Stealth (New Directions Paperbook)

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  “He sits for an hour every day at the police station notarizing witness statements and personal papers for the people of the quarter.”

  “What’s his salary for doing that?”

  “He doesn’t get a salary. He takes tips from the people. It comes to a tidy sum.”

  I ask as we go into our house: “How old is mama?”

  He answers me sharply: “Twenty-six.”

  We get off tram number three at its last stop at Abbassiya Square. We take the white tram that goes toward Heliopolis. We head out alongside the English army barracks. Trees line the way on either side. Daylight is about to disappear. A military hospital: wooden balconies along a two-story building.

  We exit the tram at the last station in Al-Ismailiya Square. A coffeehouse surrounded by glass. An old Armenian man pushes around a cart with a pianola. A skating rink. The dark street is lined by houses with walled-in gardens. The scent of jasmine. A closed metal door has a chain and padlock hanging down. We go in from a side door. A passage paved with colored tiles. We walk up wide marble steps. The door at the top of the stairs is closed. It is only used in the summer. We knock on the door next to it. Saadiya, the wife of the doorman, opens. Her body is thin and her face pale. We are greeted by Uncle Fahmi, my sister’s husband: “Welcome! Welcome! You’re brightening up the place.” He is tall and broad and wears a thick, checkered woolen robe. His cigarette is in his hand. He works as an accountant in a foreign company. He is full of energy as he leads us to the terrace room on the east side. It has a wooden floor. Father takes off his overcoat. Uncle Fahmi takes it from him. We sit down on a couch facing the door. There is a metal table in front of us with a closed backgammon set on top of it.

  Nabila comes to join us. She’s my half-sister. Her body is thin like mine with long smooth hair. She wears a flannel robe and a pair of pink house slippers with embroidered cloth flowers on their tops. Thick white socks show inside them. She is holding a pair of fingernail clippers. She kisses father on the cheek and he answers with a noisy kiss. She screams with laughter: “Your moustache is prickly.” She sits next to him on the other side and continues clipping her nails. She is short-sighted and has to bend her head over.

  Father asks after Showqi and Shareen. My sister says that they are at Samira’s. Her husband sits in the chair in front of us. He lifts the cover of the backgammon set. My sister says to him: “Let him catch his breath first.” He smiles carefully and looks at father with narrowed eyes. He passes his hand over his short moustache, then takes out a metal cigarette case from the pocket of his robe. It’s the Three Fives brand. He opens it and takes out a cigarette. He lights it with a flat lighter. His fingers are thick with round and carefully trimmed nails and yellow, nicotine-stained tips.

  Father asks: “Is that a new lighter?”

  “A Ronson. Press it once and it lights, then goes out by itself.”

  He reaches his right arm across the side of the chair carefully and flicks his cigarette ash. My sister notices what he does and says sharply: “Where’s the ashtray?” He gets up in a rush without losing his fixed smile: “Yes, madam. As you say, madam.” He grabs an ashtray from on top of a small table with thin gilded legs. He sets it next to the backgammon set. He looks at himself in a round mirror on the opposite wall. He straightens the patch of hair on his head with his left hand. My sister puts down her nail clippers and takes up a comb, then drags it through her long smooth hair.

  Uncle Fahmi takes a careful sideways look at my sister: “White or black, Khalil Bey?” Father adjusts himself in his seat, lights his black cigarette, takes a puff on it, and sets it down on the edge of the ashtray. He throws the dice. He leans forward to see what he has. He keeps me back with his arm as he says: “Black, just like my luck.”

  Saadiya brings a tray of green tea. Uncle Fahmi offers us a square box made of tin. I take a piece of chocolate out of it that is about the size of a key lime. I unwrap its silver foil. I unfold the paper strip inside that tells your fortune and read: “O you night owl.” Father wads up his paper and throws it in the ashtray. I take it and unfold it: “Certain success in what you are planning.”

  My sister flips through Al Ahram. She says she wants to see Vivian Leigh in the movie Lady Hamilton.

