Lyrics Alley: A Novel

by Leila Aboulela

  Badr was touched by these sentiments, but troubled by the inertia. It was a goodness that neither translated itself into useful action nor helped rein in indulgence.

  ‘Nassir, what we view as a setback might be a mercy in the long run, or a shield that deflects an even greater misfortune. We don’t know. Sometimes suffering in this world is a substitute for suffering in the Hereafter. Do you know Maulanna Abdullahi Ed-Dagestani?’

  There was no reply from Nassir. He continued to lie with his arm across his face.

  Badr continued, ‘He is a Sufi sheikh from Turkey. He said that everything in this world, small or large, was created for a reason. Even the smallest mosquito that bites people and makes them itch. There is wisdom behind that itch, in that it can be a substitute for a corresponding irritation in Hell. He said that every trouble we land in comes from a sin which would not be forgiven without that trouble.’

  Such purification Badr knew from personal experience. When he was ill with a fever, he would feel as if he were being blasted by the fumes of Hell. Then, afterwards, when the fever abated and left him weak, he would feel cleansed and grateful.

  Nassir had fallen asleep.

  Why do bad things happen? For pedagogical reasons, so that we can experience the power of Allah, catch a glimpse of Hell and fear it, so that we can practise seeking refuge in Him and, when relief comes give thanks for His mercy. Darkness was created so that, like plants, we could yearn and turn to the light. Badr had observed this in himself whenever one of the children were ill, or when he faced difficulties at work, or when his plans suffered a setback, or when he was thwarted or in pain. He became more receptive to the words of the Qur’an; he became more ardent in his supplications and more eager in his pleas. Now was such a time. In this lowliest of places, where his natural talent to impart a lesson had dimmed, it was time to lift up his palms and beg.

  The door swung open and the guard called out Nassir’s name. Badr shook him awake. Nassir staggered to his feet, leaning on Badr for support. He was dazed and relieved, eager to get away. His companions were ushered out with him and, although he did not give Badr a backward glance or a promise of help, Badr was comforted by his release. He stretched out on the floor and let his body relax.

  The cell seemed wider and airier now. Badr repeated to himself the verse, ‘. . . And give good tidings to the patient…’

  He was less agitated than before. Soon he was even able to let pleasant images come to his mind. Hanniyah feeding the new baby, her breast taut and larger than the baby’s head, her face radiant because she had so much wanted a girl.

  ‘Now I won’t be lonely,’ she had said. ‘Now I will have someone to help me around the house.’

  He smiled in the dark; the girl was only a few months old and already her mother had plans for her. Another image: Osama boasting that he had studied so hard for the end of year examination that he would come top of his class. The utter joy on little Ali’s face when he saw Badr come home from work. Such total trust. Little Ali was jealous that his older brothers went back and forth to school with Badr.

  Badr dozed and dreamt that he was back in Egypt, in the fields of Kafr El Dawar. Palm trees rose high, and all around him was green. His father was ploughing the land, strong and healthy, his sharp eyes missing nothing. Badr was young, but not a child, holding the results of his baccalaureate in his hand. He had walked down to the fields to show the diploma to his father, but now he paused to watch his father’s deft movement, the muscles on his forearms and neck, the sweat gathering on his brow. Then his father turned and drew him close. They hugged, and the paper wasn’t necessary any more. His father knew that his studious son had passed with flying colours. He was going to the Teacher Training Institute, he was going to become an effendi and wear a clean suit and a fez. People would treat him with respect because he was a learned man.

  Badr and his father walked arm in arm to the canal. His father was beaming and proud. My son, Badr, my son got his baccalaureate, he boasted to passers-by. Men congratulated them and moved away. The two of them sat at the edge of the water but in the strange way of dreams they were now in the water, without having moved towards it. His father splashed, his father ducked his head and raised it, the water matting his hair and turning it a darker colour. Badr sat quite still, feeling the warmth lap around him, through to his skin and up to his chin. Water. . . Someone was nudging his shoulder, shaking him awake. Badr remembered where he was and sat up straight.

  ‘Cousin.’

