by Radwa Ashour
‘That’s not what happened.’
‘Then tell me what happened. But let me eat first, and then I’ll listen.’
I sat next to him while he had his dinner. I told him, ‘The power went out, and the computer turned off. Then the power came back, I turned it on, and the document was there – no problem. I worked on it for four hours, and when I decided to stop the message box for me to save it came up, so I pressed “Yes” as usual, and the same box came up a second time, and then a third and a fourth. I did the same thing twenty times, then decided that the “Yes” button was useless. It seemed as though pressing “No” would solve the problem, so that’s what I did. After that I closed the document, shut down the computer, and went into the kitchen. Then this afternoon when I turned it on I couldn’t find the document.’
‘Brilliant! Fantastic! I’ve got to hand it to you, by God! When the electricity went out, the computer saved a temporary copy of the document. You simply had to change its name or save it with the same name by substituting the temporary document with a permanent one. Every time you gave the “save” command, the computer was waiting for you to tell it under what name you wanted the document saved. What you were supposed to do was . . .’
I wasn’t listening anymore. I was thinking about how I had lost four days’ worth of work.
‘From now on,’ I announced, ‘I’m not going anywhere near the computer.’
Nadir shook his head, shrugged, and said, to goad me, ‘ “Scared to get into the water, Nadir? Shame on you!” ’
He was mimicking what I used to say to him when he was little and fearful of swimming.
When Nadeem came back, Nadir turned the loss of the document into a stage comedy.
‘I come home and find Nada raising a lament, wailing, “My document, my document!” I tell her I’m about to die of hunger. “My document, my document!” she says. The telephone rang, and she answered it, “My document, my document!” There was a knock on the door. It was a grocery delivery-man. She said, “My document, my document!” ’
For weeks I didn’t go near the computer. Then one Friday after breakfast the boys pulled me over to the machine and sat down, one on either side of me and each with a newspaper. ‘We’re not moving,’ they said. ‘Turn on the computer and work with it.’ Every time I tried to move from my place they prevented me. Finally I said, ‘I want to go to the toilet.’ They didn’t believe me. ‘I swear,’ I told them, but they still didn’t believe me. I said to them, ‘Look, lads, I’ll work on my own!’ They let me go. They stood by the bathroom door, and shouted, one after the other, ‘That’s it!’ And they dragged me back from the door of the bathroom to the computer.
Then the new plaything caught hold of me. It took hold even more firmly when I learned how to use e-mail and surf the Internet. I could follow the news, read the papers and the magazines, and look for whatever I wanted to know on one subject or another.
One glorious morning I announced, like a cock crowing, ‘News of the hour: I’ve now got my own blog!’ The boys shouted as if the team they were cheering for had scored a goal – they clapped and cheered.
‘What’s your blog called?’
‘ “Mendicant dervish.”’
‘Beautiful!’ said Nadeem.
But Nadir retorted, ‘That’s pathetic. Think of another name.’
‘Such as?’
‘ “Aziza, the sultan’s daughter,” Or,’ he added, ‘ “Princess Qatr al-Nada” – dewdrop, like the meaning of your name.’
‘ “Mendicant dervish,” ’ said Nadeem. ‘It’s beautiful – if you decide to change it, make it “I wonder”.’
‘I’ll leave it the way it is!’
Hamdiya disliked the computer. She felt it had taken Nadir away from her, then Nadeem, and then I, too, started putting in long sessions in front of it. The boys and I would often find ourselves absorbed in conversation that made her feel left out, since she didn’t understand what we were talking about. She kept saying that the computer wasted time and strained the eyes. Days went by when I didn’t enter the kitchen at all, and I noticed how tense she was when she set the table. Rather than put the plates, forks, and knives down calmly, she banged them down with a clatter loud enough to jangle my ears, even in the next room.
I resumed my quarrel with Hamdiya when Nadir applied for, and was offered, a job in Dubai. I was amazed when she rejoiced at the news. I objected. ‘You like your work,’ I said to him, ‘and you earn good wages by it.’ I tried to talk him round, but he maintained that the job that had been offered to him would afford him mobility within his field, broader experience, a bigger salary, and higher status.
