That Smell and Notes From Prison

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  I slept. In the morning I went to the new apartment my sister was moving into that night. The whole building was new and there was still work being done on some of the floors. The door to the apartment was open. My sister’s fiancé was standing in front of it. We both went in, crossing the foyer into the reception room. He showed me a big picture on the wall of a European shore house with a boat in front of it. My brother painted it, he said proudly. Then we went into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe’s four drawers. We sat on the bed, bounced up and down, then fingered the blankets and pillows. We went back to the foyer and opened the refrigerator and closed it. He led me to the door and pointed to a lamp above it. If I open the door the light goes on by itself, he said, and it turns itself off when I shut the door. Then he said, Wait for me here while I get the heater and the oven. He left and I sat down in the dark reception room and lit a cigarette. Then I got up and hit the light switch, but the electricity wasn’t working yet. I looked at the cover of the lamp above the door. It had the shape of a space satellite. Then I went back and sat at the table and stared at the shiny, unscuffed edges of the chairs. The heater came but not my sister’s fiancé. I waited for him some more, smoking, then went to the window. The sun was going down. I saw him walking alone toward the house. He was the only one on the street. Soon he came upstairs and I shook his hand and said, Congratulations. Then I left to go home. I turned on the light and put the notebook in my pocket, sitting on a chair with my back to the door. I picked up a book. Then I got up and turned the seat around to face the door. I went back to my reading. I looked over the edge of the book at the door. The apartment was getting dark. I tried to keep reading but it was no good. I got up and went to the reception room and turned the light on. My neighbor’s apartment was dark. I went to the kitchen and turned the light on, then went to my room and picked up the book again. There was a knock at the door. I got up to open it and remembered my sister. She said that when there was a knock at the door she always felt like someone was about to come in and beat her up. So I opened the peephole first and saw the policeman there. I opened up and took the notebook out of my pocket, handing it to him. He signed it and left and I went back to my room. I tried to read again but couldn’t. I began pacing. I stopped at the window. All the windows I could see were shut. I took off my clothes and put on my pajamas, then shut the door to my room while leaving the lights on in the reception room and kitchen. I lit a cigarette and stretched out on the bed. When I had smoked it down, I flicked it out the window and turned my face to the wall and slept. I woke up very thirsty, with a headache. I got out of bed. It was still night. I opened the door and went to the bathroom and leaned over the faucet and drank. I turned the water off, but found that the floor of the bathroom was covered with water. I went back to my room. There was a banana on the desk, which I picked up, peeled, and ate, then put the peel on the desk and went back to bed. When I woke up sunlight filled the room. I stayed in bed for a while, then got up and took my toothbrush and soap to the bathroom. The water on the floor had spilled into the reception room. The faucet was broken. I stood in the water and brushed my teeth and washed my face, then went back to my room leaving wet footprints everywhere. I dressed and left the room, shutting its door. I turned off the lights in the living room and the kitchen, then left the apartment and went down to the street. I rode the metro to the last stop and walked along the Corniche. Then I crossed the bridge and went into the first café I found. I chose a table at the back next to the Nile and sat down. A waiter came and I ordered a coffee, then stared at the water. With my eyes, I followed a boat being rowed by a bare-chested young man. One of his oars fell into the water and floated away. He yanked the rudder of the boat and tried to catch the lost oar. He was rowing with just one oar, transferring it from one side of the boat to the other. But the current was against him and as soon as he got close to the oar it floated away. He rowed in a frenzy. Despair showed on his face. Then he threw away his oar and cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted to another rower in a nearby boat, asking for help. But the other rower didn’t respond. Maybe he didn’t hear. The coffee still hadn’t come. I called to the waiter but he wasn’t paying attention. I got up and left. I walked to the bridge and caught a bus, getting off at the head of Suleiman Street. I sat down in the first café I saw and drank a coffee, then lit a cigarette. I got up and walked to Tawfiq Street, then down Tawfiqiyya, stopping at Cairo Cinema. It was showing a comedy. I walked toward Fuad Street and crossed it and went down Sharif. I kept walking past Adly and Tharwat in the direction of Suleiman, which I followed all the way to Midan Tahrir. Wastewater covered the ground. The pumps set up everywhere carried water from inside the shops out into the street. The smell was unbearable. I met a man I knew who said he had woken up an hour ago and was rushing to an appointment. I walked fast next to him, saying, I’ll go with you to your appointment. But he said that here was where we had to part, and he left me. I crossed the street and headed back in the direction of the Midan. I branched off onto Qasr al-Nil until I reached the cinema. I looked at the posters that said, This is a crazy world. I went to the box office window but the show was sold out. There was a reservations window but the two evening shows were also full. People had booked tickets for tomorrow and the day after. I left the cinema and walked back again to the Midan, then along Suleiman, walking on the opposite side of the street as before. When I arrived at Cinema Metro, I found it was also showing a comedy. I walked past and stopped at Al Americaine café, not knowing where to go. Cinema Rivoli was on my left, with a huge crowd in front. I remembered the cinemas on Imad al-Din and crossed the street and walked down Fuad to Imad al-Din, where I turned and walked on the left side of the street. There were huge crowds in front of all the cinemas, though they didn’t open for another hour and a half. I walked to the end of the street, then went down Ramses toward Bab al-Hadid. It felt like someone was following me. I checked my watch against the station’s clock, then headed for a café on the square at the beginning of Gumhuriyya Street, where I sat down in the open air. All at once the sun vanished and everything became gray. I remembered how this neighborhood looked twenty years before, with train smoke rising from Bab al-Hadid and gray colors everywhere. I decided to go look for that old house. Maybe my mother was still there. I got up quickly, before the sun returned. I wanted to approach the house through the fog. I crossed Clot Bey Street, turning off Faggala into the little side streets that connect it with the square. I sensed I was getting close to the house. I was only a few streets away. But I decided to approach it from the direction of Faggala Street, just as my father and I used to do.

