Beer in the Snooker Club

by Waguih Ghali

‘What’s the matter with you, Font?’ I asked. ‘You are the one who’s acting strange. Why aren’t you enjoying yourself? Why aren’t you full to the brim with your own silent ecstasy? Why aren’t you in love? Why aren’t you overflowing with happiness?’

  ‘Don’t force yourself too much, Ram.’

  ‘Jesus, Font. Do you remember that day before the summer holidays at the university, and telling me what a horrid thing it was to go to Alexandria and do over and over again what we had been doing for years and years? And yet, here we are in London, but you are silent and miserable.’

  ‘I am not miserable,’ he said. ‘I am enjoying myself in my own way; although I never knew up to now how different my way is from yours.’

  I drank my beer. Was I enjoying myself? The questions I was beginning to ask myself would kill me, I thought. Why couldn’t I do what I was doing without all this judging? Why couldn’t I just be what I was only a few weeks earlier in Egypt?

  ‘Are you angry?’ Shirley asked me.

  I looked at her and suddenly caught her hand under the table and held it tight in mine. Of course I was enjoying myself. Steve went downstairs for about the twentieth time. He didn’t look very happy, although of course he didn’t know what was going on between Shirley and me.

  ‘Well,’ Vincent said, ‘shall we ask him?’

  ‘If you wish,’ I said.

  ‘What is it?’ Shirley asked me. I squeezed her hand and told her we were going to ask Steve how many wogs he had killed.

  ‘Vincent,’ she shouted, ‘leave Steve alone.’ He laughed.

  ‘Edna,’ she said, ‘please ask Vincent not to be horrible to Steve.’

  ‘Of course he won’t,’ Edna said. ‘And anyway I am sure Steve can look after himself.’

  ‘But he can’t,’ Shirley said. ‘He gets all worked up and he’ll spend days on end telling me my brother is not fit to be an Englishman.’ We all laughed.

  Steve came back and pulled a chair near Shirley, who quickly took her hand away from mine. I watched him clumsily putting his arm round Shirley, and the matter-of-fact way she allowed him to do so. I felt sure she didn’t love him.

  ‘What was the beer like, in Suez?’ I asked Steve. After all we had been to his house, and it would be unfair to gang up against him. As it was, however, he was more or less responsible for what happened.

  ‘We drank the beer the wogs drank there; all right once you get used to it.’

  ‘How did you like the wogs, Stevey boy?’ Vincent asked.

  ‘Shut up, Vince,’ Shirley said; and she turned to Steve. ‘Can’t you see you’re being rude, using that word?’

  ‘Oo’s being rude?’ he asked, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘I don’t think Edna, Font and Ram like being called wogs at all,’ Shirley told him.

  ‘Blimey,’ he shouted, ‘I haven’t called them anything of the sort.’

  ‘No, of course you haven’t,’ Edna said quickly, ‘Shirley is only pulling your leg. Come on; let’s drink this one up and let me buy the next round.’

  ‘Your leg’s not being pulled,’ Vincent said, ‘but you keep putting your foot in it.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Steve shouted. ‘What has a filthy wog got to do with these people here?’

  ‘You’ve put your other foot in it now,’ Vincent screamed.

  ‘Steve,’ Shirley said, ‘I know you’re a fathead, but I didn’t know you were that big a fathead. When you say “wogs” you mean Egyptians in general. Edna, Font and Ram are Egyptians.’

  The truth suddenly dawned upon him. I felt sorry for him.

  ‘Blimey,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to be offensive at all … I …’ The three of us outdid each other in reassuring him.

  ‘What I say is,’ he said, ‘we’re all human beings.’

  ‘That’s right,’ we said.

  ‘There is no difference between one man and another,’ he said.

  ‘All except between you and me,’ Vincent said, but we decided to ignore Vincent.

  ‘Mind you,’ Steve said, ‘I can tell you who’s brewing up all the trouble there.’

  ‘Do tell us,’ Vincent said.

  ‘It’s them ruddy Jews,’ he said.

  Vincent’s laughter echoed all over the pub. ‘You’ve put your very head in it this time,’ he managed to ejaculate in between fits of guffaws.

  Font whispered we should explain Edna was not my sister, since Vincent already knew.

  ‘Edna is Jewish,’ I told Shirley.

