Lyrics Alley: A Novel

by Leila Aboulela

  They arrived at the Abuzeid building. The shops that lined the ground floor were all closed for the holiday and the offices upstairs, too, were shut. Not all the building was residential; there were placards on the balconies, one advertising a lawyer and another, a procurement business. As Badr had feared, his father refused to descend from the cart.

  ‘Leave him with me and go up,’ Hanniyah suggested. Her daughter, dozy from the movement of the cart, had fallen asleep on her lap. ‘You and the children go up and maybe I can persuade Uncle Hajj.’

  Together with the older boys, Badr carried all the furniture upstairs. The thrill of turning the key and whispering, ‘In the name of Allah, the Most-Compassionate, the Most-Merciful . . .’

  Their belongings looked paltry in the wide space, shabby against the new flooring and freshly painted walls. Ali started skidding on the tiles, and his older brothers followed. The flat echoed with their cries of delight. This was real. At last, at long last! For the first time since Osama was born, Badr and Hanniyah would have a room all to themselves. He wanted to see her face when she first stepped into the flat. Would she gasp out loud? He would take pleasure in her gratitude, for sure.

  Leaving the boys upstairs, he dashed down again.

  ‘Father, you have to get off now. We’ve arrived.’

  There was no response. Gentle nudging and pulling by the arm was met with indifference and then resistance. With the help of Hanniyah and the cart driver, Badr forcibly carried his father off the cart and steadied him on his feet. Unexpectedly, the old man reached out to put his arms around the donkey and almost fell onto its neck, his face against its hide, his hands gripping the saddle. How far he was from his village in Kafr-el-Dawar with all its familiar sensations and characteristic smells . . . Now Badr was going to move him further away, up above street level. More change, more disorientation.

  ‘Come along, Father. The donkey is not ours. It has to go away with its owner.’

  The cart driver, a lanky, grumpy youth, was looking perplexed at the old man and was impatient to be off. Badr untangled his father’s arms from around the donkey’s neck.

  He paid off the driver and, with excruciatingly small steps, led his father to the entrance of the building.

  ‘I will go ahead of you,’ Hanniyah said. ‘Allah only knows when you will get Uncle Hajj up there!’

  Her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. Yes, this was her day. He said, ‘Take the suitcase with you so you can start to unpack.’

  She handed the sleeping child to Badr and lugged the suitcase up the stairs. So, baby on his left arm and his right prodding the old man up the stairs.

  ‘Careful, Father, one step at a time.’

  Two steps, three steps, they gathered momentum and reached halfway up the stairs. Then his father stopped. For no reason at all he came to a standstill. Badr pleaded and tugged but to no avail. He could hear Hanniyah making her way to the flat up above; he could hear her expression of surprise as she entered through the door.

  ‘Come on, Father.’

  He had to be extra gentle. A struggle on the staircase would be unsafe for the three of them. The baby stirred in his arm and opened her eyes. She was beautiful in these waking up moments, incredibly soft, languid and angelic in the clear trusting way she gazed up at him. He kissed her, and she shifted to sit more upright in his embrace.

  Here he was with his bliss in one arm and his burden in the other, his pleasure on one side and his trial in the other. Balanced. Striving up with these two attachments. Holding them both at the same time. It was the fresh start of life and the gloomy, narrowing end. Loving them both, serving them both. His father shifted and raised one foot up. How slowly they were progressing! Badr was missing what he had been looking forward to – Hanniyah’s expression when she first saw her new home. By the time they reached the flat, she would be engrossed in unpacking and her mind occupied. He would have liked to be with her now, now as she raised her hand to her mouth and broke into a spontaneous ululation of joy.

