Badr continued, ‘You cannot just sit around doing nothing.’ He stressed the word sit, making it sound unpleasant.
Shukry took the hint.
‘I am a heavy guest, cousin. I should consider this farming job so that I can relieve you.’
Badr murmured the conventional, ‘Don’t say that, man. My home is your home.’ But it was clear that he didn’t mean any of it.
He stood up to get ready for the Isha prayer. It was getting late and Radwan had curled up on the bed next to him and slept. If Hanniyah didn’t wake him up for supper, he would pass the night with an empty belly, waking up at dawn ravenous.
‘Cousin,’ Shukry said.
Badr turned around.
‘Yesterday I had a twenty piaster note in my wallet. I left it with my belongings in the room and today I can’t find it.’
The sentence felt heavy to Badr’s ears. He turned stern, his schoolteacher self. ‘You must have misplaced it or it’s in one of your pockets.’
Shukry shook his head. ‘I looked everywhere for it. Someone must have taken it.’
Badr bristled. ‘You know very well that apart from us no one goes into the room. No strangers come here.’
Shukry looked him straight in the eye. ‘I want my money back. I don’t know who took it.’
Badr lost his temper. ‘Be careful Shukry, in what you are insinuating.’
Shukry gave a little laugh. ‘Why are you angry? Little boys can be naughty.’
Badr remembered the blue and gold marble in Osama’s hand. He became even more angry, and bellowed, ‘Osama, Osama, come here!’
The boy stood in front of them. In the lamplight, his skin was sallow and his rib cage stood out.
‘Did you take money from Uncle’s Shukry’s wallet?’
‘No, Father,’ came the automatic response.
‘Are you sure, Osama? Did Bilal or Radwan?’
‘No, Father, they’re too young.’
‘Too young,’ Shukry interrupted. ‘But you’re not too young. You could have shown them what to do. You could have set them up. If you did this, Osama, you had better own up.’
‘I didn’t do anything, Uncle.’ Osama was looking scared now, caught between his father’s glare and the guest’s.
Badr grabbed his son by the shoulder. ‘I will spank you hard, Osama.’
The boy burst into tears. ‘I didn’t do it! I didn’t do anything. I swear.’
Hanniyah stepped into the lamplight, the baby propped on her hip. Strands of her hair hung loose from her kerchief and she radiated heat as if she had been sitting over the stove, not only stirring the pot, but rousing herself for battle.
‘No one calls my son a thief!’ she shouted. ‘Do you hear me? No one!’
Badr surrendered to the realisation that the evening was not going to pass well. He should say, ‘Shut up, woman!’ but instead he let her speak her mind. He unleashed her, she who was his inner self, his unrestrained half; he let her loose on this burden of a guest.
VI
On the last day that Soraya loved the sea, she was wearing her new blue dress, a dress that was made by a Greek dressmaker in Alexandria. It was the perfect beach dress, fresh watery blue and white splashes and a crisp white bow pinching her waist. Everyone said she was pretty. On the beach, under an orange umbrella she sat squinting from the sun, alert to the crescendo and break of the waves. With her were Fatma, Nassir, and their two children. They were waiting for Nur to join them. The long academic year was over and he had excelled in his Cambridge entrance examinations. He was now with some of his Victoria College friends who had not yet dispersed for the summer. Nassir was dozing in his deckchair, the newspaper he had been reading collapsed on the bulge of his stomach. He was too large for the shirt he was wearing and perspiring in spite of the breeze. Fatma looked out of place wearing her pink to be and annoyed that the children were kicking sand in her face. She preferred shopping to the beach. She would have been happier in Cairo, but Soraya adored the Alexandria lifestyle: the waking up late to the sound of the waves, and the aromas of a heavy breakfast. Waking up to the knowledge that all through the night Nur had been asleep on the couch in the living room, just outside the door, steps away from where she and the children slept. After coffee they would stroll across the Corniche, walk down the steps to the beach, hire an umbrella and some deckchairs, then settle down. Picking off from yesterday, the children were digging a canal. Zeinab, who was five, walked backwards and forwards filling her pail with seawater and dumping it in the hole. The sticky, pliant sand tempted even Fatma and Soraya to mould it into shapes.
