and bends over the mattress. He helps her lift it on top of her head. Her frail body wavers. She throws it on top of the balcony ledge and rains down blows with the wicker dust racket. Thick dust floats up from it. She beats the blankets and the pillows. She starts to pant from the work and her pale face turns red.
She drags the bed frame away from the wall. She lights the primus stove, then carries it in her hand and bends over the metal box springs. She holds shut the opening of her gallabiya that almost exposes her breasts. Father puts on his glasses. He tells her: “Give it to me.” He takes the burner from her and squats down next to the frame. He sets the stove under the hole that the box springs rest in. I lean over next to him. I study his strong hands that hold on to the stove so firmly. I notice some bedbugs in a row. The fire touches them and they burst into flames and fall to the ground. I point out one that is getting away. He catches up to it with the flame. He turns around with the stove and goes to the other side of the frame. She brings him a bottle of paraffin and he pours from it on to the burnt spots. He tells us to look carefully around the sides of the mattress and the folds of the pillows.
“Give me the jug.”
She brings a jug of water from the living room. He sips from it, then wipes his lips with the sleeve of his gallabiya. He says: “It’s hot. Put it on top of the sideboard in the breeze.” She says: “Shall I go get some ice, Sidi?” As she speaks, her mouth opens and shows her yellow teeth. He answers: “No. Not now.” The ice seller is at the door. He’s carrying half a block wrapped in canvas. He puts it on top of the dinner table. Mother carries it to the kitchen. She breaks off a piece with the handle of the wooden pestle, then bangs at it to make smaller pieces. She rinses it with water and scatters it over the plates of paluza, the white pudding, lined up on the top of the sideboard. We eat it sitting next to the window.
He drags the desk chair over and stands on top of it. Gently, he brings over the wall clock. He hands it to Fatima as he says: “Take it easy. Be careful.” She puts the clock over the frame of the bed. She brings a piece of cloth and wets it with the paraffin. She goes to clean off the clock, but he stops her and gets down. He takes the cloth from her. He wipes off the sides of the clock with it. He opens its glass pane. Wipes the edges around the clockwork. He asks her for the bottle and another piece of cloth. She gives him an old wool sock. He wets it with the paraffin. He takes hold of the pendulum and rubs it well. He carefully wipes off its roman numbers. Then he takes a small can about the size of his hand with a little spout on top. Puts the spout under the clockwork and tilts it to pour out what’s inside. He pours into the two openings in the middle of the ring of numbers and wipes off a small, shiny brass opening. He presses it into one of the openings and turns it gently. Moves to the other one. Turns the key several times until it won’t go any more.
He takes the clock to the hall and puts it above the table. His eyes move from one wall to another. He settles on a spot between the door on to the skylight and the door to the guest room. Fatima takes one of the dining chairs and brings it to the place he has fixed on. He climbs up on to the chair. He asks me for the hammer and a medium-sized nail. I run back to the room. I get down on my knees in front of the bed and pull out the hammer and a cardboard box from underneath it. The box is full of nails, bits of electric cord, tacks, and parts from light fixtures. I pick out some nails that are different sizes. I run back. Father stretches his hand out to me. Fatima snatches away the hammer and nails and hands them to him. He chooses one of the nails and pounds it into the wall. His strokes are strong and sure.
I go over to the door of the constable and Mama Tahiya. I look in the keyhole. There is no trace left of their bed or their chiffonier. They took all their furniture when they moved to their new place. Father shouts at me: “Where are you?” I rush back. He stretches out his hand with the hammer in it, but Fatima takes it before I can. The hammer almost falls between us and he tells me: “You’re good for nothing.” He asks her to gently bring him the clock. She brings it to him. He hangs it on the nail. He takes its pendulum from her and fixes it under the clockwork. He swings it on and the clock starts to work. He closes the glass and climbs down.
We go back to the room. He asks her to take down the framed pictures. She gets up on the chair. Her scarf gets hung on the side of the wardrobe. She pulls it out and ties it again over her thick hair. Her gallabiya gathers up in her crack. She sticks her hand out and straightens it. Father’s eyes fix on her small bottom. She takes down a picture and gives it to him. It’s big, with a wide wooden frame and has small egg-shaped head shots in one row after another. I know father’s picture is in the second row from the bottom. ’Azmi, the son of Mama Basima’s cook, has taken it out once. Father dusts it off with a rag and puts it on top of the box.
She gives him another picture. It shakes in her hand. He yells at her: “Your hand’s wobbly!” The picture shows him sitting in the middle of several army officers. Smiling in a fancy uniform. His shoes are shiny and have pointy ends. His hand is wrapped around a fly whisk that rests in his lap. His moustache turns up on the sides, like the moustache of King Fuad.
