Lunatics, Lovers and Poets

by Daniel Hahn

  ‘Shit! What’s Amleto doing up there?’ Claudio asked. He had sidled up to me without my realising it, and he offered me a beer and paper plate of cured ham.

  I had caught a glimpse of Elena’s red hair moving through the audience and for a few seconds I was preoccupied trying to figure out whether she was going to stay for the play or leave again, so I hadn’t noticed that Claudio’s nephew had taken the stage and was waiting in the corner. The way he held himself left no doubt that he was part of the play.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ I asked, while I stooped over to put my beer bottle on the ground.

  Claudio hesitated to reply.

  ‘His mother has noticed he’s been out more than usual lately.’

  ‘He probably wanted to surprise you,’ I said, stating the obvious, not the most appropriate thing to say, just the first thing that came to mind. Through a gap in the crowd I saw Elena had found a place to watch with her friends, three or four rows in front of me, and she was standing next to the boy she liked.

  The sound of awkward footsteps boomed through the loudspeaker.

  ‘Hurry! You have to leave.’

  The couple on the sofa had jumped up and run to the side of the stage, where the woman pretended to lift a sash window through which the man escaped just before another actor pretended to open a door and burst into the room. What had seemed like a peaceful family scene had become a crude depiction of adultery. To complete the cliché, the woman ran over to greet the new arrival, who yielded to her contentedly, unaware of what he had interrupted.

  ‘Sit down, put your feet up. I’ll make dinner for you.’

  ‘And the boy?’ Claudio asked sarcastically, engrossed in the play. ‘Everyone has forgotten the boy.’

  It wasn’t a trivial observation. The mother paid exaggerated attention to the man who was apparently her husband, looking periodically at the window through which her lover had escaped, while the boy continued playing with the toy plane, wrapped up in his own world; it was difficult to tell whether his absorption was part of the staging or if the actor had forgotten his lines. It became clear it was the former when Amleto’s character took a step closer to centre stage without speaking. At that point the actor who was playing the boy stood up, abandoning his childish pose, while the actor who was playing the father lay down on the floor like a corpse while the wife/mother pretended to cry, a shawl wrapped around her to symbolise the passage of time.

  No one was watching the play apart from us and a few other people, including Elena. There were probably some busybodies in the crowd who would make it their business to remind people in town about the play later, but at that moment it seemed like no one was paying attention. There were groups of teens eating sunflower seeds and groups of adults talking, as well as singletons who were wandering around, pausing with one group and then another. I told Claudio that the kid looked like he had grown, but he didn’t reply; his sarcasm had failed him, he was lost for words. I guessed it wouldn’t be long before the lover reappeared, and I was right, of course. The corpse had gotten up and walked away, and only the mother and son remained onstage. The way he returned to the stage dramatised a leap into the future: he opened the door with his key, repeating the dead husband’s movements. Claudio didn’t say a word, the world had gone quiet, even Elena wasn’t talking. She didn’t look around for me and her movements, as observed from a distance, didn’t reveal any uneasiness. And then, the moment we had all been waiting for: Amleto’s soliloquy. He walked slowly to the centre of the stage, grabbed a chair, and sat down facing the audience leaning against the chair back.

  ‘Mother, I remember everything. About you and me. You should never have made me your accomplice. Was it really necessary? I’d still know what I know now, but I’d have different memories. How do you think he felt? Were all those years of secrecy – when I saw and heard everything – really for me? What I’m about to say isn’t rehearsed. No one has taken advantage of us, we haven’t been misused. I’ve had milk and cereal for breakfast every morning and there was someone waiting at the school gates for me every afternoon. I realised I was growing a moustache two winters ago. I’ve shaved ever since, with scissors at first, and with a razor for a while now. The thing is, I can’t remember the day Dad laughed when he saw me with the scissors without remembering that same day I was keeping him busy while you were saying your goodbyes in the sunroom. The next morning you could still see the footprints in the rose bed. But no matter: someone raked the earth a few days later. Very few things stay the same. What matters to us today won’t matter to us tomorrow. I have an idea of how I’ll remember him thirty years from now. Distantly. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to obliterate memory. That is your crime.’

