Sana didn’t reply. She went on standing uneasily in front of her. Her grandmother blew smoke out of her nose and mouth. “Who was at the door?”
“I don’t know, Bibi.”
“What d’you mean, you don’t know? Who was it, dear?”
Sana’s mouth and throat were dry. “I’m thirsty, Bibi. Let me get a drink of water.”
“Give me one, too.”
She hurried to the fridge. The icy water revived her, and she took a glass to her grandmother who was standing turning over the rice on the hob, her cigarette hanging from her lips. She gave the cigarette to San to hold while she drank the water. As Sana took the glass back to the sink, she emptied the last few drops into her hand and moistened her face with them. Without saying anything more to her grandmother, she ran off upstairs. She heard a noise coming from the roof, but couldn’t be bothered to go up there, and ran along the gallery to their room. She found it empty and dark; even the television was switched off, and she heard them calling her from Aunt Safiya’s room. They were all there. Munira smiled at her, and Aunt Safiya welcomed her exuberantly.
“Sana, when are we going to eat?” asked Umm Hasan. “See if your mother’s come down from the terrace, there’s a good girl.”
Before she could answer, Aunt Safiya shouted, “Let her have a rest, Umm Hasan. Come here, Sana dear. Take this bottle and fill it with cold water. Go on, dear. Are you thirsty, Umm Hasan?”
Munira’s mother, cigarette in hand, was listening intently as her daughter whispered in her ear. Aunt Safiya handed Sana an empty bottle and she took it unenthusiastically. As she went out of the room, she heard Munira saying, “We’re not going to Baquba any more.”
Sana hurried along with Munira beside the high cement wall of the Kilani mosque. The sun shone full on the narrow pavement. She didn’t understand why they were in such a hurry That morning just before breakfast, she’d heard Munira talking to her mother. “Madiha, is it all right if I take Sana with me to see the new school? It’s supposed to be in Haidarkhana. Do you need her for anything?”
Then the two of them had hurried to get dressed and leave the house. Sana was over the moon! Suha had to stay and help her mother!
“Auntie Munira, I want to be like you when I grow up,” she said as they crossed the street.
Munira looked beautiful and elegant to her: she wore sunglasses with her abaya and had a lovely smile. Munira didn’t reply, and Sana accelerated to keep up with her.
Where Kilani Street crossed Kifah Street they turned off towards the bus stop. Under the hot, white sun they joined the crowd waiting for the bus. At this time of day Kifah Street was filled with the roar of speeding cars and people. Sana didn’t recognize him at first and didn’t hear him speaking to them, but then Munira returned his greeting and Sana shouted, “Uncle! Hello!”
The three of them stood together apart from the waiting crowd. Midhat stroked her hair, smiling at Munira. “Where are you off to so early in the morning? Going shopping?”
“No. Shopping indeed! I’m going to look at the school. I don’t know where it is.”
Munira seemed happy somehow. “I though we’d be there and back in no time,” Sana heard her say “Why’s there such a hold-up?”
“It’s like this every day. Didn’t you know?” He looked into her face as he spoke. “I’ve been standing here for about a quarter of an hour. Three buses have gone by full.”
He turned towards the street then seized Sana’s arm suddenly and called to Munira, “Come on! That taxi’s empty.”
He went ahead of them and signaled to the taxi to stop, then opened the rear door for them. Sana jumped in and sat by the window. Munira followed, then her Uncle Midhat. Two other passengers took the two front seats. A gentle breeze blew, ruffling Sana’s hair and letting her breathe. Delightedly she began observing the scenes in the busy street, the cars, and big buses. She hadn’t been on an excursion like this for ages. The last time had been before the summer holidays, when she went with her mother and sister to buy new shoes for the Feast.
Midhat gave the driver some money and Munira looked at her. Sana smiled.
“Be careful of the door, Sana,” said Munira.
“Yes, Auntie,” said Sana, then went back to her determined contemplation of the street. She would tell her mother what she had seen, and Aunt Safiya and her sister Suha. She would describe everything she saw in detail. A big bus passed close to them sending a blast of air into her face, and she sat back in alarm. She had the impression that Midhat was resting his hand on Munira’s.
“What’s the school called?” she heard him asking.
“What did you say?” asked Munira.
“The school. What’s its name?”
“Oh. Petra. Petra School.”
He smiled, “As if there’d be a school with a name like that in Haidarkhana!”
“Are you serious?”
His smile broadened and he patted Munira’s hand, which was hidden under her abaya. “No, no. I’m just joking. But . . .” He laced his hands round his knee. “Do you always have to go first thing in the morning?”
“Yes, of course. Once the term starts, I hope things will work out.”
“Auntie Munira,” said Sana. “Can I come with you to this school?”
“I don’t see why not, dear. Except I’m afraid your mother might not like it. Perhaps she’d rather you went with her to her school.”
“Do you like your Aunt Munira very much, Sana?” her uncle asked her.
Sana looked at him in surprise, then nodded hesitantly “Yes, Uncle.”
He half turned to look at Munira. “Everything’s fine then. It seems we’re both in the same camp.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“So shall we draw up an agreement and present out demands?”
He was talking to her as if she wasn’t there and looking almost directly at Munira. “What do you say, Sana? Do we have an agreement?”
Munira laughed and covered her face with her abaya. Sana was glad to see a big smile on her uncle’s face, although he looked round with some embarrassment at the other passengers. The cars, people, shops flashed before her eyes. She had no idea when they would reach their destination and hoped it would be never, but a few minutes later she heard her uncle asking the driver to stop. Still smiling, he explained to Munira that his office was here and told her where they should get out. Then he said a quick goodbye and slammed the door behind him. Munira sat watching the route attentively, all traces of joy gone from her face. The car had not traveled on much further when she said to the driver, “Here. Can we get out here, please.”
Sana moved quickly from her place at a nod from Munira, and the two of them stood at the side of the road. They still had to walk a short distance before they reached the school, so they crossed the street and hurried along without a word. After a while they reached Jumhuriya Street and were confronted by some derelict houses. When Munira inquired, a passer-by directed them to the other side of the street.
“Come on, Sana. Be careful,” said Munira, taking her hand,
They hesitated before turning into a narrow dirt alley, which curved unexpectedly, then forked off in different directions. For the first time Sana noticed Munira looking perplexed. An old man went past, and Sana asked him shyly where the school was. He pointed out the way with no difficulty and they set off again. Sana was elated when she caught sight of a smile on Munira’s lips.
Chapter
Seven
I went back to my room, shut the door behind me and sat on the bed. Then I stood up and switched on the light. I had eaten well and after the meal drunk tea and talked to my parents. I told them about the last exam, which hadn’t been bad. Two questions had come up on a subject I had reviewed on the bus on the way to the university They considered this a blessing from on high, a good omen.
I myself had come to the conclusion in the course of the exam that if I carried on thinking the way I had been, I wouldn’t get anywhere. Nobody before me had
got anywhere by being obsessed with the idea that life wasn’t worth the effort and everything was a sham. I had accustomed myself to thinking that I was only one person among billions, and that even if they were not all better than me, millions of them must at least be intellectually superior, more balanced, more determined. Even though I was not in a position to make an objective evaluation of myself vis-a-vis other people, it wasn’t the sort of subject one could just forget about, and it seemed to me that talking about the murky depths of the human mind and spirit could never be a waste of time.
So I sat on my bed in my brightly lit room, wondering why I had restrained myself from telling my father, not to mention my mother, how I had wasted half an hour of the exam trying to free myself of the dispiriting idea that everything was futile. This notion had been tearing me apart, and I had been observing myself being demolished by it for a month or more, like a sparrow watching a snake swallowing it bit by bit. On this occasion it had occurred to me that if I got up and left the exam hall, without anger or heroics, pretending I’d finished the exam, then ... I had stopped as I did every time, wondering what my master plan would be. That was if I wanted to put off suicide for the time being, simply because I wasn’t in a fit state of health to contemplate it.
During those moments of reflection, I could possibly have understood some important things or reached a fruitful conclusion, if the student next to me hadn’t dropped his pen and made me jump, interrupting the unusual rapport I had established with myself.
I stood up and opened my bedroom door to let in the cool night air, then returned to my seat on the bed. I could have a break tonight, because the next exam wasn’t for two days. I looked at my bookshelves, but didn’t have the energy to choose a book to entertain myself with over the next few hours. I was exhausted by the September heat and the effort of the exams. So perhaps I could go to sleep early. I put my head in my hands, not thinking of anything in particular, even though I would have liked to: I had the feeling that if I was involved in some normal enterprise or led a normal life, I might become an ordinary, normal, contented human being. It seemed to me that what stopped me from being at ease in the conventional framework of life was the way I turned my back—emotionally and intellectually—at the first sign of a crack opening up in my personal universe. Although I wasn’t made of cast-iron, it would really help if I was more ready to retain an interest in life; it didn’t make sense to spend all your time in a complete vacuum, as I was doing now. Even a brief spell of it was enough to shake up your life forever. But I was waiting, wasn’t I? I looked up and let my eyes wander round the room and out at the night sky. I was doing something with my life which was similar to work: waiting. My days would not go by in vain because I was counting them and waiting, and it wouldn’t matter if appointments were missed. Appointments were irrelevant when you were concentrating on waiting,
I went and stood in the doorway of my room. The weather was pleasant, the air slightly heavy and damp. I’d been among the first to come down from the terrace, with my parents, the old people, and the little girls. Munira had slept up there two days longer than me, and Midhat and Madiha were still there. The heat was strange that year, reluctant to gather up its skirts and depart. The door and windows of Aunt Safiya’s room were wide open, and the electric light gave out a reddish glow. My grandmother, Umm Hasan, was curled up in bed, and my aunt watched her in silence. Both of them had had a good supper and now they were relaxing. A noise came from the crowded television room. There was not a trace of daylight left in the dark sky. It must be past ten o’clock, and they had not yet returned. Perhaps the light had been left on downstairs for their benefit.
Before I went into the exam that morning, when I was standing in the sun outside the university buildings, it had occurred to me that if the intelligent people in the world knew the earth was cooling down and the human species was on the road to extinction—that every civilization with its achievements and dreams was going to be swept away—then they must surely also be aware of this gloom which habitually engulfed people and plunged them into the abyss, into nothingness. So how could they live their lives with the enthusiasm of the ignorant? Were these knowledgeable people not impostors who didn’t really believe in their own ideas?
But I think I’m mixing up the chronology of my thoughts now, because I remember clearly that I had this idea about the earth cooling down and death while I was coming home after the exam, not before it. The only thing occupying my mind while I was standing in the hot sun beside the university was the image of a person listening to his own death rattle, hearing himself dying; even if it was only for a moment, a second, a tenth of a second, he could hear the sound of his death. Or perhaps he heard a collision inside him, two objects colliding somewhere in his head—bang!—then darkness. Or—a third possibility— maybe he heard an explosion and was about to look round, thinking it was some distance away, when he was swallowed up by the darkness. I was thinking of the huge amount of fear which surrounds human beings and how it exists primarily because of them, and how when you have a good chance of encountering such fear in your life, absurdity becomes meaningless. It’s enough to make it your aim in life not to be filled with terror to the point of madness.
They came in laughing and shut the middle door behind them. Munira looked radiantly happy in the distant glow of the light as she listened to Midhat talking to her and Sana about something. I stepped back a little when the door next to mine opened and Suha came out. Holding on to the wooden balustrade she observed them, then rushed back inside shouting that they were here. Aunt Safiya asked who was here, in the tone of one not expecting an answer. I went into my room and sat down on the bed. They started calling to one another from upstairs to downstairs and back: questions, answers, more questions. I could hear my mother, Madiha, and Suha all talking at the same time and Sana answering them, except once Munira spoke to say she wasn’t hungry. Her voice sounded soft and melodious. Then there was the clatter of crockery and cutlery and the noise of the fridge being opened and shut, interspersed with cheerful laughter and conversation. I stood up, turned out the light, and lay down. Several shadowy figures passed along the gallery and went downstairs. Aunt Safiya called my mother again, asking who had come, and who was eating at this time of night.
I was seriously trying to collect my thoughts, see what my life meant and work out what I felt about death. But—in the darkness of my room, lying listening to the distant clamor in the kitchen and staring at the black patch of sky visible through my partly open door—I was aware of one thing only: my sense of defeat—again. I had no practical experience of life because I couldn’t overcome the particular conditions of the society in which I lived. not could I overcome the feeling that I was waiting, in some remote corner, to be allowed to experience life. I remembered standing by the bridge over the river one evening a few months ago. I had recovered from my illness and gone to the university in the afternoon to find out about the exams. The empty building and the janitor’s pale face depressed me, and I was put off by the complicated exam timetable. I stood in the street beside the empty café, not far from the bridge, looking at the setting sun. I was in an endless cemetery A big white car passed with a girl driving. God, how far away it seemed! Like a shooting star on the distant horizon. To have a house, a car, a wife—it was all such a long way off.
I told her all that, explained it to the sad hazel eyes. She listened to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. She was still wearing her green dress with short sleeves. She dropped in on me after they had finished eating and those who wanted had gone up on the roof to sleep. I had switched on my lamp and sat down at my desk to try and use the time profitably before I went to bed. So she came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. Her green dress showed her knees, too. Her long blonde hair was arranged with care on her shoulders, and faint traces of make-up were visible on her face. She seemed a little tired.
“Where were you?” I asked. Like her, I was tired and it showed in my voice.
“Which cinema?”
She parted her lips in a half smile and closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at me. “No, really, how was the exam?”
I told her unenthusiastically what I had been thinking before and during the exam, listening to myself, no longer feeling that what I was explaining to her was important. She looked at me in silence for some time. “Why do you think in this way? I mean, are you serious, Karim?”
“Why not?”
“No, I mean, why do you bother about these things? Even with this interruption, you can still finish university and things will work out all right.”
“And if I finish—then what?”
A flicker of anxiety showed on her face. “What are you talking about? You’ll get a degree, then find a job. After that you can live your own life and settle down, can’t you?”
“A degree, a job, stability . . .”
“Why don’t you have some respect for these things? You’ve got no right to despise them; there’s nothing else in our lives.”
She was more concerned than I had expected, frowning at me as she fiddled with a strand of hair beside her left ear. She spoke again, more softly “Karim, you’ve got to do well. Please. Why are you upsetting yourself talking like this? You’re young and you’ve got your whole life in front of you. Why bother with such ideas?”
“You know, Munira,” I told her, “What you’re saying reminds me of something that happened over a year ago, after Gagarin’s space flight. I was having my shoes polished by an Armenian on Kilani Street. His face was twisted to one side and he was goggle-eyed.”
She was listening solemnly, this beautiful creature, and crossed one leg over the other as I was talking.
“I was alone in the shop. The moment I sat down he asked me, ‘Is it true they’ve gone up into space?’ ‘Yes, so they say’ I replied. And Christ? What about Christ?’ he screamed at me. I was really taken by surprise. He seemed quite agitated. His eyes were blazing, and he was gasping for breath. I mean, it looked as if it were a matter of life and death for him.” I smiled. “You see, you’ve reminded me of this story I also wanted to say to him at the time, ‘What concern is it of yours, you idiot? Why are you thinking these thoughts?”‘
The Long Way Back Page 16