The House of Jasmine

by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

  At times I thought he was right, and I was afraid. Then I asked myself what I had to fear. I didn’t care about Damietta because I wasn’t going to buy any furniture from there. I didn’t care about Rosetta either, since I caught my own fish behind the airport. And I didn’t care what happened to the whole country in a hundred years, because I wasn’t going to live that long, unless God challenged me, and I didn’t think that he would do that to an orphan like me.

  I returned to my apartment in the afternoon and felt as though it were midnight. Shivering with the cold, I took off my wet clothes, and found that the electricity was still out. I lit a few candles and sat in front of the silent television set, staring dismally into the air. I could hear the movements of children and the laughter of the new residents in the apartment on the upper floor. I thought that this might be another heroic deed to be added to my list—living alone among happy families. I remembered how my father once told me about a similar winter that drowned the village where he grew up. The houses dissolved under the torrents of rain, and the mud was knee-high. Fires broke out as if it were raining oil and gasoline. The mosque collapsed on top of those who sought refuge inside it, and not an hour passed in which there were no wails over a cow that had died or an old person who had frozen to death. My father said that our family was all saved because his grandfather, Shagara, locked them inside the house and said that whatever happened to them would be the predestined will of God.

  I remained silent day and night, watching the empty looks on people’s faces, and thinking that the winter was not going to end before bringing some ill fate.

  #

  Only a few people attended the funeral—the members of the workers’ union, ten or so workers, Hagg Luqman, and me, the only administrative employee of the shipyard who was there. Hagg Luqman sat next to me and I shrank uncomfortably in my seat. I had taken five hundred pounds of his money and hadn’t done anything to earn it. He had won the elections. He had known that he would win, and I didn’t know why he had squandered his money the way he had. He must have squandered quite a bit. If I received five hundred pounds for a small neighborhood like Dikhayla, then how much did the representatives of such neighborhoods as ‘Amriyya, Wardiyan, Mafruza, and Basal Port get?

  In the house we were received by a young man who looked very much like al-Dakruri. I learned that he was his brother. He sat with us in a small room, and his eyes were bloodshot. There was a shaykh who looked quite confused and kept gathering the wet tails of his outfit around his knees. He recited the Quran, his voice, his ears, and his hands all shaking. In the middle of the room was a marble-top table with a few candles stuck on it, since the electricity was still out. We could hear the rain falling outside, and some of the people whispered,

  “God have mercy on your worshippers.” Hagg Luqman appeared to me to be the most distressed.

  “Al-Dakruri was a fine young man,” he said.

  “He liked you too, Hagg, but we can’t object to the will of God,” replied al-Dakruri’s brother.

  What made Hagg Luqman go to Um Zughaib, near ‘Amriyya, to inspect the iron wares stored in the desert in this terrible rain? And why did al-Dakruri go with him? What kind of snake suddenly slithered out of its den and chose to bite al-Dakruri, of all the people accompanying Hagg Luqman, on the back of his hand? Hagg Luqman said that they were astounded to see al-Dakruri suddenly screaming and writhing on the ground, his right hand open and stiff and his left hand holding the wrist of the right. Then they saw the greenish yellow snake wriggle away slowly, unaware of, or indifferent to, what it had done. Hagg Luqman said that he immediately took al-Dakruri to ‘Amriyya Hospital in his Mercedes, which he drove himself, but that al-Dakruri had died on the way, even though the trip was only ten minutes in the Mercedes. Hagg Luqman finished his story by saying that the more he thought about the incident and about the way the snake looked, the more he was convinced that the snake had been sent to carry out God’s will.

  “Otherwise, we would not have been blinded to it,” he concluded, “and it would not have crawled away in such peace and calm afterwards.”

  When we left al-Dakruri’s house, we were met by the cold wind slapping our faces, and had to jog and hop in the rain, in the mud and the darkness everywhere.

  #

  “I’m sorry, but the rain kept me from visiting you earlier,” I said to Hassanayn when I visited him in March, more than a month after the rain had stopped.

