Stealth (New Directions Paperbook)

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  Father knows I do not like drinking araqsoos. We go around the building. We stop in front of a shop called “Wilson.” A big counter takes up the shop, with three big round glass jugs on it. The first one has barley water in it, the second tamarind, and the third a red drink.

  Father orders a mug of sugar cane juice for me. The worker puts three stalks of cane into two wooden funnels. He turns the wheel that moves them. The juice runs off on to a metal runner. He throws a piece of ice into the glass pitcher and sets it at the end of the runner. When it fills, he lifts it up and pours me a mug. I drink it with joy.

  We go back to the square, and walk into a narrow hallway in the huge building. A small enclosed garden. A wide area with tables and chairs. We sit in one of the corners. A Greek waiter in a white shirt and black trousers comes up to us. His collar looks all fancy in its black bow-tie. He speaks to father, saying: “Bonjour, Excellence.” He is carrying a tray on top of a clean white towel. He takes little plates off of it and puts them on the table. Tahini, black olives, peanuts, and foreign bread cut in crescent shapes. He goes over to a high counter at the other end of the room. There are high chairs in front of it. At one end, there is a wooden barrel leaning on its side. He puts a glass under the tap at the top of the barrel. He waits until the cup fills up and white foam runs over its sides. He lifts the mug and wipes off its sides with a cloth, then brings it to us.

  Father takes off his fez. Wipes the sweat off his bald head with a handkerchief. He sips a bit from the beer mug then lights a cigarette. I take a piece of bread, plunge it into the tahini, and gobble it up. I pick at the dish of peanuts. A vendor comes by in a gallabiya carrying a small basket full of boiled prawns. Father shakes his head to say no. Another vendor follows selling lottery tickets. Father takes a notebook from him that has schedules of numbers. He takes a lottery ticket out of his suit jacket pocket. He searches for its numbers in the register. Then he gives it back to the vendor with a sad smile. He takes some tickets from him and chooses one. He pays him a piastre. The shoeshine man comes over to us. He sits down at father’s feet. Father puts his right foot up on the step of the shine box.

  I stare at the high counter with many men standing around it. A row of colored bottles is behind it. I see an old man who looks like a foreigner in fancy clothes stretched out on the floor next to the counter. He keeps repeating words that make the men, who are standing, laugh. No one bothers to help him get up. The small bottle on the table has a lot of plates spread around it. Smell of sautéed liver. The room is empty. Mother’s voice comes from the bedroom: “Darling come and save me, see what I’ve been through. “My father’s voice finishes the lyrics: “I’ve been crushed by passion for you.”

  The shoeshine finishes the right shoe and taps on the wooden box. Father puts down his right foot and lifts up his left. I take the last piece of bread and use it to wipe clean the plate of tahini. The shoeshine finishes up. Father gives him half a piastre. He raises his mug of beer to his lips. He swallows its last drops slowly. The waiter comes back and asks father if he wants anything else. He shakes his head. We pay and leave.

  We catch the tram, riding in the closed car. There’s an empty seat next to a man in a caftan and a country style skull cap. I ride on father’s lap. The back of the seat in front of us is in my face. A woman in a black cloak is sitting on it, next to a girl wearing a blouse and skirt. The woman has taken over the space that separates the chairs. Her thighs hang over the edge of the seat a little. A man in a suit and fez comes by. He stands next to her seat. He leans over and rests his hand on the back of the chair. His knee is very close to the upper part of the woman’s thigh.

  I look out of the window at the cinema billboards. The tramcar rocks from side to side. I turn back around to the front. I notice the man’s knee rubbing against the woman’s leg. She leans over to her friend and they exchange whispers. The man rubs his knee on her thigh. I look up at his face. He stares back at me. I turn my eyes back to the window. I pretend to stare at the street, but I can see her from the corner of my eye, leaning further toward her friend. The man’s knee is almost right on her crack. I look up at his face. He stares straight back. His look sets on me, so I turn away. The tram stops. The woman gets up in a hurry. She says goodbye to her friend. She avoids looking at the man. She pushes her way quickly through the passengers who are standing and heads toward the door. Her cloak is caught up in her crack. One of the people standing up takes her seat. The man’s face is pale. There are beads of sweat on his forehead. He bends over to look out of the window of the tramcar, then stands back up straight. He looks around. Our eyes meet. He stares hard. I turn my eyes away.

