Lyrics Alley: A Novel

by Leila Aboulela

  Nur listens to stories of student life at Trinity College, to parodies of Tuf Tuf’s landlady and how his allowance dries up days after it arrives and he is in debt for the rest of the month. Nur laughs out loud. Tuf Tuf’s charm is in the way he swings from bashful to extrovert. One minute he is silent, sad about Nur, the next he is singing out loud, ‘In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone . . .’

  ‘Confess then,’ Nur says, ‘confess your adventures with the ladies.’

  Tuf Tuf lowers his voice. ‘There’s a shop girl who’s taken a shine to me – she works in the hat department. But I told her upfront, I said I don’t want complications, and your people will shun you for going out with a black man and, at the end of the day, I’m going back to Sudan where I will marry a girl my mother chooses for me . . .’

  ‘Coward!’ Nur cries out.

  ‘No, I just want to enjoy my life,’ his friend protests. ‘So I keep everything light-hearted. I go dancing . . .’

  ‘Dancing!’ Nur’s eyes shine. He grabs Soraya by the waist . . .

  ‘I’m nimble on my feet,’ Tuf Tuf boasts, his body loosening up. ‘All the girls want to dance with me. I tell you, no one can out-dance me. I can keep going all night – and the following morning, how my legs ache! I almost can’t get out of bed, I feel like a cripple!’ He stops, overcome with embarrassment.

  Nur steers him away from this awkwardness, coaxes him back. Nur has his selfish reasons. He wants his friend to feel comfortable, to stay longer and to return for another visit. Too many of the others come once and then stay away. For them, the sight of him brings nothing but discomfort, though he tries to put them at their ease, to laugh and chat about their news and what is happening in the world. He never mentions his disability, he never complains. He wants them around him, their laughter and healthy lives. Echoes of a vibrant youth.

  ‘Who are you quoting?’

  ‘Just an aspiring poet no one has heard of. Tell me more about Dublin.’

  ‘The children on the street cross over to rub my hand. Like this.’ He leans over and quickly rubs Nur’s arm, then looks quizzically at his fingers.

  Nur laughs. ‘They expect it to come off!’

  Tuf Tuf smiles. ‘I’m not alone. I’m lodging with an Indian. He’s a good sort and keeps me up to date with all that’s happening in the world. But when he cooks, oh no. I would not touch that spicy food if they paid me.’

  ‘Eat a lot while you’re here, then. We’ll slaughter a sheep for you.’

  Nassir bounces in, even more upbeat than usual. He overhears the last remark and, after warmly greeting Tuf Tuf, says, ‘Now, tonight I’ve got a barbeque all planned. We’re going to the houseboat in Burri. All of us, including you, Nur! And guess who else is coming? Someone you’ve always wanted to meet? Hamza Al-Naggar himself is going to sing for us!’

  Nur is delighted. An old friend – and the opportunity to make a new one all in one day. Tuf Tuf hasn’t heard of Hamza Al-Naggar, and so Nur explains.

  ‘He’s young, and the first Sudanese singer to use rumba and samba beats in his music. He’s also been influenced by the Egyptian singer, Muhammad Abdel-Wahab. During the war, he went to entertain the troops and that’s how his popularity spread.’

  ‘You certainly know a lot about him.’

  ‘What else do I do except listen to the radio all day?’ There is no bitterness in Nur’s voice, just pleasure in talking about what he loves and the anticipation of meeting a man whose voice and melodies he admires.

  The journey to the Burri farm has them leaving Umdurman, crossing the bridge into Khartoum and then travelling east. The back of the car is uncomfortable for Nur. Sloped in the seat against Tuf Tuf, he feels constricted, entangled, but this is an adventure, after all. A men’s night out and today he is one of them. The sheep is in the boot of the car, its hind legs tied up. Nur can feel its presence, the gentle scratch of its movements. Their party is made up of four cars. The car driven by the driver is carrying the food, a cook and two houseboys. Part of the pleasure of the journey is watching one car overtake another, losing one and catching up with it again. They flash their lights and hoot their horns. Tuf Tuf laughs and Nassir, in the driving seat, says, ‘There is going to be a fifth car catching up with us later. I have such a surprise for you!’