  I steal away to the door leading out of the room. To the right, a wall separates the kitchen from the parlor. The sounds of Saadiya’s movements come from the other side of it. To the left there’s a door leading to the living room. A dining table between two huge sideboards with a rectangular mirror hanging over it. A large Grundig radio. I walk around the table to the guest room. Its door is closed. I peek through the keyhole. In the darkness, the frame of the doorway leading to the veranda appears. I go around to the bedroom. I open the door and go in. A wide dresser has a headboard made up of three linked mirrors. Next to it is a wooden coat rack covered with clean white cloth. A bed with brass legs. Its bedspread has a lace cover like the one we had in our old house. I head for the mirror next to it. There’s a shelf at the bottom of it filled with perfume bottles and jars of cream: Chanel Nº5, Cologne, Atkinson, Max Factor, and a blue bottle like the one my mother had. I touch the bottles and smell their caps.

  I go out and close the door softly. I move on to the children’s room. I open the door. Two beds facing each other with a small desk next to each. On both there is a colored pen case with a sliding cover and a container holding pens, erasers, and pencil sharpeners. A wide dresser. Everything is organized and clean. A colored cardboard box sits on top of the dresser. Sister Nabila brings it down and sets it on the rug. She takes several metal sticks out of it. She sets them one after the other to form a circle. She puts the train carriages on top of it. A warning light, two dips in the track, then the station. A staircase with small steps. All the parts are made of shiny colors. There’s not a scratch on it. She winds its spring and the train fires out and makes its way around the track while blowing out steam. No touching allowed. The spring is wound again. After two or three rounds, she says: “Enough.” She puts everything back into the box and hides it away above the dresser.

  I leave the room and close its door. I go out through the living room door. I cross the parlor to the hallway next to the kitchen. The wooden refrigerator closes in winter and has its pipes packed in ice in summer. I go past it and cross in front of the French-style bathroom. Next to it there is a country-style one. I open its door. I stand on top of its two shining marble foot stands on either side of the opening in the middle. I pee. I leave the bathroom. I close its door after me. I go into the bigger bathroom next to it. It has a French toilet and a shower with a wide drain. I wash my hands and study the things on the shelf of the mirror. Select soap. A case of Gillette razors. A tube of Colinos. Zambuk cream for skin and hair removal. Nolan hair cream. A jar of Brylcreem. I unscrew its cover and dip my finger in. I spread it on my hair and put the cover back on. I study my hair in the mirror. It looks the same as it was. I leave the bathroom and stop near the door to the terrace room.

  Father’s voice: “Do you see your brother?” My sister’s voice: “Rarely? You?” “He’s cut me off ever since your blessed mother died and he found out that I remarried.” “How’s Rowhaya doing?” Father’s voice: “Same as always.” “And the Turkish woman? What’s her name? Basima?” Her legs are crossed as she sits on the couch covered with colored cloth and I’m next to her. She’s white and plump and wears a shiny red dress. Her head is covered with a white scarf. On the wall there’s a picture of an important officer with a huge moustache riding a stallion and waving his sword in his hand. She gives me a big piece of chocolate. I peel off its shiny red wrapper with the gold lining and bite off a piece then put it back in its wrapper. I stick it in my jacket pocket. After a while, I take it out and bite off another piece. A hum of voices comes from the guest room. I make out my father’s voice and that of another man. The plump woman listens in on the voices with interest. She sees that I’m watching her. She calls the servant woman and tells her to turn on th
e radio. It sits on a small shelf on the wall facing us, covered with a white cloth. She asks me how old I am. I say: “Nine.”She listens to the radio. First talk, then music. I get up the courage to ask: “What’s that?” “A movie.” “What kind of movie?” “It’s called The Mysterious Past.” I recognize the voice of Laila Murad. She sings: “I wish you were close enough for my eyes to see you . . .” I get up and go towards the guest room. Its door with its square glass panels is opened a crack. I listen to the talking. The man’s voice: “The boy’s too big.”My father’s voice: “But he studies hard and does what he’s told.” He comes out. He takes me by the hand and we head towards the door. The plump woman’s disappeared, but Laila Murad is still singing.

  Father’s voice: “She didn’t ask me for a thing. We just went our separate ways.”

  My sister: “Papa, that’s enough marrying for you.”

  “With God as my witness, I only married her after I’d been ruined by the maids and housekeepers.”