  We get off the tramcar in the square. We cross it to go over to the Dukhakhny shop at the corner of Farouk and al-Zaher streets. Father buys a pack of his cigarettes with the yellow package and the picture of the Ethiopian head. We circle the square and cross the street that leads to our old house. We come to the Um ’Abbas fountain. One of the passers-by drinks from its tap. I look towards the street that goes up to our old house. The florist stands on the corner. The horse’s head is buried in his sack of feed. Three street sweepers with their yellow clothes, bushy moustaches, and long brooms are at work. Their caps are turned backward, for the brims to shade the back of their necks. He pounds the broom’s handle on the ground to fix its head back on. Dust comes off it. The head falls off the handle again. He sits down on the pavement. He fastens a piece of a rag between the head and the stick.

  We cross the street. We make it to Abdel Malik bakery. We head for the pharmacy. Father pushes the dark glass door. The breeze from the circular ceiling fan hits us. The pharmacist is wearing glasses with big thick lenses. Father asks about his account. The chemist flips through pages of his register. Father pays him a chunk of what he owes. He promises to pay the rest at the beginning of next month. He leans to him and whispers something. The man smiles and says: “I wish. Try taking some Vitamin B.” Father buys two small bottles—one with tincture of iodine, the other mercurochrome.

  We go back to Nuzha Street. We stop in front of the butcher. Father buys a pound of kidneys and sheep’s testicles. He pays last month’s bill. He asks: “What’s new with your father?”

  He answers in a disapproving voice: “He’s with his bride.”

  Father smiles: “Congratulations.”

  “Is it right for an old man to do that?”

  “Well, how old is he?”

  “He’s past sixty.”

  Father shakes his head: “Is he planning to have a kid?”

  “No, thank God. She can’t have children. But he wants to bequeath the shop to her.”

  We buy a melon from a horse-drawn cart. We cross the street to Hajj Abdel ’Alim’s shop. We go in. Salim opens the register as soon as he sees father. We settle up with him. Father asks for a little bit of raw sugar. Salim asks him in a dry tone: “How much, then?”

  “Fifty dirham. To sweeten the melon.”

  We head toward the alley. Father says to me: “By now, Fatima’s made the rice and green beans.” I say: “She can’t make rice the way you can.”

  The afternoon call to prayer echoes loudly from Hajj Mishaal’s megaphone hung at the end of the alleyway. The iron salesman looks out from the balcony of his second wife. He rests his arms on its edge. Signs of being mad show on his face. He stretches out his right hand, holding the end of a black rubber hose. He points its spout toward the place where we’ve dug out five circles for our game of marbles. The water shoots out from the spout of the hose. It rains over the grooves for the marbles and washes them away. We gather the marbles. Everyone takes his own. Safwat goes up to his apartment. Samir and I stand there all confused. His face is full of pock marks, just like his mother’s. The water runs through the alley and washes away any chance for us to keep playing. Father calls me from the balcony. I go up. I wash my face and feet under the tap. I go back to the room and dry off my face with the towel hanging from the edge of the bed. As the sun disappears, he
calls to me. I hurry inside and go to the bathroom right away. I wash my face and my feet. I catch up with him at the window. The darkness swallows us. We sit in the dark without turning on the light. The street is quiet; there’s no one around.

  I open the left door of the cupboard. I reach for the travel bag. I pull out a handful of hazelnuts, walnuts, and almonds. I put them on the desk. I open the right door. I take out a roll of dried apricot. I cut off a slice the size of my hand. I look around for the nutcracker until I find it buried under some clothes. I sit at the desk. I open the book of Layla Murad songs. I break open two hazelnuts, two almonds, and a walnut. I take a small bit of apricot and suck on it while I add hazelnut and almond. Father goes to and fro from the balcony to the door of the room. He groans from the awful heat. He says over and over: “Let it keep getting hotter, until it has to finally break!” He drives away the flies for the umpteenth time. A familiar voice comes up from the alley. “Shakookoo! For a bottle!” I run to the balcony. The call is repeated from a man with a cart full of small plaster statues of the famous singer and comedian. I turn around to ask father for an empty bottle that I can exchange for one of the statues. His frowning face does not give me much hope.

