The Most Beautiful Night of the Soul

by Sandor Jaszberenyi

  “Don’t,” he said, taking my hand.

  “Don’t what?” I shouted, tearing my hand from his and running out of the bar.

  Of course I finally learned to ignore him completely. But this didn’t irritate him in the least. His comments made me really furious, but aside from Joyce I didn’t speak with anyone about it.

  I broached the subject one Sunday night. Joyce and I were sitting in the Koriana drinking Cubanas. Our mood wasn’t good. The khamsin was raging outside. The red-hot wind snatched up the sand in the desert and showered it upon the city, where you could hardly get a breath and couldn’t see a thing. The streets turned into walls of sand. The khamsin is always hellish in Cairo. Right up next to the desert, it is intolerable.

  Our mood wasn’t good. The May sandstorm had a vice grip on everyone’s heads, pressing them down toward the ground. It was hard to resist even in closed, air-conditioned spaces.

  It was past eleven when Joyce met up with an old acquaintance of hers. A black woman in her mid-thirties. Gold-colored hoop earrings shone on the side of her head. Her name was Stella, she was from Mombasa, and big scabs crisscrossed her face. We sat there politely drinking the beer. I joked that her name was the same as the Egyptian light beer when Joyce wiped her brow and said she was going home, but that we should stay if we felt like it. I stayed.

  Stella, who happened to have money on her, ordered another Cubana. When we finished half the bottle, she said I was handsome and asked if I wanted to go up to her place, which was nearby. Since Joyce had caught the last taxi stationed in front of the bar, I figured anything was better than walking nine blocks through the raging sandstorm.

  Stella really did live nearby, in a one-room hole in the wall. She explained that it was pretty messy. Her bed was a filthy mattress. We fell upon each other at once to minimize the pressure. Then the woman excused herself, saying she had to use the bathroom. I began peeling my pants off myself when I saw my kid.

  “Get on a rubber,” he said.

  I stared at him in silence.

  “Get on a rubber,” he repeated.

  “OK,” I replied.

  I didn’t have a condom with me, so I began looking for one in the room. Nothing. On one of the little tables, though, I found a bunch of used syringes and a bag full of brown heroin. It was right there in front of me. How could I have missed it on stepping into the flat? I got my pants and T-shirt back on. That’s when Stella emerged from the bathroom.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “You don’t have to,” she replied, but she was too shot up to pose me serious resistance.

  “Stop smirking,” I said to the kid in the hallway, and left the building.

  It took all I had to beat my way through the sandstorm back to Joyce’s. Every bit of me was full of sand, which chafed my face. Joyce was lying in bed under the ceiling fan, with a big wet kerchief draping her face. I showered and lay down beside her.

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked.

  “Sure I do.”

  “Even that they haunt people?”

  “Yes. Don’t you die, M’zungu.”

  “Did you see your kid’s ghost, too?”

  “No, M’zungu. Only the living have ghosts.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said.

  “They haunt all the same.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’ve got to do something with it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you don’t, it will eat you up alive.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That you’ll die from it, M’zungu. That’s what.”

  I’d been living at Joyce’s place for a month already. I’d made myself at home. I’d gotten used to everything and everyone. The child’s ghost alone reminded me that once I’d had another life. I didn’t bother with it.

  I even managed to remedy the insomnia. Though I couldn’t sleep more than four hours a day, at least the four hours was certain. When sleepless nights started piling up all the same, I always held an opium day.

  For that, I had a special little ritual.

  I’d bought an opium pipe in the City of the Dead. A sixteen-inch, carved, ebony pipe. Its head, ornamented with floral patterns, could be screwed off. Where the head met the stem, there was a second filter. In contrast with raw opium, which the body absorbs slowly, opium smoked from a pipe takes effect immediately. The moment its breath reaches the lungs, it yanks its user into a deep vortex, down among visceral dreams. But these dreams don’t last longer than ten or fifteen minutes. To again descend into the deep, you’ve got to relight the pipe. Which is why smoking opium is generally a group activity. If all goes well, there will be someone beside you to light the pipe when the dream kicks you out.

  There was no one beside me. Though I could have asked one of the girls to help, I wasn’t yearning for company. I just wanted to sleep. Besides, the girls were busy getting ready for the night.

  Lighting up a second time requires superhuman effort. From the depths of opium’s waves you bob up on the surface, and the air you’ve sucked in burns your lungs. Your limbs are stiff and numb. Moving hurts, and yet move, you must, if you want to submerge again into the deep.

  I worked out the ritual so as to avoid the hell of awakening. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it. I forced myself to stay awake at least until the second drag, thus ensuring myself a longer sleep after that.

  Sitting in a reed armchair by the window in Joyce’s room, I took the pipe in my hands, added the cooked opium paste, leaned back, and lit up. The window looked out onto the rocky desert. I stared out at the quivering air above the paved road and the filthy, weather-beaten Mercedes station wagons rolling on by, toward el Arish, in North Sinai. The scarves of the Bedouin drivers hung out of the rolled-down windows of the cars.