‘Don’t spoil my canal,’ said Zeinab, sounding serious and bossy like her grandmother Waheeba. Her baby brother toddled after her, panting a little, small and soft in this vast expanse of sun, sea and sky.
Waiting for Nur suited Soraya. The anticipation made her eyes bright and her skin radiant. This was the best summer ever, because Idris had stayed behind in Sudan. Even Uncle Mahmoud and Nabilah were held up in Cairo. So day and night, in this most wonderful of cities, Soraya and Nur were chaperoned by the most indulgent and inefficient of patriarchs – Nassir Abuzeid. Yesterday he had given them permission to go the cinema. Alone. Fatma had protested and nearly persuaded him to withdraw his consent, but Nur and Soraya made a dash for it and were out of the door before Nassir could change his mind.
In the silver darkness of the cinema, during the boring newscast before the film began, Nur whispered to Soraya and made her giggle.
‘Baranah. I can’t believe we are by ourselves! Baranah.’
The theme of this summer, its signature tune, were the lyrics: I love you, Soraya . . . I love you, too.
‘Will you marry me?’
This he said in English. It sounded formal and made her laugh. Who else would she marry? Who else could she marry? Her father, who in her eyes was a villain thwarting her every desire, would not dare, in his meanest of streaks, deny her the son of his eldest brother.
She put on her new glasses to watch the film. They were brand new and made her see as well as everyone else. The glasses were part of the summer. Away from her father and his disapproval, she had gone with Fatma to an eye doctor, chaperoned by the ever-generous Nassir, who paid all the bills and promised that he would never, drunk or sober, say a word to anyone lest it reached Idris. The prescription, tailored specially for Soraya, was superior to that of the pair Nur had given her all those months ago in Umdurman and instead of heavy, thick frames, these were petal shaped, delicately feminine, with a slight point on each side and a dash of glamour provided by a gold stud in each corner. Nassir paid for this fancy pair of ladies’ spectacles. He was in the best of positions – he was with funds. After months of reducing his allowance in Medani, his father had relented and given him his usual lavish holiday supplement. Nassir hired himself a motor car, made contacts with his friends who were also summering, and threw himself into the nightlife entertainment of downtown Alexandria. Fatma’s protests were silenced with enough money to keep her shopping every day, and Soraya’s glasses, too, were a bribe, to buy her goodwill and support. When she wore them she felt sophisticated, like a woman of twenty-eight, not a schoolgirl. They made her look intelligent, as if she had graduated from university and had opinions.
‘I want to start smoking,’ she whispered to Nur. ‘I want a cigarette.’
‘Now?’
He was taken aback. Sometimes she glimpsed a childish sweetness in him, a simplicity that was embedded and would not go away with time and age.
‘Well, no. But one day.’
It was the glasses that made her crave a cigarette between her fingers. She wanted the sophisticated look, high heels . . .
‘Shush and watch the film,’ he said, squeezing her arm and guiding her mind back to the opening credits.
Fareed Al-Atrash’s latest film was his best and they floated out of the cinema with the tunes playing in their heads, the lyrics jumbled and half memorised. The Corniche was lively with lights and
street vendors, the waves a background rhythm with the frills of their white foam a decoration. It was as if no one was asleep. Even the children, odd in their clothes after the beach nakedness of the day, their faces shiny with sunburn, were grabbing popcorn, candy floss and grilled corn as if they had not eaten all day. The breeze lifted dresses, and if Soraya had straight hair, it would have got tossed and tangled. Nur held her hand and they walked arm in arm like other couples did, unthinkable in Sudan or in the presence of anyone they knew. Here, husbands and wives linked arms, whereas back home they did not even walk side by side. This was what Soraya wanted for them, to be a modern couple, not to be like Fatma and Nassir each in their separate world.
She said to him, ‘I wish we could stay here forever. When you graduate, ask Uncle Mahmoud to let you work in the Cairo office.’