  The voice was unmistakable, but the face was a distorted approximation of Shukry’s. One eye was swollen to the extent that it was completely closed. The lips were cracked and bleeding, the cheeks were bruised.

  ‘What happened? Who did this to you?’

  ‘Your neighbours. I went home and your family raised a hullabaloo. The neighbours rounded on me and brought me here.’

  His neighbours believed in his innocence. The Sudanese rallied at the end, though they were dumbstruck when he was taken away! Good for you, Hanniyah, that you roused them and didn’t let the culprit get away.

  ‘How could you, Shukry?’ His voice was thick. ‘How could you bring stolen goods into my house?’

  Shukry spat out blood and phlegm.

  ‘Don’t get all pious on me now. I’m in no mood for your lectures and I curse the day I ever came to this country.’

  ‘You! And what should I say?’

  ‘Don’t be self-righteous, Badr. You think you helped me! Was that a job you got me? I hated it! Cleaning that boy’s shit and getting up at night to turn him over so he doesn’t get bed sores. He’s a useless pack of bones and it’s disgusting. He blubbers and expects everyone to feel sorry for him. Not me! I’d gladly put a revolver to his head. I’ve seen worse in the war, and those unlucky bastards had nothing to fall back on. Our prince, though, doesn’t even have to lift a finger to earn a living. This family has so much money, they don’t know what to do with it. That mother of his had more gold than what I took. Double the amount. I saw it—’

  Badr interrupted him. ‘Stop this chatter and tell me what’s going to happen now. Did the police tell you anything?’

  ‘You only care about yourself! You’re incriminated, though. They think we were in this together.’

  Badr did not rise to the bait. ‘Mahmoud Bey and the family know I have nothing to do with this.’

  Shukry snorted. ‘The police won’t disturb the Bey in the middle of the night.’

  Neither would Nassir. There was no hope in expecting any help from his direction. Badr stood up and looked out of the window.

  ‘I need to get to the school.’

  ‘You’ll wallow here for days till someone remembers you. Listen, cousin,’ Shukry’s voice became sharp, ‘I have an idea. We’ll tell them that Waheeba gave us the jewellery.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Badr scanned the sky. It was not yet dawn.

  ‘Yes, yes! We’ll tell them that she arranged with us to get a cure for her son – we were to recruit a special spiritual healer from Egypt who’s been known to perform miracles. She’s desperate, she’d do anything! And then, when the healer couldn’t fix the boy, she got angry and said I stole her jewellery.’

  Badr sat down again. He listened to Shukry’s desperate plan, his shrewd stupidity, and he felt no anger towards him, only disappointment. When he was first dragged here, he would have beaten Shukry, if he had found him. Now he was sitting calmly next to him, listening to him prattle and fabricate. Perhaps this was forebearness and turning the other cheek. With an ache, he remembered the flat he had wanted from Mahmoud Bey. A dream, an aspiration that had kept him company for over a year. It would be sensible to bury all hope now, here in the floor of this Khartoum jail.

  XVI

  Evening withdraws…

  The poem comes out of him in what is like a sneezing fit; expectation, tickle, build up, congestion, then burst, release, relief and, afterwards, that good tingling feeling. Structure and a play of words, his
yearning for Soraya now has a shape. He tests the words on his tongue. The stars know what is wrong with me.

  It is the dark hours before dawn. Everyone else in the hoash is asleep. Nur had been looking up at the clouds, watching the night sky pinned up with stars. He had been feeling sorry for himself, the tears rolling into his ears in the most irritating way, and then down to wet his hair. There is no need at this time of night to hold them back or blink them away. But when the poem comes out of him, they stop of their own accord. They dry up and do not leave a mark. These tears, he thinks, are like everyone else’s tears, identical. They do not express his particular anguish or narrate what happened to him. Travel caused my tribulations. It sounds good. It feels different. This is partly because of its mix of Sudanese colloquial and classic Arabic, a fusion of formal language and common everyday words. He had written poems before, juvenilia, imitations of grand words striving awkwardly to rhyme. But now this, in his mother tongue. The colloquial words squeezing out of him, out of the accumulation of the past months, all that he knows so well and didn’t know before. The words are from inside him, his flesh and blood, his own peculiar situation. In you, Egypt, are the causes of my injury. And in Sudan my burden and solace.

