‘Where did you get the money from?’
‘Uncle Shukry gave me a piaster this morning.’ Osama closed his fingers over the marble.
Bilal reached out and pressed his father’s pockets to see if he had brought home anything. Sometimes he got them bubble gum or peanuts. Finding his pockets empty, the boys’ interest cooled and they went back to their game by the light of the lamp. The baby was asleep on one of the beds. If he rolled over, he would fall off. Badr propped a pillow behind his back before turning to greet his father.
He bent down to kiss the old man’s hand. ‘How are you, Father? How are you today?’ Whole days and nights would pass with the old man detached and confused. In this state, he even forgot he was in Sudan and spoke about feeding the water buffalos and milking the cow, as if the fields and canals of Kafr-el-Dawar were outside his door. He would also imagine that Badr’s sons were his own sons, and often address Osama as ‘Walla ya Badr’ or ‘Badr ya zeft’. This always sent Osama into a fit of harsh giggles, for it disturbed him to hear his father’s name, the name of a venerable Ustaz of Arabic language and religion, abused in such a way. If Osama laughed in front of Badr, Badr would give his shaking shoulders a slap to restore order in the household. Behind his back, though, he was sure the boys, and even Hanniyah, had their fair share of laughter at his father’s senility.
Badr never found it funny. His father had been a tough, imposing man in his younger days, a farmer and a fighter who inspired respect and even fear in others. Badr remembered him using his cane to beat petty thieves and highwaymen. He had a special talent with the stick, and at weddings and circumcisions he would dance, twirling it in his hand, a handsome, smiling man, strong and loud in his brown jellabiya. Loyally, Badr held this image in his head. This was his real father, not this mound of sagging flesh with the befuddled mind and naivety of a child.
‘How are you, Father?’
In a flash the reply came, lucid and loud, as if it were being hurled from the healthy past. ‘Isn’t it time that this bastard cousin of yours found himself a job and got out of here?’
Surprise made Badr speechless. No one, in these past few days, had been sure if the old man was aware of the guest’s presence. Badr felt as if he was meeting his father after a long absence and there was so much he wanted to talk to him about.
‘What can I do, Father? I must honour my guest.’
‘Enough! He’s been here too long. And you have other responsibilities. You are busy working all day.’
Badr felt a surge of joy. His father sympathised, his father understood. He wanted to call out to Hanniyah so that she could share in the moment, and he glanced at her, at her moving, active body, but he could not catch her eyes. Her face was in the dark away from the lamplight.
‘We are not in our village where everything is easy,’ his father continued. ‘We are in a foreign land.’
Amazing. Badr pressed his hand.
‘Insha’ Allah he’ll find a job soon.’
‘He won’t get a job. He’s no good. And is he looking for a job? Do you know why he’s here? He’s running from the police, that’s why. He’s committed a crime and now he’s hiding where no one can find him.’
The old man’s mind was wandering, or he knew something that Badr didn’t.
‘What crime, Father? What did Shukry do?’
His father looked caught out and his eyes, previously focused on Badr, lost their intensity. He started to mumble.
‘I have to ask his father. He will know. Your uncle is disappointed in him.’
Shukry’s father had died several years ago and Badr allowed the conversation to drop. It was healing enough to know that his father appreciated his daily struggles. He left him and walked over to Hanniyah.
Would she ask him about his meeting with Mahmoud Bey? He started to gently chide her, ‘I walk into this house and you don’t come and greet me! At least have a sweet word for your man.’
She looked up at him and smiled.
‘I have a sweet dish for you.’
She had flowing light brown hair and a ruddy complexion; her eyes shone, and her lips were beautiful.
He squatted next to her. ‘What are you making?’
She paused in her stirring. ‘Rice pudding.’
She herself was sweet and creamy as pudding. Her ample body was firm, a multitude of orbs, pliant, narrow, convex and intriguing. He was coarse and dreary next to her. It was a miracle that she belonged to him. Grateful for the darkness, he squeezed her thigh and his fingers dug at the back of her knees. She laughed.
‘Don’t get too close to the pot or you’ll mess up your going-out clothes.’ She went back to stirring. ‘I ate feseakh today,’ she said. ‘Our neighbour, Salha, the wife of the post office clerk, came over for a visit and brought me some. She said to me, you have to taste our Sudanese dish and I said to her we have this same dish of salted fish but we only make it on Eid. I tasted it, and it was different — but tasty.’
He had not been able to buy pickles and olives for her today but alhamdullilah, she had received the saltiness she craved. He need not have worried. And now she said: ‘You know I’ve been nagging you to move to a better place? Well, today when Salha was here and she was kind and friendly, I thought how can I move away from her and deliver all by myself? She promised to help me. Who knows what kind of neighbours we will have if we move! So I want to stay here in this house until after I give birth.’
A burden was lifted off his shoulders. Just like that. He need not tell her about today’s visit to Mahmoud Bey’s office, he need not say a thing. She prattled on, and he loved her best like this, when she was occupied with the concerns of the household or with some feminine matter, too busy to make demands of him. She had a sharp tongue and the potential to erupt when provoked. He had seen her haranguing women in the family, and she could spank the boys as hard as any man, yet with him she was soft-spoken and yielding, in awe of his teaching credentials and status. Even when they did quarrel, she was able to restrain her tongue and went so far, but not over the limit. He appreciated this. She was on his side and his fight was her fight.
He went indoors to change. The room was littered with their belonging, as well as their guest’s suitcase, and in the dim light it looked untidy and squashed. There were no beds, now, because they were all out in the hoash. Badr put on his house clothes, which consisted of long johns and a vest. He tossed a pillow on the floor and stretched out. Stealing time, and stealing space. He could hear the children outside the door. Grandpa was trying to leave the house.
‘Quick, stop him, Osama, or he will get lost like last time!’
Then Shukry’s voice, ‘Where are you going, Uncle Hajj? Come and sit with me.’
His father’s voice, but he could not make out the words. Then Shukry, defending himself.
‘Of course I am not escaping from Egypt!’
Badr got up and stepped out into the hoash. Shukry was sitting next to his father on the bed. He was tall compared to Badr, his body one solid, uniform bulk, his face large and tanned with a sunken, bleary look. Badr remembered him as a child in the village, in a striped jellabiya with filthy feet and hands, his face surrounded by buzzing flies. He had a clear memory of him deftly, and with glee, pulling off the sack that covered the face of a water buffalo. The buffalo were blindfolded to prevent them from becoming dizzy as they turned the saqqiya round and round. But a stressed and dizzy beast was what Shukry wanted. There was a cruel streak in him.
Now Badr greeted him and asked him about his day. He sat on the bed next to the baby, who sat up and started whimpering.
‘I’ve been promised work, cousin. Insha’ Allah, in the cotton fields in a place called Gezira.’
Elation. Not only would Shukry leave the house but the whole city too!