He’d made up his mind, and he went abroad.
We were in touch every night by e-mail, but it seemed that Nadir had a great deal of work in hand, so his communications were brief, except on Thursdays and Fridays. He seemed to be happy with his job, and with the large salary he was earning.
Nadeem had no luck finding a job. All the architectural engineering firms gave preference to those with experience, and he couldn’t find a job that would provide him with such experience: a catch-22. He moved around from one job to another in private computer firms. He enrolled in a graduate programme, hoping that if he got a master’s degree in architecture it would improve his chances of work in his field.
The firm he had left allowed him time for his academics, but was late in paying its employees. Nadeem would receive his pay packet in the latter half of the month, or at the end of the month, or sometimes the following month. They would say they were waiting for some cheque to come through before they could pay their wages. ‘This is a small firm?’ I asked him. He said, ‘No, it’s a large firm, with hundreds of employees. The owners know we need work, and they know that the number of qualified candidates is limitless. If one of us leaves, there’s a queue of thousands of unemployed people looking to take his place. They put it bluntly: “Nobody’s forcing you to stay.” ’
The new firm he transferred to paid wages regularly, and therefore squeezed him hard, like juicing a sugar cane. He would leave the house at seven-thirty in the morning and come home at one o’clock in the morning, every day, six days a week. He would come in like a sleepwalker, eat his meal in a semi-somnolent state, then go to bed. (Had Marx been alive, he would have added a new observation regarding the surplus value produced by university-educated white-collar workers. I wonder how he would classify them: as a middle class, or a toiling workforce?)
Fridays were my only opportunity to communicate with Nadeem. We would have a leisurely breakfast and stay seated at the kitchen table, chatting and at ease. He would tell me about his co-workers and their situations, and about what he saw on the microbus he took back and forth to work. (It took him more than an hour to get to work – an hour and a quarter or an hour and a half each way.)
Months went by, and Nadeem said to me, ‘The driver used to play a recording of Qur’anic recitation. The volume was turned up high and reverberated throughout the bus, but it didn’t stop the passengers talking. They made their comments, and gossiped, and told their stories, sometimes making fun. No one tells jokes now. Lately a strange thing has come about: The driver doesn’t play recordings and none of the passengers talk – silence has fallen on the microbus, everyone is lost in his own thoughts – it’s as if a bird had landed on everyone’s head. That’s what I’ve observed on the different microbuses I take every day. But the strangest thing I’ve noticed is that if the passengers do talk – which happens only rarely now – if one person speaks and another answers, then conversation breaks out, and people talk provocatively about politics, and in stronger terms than you can imagine. Their criticism touches on everything, from the price of bread to government corruption to the gunboats moving in to strike Iraq.’
Nadir surprised us with an unannounced visit. There was a knock on the door Thursday evening, and there we found him. He had a small case in his hand, with another smaller bag slung from his shoulder. The commotion
of our reunion was followed by mad excitement, as we hugged him one after another, with Hamdiya weeping, me laughing, Nadir talking, and Nadeem emitting odd sounds, so it was as if a flock of birds were fluttering and squawking and singing. Nadir announced, ‘First of all, this is one of those visits of the kind that go, “Is so-and-so with you? No? Then I’ll be on my way.” ’
‘You mean one week?’
‘Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday morning I’m off.’
‘No!’
Nadir continued, ‘The reason for this visit is Nada’s birthday. I said to myself, “This is the first birthday with me a solid working man earning a solid wage.” ’
With that he set upon me, kissed me on both cheeks and on my forehead. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said, ‘and many happy returns – you’re the best!’ He handed me the bag that had been hanging from his shoulder since he appeared on the doorstep. ‘Open it.’