  ‘You told us,’ says Nur, raising his voice because all the windows are wide open. ‘Hamza Al-Naggar is going to sing for us.’

  ‘Not only that. I have something even hotter.’

  ‘Hotter! You mean dancing girls? But Hamza Al-Naggar doesn’t go for that kind of thing! He wants a decent audience. He wants musicians to be treated well. Sudanese society needs to respect singers. I heard him say this in an interview. So once these girls appear, he will not feel comfortable.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ says Nassir. ‘They will come later in the night. By that time Hamza will have sung to his heart’s content. Besides, these girls aren’t dancers, they have other talents.’

  This is met with hoots and chuckles from the passengers. This is going to be a long night, thinks Nur.

  Tuf Tuf leans forward in his seat, squashing Nur’s legs in the process. His head is closer to Nassir’s now.

  ‘Elaborate, please, on these other talents. What do they exactly do?’

  ‘They box.’

  ‘Box what, for God’s sake?’ Everyone in the car is laughing.

  ‘They wrestle each other. They’ve been performing at the cabaret these past few days. They will finish their performance and then come over and give us a private show.’

  ‘Sounds grand to me. You’ve seen them?’

  ‘Yes, they’re a sensation. They dress like professional wrestlers, with shorts and shoes. At first they wrestle properly then – and that’s the best part – they go all wild, scratching, biting and pulling each other’s hair out.’ The laughter in the car is loud enough for Nassir to need to raise his voice. ‘Yesterday, after the show, an English lady complained to the Governor and the Town Clerk.’ He switches to English. ‘She said the girls were revolting.’

  Tuf Tuf repeats ‘revolting’ in his best English accent. It makes Nur smile and remember their days at Victoria College.

  ‘And I’m paying a tidy sum to get them to revolt us!’ Nassir laughs.

  The car in front of them turns left and they follow, descending from the asphalt road towards the farmlands on the Blue Nile. The gatekeeper recognises them and waves them in. Past the gate, the path is narrow, barely wide enough for one car. Bushes close in on both sides. Thorns brush against the window and Nassir yelps when one of them digs into his shoulder. He closes the window and Nur likes the sound of the thorn branches brushing against the glass as the car moves along.

  He is installed on a camp bed up on the terrace. It is a wide, semi-circular, paved pavilion, surrounded by the upper branches of the trees growing below and encircled by a low railing that overlooks the Blue Nile. Nur can smell the river and hear it gushing. It is swollen, this time of year, with the rains that have been falling in Ethiopia. All his senses are alert. The place is full of memories: the front lawn in daylight, and picnics with his father. Now Nassir bustles about, bellowing at the servants, eager to arrange the slaughter of the sheep, the seating for his guests, the drinks and the barbeque. Woe to the cook if he had forgotten the slightest thing. They are too far away from even the smallest shop.

  It is cool, compared to Umdurman, and everyone is grateful for that. A breeze blows through the trees. And there’s a smell of water and grass. This particular Sudanese beauty makes Nur heave inside, makes him want to gather the place and the mood. It must be a skill, like fishing, to cast your net into a river of dreams and catch a splendid array of words. That first poem had compelled itself into being, thrust itself out of him almost in spite of himself. Words that clamoured to exist. There is value and charm in that, but now he craves ability, a sense of control; he wants to excel at that smooth transition between emotion a
nd art.

  Nur had seen photos of Hamza Al-Naggar in the newspapers. In person, his energy is his most striking feature, a radiating vigour and healthy white teeth, a mix of confidence and modesty. He is handsome and impeccably dressed. As if already forewarned, he displays neither surprise nor pity at Nur’s condition. When he strums his oud and sings, Nur is rapt. It is the songs he listens to every day on Radio Umdurman, lyrics that inspire and console him. They speak to him of love and he understands. They speak to him of sadness and he understands. Without Hamza’s quartet of violin players, without a microphone, accordion or any other oud but his own, Hamza sounds different than he does on the radio. He sings songs that have not yet been broadcast, works in progress that sound urgent and, at the same time, more relaxed. Hamza is repeating and changing, improvising as much as he wants. Nur feels as if he is being given a glimpse into the gradual development of a song in its early, promising stage, the anticipation before it is cast into a black vinyl record.