  A vendor calls out from the entrance to the alley: “Almonds!” Father calls out to Fatima. She appears at the door to the room, wiping her hands off on her gallabiya. He asks her what she is doing. She answers: “I’m chopping mulukhiya, Sidi.” He turns to me saying: “Take a piastre out of my pocket and go and bring a pound of dates.” I grab for his suit coat on its hanger in the corner. I root around in its pocket until I find the change. I pull out a fistful and pick out a piastre from it. I take two millimes also. I ask him: “How much should I pay?” He says: “Pay what he asks for. You can’t barter.” I head towards the door and he calls to me: “Pay attention to the scale. Don’t let him cheat you.”

  I leave the apartment at a run. I cut across the alleyway to get to the street. The date seller is sitting on one of the arms of his cart with a leg propped up on the other one. His feet are bare and dirty. The dates are stacked up in a round basket made of palm leaves. It is covered with a thin white cloth. He pulls the covering down a bit and grabs some dates with his hand. He puts them on one side of the scale. I walk around him to be closer to it and make sure it’s okay. He makes a cone out of paper and then pours the stack of dates into it. He throws in two more dates. He hands me some change from the piastre. I run over to the nut seller and buy a millime’s worth of melon seeds and another of chickpeas.

  I go out again right before sundown to buy ful beans for our suhur, the late night snack during Ramadan. The seller is standing behind his kettle at the entrance to the alleyway. A crowd of boys and girls surrounds him. Their hands are all stretched out with plates and pots. They’re all calling for him to serve them next. We’re all excitedly following the movement of his right hand out of the kettle with its ladle full of beans. I start to call out with them as I stretch out the empty plate in my right hand and the money in my left. Their voices are louder than mine.

  By the time I get my beans and go back, reading from the Quran has started. Its sound comes at us from two directions: the megaphone of Hajj Mishaal and the radio of Um Zakiya. Father is soaking two dry Nubian dates in a cup of water. Fatima finishes chopping the mulukhiya. She puts it on the fire and starts to peel off a few garlic cloves to make the broth. Father warns her not to start sautéing the mix right away. He says that Um Nabila, God rest her soul, use to get ready to sauté the mulukhiya the moment she heard his steps in the stairwell, but she would not actually do it until after he sat at the table, so that he could smell it.

  He washes for prayer and gets ready. The reciter ends the reading with “Believe in the Supreme God.” A quiet moment passes. We wait anxiously. The cannon at the citadel fires to signal that it is sundown. Its boom echoes from the radio and the megaphone. The sunset call to prayer follows. Father picks up the cup of dates and sips from it slowly. He takes a bite of a date. He spreads the prayer rug out over the floor. He prays the maghrib. Fatima sautés the mulukhiya. She brings the pan to the round table. She follows it up with a pot of rice and two plates. “Do you want anything else?” As he recites Quran, father raises his voice to drive her away. She says: “Okay. I’m going.” She runs out in a hurry. Father finishes his prayer. The light of the day’s end breaks up quickly. The electric lamp shines. He sits at the edge of the bed. I sit on the chair in front of him. He serves me mulukhiya with the ladle. He adds a piece of meat to it. I tear off a piece from the loaf of bread. I dip it in the mulukhiya. He serves himself. A complete silence descends over the alley. Sound of a spoon clanging against a plate. The sound is so close, it is as if it’s in our apartment.

  All of a sudden, the alarm siren goes off. Voices from outside: “Put out the light.” I slide the chair back. I run to the light switch and turn it off. Darkness swallows us. Father stands up. He calls me. I answer: “I’m here, papa.” He reaches out his hand and takes me into a hug. We turn towards the balcony. We move close to it. The siren stops sounding. A total silence falls. He says: “Those dogs! The truce hasn’t ended yet.” He reaches his hand out to shut the door to the balcony. Then he goes back and opens it again. He says: “The glass could break.”

