Father says that his cousin is happy to go out in a shirt with short sleeves and with no fez during the summer, like some queer.
I have a coughing fit. As she looks at me with concern, Nabila says that tuberculosis has started to spread. She comes up to the bed I am lying in with her two children. She stands over my head. She watches me cough. Uncle Fahmi tells her that it is a normal cough and that the whooping cough has gone away. She says: “Alright, tomorrow papa is coming to take him.” In the morning, I root around the nooks and crannies of the wide apartment in the pyjamas of her son Shawqi. I make sure to stay away from the covered furniture. I ask her when father is going to come. She says: “In the afternoon.”At noon, she shuts the windows and the room turns dark. She gets caught up in packing bags and closing up closets as though she’s going on a trip. She gets outdoor clothes ready for the children. No one speaks to me or gets clothes ready for me. I ask Shareen: “Are you going out?” She whispers: “We’re going to my aunt’s.” “Are you taking me along?” “No. You’re staying with S’aadiya until grandpa comes to get you.”
Hajj Hamdi, Uncle Fahmi’s older brother, comes out and joins us. He wears a white gallabiya and moccasins. He has a big beard that he has trimmed carefully. White hairs have spread all through it. He is carrying silver prayer beads in his hand. He says: “Have you heard about the bombs?”
Father asks: “You mean the Benzion and Gattegno department store bombs? The Muslim Brothers are really pushing it to the limit.”
Uncle Fahmi brings in the backgammon board. “Let’s go to the veranda.” They go into the guest room and out on to the veranda. I follow them. I stop for a second, though, at the doorway. They sit on a country-style couch with metal chairs around it. I hear the voice of Hajj Hamdi asking about Shawqi and Shareen. Uncle Fahmi’s voice: “They’re playing downstairs.” “How did they do in the exams?” Nabila’s voice: “They passed easily, thank God. Like they do every year.”
Uncle Fahmi notices me. He asks: “What about you?” I go out to them and sit on the edge of the couch next to father. He cuts in and answers for me: “He has to make up English. Where is Sameera?” Uncle Fahmi says: “They’re getting some sun up at Ras al-Bar. We’ll catch up with them after Eid, inshallah.”
Nabila says: “Papa, can you imagine that Shareen wants to wear shorts?”
Uncle Fahmi opens the backgammon set. Hajj Hamdi plays a game with father, then excuses himself and leaves. Uncle Fahmi takes his place. I have a hard time following the game. I can’t believe how fast they play. They’re tied after two rounds. Uncle Fahmi suggests a rubber match to decide the winner.
The maid comes in and says: “Lunch is ready.” Uncle Fahmi closes the backgammon set and gets up. We head back to the dining room. He bends over and looks at himself in the mirror. He stretches his hand out and runs it over his light hair, then straightens back up. He snatches a cookie off the tray sitting on the sideboard and devours it. He points out a long picture hanging over the mirror and asks father: “What do you think of this? Be honest. Is it better than the old one or not?”
Father heads toward his chair, but Uncle Fahmi stops him, grabbing his arm as he shoots a glance at my sister. “What do you think of my taste? The lady of the house doesn’t like it.” I study the picture. Its colors are dark. In its corner, there’s a tiny person whose face you can’t make out and he is looking at something hidden in the blur of colors. Maybe an overturned boat.
He sits at the head of the table. Nabila sits at the other end facing him. Shawqi and Shareen come in and join us. Uncle Fahmi tells the maid to light the chandelier. His eyes move quickly from plate to plate. They stop at the roasted chicken in the rectangular pan. As he stretches his hand toward the chicken, he winks and says to father: “Breast or thigh?” They exchange smiles.
He raises a thigh up to his mouth. He looks out of the corner of his eye at my sister. She is using her knife and fork. He finishes it off quickly and has another go at the rest of the chicken. She gives him a stern look. He tears off a piece and raises it to his mouth. She says: “See, papa, he eats like a fellah.” He keeps chomping at the chicken as though he doesn’t care.
We finish off with slices of watermelon. We wash our hands in the bathroom. The maid brings in a tray with glasses of Kawther cola.