‘It’s dull in the Cairo office,’ he said. ‘The real work is in Sudan.’
‘But it is so much fun here!’
She was used to pleading for what she wanted, for her whims and passing fancies. And she knew the need to wait for what she wanted, while continuing with the gentle application of pressure. But she sensed a restlessness in Nur, even before he spoke.
‘Let’s go back home. If we’re too late, there will be a row.’ There was something he wasn’t telling her, but she would tease it out of him.
‘What’s the hurry?’
She stopped walking as if to make a point and sat on the low stone ledge that separated the Corniche from the beach below.
‘You’d laugh,’ he said, his hands in his pocket.
‘I won’t, I promise.’
People passed and left bits of their conversations; words in Greek and Arabic, French and English.
He looked down and said in a low voice, ‘I want to write down the lyrics from the film’s songs before I forget them.’
She had promised not to laugh and it was an easy promise to keep.
‘I can help you. I can jog your memory.’
‘No. I want to do it myself.’
There were corners in him that she didn’t have access to. The part of him that wrote the poems, his masculinity, and a purity she did not share. Inside her was selfishness and impatience, unforgiveness and self-pity, all camouflaged by a wholehearted love for others and a delightful femininity. Her nature was immature and wobbly, faults that a mother’s sound care would have corrected.
On the last afternoon that she loved the sea, she walked with Nur on the beach. She did not have her glasses on, but that was all right; there was nothing detailed she needed to focus on, nothing tricky. Nur had arrived without his friends, had left them behind in Sidi Bishr so that he could be with her. On the way he had gone to change and was now wearing his swimming trunks and a white shirt. They walked along the edge of the water because Soraya had seen other couples do that and she wanted to imitate them. Her arm brushed against Nur’s arm. They were the same height, the same build, the same colour. Their feet pushed into the wet sand and once in a while the froth of a wave would encircle their ankles. The beach was not flat. It dipped gradually to the water and, in other places, steeply, yet the stronger waves reached up higher and further. The beach was scattered with umbrellas. Each had a different design but they were all colourful and gay. Rainbow stripes, polka dots, bright greens and the orange Abuzeid umbrella they were walking away from had different shades like the segments of an orange.
He said, ‘Why don’t you swim?’
The red flag was hoisted today, which meant that the sea was boisterous but swimming was still allowed. A black flag meant keep away, and when the white flag fluttered, the sea was calm as a carpet.
She lifted her dress up to her knee as a wave splashed up and reached them.
‘I don’t have a bathing suit.’
‘We’ll go and buy you one.’
She laughed and dropped her dress. Their feet were imprinted in the wet sand and the imprint would last until the next strong wave.
‘I don’t know how to swim.’
‘I’ll teach you.’ He held her hand, which meant they were out of sight of Fatma and Nassir.
‘I knew you’d say this.’
‘Say what?’
‘Say you’d teach me.’ She had to raise her voice above the sound of the waves.
‘I am sure you will learn in no time.’
‘I don’t know any girls who swim.’
‘Not a single one?’
‘Not one.’ But she did not sound so certain. ‘Apart from Nabilah.’ Every summer Nabilah shocked the Abuzeid women by donning her striped navy swimsuit, pushing her hair in a white cap and striding into the waves. But Nabilah was Egyptian. ‘I wouldn’t be allowed to swim,’ said Soraya. She stopped walking and waved her hand towards the orange umbrella. ‘Have you seen Fatma this summer? She’s refusing even to wear a dress. Every summer since I can remember we come here and wear dresses. This time she’s saying she’s married, so she shouldn’t take off her to be!’
‘She was married last year and the year before. What got into her?’ He started to walk again.
She followed him. ‘Fatma would never allow me to wear a swimsuit.’
‘I’ll talk her into it.’
She believed him. He could do that.
‘My father would have a heart attack,’ she said with a giggle.
‘He’s not here. Tonight we’ll buy you the swimsuit and tomorrow your lessons start.’