  Amleto stressed the last sentence and fell silent. It was a rhetorical silence. He was immobile, but his wide eyes spoke volumes. The mayor had returned to the podium and was waiting for him to finish. Curious, I looked at Claudio, who was standing on tiptoe, like he was trying to get a better view of the drinks stand. He looked right past me, it was impossible to tell whether he was avoiding my gaze or whether he was oblivious. Elena’s romance was progressing. The other couple had slipped away and left her alone with the boy. What matters to us today won’t necessarily matter to us tomorrow. Tomorrow brings worries that supersede yesterday’s. I wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but it made more sense to believe this theory, though imperfect, than to risk losing what’s good about the present.

  Someone in the audience shouted, ‘Start the music!’ and other voices chimed in. Amleto had gotten out of the chair as slowly as he had taken the stage. Standing there, with his hands in his pockets, he launched into the end of his soliloquy.

  ‘Mother, I don’t have much experience. I don’t know what can be done about wrongs once they’ve been committed, I suppose sometimes the only solution is to wrap them all in a bundle and throw them in the river. You’ve done the opposite. You’ve built a monument, and you’ve kept yourself afloat by hanging on to it, diminishing the space between us without realising that there’s no room left for mystery or joy. In doing so, you’ve kept alive what you wanted to erase, on top of which you’ve been unfair to the one you love. You thought that, just by sharing a bed, you were sharing everything. Mother, we’re running out of time. Stop putting pressure on me, and set all three of us free. Don’t make me save myself, don’t force me to assuage your guilt with mine.’

  Amleto glanced enigmatically at the audience, turned around, and stepped off the platform.

  ‘I couldn’t hear. What did he say?’ Claudio asked me.

  The mayor was calling for applause for the actors.

  ‘She shouldn’t force him to assuage her guilt with his.’

  ‘Whose?’

  I thought about saying ‘his mother’s’ but without thinking I gave into impulse. Amleto was back onstage, holding hands with the rest of the cast. Elena was clapping, clapping and whistling. I wanted to see her face, to read her expression. When all was said and done, perhaps it was possible to live they way she wanted to, light-heartedly.

  ‘Your sister-in-law’s,’ I murmured.

  Although Claudio was immediately taken aback by my boldness, his expression was one of surprise, not offence. He paused, as if he were deciding what to say in reply, but he changed the subject.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. ‘Are you staying for the concert?’

  ‘A while,’ I replied. ‘You?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I’ll go home.’

  Elena wasn’t clapping anymore and her friend took advantage of the moment to steal a kiss from her. They laughed. Then Elena took his hand and they began to leave. Claudio had given me a second chance, and I didn’t pass it up.

  ‘Don’t you think you should go to her?’ I asked, lifting my chin in the direction of the drinks stand his sister-in-law was tending. The musicians were busy tuning their instruments, Elena and the boy were walking against the flow of people responding to the first strains of the mu
sic. In less than a minute they’d pass right by us, if they didn’t change their path. What you do in one minute, what you decide and what you say, can last forever. To behave as if we have this time at our disposal only to be judged is perhaps the best service we can afford the people who surround us, and ourselves.

  ‘You’re right,’ Claudio replied, unexpectedly.

  I moved my tongue in my mouth, I puffed out my cheeks, I stretched the muscles of my face, I smiled. Elena had seen me, and instead of hurrying away, she was walking towards me, unembarrassed to be holding hands. To watch a child grow up is to witness life in motion. Stepping away from life to write about it is the curious paradox that writers experience. You have to open the windows and let life in. Not just because the spectacle is well worth it: without changing water and sap and air and blood into ink it’s difficult to create something truly worthwhile.

  ‘Though I’m tempted to go find my nephew first,’ Claudio added with a touch of irony. ‘Calling himself Amleto and having the nerve to put on such an absurdity – he deserves a real talking to.’