  ‘Edna is Jewish,’ Shirley told Steve.

  ‘How are the Jews causing all the trouble there?’ Edna asked Steve.

  ‘Look, I didn’t know you were a Jewess,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget we fought the last war for you.’

  It was my turn to laugh.

  ‘No, no,’ Font said in his intense way. ‘The Jews were being persecuted long before you declared war.’ He went on to talk about Munich and all that.

  ‘Oh shut up, Font,’ I said.

  ‘Why should he shut up?’ Edna asked quietly.

  ‘Do you think Steve is going to be convinced of what is true and what is not?’ I asked her. ‘Don’t you know the history of the First World War and how Lenin published the secret reasons for the war and yet millions of Steves went on slaughtering each other for “Honour” and for decorations and didn’t care two hoots whether it was for the oil they were doing it? Haven’t you read Sassoon and Robert Graves?’

  ‘Let’s talk of something else,’ Shirley said.

  ‘Be quiet, Shirley,’ Vincent told her. Then he turned to Edna and said: ‘I’ve fed that girl books the way a mother does her child milk. Spoons and shovels full of books. And then she takes up with this moron because “he’s steady and hard-working”,’ he mimicked. ‘Makes me want to spit.’

  ‘I’m a darned sight better than you,’ Steve shouted and stood up threateningly. I stood up too, and told Steve to sit down and let’s have a drink and not quarrel.

  ‘Go to hell you … wog,’ he said. I sat down and Shirley jumped up.

  ‘If you don’t apologize this very instant, I’ll have nothing more to do with you,’ she shouted.

  ‘That’s right,’ he screamed, ‘you take sides with these wogs and Jews and that yellow brother of yours.’

  I went down to the toilet, and after relieving myself I just idled for a while, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking of nothing in particular.

  Steve had gone when I returned. As soon as I sat down Shirley’s hand slid into mine.

  ‘Let’s go and call Steve back,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Shirley said, caressing my hand.

  Our hands were under the table and I was hoping no one was noticing what was going on. I wondered what Edna would do if she discovered this; and then wondered what I would do if I discovered Edna and Vincent were holding hands. Nothing, I thought. I was lost in these possibilities when I noticed we were all nearly drunk. We were sitting bleary eyed in silence.

  ‘Let’s go and dance,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s drink some more and have more fights and reach a real climax as the Hemingway people in Spain do. Come on, Edna, let’s live.’

  ‘All right,’ she said and pulled us all up. We lost our stupor. Vincent owned an old Austin car, and went to fetch it.

  ‘Ring up Brenda Dungate,’ I told Font. ‘She might come with us.’

  He brightened at the prospect and we looked for her number together. I heard him speak to Dr Dungate first and ask him whether he might take Brenda out dancing. Brenda came to the telephone and Font said we’d pick her up in twenty minutes.

  ‘Font,’ I said, ‘let’s nip to the public bar and have a quick one together.’

  As we stood at the bar drinking half pints, I realized for the first time how very fond of Font I was. It struck me that we had always been together since childhood and that we were closer to each other than to anyone else. There was no reason to think of it just then except, perhaps, that I felt I was drifting away from him. Bu
t why was I drifting away? I knew something was happening to me, but what, I couldn’t tell.

  ‘What’s the matter with me, Font?’

  ‘You’re becoming phoney, Ram.’

  ‘But that’s what I don’t know. When I left you all and played chess with Vincent, I was thinking you and Edna were being phoney because you were pretending to be enjoying yourselves, and that I was not being phoney because I preferred to play chess and did so. Then I drank a bit and delivered a tirade against the English to Vincent; but it was all pretence because I was enjoying myself. Then I started making love to Shirley for no reason at all, except, perhaps, for ego’s sake. Jesus, I’m even using a word like “ego”. And then I enjoyed seeing us making a fool of Steve, although in actual fact I was sorry for him and bore him no grudge whatsoever.’

  ‘You’re becoming self-centred, Ram.’

  ‘We never talked of “self-centredness” or “phoniness” when we were in Egypt. These words are beginning to play a part in our life which they never did hitherto.’ And then I split into two again, and one part watched me speak to Font, and heard me say ‘hitherto’. Why that word ‘hitherto’ caused the split I don’t know. I had forgotten my fear of drifting away from Font. I hardly listened to him as he spoke.