A third picture has a fine wooden frame with something that looks like a cross in each corner. He stands between two officers. One of them wears puffy pants tucked in high boots that come up to the knee. The shoulders of their uniforms have small, steel swords that show they’re officers. He takes hold of the picture in his hand and stares up at the wall as if searching for a place to hang it. I say: “Shouldn’t we put a glass pane over it first?” He shakes his head as if he’s sad: “May God have vengeance on them.” Mama Basima with ’Azmi goes out all mad and leaves us with his mother, the cook. We start to gather up our things in canvas bags. He puts the big pictures in grooved frames in the bag and ties it with string. We stack what we need next to the door. We put on our clothes and get ready to leave. I go to the toilet to pee. I trip over the water b
ucket and it spills. The cook yells at me: “Are you blind?” He yells back at her: “Shut up!” She runs to the door. She opens it. She grabs one of the bags. She throws it over the ledge of the stairwell. She grabs another. We rush out and go down. The bag of pictures comes after us. It crashes at the bottom and I hear the sound of breaking glass.
Fatima takes the pictures back to their place over the dresser. He points at a yellow envelope and asks her to bring it over. He throws it towards the desk and it falls. She starts to bring in the bedding.
We leave her alone in the room so she can sweep and mop it. Father brings the yellow envelope with him. He sits at the table in the hall facing the door to our room. I stand next to him. He dumps out what is in the envelope. Pictures without frames around them, some of them as small as a postcard. He picks up one and studies it. I lean over his shoulder. My glasses slide down my nose and I put them back in place. Father is between my aunt and my uncle’s wife. They’re all three wearing white gallabiyas. Only father, in his skull cap, wears anything on his head. The hair of my aunt and uncle’s wife is black like charcoal. It’s short and thick and gathered around their faces. Nabila is standing in front of my father’s legs. Behind them, there’s a wall made of reeds, and in front of them, a beach. I ask him: “Where’s this?” He says: “In front of our cabin at Ras al-Bar.”
He puts the picture to the side and picks up another. A crowded beach. Father, his face full of laughter, is in a white suit coat, a fez, and a necktie. He’s holding a cigarette. I don’t know any of the people in the crowd next to him except my brother, who is wearing a bathrobe.
He stands up and goes to the entrance of our room. He follows Fatima as she bends over her squeegee. She stacks up the rag on its blade with her hands. He waves at her to unfold it and then fold it up again into one straight piece. She finishes cleaning the room. She sits down on the edge of the bed to change the sweaty pillow cases. I’m waiting uncomfortably for her to get up and move away from the bed. Father swats at the flies with a towel. She says that her husband bought a can of Mobiltox to kill insects, from the shop attached to the petrol station. Father says: “You mean you know about Mobiltox too?” She says: “So because I’m a fellah that means I’m ignorant?” She brings in the long rug that she hung over the ledge of the balcony. She asks my father: “Shall I spread it on the ground, Sidi?” He replies: “No. It’s hot as hell. Fold it and put it under the bed.”
The sound of the watermelon vendor comes in from the window. Father goes out to the balcony. He calls to him: “Are they ripe?” “Of course, Bey.” The seller picks one up and thumps it with the flat of his hand. He puts it back and picks up another one. He thumps again. Father starts to say something, but the seller cuts into it with a knife. He makes a square opening in its side. He turns it over and pulls out a piece that is bright red, then he sticks it back into place. He puts it to the side and picks up another one. Father calls out: “One’s enough.” He bends over and takes the cut watermelon from him. He gives him his money. He takes it to the sink and washes off its surface, taking care not to get water in its opening. Then he puts it on a tray on top of the sideboard. He brings a piece of cheesecloth from the dresser and covers it.
We get ready to have lunch. Father notices that the okra in red sauce has turned sour. She says she forgot to boil it yesterday. I wait uneasily for father to explode, but he doesn’t say a word. Instead he sends her to buy head meat from the Husseiniya market. I say: “Shall I go?” He says no. She goes to the storage room and comes back wrapped in her black coat. He gives her some money. He repeats to her: “Forehead, eye, brain, and tripe.” He runs after her and yells down the stairwell: “Don’t forget the pickles and arugula.”
He takes the envelopes back to the room and throws them on top of the desk. I pick up a picture with some man wearing a big overcoat that goes down to his shoe tops. His fez covers his forehead and comes down almost all the way to his eyes. His thin moustache twists upwards. His right hand is behind his back and his left fist sits on the table. A big vase sits on the ground with the end of a curtain hanging on it. The picture is old and its edge is torn. I turn it over. Nothing. I show it to father. “Who’s this?” He takes it and studies it for a while. He says: “It’s me.”
“You?”
“Yeah, when I was eighteen.”
