Lyrics Alley: A Novel

by Leila Aboulela

  ‘Is he always that quiet?’

  ‘No, it’s just that he doesn’t seem to know much about poetry. He was here visiting Nur and suddenly all these others dropped by. The man with the oud is, of course, Hamza Al-Naggar. He almost comes every evening. It’s the others who are here for the first time.’

  Hamza Al-Naggar started to sing Travel is the Cause and Soraya didn’t want to ask Zaki any more questions. She wanted to listen. Nur’s song. Her song. Nur joined in the singing and Hamza smiled and let him lead. ‘Ah ya kanari wa ah ya gamari. . .’ and when Nur sang Ah the ache was there for everyone to hear, and everyone to share. His passion in colloquial truth.

  Soraya wanted this combination of music and poetry to last and last and to become part of the fabric of Umdurman. For every wedding party, for boys to hum in the alleys on their way to school, for schoolgirls to copy in secret notes. For lovers, not yet born, to sing in the style of their times . . .

  She pressed her face against the wooden screen and listened. Hamza had stopped playing his oud and there was a hush. It was Nur’s turn to recite his new poem, in his own voice, his own words.

  The prettiest girl in the alley can’t stand harsh words

  ‘I will not shackle you to an invalid,’ her Uncle Mahmoud had said.

  She’s pampered, Nur was saying, but don’t ever scold my love

  She could not be Nur’s nurse. She was incapable of such a sacrifice. She would feel hard done by and ignored, she who aspired, like her Uncle Mahmoud, to a modern, upbeat life.

  This, instead, was where she belonged with Nur, right here, here in his songs. Here within the lyrics they were intimate, caught in the rhythm of his words, propelled by the substance of his dreams.

  These songs would be their story and these lyrics their home.

  XVIII

  The blow, inevitable in itself, comes straight from the source without any intermediaries. It is a direct hit which finds him defenceless, unprepared. Tuf Tuf is visiting him around sunset, a quiet time before Hamza Al-Naggar and the other poets come over for what has become an almost daily literary salon in Nur’s hoash. The focus of the salon is the connection between poetry and song, the bonus is Waheeba’s lavish dinner. Tuf Tuf is one of Nur’s friends who had not stayed away, not said, ‘I can’t bear to see him like that.’

  Now he sits with his legs crossed and his knuckles hovering over his mouth. He is in his bashful mood and blurts out, ‘My mother finally selected a bride for me.’

  Nur smiles. ‘Well, who is she? Have you seen her?’

  Tuf Tuf, beleaguered, uncrosses his legs and crosses them again.

  ‘Don’t you like her?’ Nur chuckles.

  Tuf Tuf doesn’t smile.

  ‘There is no fault in her,’ he whispers.

  There is no fault in her. When Hamza sings that line on the radio it sounds boastful and joyful. But Tuf Tuf wraps the words in amazement.

  It is a warning, and Nur turns to look away, as if to search for armour, to reach for shield.

  ‘I saw her here,’ says Tuf Tuf. ‘In one the gatherings, the day you sang Travel with Hamza. She was watching from behind the wooden screen. She didn’t think anyone could see her, but I did. I walked over to the women’s section, never mind if they thought me bold or rude. I reckoned I was here nearly every day and Aunt Waheeba would welcome me as one of the family. It was like a dream. First, I was hearing about her in your poem and aware of her behind the screen. Then, when I crossed over, there she was in the flesh. I tried to get her out of my mind; I tried hard, until my mother said her name . . .’

  ‘No,’ says Nur. ‘No! Tell your mother to find you another bride.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean why? You know very well why.’

  ‘Now that my mother is so keen on her, I will have to come up with a reason to refuse. I will have to find fault in her choice.’

  ‘That is such a lame excuse. Tell her Soraya is not your type, tell her you don’t want to marry a girl from Umdurman.’ A pulse beats in his temple.

  ‘Nur, if it’s not me it will be another man. You know that.’

  ‘But you’re my friend! How dare you? How can you?’ Tears alter his voice.

  ‘That’s why I’m telling you,’ Tuf Tuf pleads. ‘That’s why I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.’

  ‘I want to punch you. Oh God, what would I give to shove a fist in your face!’

  Tuf Tuf bolts out of the hoash.

  Later, it is Nassir who seals the bitterness and what is left of the hope. He bears the formal bad news.

  ‘Soraya’s engaged. Your friendship with Tuf Tuf must have stood him in good stead because Father and Uncle Idris gave their consent.’

  Nur opens his mouth and blackness sweeps up in front of his eyes. He wants to speak, but his voice cannot form words. He wants to scream, and the scream consumes him. He is nothing, and nothing exists but pain. He is trapped; he is squeezed. There is Nassir’s dazed, flaccid face, his stupid words of condolence. Leave me alone! Stop taking away one thing, then another, then another. Breathing is difficult and breathing unfurls the foul, ultimate question. Why me? But life still claims him, and he is pulled back against his will. Hamza’s voice when he was introducing Travel is the Cause at the National Theatre: ‘The lyrics are those of a new poet, Nur Abuzeid. I composed the tune in tribute to his talent.’

  But I am not a real poet, Travel is the Cause was a one-off. There is nothing inside me, because the dead can’t be creative. Leave me alone! Let me go on strike. Stop taking away from me one thing and then another.

  The doctor diagnoses nervous exhaustion and prescribes sedation. No visitors, he says. A needle is thrust in Nur’s arms. He sleeps, but he is still speaking to Tuf Tuf, still locked in the moment he heard the news.

  ‘What about that girl in Dublin?’ he screeches. ‘The one you go dancing with, the one who works in the hat department.’

  He demands an answer; he demands an answer until it hurts. His mind wants to escape towards pleasant, comforting images, while the pain keeps him in one spot, as if a dagger has passed through his stomach and is pinning him down. He remembers the Shakespeare he learnt at school, remembers incidents in the dormitory, the thrill and heave of a football match. His memories of school are crystal clear, but when Tuf Tuf returned from Dublin and they spoke, Nur realised that his friend had shelved these memories, simply because other events had taken place in his life. He had gone to Dublin, sat in lecture halls and made new friends. Not like Nur – Victoria College, Alexandria. Then stop. Nur cries, wrestling bitterness, which demands dry eyes and a constricted throat, choking.

  It’s past midnight when he opens his eyes. There is no one in the room except his mother and she is silent, not with concern, but with an attitude hovering near disapproval. Nur struggles to understand.

  ‘You must eat,’ his mother says.

  With her fingers, she scoops kisra and mullah into his mouth. He swallows, and feels the sadness well up inside him. In the days to come, so much will change. There will be no end to the celebrations, and he must live through them. Pull yourself together, he tells himself; this was bound to happen, sooner or later. And, for some reason, he thinks of the day of Eid, and the crescent, which celebrates the end of Ramadan. Everyone wears new clothes, everyone goes visiting; the children play games and eat sweets, and the alleys are alive with celebrations. Friends hug each other while he waits aside for something new or special to lift this day out of the ordinary and make him celebrate.

  ‘Did anyone ask about me?’ he asks his mother.

  ‘Yes, Hamza came and he had some young men with him.’ She is becoming more comfortable with Hamza now. He comes so often that he is no longer a stranger. ‘He left a magazine for you.’

  Nur’s curiosity is ruffled. He wants to see the magazine, to have Zaki search through the pages for what Hamza would have wanted him to read. But he is too tired now, too drained. Later.

  ‘And your Arabic teach
er came too. He said he heard your lyrics on the radio and I said to him it’s about time, these broadcasts have been going out for months!’

  Ustaz Badr hadn’t been to see him since the robbery.

  ‘I hope you were kind to him, Mother. I hope you’re not holding a grudge against him.’

  Waheeba sighs.

  ‘He is innocent. It was that accursed nurse, Shukry, who plotted everything and executed the crime. Your father said we mustn’t lay any blame on Ustaz Badr and he is to be welcomed here. And anyone you value, Nur, I will value and honour. Anyone who makes your burden lighter will find me on his side. But you mustn’t let your anger affect your health.’

  And that is all she says about how he lost Soraya to his best friend. Neither does Nassir have any further comments, nor does Fatma or Zaki or Batool. As for his new friends – the writers, musicians and poets – they are interested in the final outcomes of Art itself, rather than its ingredients and fuel. He should bunch up his grievances, sculpt them and hone them for his poems. This is the outlet, this is the path; this is more than a dream.

  He wakes up to look into his teacher’s protruding eyes. He dozes and, when he is wide awake, he finds Ustaz Badr leafing through the magazine that Hamza left.

  ‘Your poem is published here,’ says Badr. ‘It is part of an article about Hamza Al-Naggar and his songs.’

  Badr continues to read and Nur feels young again, a student watching his copybook being marked, eager for approval.

  ‘Is it good?’ he asks.

  Badr continues to read.

  ‘Or are you a purist?’ Nur rushs in. ‘I’d wager you don’t approve of using colloquial words and phrases.’

  ‘The poem is good but . . .’ Badr closes the magazine.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘You can do better,’ says Badr.

  Nur laughs. He is fond of this man, his tenacity and desperate goodness, his knowledge and simplicity; the strength which floods him like a miracle. Nur hadn’t laughed for some time.

  ‘Travel is a hit on the radio, your cousin is in prison for robbing my mother’s jewellery, you want my father to lease you a flat in his new building – and you sit there and tell me I can do better!’

  Badr frowns. ‘I will gain nothing by flattering you. At the end, what will be will be. So I might as well say the truth. And here is what I think. You will be tempted to write more light verses because popularity is now within your reach, but you can also become a serious poet, a poet others will respect. It is your choice.’

  ‘I will do both,’ Nur says. ‘I will do both, and I want you to come to me regularly like before. I want us to have our weekly meetings and discussions again. I need . . .’ he pauses and swallows. ‘I need to be a student again.’

  When Nur closes his eyes, there is her image, and every ache and aggravation is aroused, envy of Tuf Tuf and simmering rage. But a little while ago, talking to Ustaz Badr, he had felt clear-headed and liberated.

  A day passes, followed by a night. The sharpness eases and there are stretches of calmness, of leisure, when he does not think of Soraya’s engagement to Tuf Tuf. His body had absorbed the shock and the news, like a foreign virus, is now seeping through his system, defeating every antibody, becoming a part of him. There was a Nur before the news, and now, a Nur after the news.

  He learns that his reaction to Soraya’s engagement is to be kept secret. He will not be allowed to jeopardize her future and so no one will indulge his sadness or publicly acknowledge his loss. The family’s honour is at stake, the Abuzeid name. In the days to come, women from Tuf Tuf’s family visit in droves. They bring their relations, neighbours and friends to take a look at the bride. They probe and sniff for gossip, but they must not find any. Nur and Soraya’s previous betrothal is played down – a formal engagement never really existed, it was just talk, an appealing idea to marry off two sisters to two brothers but nothing came out of it. The bride has no imperfections. Nothing must blemish Soraya’s reputation.

  I feed on bitterness and satiety never comes.

  Today sadness has renewed itself.

  Let me narrate the story of two souls,

  Whose love was struck by the evil eye,

  In a twist which Fate had hidden.

  Luck won’t smile and Time will scorch.

  Only the stars know what is wrong with me.

  I almost sense them craning to wipe my tears away.

  ‘Your new poem, Eid Crescent, is bleak,’ says Hamza when Nur perks up and the evening visitors are allowed.

  ‘So was Travel is the Cause.’

  ‘But this one is exaggerated. Such alienation on a day of celebration is not something the majority of listeners will relate to.’

  Nur defends his work. ‘Are you telling me that no one dies in the Eid, no one loses their job or their money?’

  Hamza smiles. ‘Look, it’s a very good poem, don’t get me wrong. But it won’t work as a song. Send it to the literary pages of the top newspapers and they will publish it without hesitation.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ says Nur. ‘And it will go out in my collection when it comes out.’

  To get Eid Crescent on paper had been a frustrating endeavour. Zaki was at school all morning and even in the afternoon he had to return for an award ceremony. Batool, who took Nur’s dictation when Zaki was unavailable, was herself busy preparing Soraya to receive more guests. It was Nassir who had written down the poem. Even this simple task, he had botched. His handwriting was sloppy and Nur spotted many mistakes, which made him annoyed.

  ‘Come on, let’s do something new together,’ says Hamza. ‘Let’s write a light-hearted song. Something merry and thrilling.’

  ‘She’s easy and pliant,’ the words spill from his tongue, the most natural response. He can never run out of words to describe her. Her full lips when she smiles, her gentle voice and the way she drawls out certain words. How slowly she walks, how gently she sits and turns to him. And there is more to say, ‘Have mercy Angel, your radiance has scorched me.’

  ‘Perfect!’ Hamza hoists the oud to his lap and starts strumming. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

  Nur smiles, and instead of another verse, the title of his future collection comes to his mind. A collection Ustaz Badr would approve of, with Nur’s name on the front page underneath the words, Evening Withdraws.

  XIX

  Usually, on holidays, Mahmoud slept in late and had the tea tray brought to his bedroom, but today was a special day. He stood on the roof of the saraya and, because it had been a long time since he had come up here, the views captured his attention. The Nile was a pale blue-grey, not yet lit up by the rising sun. On the bank, a few farmers were bending over with hoes. Mahmoud walked to the northern side of the roof, which overlooked Umdurman’s Great Square. This was an excellent vantage point, an ideal place for the Harrisons to breakfast, with an unobstructed view of the celebrations. He called the servants and instructed them on how to arrange the seating. The best armchairs were carried from downstairs, the best coffee tables and the newest tablecloths. Once they completed the heavy work, he would release some of them so that they could take part in the celebrations. It had been a remarkable week since the signing of the Self Government Agreement between Britain, Egypt and Sudan. On the day itself, crowds had thronged the streets of Khartoum and people climbed the trees overlooking the Civil-Secretary’s Office in order to hear the Governor-General announce the news. On the following day, when the government’s Official celebration was held, Mahmoud was invited and had a good front seat, but there were as many as fifty thousand Sudanese standing to hear the speeches, punctuated by parades of the guards of honour and RAF planes flying overhead. Today’s affair would be more indigenous, a huge, all-party gathering in which the ordinary people of Umdurman would take part. The Harrisons, he was sure, would enjoy the spectacle. He knew them well now and understood the mixture of folklore and personal comfort, exotica and distance that would ensure their highest level of enjoyment.


  It was cool this February morning. Once the sun was up, it would become warmer but now he found the breeze unpleasant, even though he was wearing a cardigan. He went downstairs and wandered around the empty house. It was silent and static without Nabilah and the children. They had been gone for months, but he still wasn’t used to their absence. Nabilah had packed up and left as soon as Ferial’s stitches were removed. He had tried to stop her, but she was adamant. So he gave up and thought, let her mother talk some sense into her, but the signs from Cairo were unfavourable. In the summer he travelled there, as was his custom, but Nabilah was not waiting for him in their flat. Instead, she was at her mother’s apartment. When he went to visit, she repeated her ridiculous conditions and did not yield an inch. Most people now thought that they had reverted to their first arrangement of her living permanently in Cairo and he visiting from time to time. Perhaps, in the end, it would come to that.

  He went into his room and felt a pang of loneliness; what had Fate given him: three good-for-nothing sons: the eldest undependable, then the wreck, and now the youngest taken away. But Mahmoud was a man of action and not prone to indulging in despair. These moments of introspection were few and far between. Perhaps, he thought now, he should move back to his ‘bachelor’ quarters in the centre of the saraya, close to Nur and Waheeba. However, that room reminded him of his last serious illness, when he had spent several weeks in bed. For this reason he was reluctant to go back there. Nor did he want a closer proximity to Waheeba. The solution for his loneliness would be to bring Nassir, Fatma and their children to live in the saraya. With Soraya married off, Idris would not need Fatma. If it were up to Mahmoud, Idris would come over, too, but he knew his brother was difficult and independent in his ways. It would be enough for Mahmoud to have Nassir and Fatma. After the wedding he would broach the subject. Already a date had been set, three weeks from today, before the warm weather closed in and made the preparations that much more arduous. He would feel relieved when the girl was finally married off. Perhaps then, Nur would become even more resigned to his fate. It surprised Mahmoud that the boy had reacted so badly to the announcement of Soraya’s engagement. Surely it was inevitable? But young people always have difficulty living beyond the moment. That was the excuse he always had for Nabilah. She is young, she will grow, she will learn in time. And then she threw everything in his face without any hesitation or mercy.