  He hears the dawn azan from the nearby mosque, yet there is no sign of light, no birds singing, no cocks crowing. The prayer foreshadows the day, a challenge to believe that this darkness will soon be chased away by light. The first inkling of dawn is reminiscent of white moonlight, but soon the sky moves from navy to grey, the stars disappearing one by one. Yet still the birds are silent and he waits for them to sing, knowing they will sing. He can now see the neem branches and the corner of the saraya’s rose beds, jasmine trellises and eucalyptus trees. He can hear men walking down the alley, coming back from the mosque. The sky becomes pale blue. One bird sings and the others follow. They become loud and insistent, frenzied, as if they had forgotten that they sang yesterday and will sing the next day. The hoash stirs into life: the same noises, the same sights. Someone spitting out water . . . they are making wudu or brushing their teeth.

  A cough, a shuffle of feet, a clutter of tin and the thud of bedding folded up for the day. His mother heaves herself to a sitting position, a mound on the angharaib, regaining her equilibrium, before she finally stands up. All this is familiar, the stuff of everyday. The kettle of tea on the coal fire and the sound of the donkey cart which delivers milk. But today is different. Nur has written words, not with his hands but with his head. He has composed a poem and he knows, deep down, he knows that it is a good poem. Very good perhaps; even, if he is lucky, excellent. He likes it. He wants others to hear it and like it. It might look different on the page. It might need bolstering in one end or changing a word here or there. But still, it is good, it is strong. This is the plan for the day then. Before Zaki sets out to school, Nur will dictate the poem to him.

  ‘Who’s the poet?’ drawls Zaki.

  He is sleepy and hasn’t yet brushed his teeth. He thinks Nur is reciting a poem from memory, one of the many he knows.

  ‘Guess!’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He yawns, and lays the copybook out for Nur to examine. They are still out in the hoash; soft sunshine, soft breeze. The birds have sung their guts out and settled down. A dove comes close to Nur’s bed to drink water from an old tin pot Zaki had left out. The tea is boiling and smells of cardamom. It is the freshest time of the day.

  ‘I thought you were clever!’ Nur smiles. The poem, written down, looks definitely like a poem. Raw words made formal and clear in Zaki’s schoolboy handwriting.

  Realisation sharpens the boy’s eyes.

  ‘It’s you!’ He is wide awake now. ‘Swear to God it’s you?’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ says Nur, not yet at least, he wants to savour the moment. ‘And light me a cigarette, will you, before you go.’

  Zaki dips his rusks in tea, gulps it down laden with sugar and crumbs and rushes off to school. At nine o’clock he will come home again for breakfast. Beans with sesame seed oil, tomatoes, onions and cumin. Nur likes to see him come and go, he likes to go over his lessons with him and hear him playing football in the alley with the neighbourhood boys. But best of all, he likes it when Zaki becomes his right hand, writing down his words and turning pages for him.

  The hour after sunrise is not Nur’s favourite time of day. He has started to hate tea because he cannot sip it with a straw and it takes too long for his mother or whoever’s turn it is to reach the small glass to his lips for sip after sip. The soggy warm rusks, heavy with sweet tea, are easier to eat. Then he is carried indoors for the daily humiliation of diaper change, enema, botched attempts at shaving, water cascading his body for a bath, the drops running unnoticed over his lower body. Only on his face and shoulders, which belong to him, does he feel it as a familiar substance – water from the Nile. He swirls toothpaste in his mouth and spits it in a plastic bowl. No one can brush your teeth for you as well as you can yourself. When the ordeals of hygiene are over – and it feels quicker today, because today is a special day – he is carried out to the hoash again, feeling clean and comfortable. He closes his eyes and sleeps. He sleeps despite the clatter around him, the voices in the alley, the peddlers and tradesmen, beggars and visitors. He sleeps because he had been up half the night working. Working – what a beautiful word, what a blessing! He had been up half the night working on his poem.

