Father is quiet. I hear him light his cigarette.
“The doctor brought her back when Um Nabila — God rest her soul — was bedridden. She was working for him at the clinic, cleaning and checking in patients. She had a primary school degree. She had the rosiest cheeks. Her father owned a workshop. He had taken a second wife behind her mother’s back. The mother was harsh and critical and never gave her a break. She was always beating her. . Nabila and her brother had married and left the house. I suddenly found someone to talk to. She read the papers and even talked to me about politics. She paid attention to all kinds of things. I remember her telling me that Hitler would end in disaster and that Gandhi was going to be killed. She engaged my mind. It was the first time in my life that I fell in love. Can you imagine that? A fifty-five year old man falls in love. I said let’s get married and she agreed. Her father complained about the difference in age. She told him: ‘So what? I love him.’ I married her in secret.”
I listened like I was under a magic spell. Father kept talking: “I rented an apartment nearby, the one you know in front of the Jewish school. I followed God’s will in the whole thing. I’d sleep every night next to Um Nabila. In the morning, I’d go to the office. At the end of the day, I’d run to the second apartment.” He appears at the door of the apartment in his white three-piece suit with fez. He has a white umbrella in his right hand. A paper bag full of fruit rests on his left arm. His dark face is beaming. He bends over me and wraps his arms around me.
“As soon as night broke, I’d get dressed to go back to the old house. She hung on to me. She pleaded with me to stay until bedtime. She would say that she was afraid to be left alone. She closed all the shutters and lit up the lights of the apartment. She shrunk herself up in bed. She would lie down and read the Quran until she dozed off. She would wake up scared in the middle of the night. She would hear soft voices calling to her, so she’d cling hard to the bed and plug up her ears until the sun came up.”
I notice a bedbug coming toward my head. I don’t want to move, so father won’t see that I’m awake. I know it’s going to bite me once the lights are out and keep me from sleeping. I follow it with my eyes to see where it will hide.
“Finally, Um Nabila died. We had done with all the mourning, and Nabila says: ‘Come on, Papa, stay with me.’ I told her I was married and had a second house. She was angry and her brother went crazy and told me: ‘Now you’re going to mate like rabbits and have lots of little ones, aren’t you?’ But I went ahead and settled in the new house, and I had a taste of what it was like to be happy.”
He was quiet. He lit a cigarette again. “When I had Nabila and her brother, I was still a young man and I spent most of my time outside the house. This time I really enjoyed being a father. Especially after I retired.” He turned towards me and I closed my eyes. “I’ll never forget the sight of him coming into the room, opening up the drawers, and rifling through the books. Whenever he saw something new, he would point to it and say: ‘That?’ Then it became: ‘What’s that?’ He would try to show me that he understood. I won’t forget the sight of him the first time he ever stood up. He wobbled two steps toward me and clapped. He felt he had achieved something great.”
I drift off then wake up to the buzzing of a mosquito next to my ear. I call upon God to keep it from biting me. The voice of Ali Safa: “I’ll go crazy. At night I toss and turn, wanting a soft body in my embrace. We wouldn’t even have to do anything.”
Father says: “So what are you going to do, my friend? Your only option is to stare.”
“You said it. When I was coming over I saw a girl running in the street. Her tits were bouncing around. I thought I could hear the sound of her buttocks bouncing against each other. Now everything reminds me of what used to be. A shawl wrapped snugly around a tight ass. Two lips slipping through the covering of a burka. A plump arm in short sleeves or a bare shoulder under a sleeveless blouse.”
Quiet settles over them both. The radio plays in the constable’s room. Fareed al-Atrash. I notice the bedbug scooting across the wall. It wants to get away from the light. I reach out my finger and crush it, then I hold my breath, so I won’t have to smell its stink.
Father’s voice: “It was the first month that I went to get my pension. There was an old man wearing a checkered coat, a dark-colored shirt, and a tattered necktie. The edge of his fez had a sweat stain. He was leaning on a cane. He wore Coke-bottle glasses. You had no idea where he was looking. When his turn came, he didn’t move. He kept standing quietly as though he was daydreaming and he was ready to just wait there until the next day. The clerk at the cashier’s window knew me. He made my payments. He stretched out his hand to get my claim certificate. I got up and waved at the old man to go ahead of me. He said something I couldn’t hear. The clerk motioned him over to the next window. He started to move with a great effort, so I helped him make it to the next window. Not only did he not thank me, he didn’t even look at me. It was like I wasn’t there. When I went out, I saw him standing there, leaning against a lamp post. He kept standing there for a long time, looking straight ahead. It was like he had forgotten where he was. I couldn’t go near him. Give me another two or three years and I’ll be just like him.”
Ali Safa says: “Don’t even think that way, friend. It’s still too soon for that.” I feel father shaking his head. “I’ve started to trip when I’m walking along. My eyes glaze over. I don’t hear well. My molars hurt, but when I go to the dentist, he says my gums are shrinking.” Safa says: “The important thing is your virility.” Father’s voice comes to me as though he is far away: “What virility? It’s just a couple of drops now. The old power hose isn’t there anymore.”
~ ~ ~
The older students in the back rows stand up. Shouting in the courtyard. We pick up our satchels and leave the classroom. We join the students from the other classes. Everyone’s chanting: “Today, today, for study no way!” We gather in the school playground. The principal is standing by the closed school door. Sounds of a demonstration come from outside. Bricks rain down on the door of the school. The principal pulls back and the doorman opens the front door. We push out into the street and join with the students from the schools around us. The demonstration shoots out in the direction of the main street. We repeat after the students riding on the shoulders of classmates: “God is supreme; to Him be the glory.” “Long live the common struggle of the peoples of the Nile Valley.” “No to foreign occupation.” “Nahas Pasha, leader of the people.” The police are waiting for us at the end of the street. They block the way with a row of mounted officers. They move towards us and we run.
I escape to a side street. I stop in front of a newspaper stand. Pictures of actresses on the covers of magazines, like al-Kawakib, al-Athnain, and Mesaamarat al-Geeb. I pick up one with a picture of Tarzan on it. The salesman scolds me and grabs it out of my hands. I buy a notebook of songs for five millimes then keep walking. Stumping my foot in the dirt, I notice a round piece of iron. I back away from it. I make a point of going around the shop of the sheikh of the quarter. Finally, I come to the house. I ring the bell but father doesn’t answer. I ring again and Mrs. Tahiya opens up. She says: “Your father’s gone out. Close the door behind you.” She leaves me alone and heads for the kitchen. I close the door to the apartment. I push on the door to our room and find it’s locked. I have the key. I go in and put my satchel on the desk. Take off my clothes and put on the pyjamas with the shiny buttons. I go back to the door. Stand at the threshold listening. I come out into the living area.