The House of Jasmine

by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

  The story, in fact, came as a complete surprise to me, and for a few moments, I thought that the worker was lying, but another worker said, “What do you want him to do for Imbabi? The shipyard still pays him his salary even though everyone knows that he hasn’t worked in fifteen years. Do you want him taken to the mad house? The man is old and has lost his teeth and most of his eyesight. He will die sooner or later.”

  #

  That night, I heard a movement in the apartment next to mine. The next morning was Friday and I woke up early even though I had become accustomed to sleeping later since I decided to run for the elections. I stood on the balcony with the idea of watching the sea, but I saw four pretty young women hanging their wash out on their balconies and exchanging greetings. So the building had filled with neighbors who had come to know each other. What a terrible thing I was doing to myself—I, who came home in the middle of the night dragging my feet like two sacks of sand, woke up early, when the men who had these beautiful wives were still asleep! I thought that exhaustion was of two types: one makes you go to sleep just to get rid of it, like a machine that is turned off to rest for a while, which is what I did, and another that puts you to sleep and takes you to the land of sweet dreams, and that type was for the husbands of these women.

  #

  The date of the elections drew near. All I cared about then was that they would be over so that I could get some rest. I had already spent two hundred pounds on publicity. I had no way out of it now. I consciously avoided going near the sea in my tours. I didn’t want to see that Imbabi. In fact, I sometimes became very enthusiastic about the campaign despite the indifference that prevailed around me. I was overcome by a strong desire to win for a reason which I cannot reveal now. I didn’t notice that my visits to the different cafés often took me near Hassanayn’s house in Qabbari. Once, when I was sitting at the Lansh Café with a bunch of workers, all smoking ma’asil, their mouths opening strangely to blow out the smoke as they talked, I saw Hassanayn walking toward me with his pleasant smile, “You are here, so close to my house, and haven’t come to visit me?” he asked. I held his hand and invited him to sit down. A moment later he noticed the workers gathered around me and was a little confused.

  “Hassanayn, a friend of mine,” I said, introducing him.

  “We know him,” a few of them said. “It is only he who doesn’t know us.” They started telling him where each one of them lived while he became even more confused and started to blush. I was annoyed by this useless talk.

  “A campaign effort,” I said, and he only smiled. I knew that he didn’t believe me, or rather didn’t understand what I meant, but the workers started talking to him about their pride at being represented by me, telling him about the conspiracies against me and their efforts to sabotage these conspiracies and defend my reputation. “Mr. Shagara isn’t distant from the workers. He knows them better than anyone. He has the files, and the files have everything about everyone.” This was the first time I heard about any conspiracies against me. Hassanayn led me out of the café, and said: “Why didn’t you come over? Ibtihal chose two girls for you to meet, and we had it all arranged.”

  “I came more than once, and couldn’t find you, neither at home nor at the café. I told Magid about it and asked him what you were doing.”

  “Magid never told me a thing,” he said, and after a pause I asked, “What should we do now?”

  “Nothing,” he answered. “Both girls got married. It’s summertime, and the expatriates returning from the oil countries snatch up everything that isn’t nailed down!”

  That made me laugh, after my anxiety. It struck me that he was trying hard to help me, but I couldn’t be too upset with myself. As he was preparing to leave, he turned to me and said, “By the way, Hagg Luqman used to sit at this café in his early days. I will come visit you some day.”

  #

  I heard loud knocks on my door. I wondered who could it be at six o’clock on a Friday morning. For a moment I felt scared. I had no parents, siblings, or relatives who could be at the door. Annoyed, I went to open the door.

  “Garbage?” said the man who was standing there in an incredibly dirty galabiyya, with an old jacket over it and carrying a large basket. I was confused for a moment, then I said, “There isn’t any.”

  Then I closed the door and stood in the middle of the hallway. So a garbage collector is now coming to our building. It has filled with residents who have made such arrangements for daily life, and I didn’t know. Until the day before, I had been throwing my garbage into the sea. I needed sleep badly. The night before had been election night, and I had won with the highest number of votes. I went back to bed, and fell asleep immediately.

  10

  Two beggars sit near the public urinals in Dikhayla. One of them was once a well-known grade-school principal who used to open the school at night and force the teachers to lecture to the empty seats. The other was a butcher who heard a sheep cry between his hands as he was slaughtering it. He said that it was a ram sent by God from heaven. A few days ago, the two men became four.

  “How can you sleep when you are the president of the union?” Hassanayn cried as soon as I opened my door. I put out my hand to shake his, but I didn’t embrace him. He had not embraced me when I went to his house to congratulate him on his marriage.

  “A terrible summer flu,” I said. He held my arm and I leaned on him until I managed to return to the bedroom and lie down in bed. I pulled the covers over me, then asked him, “How did you know?”

  “By chance. One of the people I had met with you at the Lansh Café stopped me on the street, shook hands with me, kissed my cheeks, and then told me. He was very happy. Are you taking any medicine?”

  “I don’t like medicine. I just drink a lot of lemon juice.”

