Dream 94
Five men wielding switchblades seized me: I gave them my money and they fled with confusing speed. Yet some of their features remained imprinted in my memory.
Since that incident, I have avoided walking alone on the side streets, though the main road is never devoid of its own ordeals. One day I found the traffic stopped and the people gathered on either side.
Before long came a convoy of many cars. As the last part of it passed before me, I saw a face that made my heart leap, and began to mutter, “There must be so many who look the same.”
Dream 95
The journey’s start was agreed. The family met the news contentedly, hastening to advance me money.
I went immediately to the tailor to be fitted for a suit in the latest fashion, and the man truly did an outstanding job. Still, he wasn’t satisfied.
Producing an elegant turban, he thrust it on my head. “Now,” he said, “the suit’s in the current style.”
Dream 96
The fighting grew fiercer along the roads until its rattle and ruckus brought all means of transport to a complete halt. I returned exhausted to my home — where I longed to lighten my tiredness under the water of my shower. When I went into the bath, I found my girl inside, drying off her nude body. Completely transformed, I rushed toward her, but she pushed me far away from her — warning that the warring in the streets was growing closer to my house.
Dream 97
Here was the office of the Secretariat, where I spent a lifetime before going on pension. Here, too, I had been companion to the cream of employees, in all of whose funerals Fate decreed that I take part.
I stared inside the room to see the youths who had succeeded us, and was nearly felled by the shock — for I found no one there but my old colleagues. I rushed inside, shouting, “God’s peace upon my dear ones!” with anticipation, confusion, and unease. Yet not one of them raised his head from his papers, and I withdrew back unto myself in frustration and despair.
When the time came to go, they left their places without any of them turning to look at me — not even the lovely lady translator. And so I found myself alone in the empty chamber.
Dream 98
From my prospect on the sidewalk, I cast my gaze onto the garden enclosed by the iron fence. There I saw the queen of my heart as she dispensed chocolates to lovers gathered there.
I raced toward the fence’s gate until I reached the entrance, panting as I ran inside. But I found not a trace of my dear one, and cried out a curse upon love. The time came for me to go back outside — and there I saw my girlfriend in the same place where I had been, walking arm-in-arm with a young man who appeared to be her fiancé.
I wanted to return whence I came, but exhaustion, prolonged reflection, and the lost opportunity would not let me.
Dream 99
This was a circular field in whose center was a slender date palm, and around which little houses were clustered. In the afternoon, the doors would open and women would come out to chat under the palm. Usually the conversation was about marriage and their daughters. I would withdraw far away to follow what they were saying with zeal.
When the sun set I would be devoured by hunger. No one would know of my condition except for my childhood girlfriend who would slink up to me carrying a small plate, one half of it filled with white cheese, the other smothered in parsley.
We would labor together to assuage each other’s hunger, to the hum of the gossip about who would be wedding whom.
Dream 100
This is a trial and this a bench and sitting at it is a single judge and this is the seat of the accused and sitting at it is a group of national leaders and this is the courtroom, where I have sat down longing to get to know the party responsible for what has befallen us. But I grow confused when the dialogue between the judge and the leaders is conducted in a language I have never before heard, until the magistrate adjusts himself in his seat as he prepares to announce the verdict in the Arabic tongue. I lean forward to hear, but then the judge points at me — to pronounce a sentence of death upon me. I cry out in alarm that I’m not part of this proceeding and that I’d come of my own free will simply to watch and see — but no one even notices my scream.
Dream 101
We prettied up the house to welcome back the son — during his time away, he’d become a celebrity. We spent the evening on our balcony with its beautiful view and its cleansing breeze, as the prodigal one entertained us with poetry and songs well into the night.
But in the morning we found the balcony’s entrance blocked by a monstrous wardrobe. I felt ashamed — nor did our son hide his dismay when it dawned on him that folks from the heart of his family detested his presence, despising his delightful work.
Dream 102
At length I went down to the toilet on the lower floor of the old house. Soon, however, I became annoyed with its dampness and discomfort, and went out searching all over again until I wound up on the upper floor. This was better than all the other areas, but then it rained with unusual intensity. The water ran down from the roof and forced us to heap up the furniture and to cover it completely, following which we fled the flat for the stairwell. When it dawned on the new resident of the lower level that we were there, he came out to us — inviting us with extreme insistence to go inside where it was warm, safe, and dry.
Dream 103
What’s happening in our house? All the chairs are lined up with their feet nailed down and the ceilings are stripped of their lamps and the walls of their pictures and the floors of their carpets — so what’s going on in our house?
They say it’s all to protect our home against the many burglaries of apartments. But I reply without pause that a break-in would be dearer to my heart than ugliness and chaos.
Dream 104
I saw myself in Abbasiya wandering in the vastness of my memories, recalling in particular the late Lady Eye. So I contacted her by telephone, inviting her to meet me by the fountain, and there I welcomed her with a passionate heart.
I suggested that we spend the evening together in Fishawi Café, as in our happiest days. But when we reached the familiar place, the deceased blind bookseller came over to us and greeted us warmly — though he scolded the dearly departed Eye for her long absence.