  XXII

  Patience, and this is how fame begins. Nur is putting a call through the operator. As usual, Zaki had dialled the number then placed the receiver against Nur’s ear. By bending his head sideways he can hold it wedged against his shoulder and Zaki is free to wander off and check that the long cord of the telephone is not entangled in its trip from Nur’s room to the hoash. Nur gives his name and the number he wants to reach. Instead of the customary, ‘Hold the line, please,’ the operator’s voice changes and lightens. ‘Nur Abuzeid! Really?’ He speaks as if he is no longer an operator but an impressionable young man, perhaps a little younger than Nur. It’s hard to tell. ‘Excuse me for asking, Sir. But are you Nur Abuzeid, the poet?’

  This has never happened before. Yesterday he had put in a call to Ustaz Badr at the school and got no such response.

  The operator continues, ‘I am one of your admirers, Sir. I listen to your lyrics on the radio and copy them down. Your poem Hope is a masterpiece in my opinion.’

  Nur smiles.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The afternoon is different now. He is lying in the same hoash, its uneven floor sprayed with water; he is under the same cloudless sky, hearing the riot of the birds in the saraya’s garden and beyond the walls the sounds of the alley: men walking to the mosque, women visiting each other and dawdling, the scuffle and thud of a football game. But now there is an unexpected glow in this wide prison where life ebbs and flows, where others come and go and late at night songs are composed, where young poets come to recite their raw lyrics and leave saying, ‘I’ve attended a literary salon in Umdurman where they serve a good dinner too.’ Today Nur is honoured.

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking about a specific line in your poem? I dabble in a few verses now and again myself.’

  This admirer is voluble. Perhaps being an operator is not suited to his nature, perhaps he should be something else, somewhere else. Nur knows about this. There had been a time too – before the accident – when he wanted to be a poet, but his voice was feeble and the roads were blocked. These days he recites and people listen to the sincerity of his words. They hear a poem tense as a confrontation between bitter and sweet, a story in which the victors are mercy and love.

  ‘Please feel free to ask me anything you want.’

  Everyone in the hoash turns to look at Nur. The receiver is sliding and Fatma tucks it back in place. Nassir is making pantomime gestures of inquiry, which Nur ignores. His mother, sitting on her angharaib is pouring herself a glass of cardamom tea. She sucks the first draught and listens.

  ‘When you say to your loved one Tomorrow I will put on my best clothes / To go out and meet you by the Nile, is that a reference to a specific location?’

  Nur remembers a family picnic which Nassir had arranged, a whole day out by the river. He remembers the chatter of Fatma and her children, Halima and her children. Nur’s cot was carried all the way to the shore and the winter breeze blew through the trees. Soraya sat next to him, and they were both aware of the sound of the water and how special the day was. They talked and didn’t need to talk, every little thing they said mattered and was unnecessary at the same time. Later, he sat in his wheelchair and she put on her glasses. She stood behind him, holding open the pages of a magazine. They both looked down and read together one of his poems in classical verse, the one Ustaz Badr rated highly – Flocks of Beauty. Nur remembers Soraya’s closeness and his words in print, her closeness and her attributes in ink, that mighty, moving Nile, and Nassir with his rod, catching the fish they would later grill.

  ‘The Riveria Park in Umdurman,’ Nur replies.

  But it was another riverbank which was the trigger for Hope, another Nile. It was the men’s night out, when they went to the Burri houseboat on the Blue Nile. How can one pinpoint a particular scene, a single place? The poems came from far beyond and deep within, from dreams he’d seen and lines he’d not yet read, from aches and his need to manoeuvre, his need to stretch and
reach out, to pull and push and clutch tight, to touch or pinch, carry or stroke, and what must be said to describe her eyes rimmed with kohl and how smitten she is, his own flesh and blood, how tender and smitten.

  ‘I have another question,’ says the operator.

  Nur is happy to answer. The telephone call to Hamza Al-Naggar, which was important a few minutes ago, can wait. This recognition is gratifying. It fills him up, it makes him feel nourished and at peace. Today his howling demon will be subdued, his rebellious side which urges him to go on strike, will be muted. He had composed his poetry to a void, reciting to a star, reaching out to faceless, nameless strangers and now connections are being made. Balm to his bitterness, the solace he needs, the compensation he ached for when he despaired and asked, why, why me? This is the sort of incident everyone in the family will repeat.

  ‘The telephone operator recognised him!’ his father will say at the Abuzeid office.

  His father, who was at first ashamed, and now is coming round, because success is much easier to understand than Art. Success carries respectability and draws people near. His mother, too, will repeat the story to that gossipy neighbour and soon, very soon, it will cross the river and reach Soraya’s house. The pleasure lasts, settles and lasts, long after the receiver is moved away from his ear.

  *

  Radio Umdurman is coming to interview him. They will use his room because the hoash is too noisy. All day Nur’s voice is raised in instructions and requests. The electrician must be called in to tame the creaky overhead fan and fix a faulty wall socket. The room must be tidy, the floors must be cleaned and refreshments must be provided for the interviewer Mr Mu’awia and his crew. Nur had often heard Mr Mu’awia’s deep, clear voice on the radio interviewing other poets; now, remembering those clipped tones and direct questions, makes him slightly nervous. Everyone else in the family is on edge; this is a nationwide exposure, which hovers around a sensitive issue. Nur asks to be dressed formally in a long-sleeved shirt and trousers. All his old clothes hang off him in a ridiculous manner which is why this is a brand new outfit, in a significantly smaller size.

  It takes an hour to dress him, to manoeuvre the sleeves up the rigid, acute angle of his elbows but he is used to all this now. The white collar of the shirt glows against his skin; his shaved chin tingles with eau de cologne. Nassir snaps a photograph, proud of his new camera. He captures the pure light in Nur’s eyes and that graceful smile.

  Mr Mu’awia has a smooth look about him, though he is overweight and slightly bald. He had not been informed of the extent of Nur’s disability but he hides his embarrassment well for he is a professional broadcaster, dry and slick. It helps that Nur is sitting in an armchair, it helps that he is fully dressed today. The equipment is set up in the room: huge rolls of double-tapes, a record player, and albums of Sudanese songs. Mr Mu’awia orders the children out of the room. They file out, Ferial pulling Zeinab’s hand, Farouk dragging his sandals on the tiles. Now a voice check for Nur: he is too far from the microphone, he is too close. Zaki, who excels at being useful, is today in a buzz of excitement. His secondary school exams loom, but intoxicated by this close proximity to the media, all concerns are banished. Fatma peeks into this room full of men; she is unable to contain her curiosity. Nassir, of course, is clumsy and in the way, babbling about everything and nothing.

  ‘If I could request your silence, Sir, we are about to start recording.’ Mr Mu’awia doesn’t smile. ‘I need complete silence in the room.’

  He turns to Nur. ‘We will start with a recital of one of your poems.’

  ‘Which one?’ Nur looks straight at those eyes that give away nothing.

  ‘Travel is the Cause. It’s your first composition and we can talk about how you started writing. Do you need the text?’

  No, Nur can recite from memory.

  ‘I will introduce you first and then you can start.’ Clicks, hums, and the machine is on. Mr Mu’awia speaks and the impersonal voice of Radio Umdurman becomes a human being. ‘Nur Abuzeid is one of our most popular lyrical poets . . .’

  Nur turns his head to Nassir and Nassir winks. He is beaming with pride, this buffoon brother of his who would not leave his side. Nur had always known that the accident was a blow to his family, too. Their devotion, their being there around him every night and every day. Now his success will be their success, further pride in the family’s name. In you, Egypt, are the causes of my injury. And in Sudan, my burden and solace.

  ‘Was there a special occasion in which you composed this poem?’

  So this is it, the first question. ‘I composed it in 1951, when I returned from Egypt. I had finished my studies in Victoria College and I was on the beach in Alexandria . . .’ He continues to describe the accident, hearing the waves, the jam of salt water up his nose.

  Mr Mu’awia is seemingly unmoved by the tragedy.

  ‘Did you write the poem with the intention of it becoming a song?’

  ‘Not at all! It was a surprise from Hamza Al-Naggar. The radio was switched on – and there it was!’

  ‘How did you feel about that?’

  ‘I found it disturbing at first, then I grew to enjoy it. It propelled me into a new direction. I began to be involved in the whole process of composing lyrics and tunes, even though I do not have a musical background. Hamza and I worked together on Days and Nights and She Reached Out to Shake My Hand. But that first time, with Travel is the Cause – that was entirely a Hamza Al-Naggar conspiracy!’ He smiles, but Mr Mu’awia is serious.

  ‘Is that the reason he’s been granted the rights to most of your lyrics?’

  Nur is taken aback.

  ‘No, he certainly does not usurp my poems. He is a valued friend and a constant visitor; this is why we naturally tend to work together.’

  ‘Who else sings your lyrics?’

  ‘Sayyid Khalifa and Ilyas Hakim.’

  ‘Did you distribute your poems to Sayyid Khalifa?’

  ‘No, he came over for a visit, we chatted about various topics and I showed him my work. He liked Hope and Ya Salaam, Ya Salaam so he took them. I don’t have a specific method of getting my poems to the attention of musicians.’

  ‘It is noticeable that you have achieved outstanding success in the field of the popular lyrical song. What in your opinion is the status of such songs in Sudan?’

  Nur relaxes into the interview. Mr Mu’awia plays Sayyid Khalifa singing Ya Salaam, Ya Salaam. Nur confesses that his poems tend towards sadness and that he often needs to restrain himself from such indulgence. There is a break in which Mr Mu’awia drinks orange juice and Zaki raises a glass of cold water to Nur’s lips. Mr Mu’awia looks away and lights a cigarette, while his crew stare openly. It is always the inability to drink and feed himself which startles others. Nothing else has the same impact.

  More questions and it is time for Nur to request a song. He chooses Al-Taj’s Ya Badi’at Al-Loun. When the last notes die down, Mr Mu’awia ruffles a few papers in his hands and turns to Nur.

  ‘One of our listeners, Mrs Asya from Atbara wants to know to whom these lines were composed.’ He begins to read out, ‘I want to watch the magic show in your eyes. No one else can sound like you. . . These verses are, of course, from You’ve Cooled and Gone. Are they addressed to a specific person?’

  Nur has the odd sensation of being caught out, of people around him holding their breaths. Nassir shifts uncomfortably in his seat. And out there, through the radio waves . . . is Tuf Tuf listening? The friend who knows and must pretend not to know, the friend who can no longer sit comfortably in Nur’s salon and hear him recite his poems. Is she listening? Lying in bed in her villa in Khartoum, her newborn daughter by her side.

  Anger seizes him; stupid Asya from Atbara, stupid Radio Umdurman, stupid Mr Mu’awia, stupid Nassir, who now looks doleful and wary in case Nur blurts out the wrong thing and stains the family’s honour. Some names must never be spoken out loud; some family stories must not be repeated. And Nur knows his duty, he un
derstands the lesson. She is your kin whose reputation must remain unblemished; she is another man’s wife. He knows all this, and wisdom tells him the strange truth. That easy-going, disinterested Tuf Tuf is a better husband for Soraya than he could have ever been. Through him, she is realising her dreams of modernity, discarding her to be and cutting her hair short, moving away from Umdurman’s conventions, wearing her glasses freely and carrying her degree like a trophy, gliding through the fashionable salons and parties of the capital. Nur would have been possessive of her, he would have held her tight with passionate love, and through and through he was a poet who loved his colloquial tongue, the traditions of his people, the closeness of the Nile and the sounds of the alley. Mrs Asya from Atbara wants to meddle and know; wants to grab and know . . . How different other people are from him! They live in the real world, banal and industrious, while he skids the surface of pain and flutters against sadness. Beauty is his friend; loss is his friend. His is the pleasurable company of writing poems and making songs. He has fewer inhibitions than they do; less time, less space.

  ‘Every word,’ he answers. ‘Every one of my verses is addressed to the beloved.’

  ‘Abstract or real?’