  We were silent for a few moments during which Hassanayn looked at the old furniture around the room. Why hadn’t I bought some new furniture? I had savings I wasn’t using. Hassanayn stood up, and his smile became wider, so I smiled back at him and said, “Don’t you dare suggest that we go to the café.”

  “I won’t,” he said, “but let’s at least go out on the balcony. This room is very grim, and it must be infested with germs. I have a sensitive chest, as you know. Besides, you won’t get better unless you expose yourself to sun and fresh air.”

  He pulled the comforter off of me and pushed it into a bundle at my feet. Then he tried to pull me by the arm.

  “All right! All right!” I said, laughing, but with difficulty, my whole body shaking. “I’ll get up.” I supported myself on my hand and sat up on the side of the bed. Hassanayn tried to pull me again, so I was forced to get up. I was about to lean on his arm when he moved it away.

  “Walk on your own. I will carry two chairs,” he said. “You’re not as sick as you think.”

  I walked to the balcony on my own, wondering about Hassanayn and his strange behavior.

  “It was the mistake of my life, Hassanayn,” I said as soon as we had seated ourselves on the balcony. “It really was. I can’t find time to work or sleep. They come to me here with their problems.”

  “Listen,” Hassanayn said, “I didn’t come here to listen to you complain. I came to tell you that we have several potential brides for you, so if you’re serious we should do something about it, and if not, then let’s just go to the café and forget all about it.”

  I watched him as he talked. I was happy to see him. He seemed to be more concerned about me than I was about myself.

  “Many things have changed for me since I got married,” he said. “The most important of them is that I don’t think alone anymore. My mind no longer goes on asking and answering questions until it’s exhausted. Now I think out loud. I talk to Ibtihal and then I feel better. Thinking is now a sweet exchange. You know what? I have noticed that women usually smile when they’re talking. Before my marriage, I had never noticed this. Your wife’s smile makes you relax and appreciate the beauty around you. At night,
when we’re in the same room, the light seems to be very bright. It becomes white, whiter than milk, and I feel the contentment of someone who has everything. I nearly forget that there are other people, other rooms, a whole world full of sadness and joy around me. Our room becomes an island in a sea of bright light.

  “I’m not trying to tempt you into marriage,” he went on. “You seem to be quite ignorant about life, but we have come to the point after which it is all downhill. Now we have to run to catch the train of normal people. It is a wonderful train, and on it you find real life, no matter how late. The real tragedy is if you miss it. Do you realize what it means for you to become forty years old without a son? It means, at the very least, that you will not live long enough to see him become a man. I don’t think that anyone in our generation will live to be more than fifty. The number of changes in the presidential cabinet that we have seen in our lifetime alone is enough to shorten the life of an elephant!”

  His last statement made me laugh, even though laughing made me ache. I was following what he said, amazed, and wondering what went through his mind to make him talk to me like this, as if I were opposed to the idea of getting married. But he went on: “Don’t laugh. I’m serious. Where do you think they get all these ministers? They must outnumber normal citizens. Anyway, this will all be to our advantage on the Day of Judgment. God will stand in front of all the people and ask each person what his or her nationality is. Egyptians will be allowed to enter heaven without judgment because of what they have suffered on earth, especially with the change of cabinets. Don’t laugh! In addition to our inevitable suffering, we also make things more complicated for ourselves, because we actually have it better than others. Each of us has a stable source of income. Magid has his pharmacy and can find an apartment if he wants to. ‘Abd al-Salam will return, and you’ll see that the first thing he’ll do will be to get married. We have an advantage over many people, and even they get married. They may complain about their inability to do so, but before long they invite you to their wedding. Then they go on living however they can, but never give up. They are a race of jinni children who can pass through the eye of a needle.

  “Besides, what’s keeping you from getting married?” he asked. My whole body was already rocking with laughter, and I was desperately trying to signal him with my hand to stop. “Don’t let the union make you believe that you are a great activist. That may happen. Weren’t you arrested for political activism? You must know that this isn’t your kind of thing. Holy Yahya is more suited for it than you are, and ‘Abdu al-Fakahani is the best of all. Even if you want to be an activist you need to get married. Napoleon was married, and so was Lenin, Sa’ad Zaghlul, and even the prophet Muhammad, who set a record. And why should I go so far? President Nassir was married and had children. Huh! President of the workers’ union! Who cares? Hagg Luqman has become a member of the People’s Assembly. God damn you, bastard!”

  I was completely overcome by both laughter and coughing. Hassanayn looked as if he had just taken a weight off his shoulders, and he sat back with a satisfied smile on his face. I remembered the five hundred pounds, but only went on looking at the sea in front of us. The waves were smooth and the sea seemed to be asleep and dreaming. There was a refreshing breeze in the air. September was holding on to the last summer breezes, while cautiously opening the door for fall. I felt that sitting here might cure me of the damned flu. I felt that I was not sitting with Hassanayn alone, but with Magid and ‘Abd al-Salam as well. Oh, how we all loved each other without even knowing it.

  “Can you believe that it has been almost a year since I last saw Magid?” I asked. “We are only five minutes away from each other, but for some reason I don’t go to see him, and he doesn’t come to see me either.”

