The teacher asks me and three others to stay after class. He takes us out to the school’s garden. We sit down on a green grassy spot under some trees. He promises that he is going to turn us into artists. He tells us to draw a branch of a tree with all its leaves. I carefully trace the shape of the branch and the leaves with my pencil. I fill up the whole page. I go back over the lines with the ink pen. He says: “That’s enough for today.”
I take my satchel and leave the school. I go along the street that leads to the Jewish school. I walk along the colored gravel. I stop at the corner. I look to the left. The branches of the trees are bare. I step over red and yellow flowers. I make it to the pavement in front of our old house. The windows of our apartment are open. You can see somebody’s shadow moving. A steamroller parks up a few steps ahead. A side of the road has been paved with asphalt. The smell of burning tar. A pile of gravel is in front of the house. The stones shine in the moonlight. We stand on top of it. We rub stones together. Colored sparks come off them. My father calls me and I rush back inside. I go to the bathroom first. I wash my face and my feet. I go and find him at the window. The darkness is lifting. Mother is singing as she brings in coffee.
I go back to where the street begins and from there to the square. I cross it, passing in front of Hajj Abdel ’Alim’s shop. I go back into the alley. I see that father is standing on the balcony. The wide woolen scarf is wrapped around his neck. The big woolen cap covers his head. His neck is twisted towards the top of the alley. As soon as he sees me, he goes back in. I go up the stairs. I open the door with my key. I go into the room. He stands next to the wardrobe, holding the book The Great Star of Knowledge. He doesn’t talk to me.
I put my satchel on the desk. I take out my notebooks. Stacks them up. I watch him from the corner of my eye. He turns around. He opens the book and lays it on the bed. He leaves the room. I steal a look through the crack in the door. I can hear him making dinner in the kitchen. I take the key to our room out of my pocket, and push it into the keyhole. I go over to the bed, and bend over the book. A small booklet is tucked inside its cover. I pick it up to read the name of it. I’m expecting something like “How to Punish an Abusive Child.”
Full Male Potency. I flip through the pages, but I don’t understand a thing, so I put it back in its place.
I go out to the hall. I am looking for him. There is no sign of him in the bathroom or the kitchen. I go back to the hall. The door to the skylight is closed. I go over to Mama Tahiya’s room. The door is closed. I look through the keyhole. As it has been, without a piece of furniture. I go around the table. The door to the guest room is closed. I look through the keyhole. He is sitting on the couch facing me. His head is bowed and he is studying the floor. He raises his hands to his face. Suddenly, he breaks into tears and starts sobbing like a child.
He finishes praying the Friday prayer, on top of the bed. He goes back to his corner with a frown, sitting by himself next to the wall. The full-length prayer beads are in his hand. He sticks on the name “the Benevolent,” repeating it.
I hear noise in the alley. I put on my glasses and rush to the balcony. He raises his voice, reciting the names of God without turning to me. His voice is like a warning not to make any noise.
I stop behind the glass pane. The children have paper kites. They’re floating up in the air over the alley in all different sizes and colors. He makes me an orange-colored kite. I go up to the roof of the house with the other children. Everyone has his own kite with him. We hold tight to the string. We throw them in the air. They fly up high.
The children run underneath their hovering kites. They move out of my sight. I go back to the desk. I review the lesson on lengths of measure and use of the compass and ruler. The cry rings out in the alley: “Knife blades and scissors!” I rush back to the balcony. The man is in the middle of the alley behind his sharpener. Samir brings him a lot of knives. He pushes the wheel with his hand to get it spinning. He puts the edge of the blade against it. Sparks come flying off. He grips the handle and moves it sideways to its tip. He lifts it and puts the other side on the wheel. Abdel Hamid shows up, coming from the entrance to the alley. He walks along seriously until he gets to the door of the house. We pass out of the big iron gate. My father clutches a bag of apples to his chest. We walk over a long, dusty path with dead trees on either side. We come to a one-story house. Nurses with huge bodies. One comes to us wearing a long metal chain around her waist. It drags behind her on the bare tiles. Her cracked sandals scrape against the floor. Their heels are striped with black cracks. A long hallway with rows of shut doors on both sides. Some of them have iron doorknobs. Behind them are women wearing strange looks. One of them laughs with loud peals of laughter. She points to a woman who is pale and fat with a face full of pimples, whispering: “Come here.” I grab hold of my father’s hand. An open hall with many beds. Mother is lying on one. She smiles quietly. My father holds the bag of apples out to her. She takes one of them. She wipes it off with her hand and nibbles at its side. She feels my face with her fingers. She asks me about school but doesn’t seem to care. The huge nurse watches us from close by, keeping her eyes on the apples.
His fingers make it to the middle beads on the string. I open the satchel. I get out the marbles that I still have. I am careful to keep all the same kind. Most of them are shaped like balls and are transparent with twisting stripes inside of all different colors. I pick out four that are different shapes and sizes. I put them to one side to change them during the game.
His fingers come close to the end of the string. I put the satchel to the side. I open the composition notebook. I write the word “Reading” in the middle of the line. I think, then I skip a line and write in big letters: “Reading and the Comprehension of the Reading.” It fills up the line. I skip another one and go to the line after that. I stop because I can’t think of what else to write.
I wait until he finishes the string. Unsure, I go close to him carrying the draft notebook and fountain pen. He always writes my compositions for me and then I put them in my own handwriting. I look up at his smooth-shaven cheek. He takes the notebook from me.
He says: “Hand me a pencil.”
Author’s acknowledgment
My thanks to the poet Hamza Qanawy for the help he offered in working with and reviewing the original Arabic manuscript at various stages.
Translator’s acknowledgments and note
Sonallah Ibrahim was an engaged and insightful participant in this English version of his novel, and I thank him for his help. Thanks also to Mohamed Aboul-Ela, Richard Bartlett, Ayman El-Desouky, Sayyid Fathi, Jennifer Grotz, Ahmad Hassan, and Richard Jacquemond, each of whom helped me at various stages and in diverse ways. In translating quotations from the Quran, I have referred to Michael Sells, Approaching the Qur’án: The Early Revelations, Ashland, Oregon, 2001, and Al-Qur’án: A Contemporary Translation, by Ahmed Ali, Princeton, 1993.
Copyright © 2007 by Sonallah Ibrahim
Translation copyright © 2009, 2014 by Hosam Aboul-Ela
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published in Arabic as Al Talassus by Dar al-Mustaqbil al-Arabi in 2007.
First published as a New Directions Paperbook (NDP1293) in 2014
Design by Erik Rieselbach
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Ibrahim, Sun’ Allah.
[Talassus. English]
Stealth / Sonallah Ibrahim ;
translated from the Arabic by Hosam Aboul-Ela.
pages cm
1. Fathers and sons — Egypt — Cairo — Fiction.
2. Cairo (Egypt) — Social life and customs — Fiction.
&nb
sp; I. Aboul-Ela, Hosam M., translator.
II. Title.
PJ7838.B7173T3513 2014
892.736—dc23
2013049759
ISBN 978-0-8112-2306-5 (e-book)
www.ndbooks.com
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
Also by Sonallah Ibrahim
AVAILABLE FROM NEW DIRECTIONS
That Smell & Notes from Prison
Stealth (New Directions Paperbook) Page 19