  ‘I liked it,’ Elena, who had finally reached us, said emphatically.

  The orchestra was ready, the singer was making the obligatory opening remarks while the musicians quietly played the first tune of the night; a sudden whiff of humidity, like that of a storm, blew in on the wind from the mountain.

  ‘It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s because of his name,’ Claudio responded, without managing to explain any further.

  Despite the obvious joy she felt in the company of her friend, Elena looked at Claudio with irritation, he was tongue-tied and I wanted to help him out.

  ‘Amleto is the Italian name for the most famous prince of Denmark.’

  Elena’s eyes, two blue lanterns in a forest of flame, paused for a few seconds to digest this information. Behind her, latecomers of all ages were running to the bars to get drinks.

  ‘Who was also foolish enough to put on a play for his mother and his uncle, of course.’

  If Claudio felt the unintentional blow in also, he didn’t show it. After pronouncing these words I kissed Elena, grabbed the paper plate with the ham, which was practically untouched, as was the bottle of beer that Claudio was holding – he had been frozen in that pose since he had arrived – and I leaned over to pick up mine.

  ‘All right, everybody, go about your business,’ I said when I stood up. Since no one moved, I smiled animatedly by way of a goodbye and walked off in search of the rubbish bin. The stars were hidden by thick cloud cover but it didn’t seem like it was going to rain. For the second time that night I had the sense that Elena’s mother wasn’t very far away and I felt at peace.

  ‌

  ‌The Piano Bar

  Hisham Matar

  I was in a state of unease when one evening I found myself wandering into the Piano Bar. The windowless room is the only public establishment I know of in Cairo where one could go largely unnoticed. It is so faintly lit that on first entering you could hardly make out whether anyone was sitting in the low leather armchairs arranged in clusters around coffee tables along the edges. Only in the centre of the room, where a large hexagonal bar stood, did a light burn above the waiter’s head. Around him a deep maple counter gleamed warmly. The same maple also panelled the walls, the blond pushing through the varnish whenever one of the patrons there struck a match. It stopped just above head-height, where wallpaper, with the pattern of a grotesquely enlarged and mutating vermilion thistle, climbed all the way up to the extraordinarily high ceiling. The room was at least as high as it was wide.

  I had discovered the bar accidentally. I was due to attend a dinner party at the home of a couple I hardly knew. The invitation had arrived by telephone a fortnight earlier. It seemed so far in advance then that I immediately accepted. I even felt excited at the prospect. But as the date approached my doubts increased. On the morning of the party I could do little besides oscillate between going and cancelling, coming up with several credible excuses. By the afternoon, when it was too late to pull out, unless the excuse was dramatic, such as a sudden fever or a car crash, I resigned myself to attending the dinner. Buttoning on a fresh shirt, I heard myself speak the mantra that was turning in my head, ‘It will be fine, it will be fine,’ sounding like my father, bringing to mind one of the labels he had given me: ‘An Indoor Child’. I blamed my reticence, and still do, on Cairo, the city that won’t rest until each one of its inhabitants is dispossessed of his privacy. In fact, even in bed in my darkened room I can feel its presence: reproachful, inquisitive, and utterly relentless. And yet, here I am; I have returned home to my country after many years abroad, and after my parents have left. I have moved back but remain in the same situation as before: to see my mother and father, I must board a plane.

  One needs to build new bridges.

  I was glad I had implicated myself into attending the dinner. The question that remained was what to bring. Flowers could stand the risk of either being taken for an effeminate gift or, if the husband was one of those men who were constantly on guard, a covert sign of flirtation with the lady. A cake was predictable but safe. I went to the bakery in the Marriott Hotel, a large modern compound that had swallowed up one of the palaces of the now long-deposed King Farouk. Wanting to be surrounded by fine old objects, I quickly walked through a couple of the palace rooms, carrying the cake from its yellow ribbon in one hand. I knew the hotel well. In all the years I was away, wanting to remain in contact with my parents but not be folded into the urgencies of their lives, I would stay here on my brief but frequent visits to Cairo. But I had never noticed the Piano Bar before, tucked away as it is down one end of a narrow, marbled corridor. I thought of fetching the book from my car, Thomas Shelton’s 1612 English translation of Don Quixote, and reading it in the bar whilst tucking into the cake. The picture was amusing.