  The opium I’d smoked was beginning to take effect, I knew. The cars were moving ever more slowly. I started getting cold, and I had to grip the pipe tight to keep it from falling out of my hands. The tight nerves that had kept their stranglehold on me everywhere for a year let up. The angel stood behind me, pressed its finger to the nape of my neck, and let out a breath. I relit the pipe before completely stepping over into dreams. Thus it was that I managed to get a few restful hours of sleep.

  The trouble occurred in the course of one of these rituals.

  It was one in the morning, and there were two customers in the house. Joyce and the other two girls, who didn’t have work at the moment, were already sitting in the kitchen. They were waiting for the day to end. They were drinking beer and were tired. I’d just awoken from an opium dream when I heard screaming and clattering from downstairs. I rose from the armchair and began heading half-blindly down the stairs. Opposite the front door stood a half-naked man with a knife in his hand. He was frothing from alcohol. Yaya lay on the floor in front of him. She was holding her face, and blood was flowing out from between her hands.

  “I cut the thieving slut,” the man shouted. Everyone had emerged to see what was happening. I continued down the stairs so I could at least go up to him, but my legs were weak. After two steps I collapsed and fainted.

  I came to in the same position. My head was spinning. I stood. I heard noises from the kitchen and went there. Everyone was sitting inside. Mina was using a scarf to wash the blood from Yaya’s face, which bore a six-inch gash. Yaya was crying while Mina washed her wound.

  “What will become of me now?”

  Except for Joyce, all the girls cast me venomous stares when I stepped into the kitchen.

  “Here’s our heroic rescuer,” said Mina.

  “Where is the man?” I asked.

  “He left,” said Joyce. “He got his money back and left.”

  “Like I said, having a white man in the house brings bad luck,” said Mina.

  “Stop it already,” said Joyce.

  “It would be better if he left. He’s no use.”

  “I’ll decide that.”

  “I
f you send Yaya away, then send this M’zungu, too.”

  “It’s late. Everyone go to sleep.”

  The women stood, and each went to her room. Mina helped Yaya to bed.

  Joyce and I turned in, too.

  We could hear Yaya sobbing all night.

  “Maybe I really should leave,” I said to Joyce in bed.

  “Maybe. Don’t you die, M’zungu.”

  The next day a doctor had to be called to Yaya to stitch up her face. Joyce sent everyone away. She alone spoke with the doctor; she paid him. Tension was in the air all over the house, but no one said a thing. Even the ghost was silent. That there was serious trouble was evident from the fact that the girls did not go out to work, but instead sat silently in the kitchen, drinking beer.

  Joyce was also in a bad mood. She tossed and turned in bed, and squeezed my hand in her sleep.

  The situation came to a head on the morning of the third day. Joyce was no longer in the room when I awoke. Noises filtered up from downstairs. I rose from bed, got on my shirt, and went out to the staircase and looked down. Yaya was in the doorway, two big, fake Chinese Gucci suitcases beside her. A white bandage on her face. Her tears were flowing, drenching her face.

  “Please, Joyce,” she pleaded, “let me stay.”

  “You can’t work.”

  “But soon I’ll be able to.”

  “What will you pay the rent with in the meantime?”

  “I don’t know; I’ll figure it out.”

  “I gave you enough money to get by.”

  “Yes. You’re generous. But please don’t make me leave all the same.”

  “You’ve got a place to go.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “But I want you to go.”

  “Please let me stay.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll do anything.”

  “You can’t do a thing. You have to leave.”

  Yaya stopped crying, wiped her face, and headed outside. She shut the door behind her. For a while she stood about in front of the entrance; I could see her silhouette through the window. Finally she left.

  I went down to the kitchen. Mina was sitting there, drinking a coffee.

  “Only a white man has the nerve to stay after all this,” she said.

  I poured myself some coffee and went back to the room.

  Joyce was no longer there. She’d gone into the city to tend to matters. I sat down before the window in the armchair. I stared out at the cars passing by and at the Sudanese fruit-sellers lolling about in the shade of Chinese parasols, and then decided to return to Europe. I had to wait until Joyce’s return to share my decision with someone. The girls were asleep or in the city. As for the ghost, it had left without a trace.

  Joyce got back in the late afternoon. Without a word she came into the room and undressed. Her enormous body was moist with perspiration.

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  “You don’t have to leave, M’zungu.”

  “But I want to leave.”

  “Well then, go,” she said, sitting down on the bed and starting to massage her feet.

  I sat down beside her. Silence.

  “I need a thousand dollars. When I get to Europe, I’ll send it back.”

  A thousand dollars is a great deal of money in Egypt.

  “I don’t have money.”

  “I know you have money.”

  Joyce’s face twisted up. Her nostrils widened, and she began to sob. She reached inside her bra and pulled out the wad of cash. It was bound with a hair tie and was moist from her sweat.

  “Will you give it back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure? When?”