  We picked up Brenda and went to a dance. I think it was in Hampstead Town Hall. There were chairs all round the hall, and somehow we all lost each other; Vincent with Edna, Font with Brenda and Shirley with me. To start with I enjoyed the actual dancing, but after a while it was only a matter of holding a new body close to mine and kissing its ears and hearing it pant. We drank some more and acted like lovers. There was not going to be any ‘Hemingway’ climax after all. I felt like going to bed. I found Edna and told her I was taking Shirley home, then going to bed.

  We had a coffee first in an espresso bar. Shirley sat under a red light. She looked very young and wholesome under that colour. We spoke in subdued, friendly voices and talked about each other. The lust of the dance hall had evaporated and left a residue of friendliness and ease in each other’s company. She asked me about Edna and I told her she was a very good friend to Font and me. She spoke to me about her life at home and about Steve and about Vincent. Her father had been a drunkard. Her mother had taken the two children away, only to fall in love with Paddy, a young Irishman. Paddy was a chronic non-worker, and they had gone through some hard times. Vincent had always been very intelligent and Paddy, who was a bit of a thinker in his way, had encouraged him to study and was hoping to see him through university. However, the war came, and Paddy was thrown in and out of prisons for refusing to join the British Army. Vincent’s hope had vanished. But all the same he managed to study television engineering at night school and had landed a good job. Vincent had tried hard to elevate his sister to his own standard of education; but somehow she was content to become a typist. They had known Steve since childhood. He was an honest, straightforward person and, because her home was sometimes unpleasant with fights between Vincent and Paddy, she had let herself drift into getting engaged to Steve.

  I was content, sitting there listening to her. What was it, I wondered, that I liked about Vincent and Shirley? With them I forgot I was Egyptian and they English and I a stranger in their midst. No matter how hard the Dungates tried, they were never to make me feel we were one and the same. Sitting with Shirley that evening, I returned to my old self and was nothing else but Ram who was born in Cairo and who liked to read and to drink. I felt at ease – Shirley and Vincent were a bit of Font to me. She asked me if I were in love with Edna.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  We walked, hand in hand, to where she lived in St John’s Wood. We talked easily and I told her I was sorry about what happened to Steve and confessed I was indirectly responsible. We came to some street-lamps lying on the pavement, waiting to be erected, and Shirley walked along one of them, balancing herself and catching my hand now and then for support.

  ‘I love my brother very much,’ she said, ‘and I know what he says about Steve is true. He will be a good husband but it will be boring living with him. Vince tells me he’ll always remind me I’m being bored.’ She jumped off the lamp-post and said: ‘I know you were just flirting with me in the pub, but I was excited all the same, and I never once felt excited with Steve.’

  We turned into her street. In front of her house a shadow suddenly appeared from the darkness and before I could notice anything else, I received a blow on the nose and was blinded by the tears which usually flow when the nose has been hit.

  ‘I’ll murder you, you dirty wog,’ he screamed. It was Steve. My nose was bleeding and I bent my head backwards to try and stop the flow. Even at that moment I realized he was very drunk and I didn’t feel any anger.

  ‘Steve, if you don’t go away this very instant, I’ll scream for Paddy.’

  ‘I’ll do that Irishman too,’ he screamed.

  If only I could be angry, I told myself, I could knock that Steve out. But I can never hit someone unless I am angry.

  ‘You know why you are despicable?’ I told him. ‘It’s because you can fight and kill people without being angry. I’m unable to hit you back simply because I feel no anger towards you.’

  A door opened and a huge man came out. He wore trousers and singlet and was barefoot.

  ‘Paddy,’ Shirley ran to him, ‘tell Steve to go home, he’s drunk.’

  ‘You bloody Irishman,’ Steve shouted.

  Shirley pulled me inside and closed the door. We were standing in a kitchen; the gas oven was burning low with its door open, and on the floor was a mattress on which Paddy had probably been sleeping. We heard shouts outside, then Paddy came in.

  ‘Be Jeez,’ he said, ‘be sure now and don’t go out again; I’m tellin’ yer that Steve’s in a terrible state now.’ It was the first time I had heard an Irish brogue. Paddy was a handsome man with a full crop of white hair.

  ‘Ram is Egyptian,’ Shirley said.