  The dinner party was a bland affair. There were several heroic but futile attempts by the hosts and their guests to raise the tempo. Every so often one of them would announce an incendiary conclusion – ‘A real revolution will only guarantee democracy by eradicating the elite’, ‘Democracy will never work in Egypt’, or ‘The only way to govern this country is with a whip’. I had successfully avoided all the pitfalls whilst not seeming altogether disinterested. There was only one moment of danger, when I was asked a direct question and had to pretend to be thinking. Then, as often happens when one hesitates, someone stepped in and spoke on my behalf: ‘Let me tell you what Khaled is thinking…’

  When it was appropriate to leave, I walked out feeling agitated. Instead of going directly to my apartment, I drove back to the hotel, parked, pulled out the book from the glove compartment and walked in a straight line to the Piano Bar. This time I could see that the room was not entirely unfamiliar, which had probably accounted, at least in part, for its appeal. One of the framed photographs in Father’s study was taken here. In it he is a young man, standing stiffly beside King Farouk, the Egyptian king’s arm is wrapped around Father’s shoulders. This used to be the king’s games room. When the royal palace was converted into a hotel, the snooker table was removed and a bar was built in its place. A grand piano now stood awkwardly in one corner. It was the thistle wallpaper, which even through the old black-and-white photograph was unforgettable, that allowed me to make the connection. The same old crystal chandelier remained and now hung too low above the bar. It looked like a huge spider captured by an electric current.

  The waiter behind the bar, dressed in an azure shirt and dark blue waistcoat, wore no necktie. His collar was open by two buttons. A yellow carnation, the edges of each petal stained crimson, was plunged into the lapel of his waistcoat. He saw me approach. For some reason, I hesitated. I placed the book on the bar and looked at the time. I dug a hand in one trouser pocket, the other in my jacket pocket, then placed a finger where a breast pocket would have been had the shirt I was wearing that evening had one. Suddenly I could not wait to be out of the dim opulence. Although
I could not yet see the faces of those sitting and speaking in low voices in the periphery, I suspected that they had their eyes on me. As often happens, my embarrassment turned into annoyance and so when I looked in their direction I looked harshly. That was when I spotted a man walking into the bar. He descended with great effort into one of the low armchairs. I thought I recognised him. I took my book and walked towards him. I was almost certain.

  ‘Ustaz Hosam?’ I asked. ‘Hosam Gafar?’

  ‘Who?’ the man said, still undecided which way to stretch his legs.

  Hosam Gafar had once worked for my father. He ran his office in Cairo.

  ‘Do you recall who I am?’ I said.

  ‘Who?’ he said again.

  Another man came towards us and stood facing me. I immediately became defensive and stuttered the word ‘I’.

  ‘Sir,’ the man I thought was Hosam Gafar said. ‘I am sorry but I am not sure who you are. What do you want?’

  ‘I’m Khaled, Khaled Gamish. Ali Gamish’s son.’

  Hearing my father’s name returned to me an old confidence.

  ‘By God,’ Hosam Gafar said, standing.

  He peered into my face. He pulled me under the light of the bar to see properly. I wondered what the other patrons were making of this.

  ‘By God, it is Ali Pasha’s son,’ he said, and embraced me so quickly that I did not have time to open my arms. My hands and that fat volume of Shelton’s Don Quixote were awkwardly sandwiched between us. ‘What’s this,’ Hosam said, looking at the book. ‘Are you studying?’ And before I could respond he waved to his companion to come.

  I caught the waiter smiling to himself.

  The other man came and was no longer suspicious but imploring me to join them. I agreed. I passed the book from one hand to the other, searched my pockets again.

  ‘Have you misplaced something?’ Hosam asked.