She imagined a dazzling white swimsuit, her long legs bare on the sand, his eyes on them. She held his hand tight.
‘Is it difficult to swim?’
‘No, it’s easy. Diving is harder. I’ll teach you to dive too.’
She gasped and laughed at the same time. ‘Even Nabilah doesn’t dive.’
‘Why do you talk about her so much?’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes, you’re always going on – Nabilah does this, Nabilah said that.’
Soraya was taken aback. She did not want her admiration for Nabilah to be questioned, because it was not reciprocated. Nabilah had no time or sympathy for her, but Soraya was confident that she could win her over in time.
‘You’re still against her! You just don’t like her, do you?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Am I supposed to, when she causes my mother so much grief?’
‘She doesn’t mean to.’
‘She knew my father was married. She knew he had grownup children so why did she marry him? Because of his money, that’s why!’
He was blaming Nabilah to avoid blaming his father, but Soraya understood why her uncle had married Nabilah. She could imagine clearly his desperation to move from the hoash to a salon with a pretty, cultured wife by his side. Everyone loved Uncle Mahmoud, even though they were in awe of him. It made her say, ‘I would trade you my father for Uncle Mahmoud and Nabilah any day.’
He laughed. ‘Uncle Idris? Keep him.’
‘Do you hate him because he tore up your poem?’
‘And the things he said.’ He wasn’t smiling any more. ‘He certainly knew how to stop it in me.’
His bitterness did not surprise her.
‘Just ignore him and keep writing.’
He sat down on the sand and looked out at the sea.
‘It doesn’t come to me any more. As if it’s all gone dull inside. I read collections, I memorise whole poems, and I copy down the lyrics of songs that I like, but that poem he tore up was the last one I composed.’
She tucked her dress behind her knees and sat next to him.
‘Can’t you make yourself do it? Like homework?’
‘No, it’s not like that. Besides, I don’t care for it any more. No, that’s not true, I do care but I don’t have hope that I can amount to anything as a poet. After university, I am going to join the family business; I am not going to become a poet, so there is no point in wasting my time on it. Every family has a vocation. We are traders, not scholars or army men. We are men of the souq, not rulers or judges or engineers. Our great
-grandfather started with one dingy shop in the Souq Al-Arabi and look how far we’ve come. Father has invested so much in my education and Nassir is not pulling his weight. I can’t deviate and be something else.’
He sounded grown-up and realistic, pushing back childish dreams. But it still seemed sad and she did not know what to say to him. Should she console him or applaud him? His words were heavy, too serious for this golden beach and holiday breeze.
‘Come on, let’s walk back.’
He stood up and they turned, retracing their footsteps, surprised that in many places the smudged imprints of their feet were unruffled by the reach of the waves. She felt him soften next to her, settle back to his normal, easy mood.
‘I have big feet for a girl, nearly as big as yours! Sometimes in shops I can’t find my size.’
They measured their feet against each other. He dug his right foot in the sand and then she nestled hers in the imprint. His feet, they concluded, were slightly but definitely larger.
Nur picked up a shell. He brushed away the damp sand from it and made it look like ivory. It was flatter and wider than the shells the fortune tellers used back in Umdurman.
‘Have you ever had your fortune told?’ she asked.
‘Yes. It was all nonsense. I didn’t like it.’
‘Oh, I love to have my fortune told. It’s exciting.’
He smiled and put the shell in her hand, closed her fingers over it. They were quiet for a while, facing the direction of the orange umbrella and the moss-covered rocks, reluctant to traverse the distance.
‘Do you know what time Nassir came home last night?’ He was smiling. ‘Three in the morning. I know because he made such a clatter and woke me up.’
She laughed. She had started to feel kinder towards Nassir this summer, especially after he had purchased her glasses.
‘Next week Uncle Mahmoud will come and he’ll have to behave himself.’
‘Yes.’ Nur smiled. ‘No more parties and no more belly dancers.’
‘Belly dancers!’ Her eyes widened.
‘What did you think – that his nights were men only?’
Lyrics Alley: A Novel Page 8