I did so. I didn’t say a word, for I couldn’t have uttered a sound without shedding tears. Nadir understood me, and didn’t prolong the moment. He turned to Hamdiya. From his jacket pocket he drew a small box, opened it, and presented her with an elegant little watch. She wept some more. He said, ‘As for Nadeem, he’ll have to wait until the next visit, since my salary goes only so far. I bought two shirts, one for you and one for myself.’
Within seconds, the boys had taken off their shirts and begun taking the wrapping off the new ones, pulling out the pins and plastic collar-pieces, and undoing the buttons. Each donned his new shirt – the two garments were identical. Then Nadir announced, ‘If I don’t eat straightaway, I’m going to die and miss the chance to go out in my new shirt!’
‘Didn’t you eat on the plane?’
‘I ate, but only Hamdiya and Nada’s food can fill me up!’
The four of us stood in the kitchen, as I fixed one dish and Hamdiya another, while Nadeem made a salad, and Nadir told us his news. Then we carried the plates to the dining table. We stayed at the table talking and drinking tea until the call to prayer at dawn. Only then did we go to bed.
By seven I had drunk my tea and turned on the laptop computer that Nadir had given me. It was gorgeous, magnificent. I wasn’t sure whether I would have found it so beautiful had I seen it displayed for sale in some shop. ‘It’s beautiful because it’s a gift,’ I said to myself, ‘and beautiful in its own right, irrespective of other considerations.’ It was small, light, and elegant, its cover, the borders around the screen and the keyboard all of a fine silver colour. The keyboard was black, imprinted with Arabic and Roman letters in white. Its case was elegant as well, with one space for the machine, another for papers, and a third for storing the cords, adapter, and accessories, as well as two pockets: a square one for the compact discs that came with the computer, and another rectangular one for the mouse.
I was fixing another cup of tea when Nadeem woke up, kissed me, and shyly held out his hand, in which was something wrapped in coloured paper. ‘Happy birthday, Nada,’ he said.
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ I replied.
‘The gift doesn’t measure up to the occasion.’
I opened it, kissed it, and kissed him.
We sat down to have tea together.
I was about to say, ‘The laptop Nadir brought me is a treasure,’ and then I thought better of it.
‘By the way, Nada,’ said Nadeem, ‘tell Mama that you commissioned Nadir to buy you that computer.’
‘But I didn’t commission him!’
‘I know. But it seems she’s upset. Yesterday while we were fixing tea she let slip a comment that gave her away.’
‘What did she say?’
‘It doesn’t matter what she said, but apparently she knows what that kind of equipment costs, and maybe she was comparing that to the price of the watch.’
‘And why are you passing this on to me?’ (The sharpness of the one-time child-rearer had resurfaced.)
‘I’m not passing anything on to you. I just wanted to prevent the possibility of any misunderstanding or hurt feelings. Tell her you gave him money for the computer, that it turned out not to be enough, and he made up his mind to cover the rest of the cost. That is, a compromise between a gift and something you asked him to get for you. She’ll calm down if you tell her that.’
‘I won’t do it!’
Then I added with finality, ‘I hope Nadir won’t hear about any of this nonsense!’
He was quiet. Then he said, ‘Nadir suggested I go to Dubai.’
‘Did you get a job offer?’
‘No, but he says he’d be able to get me a job with a decent salary. What do you think?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know. But if things go on like this I’m going to take him up on it.’
It’s strange how we react. I took out my anger on Nadeem, not Hamdiya. I was furious with him for telling me what his mother had said – or rather, what was worse, passing along his own version of what she had said. From the time they were small, I refused to listen if Nadir said, ‘Nadeem did such-and-such,’ or if Nadeem said, ‘Nadir said such-and-such.’ I would give them a good scolding, and sometimes even punish the informer. Nadeem wasn’t being an informer. He was trying, pointlessly, to avert hurt feelings. Did he avert them or create them? Nadir was to be with us just one day; there was nothing for it but for me to drop the whole subject as if I hadn’t heard anything of it. But how?
Over lunch, Nadir said to me, ‘You look pale, Nada.’