  “Papa, you know no one can put up with you.”

  Father asks about Samira, Uncle Fahmi’s sister. She says she is busy helping her daughter shop for furniture from Al-Samry Furniture Gallery. She asks him about my uncle. She says he hasn’t come round since the last holiday. Their chatting stops for a minute and the sound of the dice clattering down on to the backgammon board resounds. Uncle Fahmi’s voice: “It looks like they’re closing up the whorehouses.” My sister’s voice: “And where are the girls supposed to go now?” “They’ll head out to the streets.”

  I walk into the terrace room. The talking stops. I stand next to father. He plays as though he’s bored. The game ends with my sister’s husband winning. Father closes the backgammon set, saying that it is getting dark and we had better get going. Uncle Fahmi goes out to get a new pack of cigarettes. Father leans over and whispers something to Nabila. She shakes her head. Father stands up. Uncle Fahmi comes back. He urges us to stay and my sister joins in: “Spend the night. Dinner’s already ready.” She spreads out a comfy mattress for us on the ground and covers it with a clean sheet that has its own fresh smell. Maybe some rose water mixed in with the detergent. The pillows are soft and clean, not lumpy and rough like our pillows. The quilt is also clean and smells nice. My father wears a gallabiya they’ve put aside for him. It’s perfect and white. As the light stays on, I lie and listen to the soft clatter of the dice on the backgammon board.

  He stands firm on his decision to leave. My sister brings him a small pair of rose-colored pyjama bottoms. “Papa, do you remember these pyjamas? You brought them for me when I was in primary school. I wanted to throw them away at first, but then I said, ‘they’ll do.’ ” She brings them over to me and measures them against the side of my leg. She wraps them in newspaper. Father takes them without saying anything. Uncle Fahmy turns on the lights on the stairs.

  “Don’t be a stranger, papa.”

  “Good night.”

  Each floor has its own stair lamp, but the lamp on the ground floor is out. We edge through the dark towards the door to the building. I hear the sound of dogs and cling to father. We go out into the street. The smell of flowers comes from the gardens in the nearby villas. We wait at the tram stop. A car passes slowly. Its driver leans on the woman next to him and kisses her on the mouth. I put my arm against father’s leg to make him notice them. “What is it?” I don’t answer.

  We hear the sound of the tramcar before it appears. It shoots off with us at a scary speed. The car rocks from side to side. Father is frowning. I hear him muttering. “My heart is breaking over my son and my son’s heart is like a stone.” The stations are all empty so we blow past them without stopping.

  At Abbasiya Square we switch to another tram. We get off that one at our square and cross the street. We stop in front of Abdel Malik’s French-style bakery. Father buys a bag of stuffed cookies with sesame seeds. We take a side street so that we won’t pass in front of the grocer’s shop. The quarter is covered in darkness and so is our building. We go into our dark apartment. The lamp in the hallway is burned out. I cling to father’s clothes until he can open the door to our room and light the lamp inside. He heats a cup of sugar and water. He puts a tray on top of the bed and we sit next to it. We dip the cookies in the water. He says our house is the best place in the world.

  I open my old science notebook. I make sure the feather that was pressed between the pages is still there. I linger over the picture of the hoopoe that I love so much. The electric reading lamp grows dim, like it does every night. I take up the Pharaonic history of Egypt textbook with the blue cover. I flip through the pages, looking at the pictures. Menes of the two kingdoms. Father finishes the evening prayer on top of the bed. He gets down. He pulls the woolen cap down all the way over his head to his neck. He wraps his robe around his body. He makes two tight fists and shoves them down into his pockets. He paces the room backwards and forwards. He is “taking a stroll,” as he says when he explains how important it is after eating dinner.

  I complain about the cold. He brings the primus stove from the living area, lights it, and sets it near the edge of the rug. The covering of my notebook is torn. I ask him to make it a new cover. I hand him some yellow cover paper. I bring him the scissors but he refuses to use them. He sits on the edge of the bed, folds the paper, and passes over it with his fingers several times. Then he carefully tears it at the crease. He divides the paper into two equal halves with no sign of cutting at their edges. He sets one of them aside, then puts the book in the center of the other. He folds the paper inside the front cover of the book, then overlays its top edge. He sticks it between the paper and the cover. He repeats the same thing with the bottom flap, then moves on to the back cover and does the same thing.