  Days pass…

  Hajjah Waheeba’s gold is retrieved and news reaches the hoash of Ustaz Badr’s arrest. After much commotion, the matter is eventually settled. The culprit is sentenced and his innocent cousin is released. But Badr keeps away from the Abuzeids out of shame, and Nur misses his Arabic teacher. He wants him to come back so that he can show him his poem. He has made changes to it over the days. It is stronger and longer. And it has a title now: Travel is the Cause, a poem by Nur Abuzeid.

  Soraya has seen the poem. He has sent her a copy with Zaki. She is busy studying for her exams and rarely comes to visit. She sends him a note:

  ‘This is the best poem I have ever read in my life. I want to look in your eyes, while you recite it . . .’

  He replies with lines that do not yet form part of a poem. They are homeless and, in an artistic way, immature. Your portrait is enveloped in my heart. I remember and I will narrate how our love was struck by the evil eye.

  Zaki carries this fragment to Soraya, running down the alley as spring turns to a scalding summer. He bumps into Idris and, when questioned, acts guilty and flustered. Suspicions aroused, Idris frisks him down and finds My solace is your dreamy smile, your braids dipped in darkness. Soraya’s name is not on the paper, neither is Nur’s.

  ‘Who wrote this rubbish?’

  ‘Me,’ Zaki croaks. It is his handwriting and he can’t deny it.

  Idris gives him a good hiding, one the poor boy will never forget.

  ‘If I ever find you carrying around such nonsense, I will send you back to Sinja, school or no school!’

  Days pass, followed by nights . . .

  In the battle of the co-wives, his mother scores a victory. It is true – Nabilah has flounced off to Cairo, taking her children. Waheeba beams, smug and triumphant. There is no chance in a million that Mahmoud will ever come back to her, but she is gleeful, nevertheless.

  Days pass, days and nights . . .

  No secret can be kept in that hoash, even if the secret is a poem. Nassir brings over his friends to visit Nur, particularly those friends who have an interest in poetry. One of them has had a poem published in the newspaper. He recites it, and then it is Nur’s turn to recite his poem. He needs nothing written down; it is all in his head. Everyone listens and murmurs appreciation. Waheeba and her girls are flustered at this influx of male visitors who are not family members. They should not be so exposed, but no one has sorted out the logistics of a screen. The women move with their cooking utensils to the dim far corner of the hoash. They fry and stir and Zaki staggers back and forth
carrying the dinner trays. The heat is intense, even this late at night. Water is sprinkled on the ground time and time again. It dries immediately, after releasing a tepid coolness. Even the water from the zeer is not cold enough.

  Days pass, days and nights . . .

  In July comes the first hint of rain and with it news of the revolution. King Farouk has been deposed by an army coup. The Free officers are keen to resolve the Sudan problem and representatives of the Sudanese parties are invited to Egypt for talks. Everyone who visits Nur speculates about the future. Overnight, it seems, independence is near.

  *

  Nur’s best friend, Tuf Tuf, is back in town. The last time they saw each other was at the hospital in Alexandria. The last time they played football together was at the season’s final in Victoria College. Tuf Tuf hugs Nur. He sits on the edge of his bed and says, ‘No one has called me Tuf Tuf since I left school.’

  Because he is transparent, he can barely hide his dismay at Nur’s condition. Because he is an optimist, he had hoped Nur would be better, despite what others had told him. And, against all the odds, he had hoped that Nur would be able to punch him affectionately on the shoulder again.

  It is an emotional moment. Nur is as eager as a child, grinning with joy at his well-travelled friend, his been-there-and-back schoolmate. Which of them is older now? What ages you faster, suffering or experience?

  ‘Look at you!’ says Nur. ‘You’ve become light-skinned. You don’t see the sun any more?’

  ‘What sun? It’s freezing in Dublin, freezing!’ Tuf Tuf shivers at the memory. ‘I had to move out of the university halls into private lodgings just so that I could get decent heating. And even then there were nights I had to sleep in my corduroys and two sweaters!’