‘I overate last night, and slept only two hours. Besides, we’ve started the countdown – you’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘Let’s think of today, not tomorrow. Nadeem and I are going to make you a birthday cake, whether it gets eaten or not – it’s the thought that counts.’
‘I’ll make it,’ Hamdiya put in.
I said, ‘I’m inviting you all to lunch at a restaurant – there’s no need for a cake. Thank you, Hamdiya.’
Chapter twenty-three
Blue lorries
Something new was happening that struck me as odd, and I couldn’t let it go. I was following the blue lorries – I would encounter them by chance on the road, and pursue them. I said nothing about this to anyone, as my behaviour might provoke ridicule or at least laughter, or doubts as to my mental health. I would catch sight of them two or three cars ahead of me, or notice that they were behind me when they were reflected in the car’s rear-view mirror, or one of the side mirrors. I would find myself spontaneously turning the wheel to the right or left, speeding up or slowing down, jockeying for a place next to them. Most of the time I would be prevented by the heavy traffic in the streets and squares, or a light would turn red suddenly, forcing me to stop, or else a green light would oblige me to move forward inopportunely, or a couple of cars might pass me and I would fail to catch up with them. Sometimes there was a fork in the road, and my day’s agenda (if I was on my way to work or to an appointment I couldn’t miss) wouldn’t permit me to follow them, since I might end up where I hadn’t meant to go, deep in the byways from which it would take me more time than I had to extricate myself.
They were big vehicles, of a hue that was nothing like either sky-blue or sea-blue, but the raw blue of cheap paint to which dust had clung until it became part of it. Perhaps the surface had been repainted over and over, without being cleaned or sanded first, so that the last layer of colour went on muddy and uneven. The driver and the one or two men beside him were all from the rank and file of the police force. Behind them would be the big iron box, with a door at the rear and a set of steps between that and the street. The door would be locked with a large deadbolt and sometimes a padlock in addition to that. In rare cases a couple of boys would be standing there – boys from the countryside in uniforms that were filthy, albeit official – as auxiliary security guards. On either side of the box, in the upper third portion, were four small openings close together, presumably windows, with iron bars or instead of bars some thick metal grillwork that would restrict the
airflow for whoever was inside the box and limit the visibility of those behind these openings, keeping them that much more tightly in bonds.
They were called ‘transport lorries’, for they were used to convey those who had been arrested from one place to another – from the police department, for example, or from the public prosecutor’s office to the courtroom and from there to prison.
When I followed one of these vehicles my first concern was to find out whether there were people in the box, and whether they were pressing their faces to the metal grillwork seeking a breath of air or a beam of light or some hope in the sight of a face or a tree or a school door opening suddenly for a group of children.
Having got close enough, I liked to stop my car altogether, so that the necessity of watching the road would not prevent me from staring at those windows secured with grillwork, where I might see a face, or intercept a glance or a smile. Then the urgent honk of a car horn would compel me to avert my gaze, to discover that I was on the point of colliding with the car ahead of me, or that my car was rolling backward and about to hit the one behind me.
I rarely succeeded in overtaking a transport lorry. The two or three times I was lucky, I imagined that I saw a face behind the opening, and I looked intently at it. It seemed to me that it stared at me as well. I would smile. After that, I would have no chance, because of the need to concentrate on the road, to see any response to my smile; then the vehicle would move off, and I would continue on my way.
It didn’t occur to me, when I thought about this new mania that had beset me, that it was a premonition, and that my heart was anticipating what was to happen. I thought my new mania was some residue of the past, that perhaps unconsciously I was remembering my father, and following paths he might have travelled.
It didn’t occur to me that the lorry was the harbinger of an evil event. Maybe I came close to thinking along these lines, and then reconsidered, wondering, ‘How could this be a bad omen, when the only thing that’s new is that I’m the one who’s taken to following the lorries? There’s no omen here, no basis for foreboding or dread. It’s odd behaviour, but, whatever obscure impulses it may suggest, it’s just another of my passing obsessions, nothing more.’