  “Same here,” he said. “This was not normal rain. It was the wrath of God.”

  He was wearing a robe of red wool, and a woolen hat. He looked very healthy, and his face was as red as if he had been standing in front of a burning oven. He called out to his wife, Ibtihal, who then came into the room, preceded by a sweet fragrance.

  “This is Shagara, about whom I have told you,” he said to her before turning to me, “I talk about nobody other than you, Magid, and ‘Abd al-Salam. Is there any news of ‘Abd al-Salam?”

  I had gotten up to shake hands with her, and she had a very pleasant smile as we shook hands. I was confused by his question, which came just as I was about to congratulate her, and wasn’t sure whether I should answer or go on and congratulate his wife. Then I sat down and again said, “I’m really sorry, Hassanayn.” I felt really guilty. He was rubbing his hands together, and again called out to his wife, who returned carrying a china plate with a gray floral pattern. She placed the plate, which was covered in peeled oranges, on a low marble-top table in front of us. Then she left the room. Only a few minutes later he called her again and she came in with a similar plate of tangerines, then left. He called her again, and this time she came in with a plate of bananas. I was quite taken by the whole thing. I kept saying that this wasn’t necessary, and she only smiled while he insisted and then said, “Tea, Ibtihal, then coffee.” He kept offering me the fruits and insisting that I eat. I was a little hesitant, but I gave in to his adamant hospitality, and I ate and ate. The fruit tasted different from any I had eaten before, and I wondered if the fruit grown in Egypt had actually become sweeter or if it was just the warm and friendly family atmosphere surrounding me.

  I looked at the freshly painted walls and the simple inexpensive chairs. Everything in the room looked beautiful and well matched. I watched Hassanayn as he kept calling out to his wife with the delight of a small child. He received her with eyes full of joy, which followed her everywhere, as if Hassanayn were too happy to believe that she was real. I thought that he was acting as if he had created her himself, otherwise what was the reason for such rapture and pride?

  “So. What do you think of marriage?”

  I had expected him to repeat his earlier question about ‘Abd al-Salam, which I had not had a chance to answer. His wife smiled at me as she put the tea in front of us. He surprised me by asking her to fix us some dinner. This time I strongly objected, and Hassanayn’s wife was disturbed by my refusal. She blushed and, in a voice as soft as a gentle breeze, asked, “Why not?”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I gave up. Suddenly, Hassanayn turned to me and said, “Keep visiting us. I will find you a wife.”

  I saw his wife blush again, and felt my own ears on fire.

  #

  Why did he ask me to keep visiting him? My father, his grandfather, and their whole family were saved because they trusted their fates to the will of God. Is it right that I visit him because I wish to get married? My problem will be solved by He who does not sleep, Hassanayn, and whatever God has destined will be.

  Months passed, and on Labor Day I remembered al-Dakruri and almost cried. I still didn’t know what al-Dakruri wanted from me, or for me. Why had he remained silent about my crimes, which could have gotten him promoted to high heaven if he had reported on them?

  As usual, only the members of the workers’ union attended the Labor Day celebrations. Alexandria looked grim as the summer began with sand storms that engulfed the city in sand. I prepared my fishing equipment and bought a new reel. I thought of showering
Hassanayn and his gentle wife with gifts of Buri and Dinis fish. I didn’t know that I wouldn’t get a chance to go fishing.

  Usta Zinhum walked into my office. I had almost forgotten him and, maybe for that reason, I tried to receive him very warmly, and with a big smile. Suddenly he said, “You know, of course, that al-Dakruri is dead.”

  I smiled, but didn’t reply, so he went on: “The elections of the workers’ unions are going to be held next August, and we have nominated you to be the president of the shipyard’s workers’ union.” It took me a minute to grasp the meaning of what he’d said—president of the union. . . they nominated me!

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said. I looked at him for a few moments while I scratched my head with my left hand, and then asked again, “Me?”