  We would go by tram, taking it from the Midan just before it turned into Zaher Street. I loved that peaceful street, lined with trees whose branches interlaced overhead in the center of the street, veiling it from the light. And I loved the sound of the trolley pole clearing its path through the branches of the trees. Still, the tram was very fast and we would lift our faces into the afternoon breeze and my father held his tarboosh to make sure it didn’t fly off. Then the street ended and the tram turned, swaying a little, into the wide open Midan, slowing its speed and finally stopping in front of the mosque. I would gaze into that big garden, which kept sloping away until it finally disappeared from the view of the tram riders. And through the great stone arches of the mosque wall I would see the red and blue robes of children playing in the garden and keep my eyes on them as the tram slipped back into motion, circling the mosque. Then the mosque and its garden would disappear al
l at once and my father put his hand on my bare knee while the tram turned sharply past narrow al-Khalig Street and I wished that our tram was the Khalig Street tram so that we could ride between the narrow walls with my father’s hand stretched out nearly touching the houses. We would get off at Faggala and my father would take me with his right hand as we crossed the street. We set off down an alley bordered by a high white wall with tree branches swaying over it and the street would grow dark, though the sun was still in the sky, and I understood why when I looked up and saw thick clouds of smoke coming together and then quickly coming apart and my father would say it was the smoke of trains coming from Bab al-Hadid. Then the street ended and the house appeared. My father sat on the bawwab’s bench while I went up the long staircase, passing by the doors with their smells of cooking oil. Afterward, my father and I left along the same alley, walking next to the white wall, and I would spot the big bells behind it. The street was hidden in shadows and empty except for us and at the far end a patch of light turned into a tobacconist’s shop. We stopped at the entrance, blocked by a big high display case. I pressed my face against the cloudy glass and stared at the boxes of sweets and chocolates. I saw my father’s hand dip into his pants pocket. He took out some coins and cast them on top of the glass counter, right at the level of my head, and then we would leave the shop and cross the street to the tram stop. I was cold and pressed myself against my father and he spread out the collar of his jacket to cover his chest and we stood alone on the station platform. The tram came and we got on the covered back car and huddled in the corner with my father’s warm hand on my bare knee and the tram would begin the journey back, passing by Khalig Street, then turning abruptly to the right, the houses on our left disappearing and a dark wide open space rolling out in front of us. I was afraid that I would fall in and held onto my father tightly. Then my eyes got used to the dark and I made out the big Midan with the large form of the mosque in the middle and the tram would circle the mosque, passing a shuttered cinema that we went to in the summer with my mother, and then drive down tree-lined Zaher Street while I leaned my head against the wooden guardrail behind me and enjoyed the rushing speed, watching my father close his eyes against the strong wind in our faces.

