I go back to the room. The light goes out suddenly. I call to her. She answers. Her voice is coming closer. She says the box of matches is empty. She tells me to look around for another one.
“Where?”
“In your room. Check the pockets in your papa’s robe.”
I feel my way in the dark towards the clothes stand. I stretch my hand into the pocket of the robe. I call out: “Nothing.” She yells back: “Bring a sheet of newspaper.” I try to remember where some newspaper might be. I tear off a page from the back of the geography notebook.
I shout: “Here’s the paper.”
“Give it here.”
“No. Come here and get it.”
“I can’t see because of this dark.”
I can smell in her voice that she’s scared. “Neither can I.”
I go up close to the door of the room. As I step into the hall, I am scared to death: “Here I am.” I bump into her. She snatches the paper from my hand. Um Ibrahim is sitting on the floor in the middle of the hall in front of the oil burner. Her hair is uncovered. It’s curly and red, all washed with henna. The color of her eyes is more like grey ash. You can see that she is scared. Mother is sitting in front of her on a chair. She orders her to boil the cucumbers. Um Ibrahim looks shocked: “Boil them? Do you boil cucumbers, madam?” Mother shouts at her: “What do you care? Just do as I tell you.” “Yes, madam. Of course. Just don’t scream please, madam.” She throws the cucumbers into the pot that sits on the fire. I am carrying a cup of coffee in my hand. Mother gets up. She takes a key from her breast pocket. She unlocks the door to our room. I carry in the cup of coffee carefully. My father takes it. I tell him what just happened with Um Ibrahim. He laughs: “Serves her right. She’s been driving me crazy.”
I follow her to the hallway. I turn my face away from the doorway to the toilet. She goes ahead of me into the kitchen and then comes back with the stove. It is giving out a little bit of light. She sets it on the floor under the sink. She unhooks the oil lamp from its nail. She opens its window. She uses the stove to light the paper, and lights the lamp’s wick. She gives me the lamp, saying: “Come with me to the kitchen.” I say: “It’s better to stay here in the hall.” She says: “I have washing to do.” I carry the lamp and follow her into kitchen but don’t really want to. She puts the stove down on the floor next to the tub full of dirty clothes. She takes the lamp from me and hangs it on the nail on the wall. She puts the pan of water on the fire. Sits down in front of the tub on the wooden foot stool. She reaches over. Tips out a bucket of mop water. She spreads it around with her foot between the tub and the door. She waves at me to sit down on a seat that’s facing her, between her and the door.
“Do you think papa’s going to be late?”
She answers with a scowl: “He’ll be back any minute.”
The steam comes up from the pan of water. She throws the clothes into it. She stirs them around with the end of a metal ladle. She takes out one thing. Throws it into the tub. As she rubs soap over it, she shouts out from its heat.
A burst of wind rushes in from the window. The flame in the oil lamp flickers. The shadows dance on the wall. I follow them anxiously. My eyes go to a huge cockroach. It is fixed on the wall. The head is pointed at me. Its whiskers are shaking. I look up at the tub. The clothes are still piled up in it. I feel sleepy. The strong, striking smell of the toilet comes to me. She wrings out the clothes as she studies the darkness behind me in fear. I fight off the urge to turn around and look. The ghoul shows itself, coming from far away. A huge swirl of hair spun around by the wind. The ghoul sniffs a scent of Hassan the Brave then says: “The smell of human, not like our smell or the smell of our clan!”
I blink my eyes. She kicks me to keep me awake. She stares at me with her two cold eyes. “You have to stay up until I finish the washing.” She is looking behind me, scared. “Or should I just leave you in the guest room, all alone with the afreets?”
I hear something that sounds like father’s steps. My chin falls suddenly down to my chest. She pinches my thigh with her wet fingers to keep me awake. It is a hard pinch. The tears well up in my eyes. I rub the spot. She threatens to cut off my ear if I tell father.
The children in the alley repeat the call for the prayer of the Big Feast: “To God the Supreme be acclaim/ All praise to His great holy name.” Father takes the scissors and sits me down between his knees. He gives me a haircut. I have the mirror with the cracked metal frame in my hand. I tell him the right side is higher than the left. He throws the scissors on to the desk and pushes me away from him.