  There is a knock at the door of the room. I open it for Uncle Kareem, the constable. He is wearing a black military overcoat on top of a white gallabiya. He has a thick moustache that stretches across his upper lip. Father welcomes him and nods for him to sit down on the edge of the bed. I go back to my desk. He has his back to me. I can smell that odor of his military overcoat that I like so much. Father sits with his legs crossed on top of the bed. He turns his body a little until he is facing both the constable and me. He rests his back against the headboard of the bed.

  The constable takes a pack of Hollywood cigarettes out of his pocket. He offers one to father, but he declines. Instead, he gets out his own box of black cigarettes. It has a yellow wrapper with a red Abyssinian head in the middle of it. The constable lights a match and extends his hand. Father tilts his head forward, moving his cigarette close to the flame. He holds the tip in the flame until it starts to glow. I bring over the ashtray from the desk and put it down on the bedspread between the two of them. The constable crosses his legs, locks his fingers, and wraps his hands around his knees. A gold watch flashes from his wrist.

  He looks around, then says: “Don’t you have a radio?”

  “It’s being fixed.”

  I know it’s not true. Father sold it a long time ago. The constable goes on as though he doesn’t believe father: “There’s a Philips radio that only costs 12 pounds.”

  “So it costs a month’s salary?”

  “You can pay it in installments.”

  He suggests to father that they play a round of dominoes. He pulls a handful of evenly cut clippings of thick grey paper out of his pocket. Father straightens out the covers. He pulls up the long head pillow, folds it, and puts it between himself, and the young man. He asks me to bring his glasses from on top of the desk. Kareem puts the papers on top of the pillow. Father picks up one and studies it. The constable says they are tickets from the train he takes to visit his mother. He shuffles the tickets together like playing cards and puts them on top of the pillow. Each of them picks up seven of the strips of paper. Father rests his cigarette at the edge of the ashtray. He lines them up on the palm of his hands and slants them up in order to keep them out of the other man’s sight. The constable does the same thing.
He takes out a paper and puts it down in the middle of the pillow. He says: “Double ones.”

  Father notices that I’m watching the game and scolds me. He tells me to finish my homework and get my satchel ready. When one of the domino papers falls to the floor, I run to grab it for them. The words “From Al-Mattareya to Lemon Bridge” are written in black letters on one side. On the other side, little circles have been drawn and filled in with a copying pencil. To the side, the ticket puncher’s mark takes the shape of a small triangle.

  Father picks out one of his tickets. He puts it by the pair of fives, saying: “Double twos.” The constable plays one of his. Father has to draw from the stack of papers. He tells the story about the spider we found in the toilet. Kareem says that they like to sneak into the warm places in the body, especially between the legs or under the knees. It hides there until it’s warmed up, then it bites and kills. Father says it’s just a particular type of spider and it is harmless, and then he throws in: “The apartment has to be painted.”

  The young man says: “Or you could look for another place.”

  “I’m right there with you . . . but where? We thought housing would be cheaper after the English left Cairo. Instead, prices are on fire.”

  “Sir, have you heard of the Waqf Ministry’s low-cost housing projects?”

  “Yes. The ministry limited the rent of a single room in them to five pounds. That means the whole flat could go up to twenty or thirty pounds a month. So what is the clerk who only makes ten or fifteen pounds a month supposed to do?”

  “Double fours and one! I’ll talk to Hajj Abdel Razik for you.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He’s a big trader in the scrap metal market in Boulak. He’s constructing a building at the end of Nuzha Street.”

  He tells him that he started out as a traveling salesman of bottles. Before the war, he made a pact with a drug company to supply it with ten thousand empty medicine bottles. One sold for two millimes. He was going to make ten pounds out of the whole deal, but suddenly the war broke out and the company tore up the agreement. He had to work in English army camps. After the war, the cost of everything rose and the price of an empty bottle hit four piastres. He sold his whole stock to a brewery for 400 pounds and came out with a tidy sum.