  “In a couple of days.”

  She removed the hair tie and unfolded the money. She divided the geneihs and the dollars. With every single dollar banknote she touched her forehead before putting it into my hand. She meanwhile cried.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t you die, M’zungu.”

  I stepped out of the currency exchange office. The September sun stung my eyes. Southern England was still hot and was cooling slowly. There wasn’t a trace yet of autumn. The cafés were full of people having their lunches on terraces and sipping coffee in the shade of plane trees. As I walked down to Piccadilly Circus, I typed the transaction code into my phone. I transferred one thousand two hundred dollars back to Joyce. What with the sum I’d spent on the lawyer, practically all my money was now gone.

  I sat down at a table in a pub. For a while I stared at the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin holder in front of me. The server appeared. I ordered a coffee. My phone rang, and though at first I didn’t even recognize the ringtone, I then answered.

  “Where are you?” said Petra.

  “In the Queen’s Head.”

  “I’m here on the corner.”

  “OK.”

  A few breaths later in stepped the woman at whose place I’d spent the previous night. Her dress and hair were exquisite. She sat down across from me. I moved to offer her a cigarette when it struck me that smoking in taverns was no longer allowed on this continent. She smiled at the gesture.

  “What will you have to drink?” I asked.

  “A cappuccino.”

  The server appeared again, took the order, and soon delivered our coffees, which we stirred in silence.

  “Thank you for letting me sleep at your place yesterday,” I said.

  “It’s really nothing.”

  “Aren’t you hungover? We had an awful lot to drink last night.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t remember how we wound up at your place.”

  “I do.”

  “It’s good you were around.”

  “A little angel protects the drunk,” she said.

  Her laughter jingled.

  I looked at my phone.

  I’d received a text message. Joyce had acknowledged receipt of the money.

  “Now you can die, M’zungu.”

  Someone Is Keeping Vigil For You

  “Can I smoke?” I asked, and sat down in the armchair opposite the desk. I looked around the office. Hanging on the walls, in black frames, were reprints of Chagall paintings, and behind the desk was a bookcase filled mostly with psychological texts. In the corner, a leather couch, presumably for patients. A lamp filled the room with warm, yellow light.

  “Why do you want to smoke?” the woman asked. She was sitting across from me in a brown skirt and white blouse. We must have been about the same age.

  “I can endure anything as long as I can smoke meanwhile.”

  The woman smiled and pulled out an index card with my name printed on it.

  “I’m sorry, this is a nonsmoking institution.”

  I took out my cell phone.

  “I’d like to ask you to put that away, too.”

  “How long will this last?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  I put the phone back in my pocket. We were silent. I tried making out the titles of the books on the shelves behind her. For quite a while I stared at the spine of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

  “What are you thinking about now?”

  “About fucking a psychiatrist on her office desk.”

  “You can’t provoke me.”

  “Too bad.”

  After a few seconds of silence, the woman began again.

  “Tell me about your work.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What was the most violent event you saw?”

  “There’s lots to choose from.”

  “What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

  “One time I saw a man in Cairo who’d been shot in the balls. He bled to death in front of me.”

  “Why does that come to mind?”

  “I figure it touches a raw nerve.”

  “Did you know the man?”

  “No. Because of his being shot in the balls, I mean.”r />
  “What did you feel then?”

  “Hunger.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Took pictures.”

  “And afterward?”

  “I got something to eat.”

  “Mm-hmm,” said the woman as she jotted something in the notebook before her and then leaned back in her chair.

  “Tell me about your dreams.”

  “I don’t have dreams.”

  “According to your editor, you have trouble sleeping. Insomnia or nightmares are classic symptoms of PTSD.”

  “I don’t have PTSD.”

  “How do you know that? Do you even know what PTSD is?”

  “I know. But you’ll tell me, anyway.”

  “That’s right. I’ll tell you. Posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that develops after a psychologically traumatic event. It qualifies as acute when its symptoms persist for three months or less, and chronic if they last for three months or more. Delayed PTSD occurs when the symptoms begin at least six months after the trauma. Did you take any medications for the insomnia?”

  “All sorts.”

  “Since when?”

  “About two years.”

  “And don’t you feel you could use help?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do understand that whether your contract is extended depends on my evaluation?”

  “What do you want? For me to talk about how my father beat me?”

  “Did your father beat you?”

  “Hell he did.”

  “If you don’t cooperate, you will lose your work.”

  “Then I’ll apply with another agency. I don’t know if you read the news, but business is booming. There are wars everywhere. They need people like me.”

  “Provided you can do your job.”

  “There was never any problem with me.”

  “You once hit one of your editors.”

  “That was a personal matter unrelated to work.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Over a woman.”

  “Do you have a woman in your life?”

  “Women, yes.”

  Again she jotted something in the folder.

  “If you don’t want to talk about your personal life, we can talk about insomnia.”

  “Let’s.”

  “What is the longest you were awake?”

  “One hundred twenty hours.”