“No. It’s fine.” The barber unrolls the leather strip hanging next to the door of the shop. He runs the edge of the blade over it as hard as he can. He finishes shaving the customer’s beard. My turn comes. He spits into the iron spittoon. I sit in the barber’s chair and he ties a towel around my neck.
I put on my suit. I look around the desktop for the notebook of songs. My hand hits the bottle of ink and spills it on to the front of my jacket and my trousers.
Father blows up: “You clumsy . . . You’re completely worthless. Take off your clothes.”
I take off my jacket and trousers. He gets mad and pulls them off me. He examines the ink spot. I follow him to the kitchen. He sprinkles salt over it. He comes back to the hall and takes a lemon off the fruit tray. He cuts it up with a knife and squeezes one of the wedges over the salt. We go back to the room. He studies the spot in the light. He puts the jacket and trousers over the back of the chair.
He says: “It won’t come clean right now. Put on your light pyjamas.”
I am surprised and ask: “You mean go out in them?”
“What else can we do? I’ll iron them for you and they’ll look great. Pass the iron.”
I drag the heavy metal iron from under the bed. He takes it to the kitchen to heat it up. He brings it back in with a wet towel. He folds the pyjama top over the bed. He covers it with the towel and passes the hot iron over it. He goes to the sleeves, then to the back. He gives it to me then irons the trousers. Grumbling, I put them on.
He prays the midday prayer then puts on his brown suit. We leave the house. We head toward the main street. A wide poster congratulates Mishaal on his return from the hajj. “May your hajj bring forgiveness and acceptance from God.” We take the tram. Abbasiya, then Heliopolis. We pass in front of a fancy villa. A crowd of country women has gathered in front of it. Father says they’re poor women, waiting to receive their portion of the zakat, the rich man’s tithe of meat slaughtered for the holiday. It may be the first time they have tasted meat.
Nabila greets us by saying: “Why are you so late? Lunch has been ready for a while now.” She turns to me: “Who gave you that haircut?”
Father says: “I did.”
“Couldn’t you’ve taken him to the barber?” She feels the hair on my head. “Your hair is all curly like your mother’s.” She looks over my clothes. She starts to say something then keeps quiet. Mother opens the glass pane in the front door to see who is there. She says to Nabila: “What do you want?” “To see papa.” Mother tells her: “He’s not your father and he doesn’t know you.” She slams the glass shut. I run to the room. I push the door open. Mother forgot to lock it. I go in and tell my father what happened. He steps back from the window. Nabila passes underneath it. She raises her eyes. A strange smile is on her lips.
Showqi and Shareen come to father so he can hug them. Their clothes are new. Shareen looks over my clothes: “Oh my gosh. Are you wearing pyjamas?” Uncle Fahmi throws her a harsh look and she shuts up.
We wash our hands and sit around the table. Nabila serves us beef bouillon out of a large soup dish. Meat pastries, stewed lamb meat, and okra. Father slurps the soup loudly. My sister watches me until she catches me making a slurping sound too, then she scolds me.
After eating, we fall in along the couch in the living room. Showqi asks his father if he can go out and play with the children in the street. Uncle Fahmi tells me:
“Go with him.” I bend my head down and look at my pyjamas. “I don’t feel like it.”
Tante Samira, Uncle Fahmi’s sister, shows up at the door. Her husband and her daughter Nadeen have come with her. Father uncrosses his legs and welcomes them. He studies Samira carefully. Tall and wide, like her brother. Her face is round and white and beautiful. Her big eyes are laced with kohl. Her mouth is tiny and reddened with lipstick. The smell of her perfume drifts off her clothes and spreads through the room. She wears a dark black jacket, a blouse with a high collar that comes up over the jacket collar, a full, orange skirt with pleats, and white and black shoes with high heels. Khadra brings in the chairs from the dining room, so everyone can sit.
Her husband is a clerk in the finance ministry. He wears a fez. His suit is beige. He undoes the buttons of his jacket and a big pot-belly hanging over his waist pops out.
Nadeen is seven years older than me. She has full lips, narrow eyes, and a small chest. She wears a silk dress with a tiny collar and baggy sleeves that narrow down into tight wrists. Her blouse has baggy folds around the chest and shiny buttons.
My sister seems in love with the blouse: “Oh, your little chemise is divine.” She drops her eyes down over the blue skirt that hangs just above the tops of her feet by a few inches. Then down to the shoes with fat high heels: “What’s that? What’s that?”
Samira laughs: “It’s the latest style, madam.”
“Where’d you get them?”
“From Chicurel. Three days before it was blown up. You can still get them at Chemla or Oureeko.”
“Nowadays, one gets scared to even go to these stores.”
“Try the Egyptian Factories Outlet store.”
Her husband says the time has come for the government to ban the Muslim Brotherhood. Samira complains that Nadeen wants a new hairdo in the latest style. “Two wavy tresses, a short bob around the sides, stacked up behind the neck in the shape of a beret.” She crosses her legs. Her skirt comes up to her knees. She is wearing nylon stockings. Father looks over the bare part of her plump legs.
Nabila says: “Have you seen the bonnets they’re coming out with now?”
Samira says that one of her husband’s relatives attended a high tea organized by Princess Faiza for the new society for the welfare of women. She said she saw women in strange bonnets with large bird feathers sticking out of them. “Most of them wore black, as though they were at a funeral or something.” Nabila says that black is still in style.
Father asks Nadeen what department she’ll be joining the coming year. She says: “Philosophy.” He suggests she start reading up on it now. He gives her the name of a book on Islamic philosophy and another in human psychology. I get the feeling that she doesn’t think much of his suggestions.
A relative of Uncle Fahmi joins us. He’s a student in the last year of law school. He is wearing a navy blue jacket with two rows of buttons down the front. A thin necktie. Glasses with big square frames. He uses an old-fashioned title, “aneeshta,” instead of “uncle” when he talks to father. His sister Selwa, a student at the American School for Girls, comes in after him.
The two children pull back and disappear into the room of Showqi and Shareen. Alwy, the older son of Hajj Hamdy, comes in. A white coat with one button to the side and long lapels that end up at his belly button. Grey trousers with pleats and white shoes. He takes off his fez to reveal shiny, short hair that clings to his scalp.
Father asks him about his dad who is going on hajj for a second time. He says: “He should be on top of Mount Arafat right about now.” Khadra brings in cups of coffee and glasses of Spathis fizzy drink.
Alwy removes a small cup made of glass from his pocket. Uncle Fahmi claps: “That’s it. He brought the goods.” Alwy says: “So you won’t have any excuses.” I know that he sets the dice before he throws them with his hand, so no one wants to throw dice with him unless they use a cup.
Everyone heads out to the veranda. Nabila puts on a sweater, saying that it’s getting a bit cold. Father’s cackles echo loudly. I go up to the children’s room. The door’s cracked open. I steal a peek. Shareen is leaning over the bed flipping through a magazine. I hear Selwa’s voice saying softly that she got hold of a novel by Yusuf al-Sabaey. Shareen shows them a page from the magazine about a new American game called the hula hoop. Nadeen comes into my view. She puts her hand on her small chest. She turns toward the door but I jump back quickly. I hear her say that the Americans invented a new bra that snaps and unsnaps in the front so a girl doesn’t have to reach her hand behind her back to take it off. Their laughing sounds like they’re embarrassed.
I push open the door and go in. No one turns to me. Shareen flips the pages of the magazine. In a loud voice she calls out the names of the films that are playing: “Fame or Riches, with Mohamed Abdel Motalleb and Hassan Fayek. The Island Princess with Tahia Karioka, Bishara Wakeem, Ismail Yaseen, and Shakookoo. The Man Who Doesn’t Sleep, at the Metro with Yusuf Wahbi and Mediha Yosri. Toward Glory, directed by and starring Hussain Sidqi. He’s a bore.” She throws the magazine away. I pick it up and flip through its pages. A picture of the king in military uniform wearing field glasses stares up at me. Under the picture in a fancy script, it says: “The first of the fighters.”
I leave the room and go from there to the outer parlor. I listen next to the wall that separates it from the kitchen. The sound of dishes being washed. The door to the terrace room is closed. I pass through the hall that goes to the country-style bathroom. There’s an open window facing the street. The pop of firecrackers blows through it. I get up on my tip-toes. I spot Showqi with a hunting rifle in his hand. I go into the country-style bathroom. I pee. I walk out. Open the door to the terrace room. I go in and close the door behind me. The brass handle of the dresser is broken. I pull on it. The drawers are empty. A few of them have some old clothes. I want to leave, but I hear the sound of someone running. Softly, I open the door a crack. Khadra is pushing on the door to the living room. Her face shows that she’s scared. Uncle Fahmi comes from the kitchen and pushes behind her. His Mantouvli slippers slap against the tiled floor. He tries to grab her. She goes into the dining room with him behind her. I go out to the parlor. I peek through the door to the dining room. My glasses bang against the wooden door handle. He throws her down on to the couch. His face is red, his eyes flashing. He reaches his hand to her chest. She pushes him away and begs in a low voice: “Please, no, sir. Please don’t cut me off.” She goes around the table then passes in front of the children’s room. She comes over to the door leading to the outer parlor. I jump back in a hurry. I go to hide on the terrace. I hear her open the door to the apartment and go out. I walk out of the terrace into the living room. Uncle Fahmi is bent over the mirror of the sideboard. He looks over his face. He sets his hair. He stands up straight. He goes into the guest room on his way to the veranda. The sound of his footsteps fades as he steps on to the thick carpet.
The knocking on the front door goes on. I climb over father’s sleeping body and come back down on the other side. I put on my slippers, and go out to the living room. I turn the key in the door. Fatima pushes it so that it almost hits me in the face. She goes ahead of me into our room.
“You two are still sleeping?”
Father pulls up the covers as he answers: “It’s Friday today.”
“Come on. I’ll make you breakfast.”
Father falls back on his right side. His gallabiya comes up and shows his bare legs. My eye falls on his prick sticking out of the opening in his underpants. Blown up, like a cat’s head. He stays stretched out on his side without bothering to cover himself. He looks at Fatima. He stretches out his hand and rubs his prick. He pushes up to a sitting position with his legs dangling from the side of the bed.
She asks: “What would you like to have for breakfast? Should I make hot cereal with milk or ful beans?” I say: “Tahini with honey.” She says: “There isn’t any.”
Father says to me: “Here. Take a half a fran
c and go get some from the oil shop.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
He says: “It’s Friday and Abbas will want his breakfast.”
She says: “Yeah, I have to go to him or he’ll skin me alive.”
I go to the bathroom. I get past my fears and go into the toilet room. I pee, then wash my hands and face. I go back to the room. Father is standing next to the dresser and Fatima is sitting on the edge of the bed. I dry my face with the towel hanging from the chair back. I start to take off my pyjama top, so I can put on trousers and a shirt. Father says: “Don’t waste time. Just go in your pyjamas.” He gives me half a franc. I say: “Where’s the dish to put it in.” Fatima answers: “On the sideboard.”
I go out of the room but leave the door partially open. I take the dish. Father closes the door to the room. I open the front door and then slam it shut. I rush to hide under the table. I sneak under the side away from the door to the skylight, so that the tablecloth will cover me completely. My head bumps against the edge of the table. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. I rub on the bump. I stay clear of the cockroach nests piled up in the corners. My heart is pounding. I cannot get out of my hiding place to get any closer to the room. I listen carefully. Not a sound. I can’t chance moving. My heart keeps beating hard. The morning’s light settles over the room. I enter quietly without the two of them sensing me. I hide behind the wooden post for the clothes line. I shrink up between my father’s suit, his fly whisk, and his umbrella. I can hear them moving on the bed. The sound of muffled laughter. His or hers? On the nightstand next to the bed, a cup of water holds his false teeth. I pull his jacket to the side. His back is to me. On his bare head, light grey hair surrounds his bald spot. I can see the side of his smiling face. His arms surround mother. She’s laughing too. I reach my hand out to his coat. I press on the inside pocket where he keeps his money. I take it all. I steal out of the room. They come out after a while. He goes back to the room. He calls me. He closes the door. Sits me in front of him. Questions me. He takes the bamboo cane from on top of the dresser. He beats me with it.
Stealth (New Directions Paperbook) Page 17