Nabila asks father: “Do you want to nap inside?” He says he prefers the couch on the veranda. She brings him a white gallabiya that she keeps especially for him. He takes it and goes into the guest room.
Khadra finishes taking everything back to the kitchen and cleaning off the table. Uncle Fahmi snatches a cookie with powdered sugar. He tosses it into his mouth. He asks me to sit down at the table. He sits down next to me. I open my English textbook. I read the lesson. He explains to me what the words mean. My attention is divided between his dull voice and the voices of the children in the street. He gives me an exercise to do, then goes into the bedroom. My sister follows him.
Quiet falls over the room. I start answering the questions, but I get up after a little while. I leave the dining room. I go to the country-style toilet and take a pee. I go back to the dining room. Then I step carefully over to the keyhole of the bedroom door. The bed comes into view. Fahmi is wearing white boxer shorts that go all the way to his knees. He is lying on his left side facing me. Nabila is behind him lying on her back. Her knees are up. Her bare thighs show.
I go back to my seat and stare at the picture. From outside, a familiar voice reaches my ears. “Kaymak Gelato!” An old man in a hurry pushes a handcart in front of him with metal cans of ice cream covered by cheesecloth. The sweet cream-flavored barrel is made from whole milk. The strawberry flavor has real fruit in it. He repeats his call like a braggart. I am hoping the maid will go down and buy from him, but I don’t hear the door of the apartment opening up.
Father appears in the doorway of the guest room in shirt and trousers. Uncle Fahmi comes out of the master bedroom in his gallabiya. Nabila follows him in a blue dress. Khadra brings in some green tea. Uncle Fahmi says: “We have Lipton too.” He snatches a powdered sugar cookie. We drink the tea then move to the veranda.
Khadra brings the coffee. Uncle Fahmi asks father if he is up to a new backgammon match. Nabila insists we should play a game of gin rummy instead. She shuffles and deals the cards. When I say I want to play, father scolds me. I move away to the end of the couch. I stick my finger up my nose. Nabila wins the hand. Happily, she gathers up the cards and the piastres that she has won. Her husband hides his anger by pretending to smile.
Her voice rises suddenly: “Shame on you! Get up and go wash your hands.” I jump up right away without looking at anyone. I follow her to the French-style bathroom. She points to the plastic cover of the toilet. There’s two footprints on it. “Are you the one that climbed up on it and left these?” I tell her I peed in the other toilet. She doesn’t believe me. I wash my hands with soap. She asks me: “Does papa have money in the bank?” I say I don’t know. She keeps asking questions: “Doesn’t he have a checkbook?” I repeat that I don’t know anything.
I follow her back to the veranda. I stop at its door. A gentle breeze is swaying the light fitting on the ceiling. In the distance, a small, weak spot of light trembles. The dining room is dark. Its window is open. Light from the street lamp shines down on the dinner table.
I go over to my sister’s husband. I stretch out my arms holding the workbook. He takes it but puts it to the side until the hand is finished. He reviews my answers and gives it back to me. He pats my shoulder in encouragement. Father gets up. We go to the hall. I bring him his jacket and fez. My sister disappears. She comes back with a shoebox wrapped in string. She puts it on the table. We head toward the door. Nabila says: “The cookies.” Father pokes me with his elbow. I go over to the box and pick it up by the string. A large, round spot from the shortening has stained its side.
We gather in the afternoon on the five steps that lead up to the house on the corner. Samir, Safwat, and a fat boy all liv
e in the last house at the end of the alley. We play cards. Selma, Samir’s sister, joins us. About my age or a bit older. She wears a sleeveless dress. Her arms are small. She sits on the landing in front of their apartment. We are down below her. She is staring with a serious look. I raise my head. She parts her legs. I notice her thighs. Her mother’s voice comes out from inside the apartment. She’s yelling at her husband. I wait for my father’s voice to call me, as he does every night at just the time when it starts to grow dark. I make out strange noises coming out of our house. Leaving my playmates, I run to the entrance of the house and push on the iron door. The light is on in the stairwell. I go up two steps. The apartment’s door is open. My father is fully dressed and sitting in a chair under the window that faces the skylight. He is holding his fez upside down in his lap. He is frowning. Mother is going back and forth with her hair all messed up. She shouts and yells and swears. She attacks him, snatching the fez from his hand, throwing it on the ground, and stomping it hard with her feet. She snatches the reading glasses from the breast pocket of his coat. She crushes them on the tiles. My father is frozen in place. He says firm words to her: “That’s enough now, Rowhaya. Don’t cause a scene.” She runs to the window to the skylight. She opens her arms up as wide as they’ll go and starts saying strange words over and over. After a while, she calms down. My father takes up the fez from the ground. He puffs out its sides again. He sets its border straight again and presses on it a couple of times. He rubs it with his hands, then puts it on. He stands up and he takes me outside.