  I took the tram to the church and turned into the neighboring street that was crowded and full of noise. The street ended, I turned to the right. The house I remembered was very high with wide wooden balconies. My mother jumped from one of those balconies, landing on the one below. I looked from house to house. They were all low and only one of them had wooden balconies. That must be the one, I thought. I walked slowly toward it. The balconies were small and the lobby was cramped. The lobby I remembered was spacious. I went through the lobby and slowly climbed the stairs, coming to the top sooner than I expected. There was a small room there and I knocked on the door. Come in, I heard a female voice say. I pushed open the door and stood in the entrance. There were three women draped in black sitting cross-legged on a bed in the corner. One rose and came to me, saying, Who are you? I recognized my grandmother. I spoke my name in a low voice and she embraced me and kissed me on the cheek. Sit down, she said. I sat on a wooden chair by the door. My grandmother pointed to the younger of the two women. This is your aunt, she said. My aunt rose and kissed me on the cheek. Then she pointed to the other woman. This is my aunt, she said. I rose and picked up my chair and brought it closer to them, setting it down next to the bed. My grandmother’s aunt said, This neighborhood is falling apart. My grandmother said, As soon as I saw you, I knew it was you. My aunt said, We were just saying we could meet the two of them on a bus and have no idea. My grandmother picked up the transistor and said, It’s story-time. A somber voice on the radio announced another episode of “The Shadow.” The episode began with a young man’s voice saying tearfully: How can I live when I know my father is a murderer? I sat and listened in silence. All the women gazed at the radio. Fifteen minutes passed, the episode ended, and my grandmother got up to pray. Some children came into the room and my aunt said to them, This is the son of your aunt, may God have mercy on her. She looked at me from the corner of her eye. I said nothing. I wanted to know exactly when and where my mother had died. My grandmother finished her prayers and sat next to me. When exactly did my mother die? I asked her. One week ago tomorrow, she said. Where? At her father’s house, she said. I pointed to my head and said, How was she? She read the newspapers and went on about everything better than any of us and she knew what was going to happen and it didn’t bother her, my grandmother’s aunt said. Then she got sick all of a sudden and wouldn’t see the doctor, my grandmother said. She wouldn’t take any medicine. She got thinner and thinner and finally stopped eating. My aunt said, On the last day she asked for a cup of water and when she drank it she fell down dead. We were silent. My grandmother said, Even at the end, she didn’t want to see me and she didn’t want to see any of you. I looked at my watch. The policeman would come soon. I stood up and said, I have to go now. I wished them goodbye. I went downstairs and walked out of the house, then followed some side streets back to Midan Ramses, where I headed for the metro station.

  Introduction to the 1986 edition of That Smell

  The great Yahya Haqqi asked me, when I met him recently at some function or other, whether I remembered his criticism of my first novel, That Smell, just after its publication in 1966. When I said yes, he asked my opinion now, almost two decades later, of what he’d said and of my novel more generally. I’d forgotten almost everything to do with the book. Years had passed since the last time I’d read it. I’m not in the habit of going back to previous work — reading like that bores me when it doesn’t lead to depression. As for Yahya Haqqi’s criticism, I will never forget it.

  I’d given the manuscript to a shabby little printer in El Zaher district, during one of those rare moments in the history of modern Egypt when martial law was lifted and a book didn’t require prior approval from the censor before being given to a printer. Officially, at least. In fact, the censor kept his office and his job as before. The only difference was that his door no longer had a sign on it, and the confiscation of books didn’t happen before the printing, but afterward.

  Which is what happened to my novel. The printer had hardly finished before the book was seized. I don’t remember if I was summoned to the chief censor’s office or if I went there on my own to complain. In any case, I met the late Talat Khalid — one of the more zealous disciples of the Minister of Information, Abdel Qader Hatem — who had called in some departmental bigwigs to enjoy the spectacle. Khalid had a copy of the confiscated novel in front of him, with the margins of most pages marked in red. He asked me, contemptuously, “Why does the hero refuse to sleep with the prostitute his friend brings him? Is the hero impotent?”

  I wasn’t especially interested in arguing the point. I’d managed to rescue a few of the confiscated copies and began distributing them to writer friends and journalists, asking those with some influence to get the novel released. The late Zaki Murad and I went to see Ahmad Hamrush, then editor-in-chief of Ruz al-Yusuf. Hamrush welcomed me very warmly and showed me proofs of the magazine’s new issue, which included a short essay by him on my novel titled “The Language of the Age.” When I told him about the confiscation he was visibly surprised. He picked up the phone and called his friend Hamdi Hafiz in the Information Bureau; he listened for a moment, and then without replacing the receiver he called the magazine’s printer and requested the article be removed.

  T
he news didn’t reach most writers and journalists in time, however. A number of magazines and newspapers published reviews, all while the book reposed in the storehouses of the Ministry of Interior.

  Yahya Haqqi was one of those to whom I gave a copy of the book. We’d become acquainted a few months earlier, following my release from prison in the middle of 1964. I went to his office at al-Majalla, where he was editor-in-chief. He’d opened the magazine’s doors to all writers, especially young ones, and would usher them behind the expensive wooden desk at the center of his room, making do with a comfortable leather armchair placed to one side. The first time we met, I brought him my piece on a recent book by Stephen Spender, the British literary critic. I sat and read the article aloud and Haqqi listened intently, studying me with his intelligent eyes and gently correcting my errors of pronunciation. When I’d finished reading, he said he’d take it. It was the first thing I published after my release from prison and I made ten guineas, which covered a month’s expenses.

  I had gone to see Haqqi with a copy of That Smell. He took it from me in a friendly fashion and after reading the title he said, very amiably, that the room was perfumed by the pleasant fragrance emanating from its title.

  But it wasn’t long before he realized his mistake and wrote a violent review in his weekly column for al-Masa’, where he said: