by Rania Mamoun
The bakery was closed when I arrived, maybe because of problems with the electricity. That happens often. It explained why I couldn’t hear the cheerful screech of trays as they went in and out of the oven, carrying heat and life for me, and others like me. These round, tan pieces of bread look like paintings, with their random progressions of colour because the heat isn’t even: from white, to brown, to beige, all the way to black where they’re burnt in different places. And in them we see life. When we get a hold of this bread we feel like we’re holding a piece of heaven.
The bakery doors were closed which meant my hunger would go on; I’d go into sugar shock, and I didn’t know when I’d wake up, maybe I wouldn’t wake up. I thought about this, smack in front of the huge iron door barring everything inside, including my elixir of life.
I stood there quietly that night, wondering what to do next. Go back, or wait out my fate here? What was the point of going home, where there was nothing but tap water and my mother, who I only like sometimes when I have all my wits about me, and she only half her wits, maybe even a quarter. They disappear and reappear at random, only she knows when they’ll be there or not.
If I went back for tap water it would fill me like a waterskin, but it wouldn’t quiet my hunger. I’d have to pee much more often than I already do, which is more than I can count. The highest I can count to is ten, and I don’t know what comes after that – maybe a hundred, maybe thirty – I don’t know for sure, I make lots of mistakes. I know one number comes after the other but I don’t know which should be first; whatever comes out first I figure must be right, and my tongue does what it wants. Sometimes it likes nine after seven and other times eight, and I don’t usually use counting except for when I’m totalling up the number of pieces of bread I’ve wolfed down in a week, which is rarely more than ten. So I don’t count past ten. There was one week, not too long ago, when I was always full, because there was bread, falafel, and leftovers from our neighbour the doctor. But he’s not around anymore.
Tap water wasn’t a good enough reason to go home so I had to knock on doors, which is what my uncle had told me never to do. He beat me when he found out I’d knocked on one of his friends’ doors and told me, ‘You’re disgracing us.’
He didn’t want me knocking on doors in our neighbourhood or the one next to it, but he didn’t have a problem with neighbourhoods further away. I shared with him what I got and he told me not to waste effort knocking on doors that are rusty or unpainted or left open.
My uncle works as a driver for a taxi company, but he also has a job as a first class drunk, so what he does with his salary won’t help me.
I didn’t care that my uncle was afraid of me disgracing us. The snake coiled inside me started hissing louder with every passing minute and I knew that if I didn’t toss it some prey soon, it would devour me.
I heard the sound of a celebration in the distance. I listened harder and the sound grew clearer and I wondered if it was a wedding? But it wasn’t a Friday. As far as I knew and understood, and had seen, Friday was the day when people got married. Every Friday I caught a whiff of weddings being celebrated in houses with their doors wide open. They were the only ones my uncle told me to go into without asking permission, he guaranteed I’d leave with a warm belly and a smile on my face. And he was right: I always left different to how I’d arrived, even if I only ate what was left on the plates, which was what I usually did.
There weren’t weddings on Mondays. What was it?
I have a friend who also goes trawling at parties, and I remembered what she said two days ago, that sometimes there are birthday parties, but she didn’t tell me when. Maybe that’s what was happening. Whatever the reason for the party was, I was going to follow the sound and find something to keep me alive until the next day.
I walked a few steps before I felt my hands start to tremble. I thought about what I could get by begging, robbing, or even stealing.
I needed to eat, I needed something with sugar. It was clear that the shaking had started, and was getting worse.
I started walking faster and the road ahead seemed never-ending, even though it was just one block. Would I make it?
I found out a moment later when everything faded and I collapsed on the ground. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I couldn’t get up and keep walking.
I lay there for several minutes, or maybe hours, and lost hope of getting my strength back, even just enough to get to the house with the party. I heard a car go by and realised that it would be dangerous to stay where I was until morning. My flesh and bones and blood would be ground into the dirt.
I gathered my strength… crawled slowly… my knees scraped along the ground, grit and clumps of dirt dug into my elbows and hurt. I needed to be careful, because if I got even a small cut I might end up losing a limb.
I crawled to the closest house, the one on the corner, and in front was a big rock and a mazeera, a metal stand holding three water urns. I sat up and leaned against the big rock. I couldn’t make it to the urns to take a gulp of water, and I couldn’t reach the door to knock on it, so I huddled there.
My strength abandoned me, like my father abandoned me when he ran away to the other world, like my poor mother abandoned me by retreating to her own world, unable to deal with Father being gone. The moment his body entered the grave, her mind flew into the air and its cells scattered and its particles got all mixed up. My strength abandoned me like my uncle abandoned me, like my body abandoned me, defeated by this damn diabetes.
A dog started to bark, followed by another. They were coming towards me, they must have been thinking I was a dead body or something else to eat. The street was empty and quiet. I didn’t know what time it was, but I was sure no one was awake except for me, the growing number of dogs, and people dancing at the party.
Every cell in my body was shaking. I grabbed a handful of dirt and swallowed it. The dogs gathered around me… barking… getting closer… one of them took a long look at me and came really close. It was the dog that belonged to our neighbour, the doctor. He sniffed me and stared into my eyes, and I thought that he recognised me. He nudged me with his hand, or his foot, I don’t know what to call it because he walks on all four of them so I don’t know whether it’s a hand or a foot.
When the other dogs started coming closer, their barking grew softer. The neighbour’s dog turned to them and must have told them something because they took a few steps back and went completely silent.
He gazed at me tenderly. Suddenly the look in his eyes changed. He turned to his friends, barked something I didn’t understand, and some of them ran after him while others stayed with me.
Some people from the party appeared, all rowdy and noisy, and they walked by without noticing me. My voice stuck in my throat, and I thought that it had abandoned me too.
My eyes started to grow dim and my protectors looked at me with concern. I swallowed another handful of dirt and cast a long look at the urn. What if it were just a bit closer?
One of the dogs took the dish sitting under the urn in his mouth and dragged it closer to me. I took the dish and drank, shaking so much that some of the water splashed out of my mouth and onto my tattered clothes. I smiled at him. I marvelled at the dogs’ subtle sensitivity. I hadn’t known that dogs or other animals had feelings or emotions or thoughts like people do. They licked the plate after I drank from it, maybe they were thirsty too. The dogs struck up a conversation to entertain me, to keep me from passing out or dying, I realised.
They formed a ring around me. One little dog was cautiously affectionate, he smelled my feet and touched me with his soft dog-hand, tenderly, like a friend. I turned to look at him. He was small and pretty. He stared into my eyes and brushed against me again. I wearily reached out to him, and he looked at my hand, then back at my face. He smiled, so I smiled back at him. He licked my hand, jumped on top of the rock, and settled there. I stroked his soft fur happily, and it made me feel warm.
A male and female dog wer
e having sex in front of everyone.
‘Really, just like that?’ I asked when they finished, surprised.
‘Sure – anytime and anywhere,’ the male dog responded with bravado.
He told me that the first time they met, she stole his heart and mind. He decided to take her, even though she was surrounded by four huge dogs, and so they struck up a competition and made her the prize: if the other dogs beat him they would win her, and if he beat them she would be all his, and that’s how it turned out.
‘I liked how brave and fearless he was,’ the female dog told me. ‘I fell in love with him, and from that day on we’ve been inseparable.’
The story inspired the other dogs, who told me about themselves: their quarrels with cats, explorations through garbage heaps, and even what they’d learned about people. I don’t know what language they spoke, maybe they used words or maybe I imagined it, it’s hard now for me to say. I was on the brink of passing out. In that moment I couldn’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy, but I had a good time in their company – they were kind, and treated me as one of them.
I’d never paid attention to dogs before that. I didn’t love them or feel afraid of them, or think of them often except for when I saw one. That night I learned to tell the difference between the males and females; I learned their habits, ways of life, relationships with people, characteristics, and the qualities they have that people lack. They were generous with me, entertained me, sang and danced for me, and did everything they could to keep me from dying.
I was at the edge of consciousness or death, when from far away a line of dogs appeared led by our neighbour’s dog, who had something in his mouth. I thought I was starting to hallucinate, and was seeing things that weren’t there. When they got closer I saw that each one was carrying something in its mouth. Our neighbour’s dog looked me in the eyes as he tossed me a piece of meat. I didn’t know what garbage pile it had come from, or what house he’d stolen it from. At that point, was I even thinking?
Another one tossed me a piece of bread, half-mouldy, and another one a piece of raw meat, and another one a chicken leg, and another, and another, things I couldn’t identify. I couldn’t tell apart the things they tossed me, which I quickly grabbed and devoured, ignoring the sound of sand grating between my teeth and the smell of mould and bacteria in what I was eating.
I might’ve eaten a cat, or a mouse, or a lizard, I might’ve swallowed a bone, but did it matter?
About the Translator
Elisabeth Jaquette’s translations from the Arabic include The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz (Melville House, 2016) and The Apartment in Bab el-Louk by Donia Maher (Darf Publishers, 2017). Her work has been shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize, longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award, and supported by English PEN, the Jan Michalski Foundation, and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund. Elisabeth is also an instructor of translation and the Executive Director of the American Literary Translators Association.
The Book of Khartoum
Edited by Raph Cormack & Max Shmookler
‘An exciting, long-awaited collection showcasing some of Sudan’s finest writers.’ – Leila Aboulela
Khartoum, according to one theory, takes its name from the Beja word hartooma, meaning ‘meeting place’. Geographically, culturally and historically, the Sudanese capital is certainly that: a meeting place of the Blue and White Niles, a confluence of Arabic and African histories, and a destination point for countless refugees displaced by Sudan’s long, troubled history of forced migration.
In the pages of this book, the city also stands as a meeting place for ideas: where the promise and glamour of the big city meets its tough social realities; where traces of a colonial past are still visible in day-to-day life; where the dreams of a young boy, playing in his father’s shop, act out a future that may one day be his. Diverse literary styles also come together here: the political satire of Ahmed al-Malik; the surrealist poetics of Bushra al-Fadil; the social realism of the first postcolonial authors; and the lyrical abstraction of the new ‘Iksir’ generation. As with any great city, it is from these complex tensions that the best stories begin.
Featuring: Bushra al-Fadil, Isa al-Hilu, Ali al-Makk, Ahmed al-Malik, Bawadir Bashir, Mamoun Eltlib, Rania Mamoun, Abdel Aziz Baraka Sakin, Arthur Gabriel Yak & Hammour Ziada.
ISBN: 978-1-90558-372-0
£9.99