  ‘Be Jeez,’ he said, ‘your nose is bleedin’ now. I’m tellin’ yer now, don’t let none of these English touch yer; they’ve taken enough out of your cahntry as it is. I’ve seen things when I was a child now, you will not believe when I tell yer. I remember once in Cork …’

  ‘You tell him about it some other time,’ Shirley said. ‘Come in the front room,’ she told me.

  I said good night and followed Shirley into the front room. My nose had stopped bleeding. The loss of blood had cleared my head and made me feel light and cheerful.

  ‘That was Paddy,’ Shirley said, ‘what do you think of him?’

  ‘Be Jeez,’ I said, ‘I loike him.’

  ‘We have terrible fights; but lazy good-for-nothing swine as he is, Vincent and I love him. I’ll get some blankets,’ she said. We were whispering although there was no reason for it. It’s strange how people instinctively whisper when it’s dark. We hadn’t put the lights on.

  ‘I’ll go back to the hotel,’ I said.

  ‘The buses have stopped. But you can wait for Vince if you wish and he’ll drive you home.’ As she said this we heard his car outside, then his voice talking to Paddy. He knocked at the door and came in.

  ‘Hello, Ram,’ he said, half laughing, ‘you’ve tasted an English fist I hear. How are you?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said, also laughing.

  ‘You mustn’t hate Steve too much, you know. He’s really a very decent boy.’

  ‘Jesus, I don’t hate him at all,’ I said. ‘If anything I’m ashamed of myself for what happened.

  ‘Let’s forget Steve, now,’ Shirley said. ‘Vince, can you drive Ram home?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but why don’t you sleep here? I’ve got some beer and we can talk for a while.’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  He put the lights on, then switched them off again. They were stark lights and the room was cosier with just the light which came in from a street-lamp. He fetched glasses and beer.

  ‘Let’s ask Paddy to drink, too,’ I
said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Shirley said. ‘All right.’

  I was sitting on the sofa and Paddy on an armchair opposite. Vincent and Shirley were on the floor, Shirley resting her back against my legs. We talked until four in the morning. We just talked, and drank beer, and smoked. I told them the fellah lived exactly the same way he did ten thousand years ago … even to the houses he built and the way he whirled the water from the Nile to his land. At last we were all sleepy. Paddy and Vincent went to bed while Shirley went for some blankets. I kissed her affectionately and as soon as she left I took my clothes off and lay down.

  It had been a pleasant time, yet there was something lacking … a sense of climax. There is only one perfect ending to everything, and that is death, but there are other good endings as well. In spite of all that happened that day, and the nice conclusion of talking quietly in the darkness, there was a vestige of frustration in me as I lay there. And then I heard the door open and felt her warm body next to mine. This was the good ending. Even though we did not love each other, even if there was no lust between us, just to caress and kiss and to sleep close to one another was the final touch to end the day. And I understood how some men have to reach that fulfilment even between man and man.

  I was wrong to think caressing Shirley’s body was the climax to that day. There was another end to it when I returned to the hotel.

  I slipped away from Shirley’s house quietly, early in the morning, without waking anyone. I went to Edna’s room as soon as I reached the hotel.

  ‘I’ve been unfaithful to you,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘Aren’t you jealous?’

  ‘Do you want me to be?’

  ‘I want you to be passionately jealous and threaten suicide and weep and lament and … isn’t there another word similar to weep and lament? … and strew ashes over yourself. Edna, what was the idea behind these Biblical people who strewed ashes over themselves when they were unhappy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Edna, what is this? What is happening to me? I am Egyptian and have lived in Egypt all my life and suddenly I am here, and at the end of three weeks I have slid into this strange life where I meet a girl and think it natural to go to bed with her at the end of the day, under the same roof as her brother and mother and Paddy, and find it natural they find it natural that she sleeps with me if she wants to. Such things don’t happen in Egypt, so how can I come here and live in an entirely different manner and yet feel I have been living like this all my life? What will happen to me when I go back to Egypt? Have you ever met my friends Yehia and Jameel and Fawzi? I’m not going to apologize for having spent the night with Shirley. You don’t love me and I don’t in the least feel guilty about it. I haven’t slept much and am rather tired; perhaps that’s why I want to speak the truth. Look, Edna; don’t attribute to me qualities I don’t possess. I just like to gamble and drink and make love and no matter what act I put on, you should know the truth.’