Siham, Selma’s older sister, appears at the doorway to their apartment. She’s wearing an indoor gallabiya without sleeves. There is a basket full of laundry on top of her head. She goes up the stairs. I watch the sway of her hips until she disappears.
Selma points to the top story of our house. She asks us if we know what happened early that morning. The police broke into the house and arrested Wadie.
I ask her: “Wadie who?”
“The son of Um Wadie.”
“Why? Is he a crook?”
“No. A communist.”
“What’s that?”
She says she doesn’t know.
“What does he look like?”
I can’t remember ever seeing him. She says he is a university student who was going around to all the houses last year telling people how to prevent cholera.
The wind blows up her dress and she reaches down and pulls it over her knees. She leaves her legs far enough apart, though, that we can still see something. There is a dark space that goes up between them. I notice she is not wearing panties. Mother stretches her hand under her gallabiya. She pulls out a big piece of cloth that is soaked in blood. She goes to the bathroom. She comes out after a little bit. I call her but she doesn’t answer. She looks like she is annoyed. She tilts her head and listens, like some kind of voice has come into her head. She heads to the window. I go over to her carefully. I lie down on the ground and look up her dress, even though I know she is going to be mad. She is not wearing underwear. She pushes me aside.
I put my cards together. I look at Selma. She is looking at the ground, with a serious face. When she raises her head, our eyes meet. She turns her eyes away. My gaze falls back on her legs. You can see even more. I go up to the landlord’s apartment to borrow a pinch of salt. His two girls pass me on the stairs. They ask me in a whisper what my mother was talking about last night when she was screaming at my father. I don’t understand which time they mean. One of them asks me with a smile: “What is this about strands of hair?”I tell her. Their faces go red and they break into muffled laughter.
The ululations ring out from Hakmet’s house. Selma raises her eyes to the balcony up above Safwat’s house. Abdel Hamid, our landlord’s crazy son, is standing there, fully dressed and squeezing a newspaper in his right hand. He looks over at us.
She shows all of her legs, then lets the dress fall again. She stands straight up. She disappears into her apartment. Samir’s mother yells out his name. The voice of Safwat’s mother rings out, calling for him. They leave and the fat boy follows them. I wait there for a second, then I sneak up the stairs to the roof. Its door is shut. I push on it and it opens. A basket of laundry is in the middle. Some of what was in it is hanging on the line. There is no sign of Siham. I go over towards the room of the engineering student. My heart is pounding. The door is shut. I listen but I don’t hear a thing. I put my eye to the keyhole. All I can see is an empty desk, but I hear movement behind the door. I run back to the door to the stairs and I go down in a hurry.
More ululating pours out of the bride’s house. I go up to our apartment. Father sits in the living room. Fatima complains to him about her husband. She says he is always getting drunk on homemade liquor. After that he gets violent and beats her up. Father tells her not to make a big deal of it. He asks her to bring one of the empty cans that the aged cheese comes in. He tells her to wash it well with soap and water, then let it dry. He adds bread crumbs to water to soak them. He adds more water. He sends her to buy beer yeast from the baker. She wraps herself in her black coat and goes out. I stand on the balcony. She comes back with the yeast. Her husband Abbas meets her at our doorway. “Where’ve you been, bitch?” She answers back, confidently: “My boss Sidi Khalil sent me to the souq.”
Father puts the yeast in the can. He stirs it. He tells her to wait three days and then give some of it to Abbas. He says the mixture is called “booza” and that it is good for the stomach and it will give him a buzz too. He says it will help him to get off the liquor. She bends over and kisses his hand: “Our Lord preserve you, Sidi.”