  Hamza stops singing and Nur looks up. Yes, it is late at night and he is lying on a cot on the terrace of the Burri farm. Yes, everyone seated in a large circle is clapping and he cannot. He looks up to see Nassir, concerned and looking at his watch. The wrestling girls have not shown up. The circle of listeners breaks up and their attention drifts off. Chairs are turned and private conversations spring up.

  ‘Nassir, where’s dinner?’ someone calls out. ‘You’re starving us!’

  The tantalising smell of grilled lamb chops – that tied up sheep who had been scuffling in the boot of the car – is now wafting up from the grounds. All the appetisers; olives, cucumbers and nuts have been eaten up.

  ‘In a minute. Stay put,’ Nassir replies. He holds a glass of whisky in his hand and a dark look on his face. He is not sure whether the girls have stood him up or not.

  Nur is grateful for this lull. He has ample time to talk to the musician sitting close to his cot, the man who is Sudan’s rising star.

  ‘Is it true,’ he asks tentatively, ‘that Hamza Al-Naggar is not your real name?’

  ‘Hamza is, but I changed my last name. I was afraid of my family’s response to my chosen career. I come from a conservative family, the kind of people who think that all musicians are debauched.’

  He doesn’t smile when he says the word ‘debauched’; it is not a joke.

  Nur is touched by Hamza’s response. He has heard this disparagement of the arts often from the adults of his own family.

  ‘Sudanese society has to change,’ he says with passion. ‘It has to give poets and musicians, all artists, the respect they deserve.’

  Hamza smiles. ‘With time people do change. My family now knows the truth. They’ve accepted me and now even support me.’

  ‘How come you don’t write your own lyrics?’ Nur blurts out. ‘I mean, how do you choose the lyrics to your songs?’

  ‘Poets submit their work to me. If I am inspired by a poem, I compose a tune that goes with the words and then I sing it. Or sometimes I pick up my oud and improvise a tune as I go along, but it remains incomplete until I find the suitable words.’

  ‘I have a poem,’ Nur blurts out.

  His voice is loud, even strident. Such an opportunity might never come again. Nur, the young man, might be diplomatic and mild, but Nur, the poet, has no inhibitions. Ambition propels him, a new, bold urge to speak out, to show off and share his words. Besides, what does he have to lose? At least he might gain an honest opinion from a professional who has experience and skill.

  ‘Well, let me listen to it,’ says Hamza. He puts down his oud and draws his chair closer to Nur.

  As Nur starts to recite Travel is the Cause, he suddenly thinks that this is not good enough, that these words are weird, that they don’t sound like a poem, don’t sound like a song. They just sound like me, he thinks. He falters – and goes on. The words lure him and pull him along. The poem is his home – In you, Egypt, are the causes of my injury – his own space, and no one else’s, his own pain and no one else’s. He belongs within its lines. This is his shelter, adorned and unadorned. By the time he nears the end, he is no longer reciting to Hamza Al-Naggar or to anyone from this particular gathering. Nur is talking to Soraya, and Nur is talking to the night, scratching his story on the scrolls of time.

  When he finishes, he ducks his head and waits for Hamza to speak, but the gathering is instantly disrupted by the servants carrying the much-anticipated trays of food. The guests of honour, Tuf Tuf and Hamza, are urged to lean forward and extend their arms. The moment is lost. One of the servants (Nassir’s houseboy in the Khartoum villa, Babiker, a boy Nur has never seen before) is set the task of feeding Nur. Nur is resigned to this dependence but Babiker, who has never done this before, makes a sloppy job of the procedure and Nur loses his appetite, inhibited by the quick, sharp looks of pity that come his way from the guests as they scoop mouthfuls of meat and bread into their mouths. Nothing disturbs people as much as his inability to feed himself.

  Hamza leaves after dinner without a word about the poem or even an acknowledgement. But Nur plans to send him a written copy tomorrow. He composes a covering letter in his head, and then tells himself not to dwell on it too much. He had, after all, enjoyed reciting his poem. And he is now confident again that it is good. ‘Where are these girls you promised?’ he teases Nassir.