  “Of course.” Then he smiled, and I smiled in turn.

  “It isn’t a puzzle, Mr. Shagara,” he said. “The decision has been made.”

  “Whose decision?”

  “Mine, and that of my fellow drivers and the other workers.”

  I leaned back in my seat and continued to inspect him. He was very fat, almost filling my entire office with his bulk. His words come out of his small mouth as if they were pouring out of a hole in a barrel, but he talked with such self-confidence that he seemed quite comical. I became very suspicious. I remembered the day when President Sadat returned from Camp David, and how Usta Zinhum and his fellow drivers conspired against me, and how he alone, or together with the rest of them, kept the money from the workers’ lunches for himself.

  “What is it that you really want?” I asked him.

  “Nothing. You are the best candidate for the position. Al-Dakruri didn’t serve the interests of the workers. He was an opportunist who worked for his own interest.”

  He remained silent for a few moments after this last statement. The man was talking politics. This creep was talking politics. Al-Dakruri, who had to give up smoking in order to get married, was an opportunist? Al-Dakruri, who was always pale with malnutrition, didn’t serve the workers? Al-Dakruri, who allowed me and this fat hyena to steal the shipyard’s money, was an opportunist who didn’t serve the workers?

  “Usta Zinhum, the days of the reception rallies are over,” I said. “The country is in a state of turmoil, as you know. Or don’t you know? Opposition, and civil strife, and every day a secret party is uncovered and dissolved—Muslims, communists, Libyan agents, Yemeni agents, and the President is insulting the people day and night. And you want me to run in the elections?”

  I watched him as he put out his lower lip, then he shrugged his left shoulder. He wanted to bring his mouth close to my ear but my desk and his huge pot belly kept him at a distance.

  “What’s all that to us?” he whispered.

  #

  The fishing equipment remained unused in a corner of the kitchen, covered with a layer of dust. Usta Zinhum had managed to wear me out. I discovered that he had more energy than I did. He always raced me into the workshops of the shipyard and called out to the workers to gather around me. They all shook hands with me with big smiles, but they never talked with me about anything. I expected them to ask a lot of questions of every kind, and to present demands, but they only smiled, shook my hand, wished me success, and then returned to their work.

  I felt the absurdity of my campaign tours and thought that a kind of idiocy was taking hold of us all. Usta Zinhum said that this was normal during any election campaign.

  “What is important is that the workers see you among them as much as possible,” he said. This was not easy to do, but Usta Zinhum somehow convinced the engineers and department managers to allow me into the workshops and laboratories. He formed a team of drivers who printed posters, fliers, and other campaign literature that bore some of the phrases I had repeatedly seen on posters for other electoral campaigns—“Shagara is the best to represent you,” and “Shagara is the workers’ advocate.”

  Why had I gotten myself into all this? I didn’t know. I just followed Usta Zinhum, who was always ahead of me. It was the first time that I’d seen all of the shipyard where I had been an employee for thirteen years—the long stretches of open space between the workshops, still pleasant despite the long tin sheets stored there, the large wooden boxes and the cranes in the air. In the workshops, I smelled the grease and oil on the floor and the workers’ clothes and smelled the welding materials and the melted iron. I saw workers moving around energetically and cheerfully, bending over the huge lathing and milling machines and the cutters for metal sheets in a manner that was both friendly and humble. Many of the workers had familiar faces because they had come to my office in the past asking for some certificate or document or wanting to file one with me. I discovered the value of my own work. It wasn’t just paperwork. Each of the files held a worker’s life. They told of raises, promotions, and wage cuts, of sickness, absence, marriage, and childbirth. I also discovered that among the workers of the shipyard, I was the best-known administrative employee.

  I spent a long time with a few workers while they assembled a ship. The sea breeze was blowing, entering our mouths and noses and going into our chests. The sea here wasn’t quite the same as the sea I saw from the balcony of my apartment. Here it bustled with white ships that filled the port, their short, stocky black chimneys, and the naked chests of their sailors glistening in the sunlight. The sun looked as if it were blessing this vigorous world and the waves hitting the piers sounded like sighs or a sweet lullaby.

  Every morning when I went to the shipyard I found some reason to renew my resolution to run for the elections, but at the end of every day, when I returned to my apartment with burning exhausted feet, I decided to quit. Usta Zinhum and several other drivers came to my apartment sometimes to talk about the need to buy a new piece of land on which to build new housing for the workers and the need to build a mosque in the middle of this piece of land. I only smiled and said, “Insha’ Allah.” They also said that I should get married so that I wouldn’t be lonely in my apartment. Usta Zinhum even surprised me once by saying that if I really wanted to get married, then I only had to tell him and he would take care of it all. He actually said that! I tried to ignore it. I nearly exploded and screamed at him that he shouldn’t forget that he was indebted to me, and that he was seeking some personal gains out of this whole campaign, whereas I had nothing to gain from the union and the workers’ problems. But I only changed the subject, telling him that I had little experience with the workers and their problems.

  “Has anyone asked you any questions?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Then there is no problem,” he said, and urged me to go to the cafés around the shipyard in such neighborhoods as Qabbari, Mafruza, and Wardiyan, where most of the workers lived. He said that this had only been done by the candidates for the People’s Assembly and the local councils, that it would guarantee my victory, and that it was especially important because some of the older members of the union were making a fuss over my nomination. He said that they were spreading rumors that I was, after all, a white-collar employee who knew little about the workers, that I was not one of them even if I didn’t have a college degree.

  This sounded like a serious matter, but I had a feeling that Usta Zinhum was lying. Nobody seemed very concerned about these upcoming elections, neither the union members nor the workers, the engineers or the managers. Everyone just shook my hand with a wide smile and wished me success. No one really discussed anything important or asked me why I was running. The only thing that left a significant impact on me was that I had spent more than a hundred and fifty pounds on publicity so far. I did what Zinhum wanted me to do, but I wasn’t going to retreat. Now I wanted to be the president of the workers’ union. My first decision as president would be that the shipyard never take part in reception rallies again. I would put an end to Usta Zinhum’s dreams.

  I began hanging out at cafés until midnight, when I would return to my apartment co
mpletely exhausted. All I found at the cafés were workers who were there to play backgammon or dominoes, cheer for the winner and boo at the loser. They always invited me to have tea or coffee, and I always insisted on paying for all the drinks. One of them turned to me once and said, “The most important thing, Mr. Shagara, is that you do something for Imbabi.”

  “Who is Imbabi?” I asked.

  “Don’t you know him?”

  “No.”

  He looked at his colleagues in disbelief and then said, “He is the oldest worker in this shipyard. His is quite a story. Poor Imbabi!”

  I remained silent, so he went on: “Fifteen years ago, when this shipyard was still a new project, the land was still part of the sea, which they were filling. Trucks came loaded with stones and dirt and dumped them into the sea. Imbabi was one of the workers who leveled the newly filled lands. He had just moved from the south with his younger brother. One day, his brother fell into the water and could not be rescued. The divers never found him, and the sea never threw the body back to the shore in any part of Alexandria. Since that day, Imbabi has never left the shore. He comes in before any of the other workers to sit in front of the water and call out: “Imbabi, Imbabi.” His brother too was named Imbabi. He slaps his cheeks and his eyes remain fixed on the water and the fishing lines he sets to catch fish. He sets several lines and ties the end of each line to a large rock so that the fish can’t run with the line. Every time one of the lines moves, he quickly pulls the fish out of the water, crushes it with a piece of stone, then throws it back, as far as he can, into the sea. At three o’clock exactly, Imbabi pulls his lines out of the water and prepares to leave with the other workers, his face red and his hands cut and scratched. He still doesn’t believe that his brother is dead, or that the fish that ate him will never bring him back. But how come you didn’t know about Imbabi?”