He tells her to move the pillows to the other end of the bed so we can face the balcony and catch a bit of the breeze. I smell herring being cooked. I ask him why they don’t just eat it. He says that it is the food of poor people.
I stand on the balcony. My eye is on the apartment of the bride. A pushcart comes into the alley carrying a big load of chairs and colored curtains like the ones that people use at memorials too. They are carried up to the roof of the building. Father lets me go out. I meet the children gathered around the door to the building. We go up the stairs to the roofs, then come down. The sun goes down and the mantle lamps are lit up. They test the megaphone: “Hello. Hello. One, two, three.” We crowd around the table with the wedding punch. We take the chairs in the front rows and they scold us and chase us to the back. We wait anxiously. Finally, the couple appears at the entrance to the rooftop. Hekmat looks pretty in her wedding clothes. The groom is shorter than her . . . fatter too. He wears a black suit and a necktie shaped like a bow. They take their seats on a platform at the end of the roof.
The belly dancer arrives. Short and dark. The drummer starts reciting jingles from the films of Shakookoo and Soraya Helmi. The dancer goes away for a second and then comes back in a dance costume. Her arms are bare. I can see the top of her chest. We clap along. She dances to the song “The Postmen Complain Because of All My Letters.” She circles the wedding couple. She bends backwards as she dances. She puts her head in the groom’s lap. For a second, you can see the top of her thighs. She sits in the front row to rest. One of those sitting in the front gives her a piece of cardboard to fan her head and chest and shoulders with. I sneak between the chairs to get closer to her. I stand right behind her. I reach out and touch her plump arm just below the shoulder. I am expecting it to be hot. I am surprised by its coldness.
Dr. Aziz asks me: “How’d you do in the makeup exam?” Father answers: “He passed, thank God. The main thing is to not have to do it again.” Everyone looks at a plump woman wearing trousers on the opposite pavement. The lights from the shops shine down on her back and make clear the roundness of her bottom. The turbaned sheikh says: “See the old lady that has no shame. Everything’s showing.” The priest slaps his hands together and says: “The world’s gone to hell.” The turbaned sheikh says: “Do you think we lost in Palestine for nothing? That was a punishment from our Lord.” Refaat
says: “Our cannons were blowing up in our faces.” Father says: “King Abdullah was colluding with the Jews.” Dr. Aziz says: “The Jewish forces expelled half a million Arabs into Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt and all Azzam Pasha can tell us is that they’ll burn in hell for it.” They laugh.
Refaat is suspicious. He says: “Was our loss in the London Olympics another punishment from God?” Abdel ’Alim says: “Thousands of pounds were thrown at our team and it all went to waste. We should give it the same name as the war, the Olympic ‘Catastrophe.’ Now they’re trying to say we’ll start getting ready right away for the 1952 Olympics.”
The sheikh offers the things he bought for the hajj: a cloth pouch for water to drink and to wash with and a wide leather belt called the kamar that the pilgrim wraps around his waist under his clothes to keep his money in. Father looks impressed by the new shirt that Refaat Effendi is wearing.
“Where’d you get it?”
“From Shimla for 58 piastres.”
A plump, dark man comes up to us. His fez is in his hand. His hair is thick and black. He has a huge head with a big wide face. Hajj Abdel ’Alim and Refaat Effendi stand up: “Please join us, Mandour Bey.” Father kicks me, so I’ll get out of my chair for him. Abdel ’Alim says: “Dr. Mandour is from my same village of Minya al Qumh. He was involved in the 1919 revolution.” Dr. Mandour is shy as he speaks: “Really, I was just a child then. I’d come back from school on a donkey. From on top of the Mathoubus Bridge, I saw a demonstration of effendis and fellahs together, chanting for independence and for Saad Zaghloul. The English soldiers came out of the police station and started to fire at them. That day, more than 100 were shot and many of them died. I went back to the village with the news. People gathered and grabbed their axes to go break up the government’s railroad tracks, but Othman Abaza, who was a pasha and the biggest landowner in the area, caught up with them and calmed them down.”
Stealth (New Directions Paperbook) Page 14