  “I saw him at the pharmacy before I came to see you,” he said as he stood up. “I was upset with him because he had not told you about the two girls, but he said that he had come to see you twice, but you were out. He also said that every day he thought of passing by to see you, but then hesitated, thinking that maybe you would come by his pharmacy, until he forgot about the whole thing.”

  “Hassanayn, please,” I implored. “I can’t laugh anymore.”

  “Then don’t laugh,” he said.

  “O.K. O.K. Have you ever known me to be a liar?”

  “The biggest liar in Egypt and the whole Arab world as well.”

  “O.K., but now I want you to believe me. I only want two things: the first is to get married and the second is to quit the union.”

  #

  I went to visit Hassanayn, and he wanted me to choose one of two women: the first was a beautiful young widow, who wore a veil and had an apartment, a child, and a large bank account left to her by her former husband, who had drowned in the Tigris. The second was a typist who was not as pretty as the first. The widow was twenty-four, while the unmarried woman was twenty-six. Hassanayn innocently told me that ever since I had told them the story about the man who threw his furniture into the sea, he had been thinking of finding me a wife, and that he had been serious when he mentioned it the first time. He also whispered to me that if Ibtihal hadn’t been his cousin, he would have preferred me to himself and let me marry her, because he saw me as a child who is lost in the desert. He was not serious about what he said, but I still felt embarrassed. First he had thought that I didn’t want to get married, then he thought that I was incapable of finding a wife. He had done all but take my hand and wander down the streets calling out: “A woman for this miserable man!” This paternal attitude of Hassanayn’s annoyed me, but I still said that I wanted to see the unmarried woman. Hassanayn laughed when I told him my choice and said in a voice that was loud enough for his wife to hear: “The widow’s husband drowned in the Tigris. Is this our fault? And why did he have to swim in the Tigris in the first place? Couldn’t he have swum in the Euphrates?” I heard his wife laugh in the next room. I hadn’t thought that the unmarried woman was better than the widow; it was more like a random choice. Perhaps if I had thought about it carefully, I would have realized that the widow was better. She was prettier, richer, and already had a child who would therefore be easier to raise. Who knows? I thought that maybe I would be like my father, unable to have a child for twenty years. We made an appointment for me to see the woman the following week.

  #

  The day on which I had planned to quit the union drew near. I had been thinking about quitting since the very first day after I had won the elections, but couldn’t reveal my thoughts. To be honest with you, there were times when I changed my mind, but for the most part, I could not stand what I had to handle: absences, sicknesses, social aid, dismissal warnings, requests for leaves, organizing recreational trips to Port Said, suggestions for literacy classes and other classes to help the workers’ children with their school work. Where had all these responsibilities been and how come no one had mentioned them to me before the elections?

  I spent my days running between the various workshops and administrative offices of the shipyard. I finally realized why al-Dakruri had been so thin and pale, and thought that his death was inevitable. If the snake hadn’t bitten him, he would still have died soon from a heart attack. My office was always full of workers who came in to tell me about their problems, but also took the opportunity to chat and enjoy a few laughs. I didn’t have time to take care of the employees’ files, which became covered with cobwebs and made my office look like a haunted house.

  My apartment filled with workers who thought that a private meeting with me could help them get a promotion. Usta Zinhum always brought so many of them that I sometimes wondered if he were not just bringing people off the streets. My time and energy were completely wasted on these new responsibilities. I wasn’t used to this mess. I was used to silent papers placed in neat files that I could open at any time. I arranged them and changed things in them and they never objected.

  At the end of one long day, as I was getting ready to leave the office, Usta Zinhum ca
me running in. He was sweating and out of breath. I suddenly wished I had a bed in my office so that I would never even have to leave!

  “A crisis, Shagara,” he said. “A real crisis.”

  I felt my whole body tingling. He had just called me by my name without bothering to use Mr. or any other title.

  “What happened, Usta Zinhum?” I asked.

  “Imbabi is dead.”

  “Imbabi who?”

  “Imbabi. Don’t you know him?” He pulled up a seat and sat down, then said to me, “Have a seat first.”

  I had already remembered Imbabi, about whom one of the workers had told me during my campaign, when Usta Zinhum said, “Imbabi, the lunatic. He was found dead on the beach, his body surrounded with crushed fish, his mouth reeking with the smell of fish and covered with clotted blood. Now dozens of workers are gathered around the body. They say that he had recently started to eat the fish raw, and that today he ate so much that it bloated him. The problem is that nobody knows his address or any of his relatives.”

  I pointed at the files and asked him to look under “I” and “M,” then sat back in my seat and let my arms relax to my sides. The round man bounced like a rubber ball and soon he pulled out a file, placed it in front of me, and opened it.

  “The file only has one page,” he said. I looked at the sheet of paper, which only had his name, age, job, and salary at the time when he was first hired. There was no address, and there was nothing to indicate any change in his life: a marriage, a promotion, sickness, punishment, transfer. Nothing. There was only one yellowed sheet of paper, partially eaten by weevils.

  “This is what I expected. The union will take care of his burial,” Usta Zinhum said while I watched him silently. I wanted to slap him on the face, he who knew everything, that spy!