  I move closer. The alley is swallowed in darkness. I stretch my neck to look up. The warplanes cut through the sky at a feverish speed. Two of them linger over a spot of light. They move away. All at once, they disappear. The sound of a faint and distant explosion resounds. His hand comes down on my shoulder harshly. He says: “Come back in here where it’s safer.”

  He pulls off a blanket from on top of the bed. He crawls underneath it. He pushes away the old suitcase and spreads the blanket out over the floor. I do as he does. He gets down on his knees, leaning forward so his head does not hit the box springs. I huddle next to him. He wraps his arm around me.

  I crawl to the edge of the bed near the door to the balcony. I stick my head out and look up at the piece of the sky that I can see. One of the stars fades away quickly. The ground defense searchlights gather together and try to catch it. Father whispers: “Where did you go? Come back here.” I go back next to him. We wait in the quiet. A ringing sound draws near. It gets closer and grows loud. Suddenly, it stops. I hear the sound of an explosion. The alarm siren comes on and off. My father switches off the light. Mother refuses to go to the storage closet. He begs her. She shouts back at him: “Is the closet going to protect us? Wake up, man. God is the Protector.” We sit in the living room. He takes me in his arms. The sound of cannons goes off every few minutes. A faint and familiar whistle. It gets closer and louder. It stops. A German bomb lands in front of the building. The glass in the window to the skylight shakes. The sideboard rocks forward. The mirror mounted on top of it falls off. After a while, the all-clear siren goes off. My father gets up to turn on the light while he mutters thanks and praise to God. Mother’s face is so white it’s scary.

  I grab hold of father. He hugs me. He crawls out from under the bed and I follow him. We leave the room and go to the hall. We head towards the bathroom. He goes into the toilet. Water runs out of the tap in a strained trickle. He gathers up his gallabiya and leans forward. He presses the tap shut, and takes out a box of matches from his pocket. Strikes a match. The round circle of the toilet appears in the light. He raises the match up and climbs up on the stone base. I hang on to his gallabiya. He stretches out his hand and pulls me to him. I look away towards the wall. I close my eyes. I try to ignore the rotten smell of the toilet. I bury my face in his gallabiya. I listen to the sound of his breathing. My ear rubs against a piece of metal in his hernia belt. The sounds of explosions go on. He shivers. He shouts out: “O Gentle One, be gentle.”

  I see after a while that the explosions have stopped. He loosens his grip on my shoulder. Silence starts to settle in. Then a long all-clear siren goes off. His panting settles down. We go out to the hallway. He turns on the light in the living room. W
e go back into our room. He turns on the light. He lights a black cigarette. We forget about the food and stand on the balcony. The children of the neighborhood come out carrying Ramadan lamps. Sameer carries a lamp with oval-shaped sides. Each side is a different color. Someone else has a lamp shaped like a football. I come back into the room and grab my lamp from on top of the desk. Its side panels are square. I open the main one and light the wick. I close it and it comes back open. I close it harder. I carry it very gently from the ring of tin at its top so I don’t get poked by the sharp edges of its base. I go out on to the balcony.

  I watch the children as they chant: “Halloo, ya halloo! Ramadan has come, ya halloo!” In the middle of their chants, I can hear Samir’s delicate voice cutting through the others singing: “Wahawee, ya wahawee! eeyooha!” They’re coming out from deep inside the alley. They make it to underneath our balcony and one of them calls out: “O you fast-breaker! O you duty shaker!” Does he mean us? They pass on, further down the alley.

  He prays the evening prayer. We put on our clothes to go out. He wraps his brown shoes, with the white tips, in a newspaper. He also rolls up the piece of brown cloth that we bought from the constable. We leave the house. We go out all the way to the street, passing in front of the sheikh of the quarter’s shop. There’s no one inside except Saleem, who stands behind the counter. We stop at the shoe repair shop. He hands over the shoes. The shoe repairman turns them in his hand and says: “The sole’s worn out. At the front and the back.”