I show him another picture of a man in a winter coat. The fez is again close to the eyes and the moustache twisting upwards. He’s sitting in a chair with his left elbow on an armrest that has a lion’s head on the end of it. His thumb is propped against his cheek. The other hand has a cigarette holder between the index and middle fingers. The sleeve of his pressed shirt shows a button at his wrist. He says: “That’s me too—after I married Nabila’s mother. I was about twenty-seven.” I turn over the picture and read my father’s full name written in red pencil. The handwriting is my mother’s.
I recognize him easily in another picture. He’s in a fancy suit, resting his hand on the handle of a walking stick. His back is leaning against a brick wall. He looks very handsome. There’s a beautiful boy next to him in a suit with two rows of buttons. A folded handkerchief dangles from the breast pocket of his jacket. His short trousers stop just below the knee, at the tops of his long socks. I flip over the picture: “Respected Mr. Khalil Effendi with his son during Eid of 1928.” Underneath is my brother’s signature.
In the last picture, he looks the way he is now. He’s sitting down, reading in a full suit. His fez tilts back. The glasses are sliding down his nose. The wrinkles in his neck show over the collar of his shirt. On the back of the picture, he’s written in his own hand: “1945.”
Fatima comes back with a wrapper full of head meat. She puts it in a plate on top of the table and takes the arugula to the kitchen. Father shouts at her: “Wash it well.” He waves at her to come and eat with us. I get mad and think about not eating anything if she does come. She says she has to make tomorrow’s food for her husband. He puts a piece of meat in a half loaf for her. She takes it and thanks him.
I get out of my chair and drag it to the table. I notice a small picture on the floor. It must have fallen from the envelope. A small girl wears a dress with short sleeves. Her face is round and her hair is curly. She has short boots on. Her right hand rests on her stomach and her left sits on a stone wall. There’s a strange look in her eyes. Fear? Worry? Anger? I recognize father’s neat handwriting on the back, “middle of 1921.” I give it to father asking: “Who’s this picture of?”
He answers curtly: “Your mother.” I stand on top of a chair in my white summer pyjamas with their short sleeves. My elbows are leaning against the windowsill. I watch the people walking. The sun moves close to the edge of the window. I jump down to the floor and go out to the hall. The voice of mother comes from the kitchen, singing: “I’m going to hide my pain.”
We get off the tram at the Lazoghly Square stop. I stare at the head of the statue wrapped in its big turban. We pass in front of a grand café with shiny mirrors covering its walls. The café’s at the corner of two streets that come to a dead end in the square. Two of father’s friends wave at him and invite him to join them. He signals to them that he’s headed to the next building, and that he will pass by them on the way back.
We cross the street to an old building. We go in through an open door. We walk through a long hallway crowded with old men. There is an old man in a full suit. He’s shorter than father. He leans on a stick and has trouble walking. His face is so white it hits you. White hair appears at the rim of his fez. We get close to him and try to go around him, but he stops father. Father looks at him surprised. He says to father in a shaky voice: “Khalil Effendi? I am Rifqy.” Father greets him a little embarrassed and says: “How are you, Rifqy Bey?” “As you can see.” Father says: “May God give you health.” The old man looks at me and asks: “Your grandson?” “No, my son.” “God does provide! How are his exams going? God willing, he’s passing them?” Father says: “He has an English ma
keup exam.”
We leave him and keep on walking. Father’s steps slow down. The smile that he had drawn on to his lips as we went out disappears. We stand in a queue that ends at a glass window that has the word “cashier” written in cursive script that forms a circle, and underneath it is a foreign word.
A man with a thick laughing face comes up to us. He greets father warmly. He asks him why he doesn’t come to the meetings of the group. Father makes excuses about the duties of daily life. He asks him what happened with the special lawsuit over the partial liquidation of retirements. The man shakes his head unhappily: “It looks like there’s no hope. The government’s dead set on stealing from us.” “What can we do?” “We have to retain a big shot lawyer.”
The queue moves. We find ourselves in front of the window. Father takes the withdrawal slip for his retirement payment out of the jacket of his suit coat. He gives it to the clerk sitting behind the window. The clerk hands several pounds over to him. Father signs a receipt of acknowledgment.
We leave the building. We cross the street. I’m expecting that he’ll go to the café, but he walks around it. He goes through a small alley across the way. We end up in the street with the tram line and wait on the platform at the station. We get on. We get off at Attaba Square. I know it by the white firehouse with the red trucks sitting in its driveway.
We cross the square to the huge building that is facing us. It has a round dome at the top. I say that I’m thirsty. The araqsoos vendor stands in our way, clanging together his castanets. I drag one of the folding chairs to the window and climb up on it. The araqsoos vendor comes out of the side alley. His clothes are white and clean. The glass barrel of araqsoos is resting on his belly. Its opening holds a stack of straw with a piece of ice showing from the top of it. He leans backwards. The castanets are in his hand. I watch until he starts beating them in a nice rhythm and calling out: “Araqsoos, it’s good and sweet!”
Stealth (New Directions Paperbook) Page 11