  Nassir answers with his mouth full, ‘That pimp took my money and then stood me up. Bastard! Tomorrow I will chase him up.’

  So this is how the Abuzeid money is squandered. If their father ever hears of this, he will be furious.

  Nur feels tired in a pleasant way. His first meeting with Hamza Al-Naggar, this outing, and seeing Tuf Tuf again, is such abundance, all on one evening, all a surprise. So life can be pleasurable, life can be good. Fate, it seems, has not finished with him yet. He dozes, and elation spreads through his incoherent dreams. A world of mist and colours; Soraya’s skin and Soraya’s laugh . . . He moves. He punches the air; he runs down the Victoria College track and jumps over one hurdle and another. He lands knowing he has jumped his furthest, his highest yet. His feet on the ground, carrying the weight of his body, he crouches and springs up again. When he wakes up, he sees Nassir and Tuf Tuf sitting side by side. Nassir is holding another glass of whiskey and Tuf Tuf is lighting a cigarette. They seem to have bonded this evening. Nur closes his eyes and listens to Nassir’s drunken tirade against the wrestling girls.

  ‘I think I’m going to have to drive us home,’ Tuf Tuf says. ‘In this state you’ll get us all killed.’

  Nur joins his friend in quelling Nassir’s objections. He, too, doesn’t want to die. A new poem is stirring, triggered by this night and this setting, nurtured by the breeze in the trees and the Nile’s water that heard him recite his first poem and carried it on.

  Tomorrow we will be as we want

  And walk at sunset by the Nile.

  XVII

  It was Time that defeated Soraya at the end. Changes all around, but weeks, months and a whole year passing without the slightest improvement in his condition, or the faintest of progress. She had held on to hope for so long, she had been stubborn and she had been fierce, but Time won at the end. Not what people said to her, and not even when Uncle Mahmoud broke off the engagement. It was the ticking clock. It was life moving forward, and sweeping away her hopes for a miracle. It was how days and days passed, and Nur didn’t recover. Now, when they said he was ill, they meant he had influenza or an upset stomach. Now, when they said he was well, they meant he was singing along with the radio and laughing out loud with his friends. Enough of her tantrums and tears, enough of her threats and scenes every time her sisters said, ‘You won’t marry Nur, you will marry someone else.’

  Time tamed her at the end. Not knowing where to turn or what to do, she put her head down and poured her energy into studying for the school leaving certificate. She had always been a good student, but this dedication was new. Sister Josephine was shining a light in another direction and challe
nging her to work harder. And there was a prize to be won. Unlike Halima and Fatma, Soraya had managed to complete school. Now she could be the first Abuzeid girl to step into university, the first girl in the alley to get a university degree. When the examination results came out, and Soraya’s science grades exceeded all expectations, Sister Josephine invited the Abuzeid brothers to a meeting in her office.

  Soraya stood outside the door and strained to listen. She would miss the familiar columns and the blue tiles stretching all the way to the statue of the Virgin Mary; the open, shady courtyard, the nuns bustling and in white. How purposefully they walked! If she never, ever married, she would be like them, forever a virgin, cut off from motherhood and running her own house. The prospect filled her with self-pity. She moved closer to the door of the office. She could hear her father’s voice, loud and irritated. Idris seemed to be addressing Mahmoud, ‘You insisted that she be allowed to wear her spectacles and I gave in for your sake. Enough! Why more?’

  Sister Josephine replied to this, but her voice was too low for Soraya to hear. Without the spectacles, she would not have succeeded in her examinations. But Idris had not completely caved in. The permission did not extend to wearing the spectacles in his presence. That would be asking too much! On one occasion she forgot to take them off as she was bringing him a glass of water.

  ‘Get away from my face!’ had been his immediate reaction.

  She could now hear Uncle Mahmoud saying, ‘Soraya will not be the only girl there. She will be in good company.’

  He began listing the names of their acquaintances whose daughters were allowed to enter university. Idris merely grunted and resumed his predictable objections. No need for university. No need whatsoever. If only Sister Josephine could talk a little louder, but only a few snatches were audible: ‘. . . instead of sitting . . . let her attend . . . Medicine is an honourable profession.’