The House of Jasmine (9 page)

Magid often seemed preoccupied, and on several occasions, I thought of asking him about it, but then I forgot. On the first of October, he cleared up the mystery, and said as if he were spellbound, “She is dark with green eyes and black hair. Can there be anything prettier than that? She said that she was a student at the school of natural sciences. First she came in to buy shampoo, then she came again, and that time, we talked a little and she laughed. The third time she came, she was crying, and asked me to help her find her aunt's house. She had its address, but didn't know how to get there. She said that she had come from Cairo to spend the day with her uncle, but his wife mistreated her, and she wanted to stay with another aunt. She said that she would not leave for Cairo without calling me, and that she was going to write to me afterwards, but two months have passed and she has neither called nor written. I will go see her in Cairo.”

“And that is why you have been so preoccupied?” Hassanayn asked, but Magid didn't reply. It was as if his mind were already somewhere else. After that he went to Cairo every week, and came back saying “I don't know if she is at Cairo or ‘Ayn Shams University. She didn't say what year she was, and I believe she said that she was studying at the school of natural science, but I may be wrong. I don't know.” Then he traveled again and came back to say, “It is difficult to enter the campus because of the university police and security. The university is like a fortress. I stand at the gate asking the students if they are at the school of natural science. Cairo University has more than one gate. I'm scared.” He continued to make frequent trips to Cairo, and our meetings became fewer and fewer. Then winter came, and they stopped altogether.

#

Al-Dakruri came into my office, and before he'd even greeted me, he said, “Isn't it about time you left this badly lit office?”

I looked at him standing between my desk and the door, then asked, “Al-Dakruri, you are the president of the workers' union, aren't you?”

He smiled, and seemed as surprised as a little kid. Then his pale face turned red and he said, “Are you making fun of me?”

“Not at all, but I wanted to ask you why you never wear your overalls. I know that you are an electrical technician. Right?”

He laughed and said, “You're right, but I have forgotten all about electricity. There are always problems between the workers and the administration to be worked out, as you know.”

I smiled. He always said that I knew things that I didn't actually know.

“Why do you want me to leave this office?” I asked.

“This is the normal thing for anyone to do,” he said.

“You've been working here for ten years. You deserve to get a promotion and have additional employees working under your supervision. But they may forget about you like this. Write me a complaint, and I will look into it for you.” I laughed and offered him a cigarette. He said that he had quit smoking because it was bad for one's health, and because he was trying to save enough money to get married, having delayed it for too long already.

“The President's reception ceremonies are going to be huge this time,” he said. “The newspapers say that the Camp David meeting will end the Arab–Israeli conflict forever. They will broadcast the signing of the treaty on air the day after tomorrow, so get ready.”

“Am I going to take the workers to the rally? You know that I have stopped doing that.”

“You will regain the workers' respect for you by doing it this time. It is true that a long time has passed since what happened, but it's necessary to fully regain their respect, and don't forget that the new chairman doesn't know anything about it. You have to take the workers to a rally at least one more time to erase all memory of the old incident among the workers and employees.”

He went out and left me thinking about what he was doing. How could he know that I was a thief, and still show no objection or surprise about it? And why was he so concerned about me regaining respect one and a half years after the incident? Surely, that was enough time to erase all memory of the incident, which, in fact, didn't really concern anybody except me. He always wanted me to be promoted. This al-Dakruri must be a messenger of divine providence, a prophet maybe. I thought about what he had said about saving money for his marriage, felt sorry for him, and liked him even more. I also felt that I did indeed need to regain the workers' respect.

#

The day before our scheduled trip to Cairo, I called Usta Zinhum, and he came to see me in my office. I told him that this time we were going to take five hundred workers and four drivers. He already knew about it. I asked him about the fourth driver, who was coming with us for the first time, and he said that he would take care of him. Then I explained to Usta Zinhum that he should come alone to meet me at five in the morning in the square outside Masr Station and should leave the bus parked in front of his house. I also told him to ask the three other drivers to come and meet me at Aqta' Café between six and seven, and leave their buses parked in front of their houses as well, or in any other place they chose so that no one from the shipyard could see them.

“Aren't we going to spend the day somewhere?” he asked.

“We'll finish this job before it even begins,” I said, and he smiled, then asked me about the pre-prepared meals which would be loaded in the buses for the workers. I laughed and said, “Sell them and share the revenue with the other drivers, or eat them.”

At five o'clock the next morning, I was standing at the station, wearing two pullovers, and still chilled with the cold of March. It was still dark. Usta Zinhum arrived, looking like a big round ball because of the pile of clothes that he had put on. He seemed to be rolling along the ground. I handed him four lists with the names of the workers, and asked him to cross off the name of each worker as he arrived to receive his pay. We must have stood out in the sleepy square, for the workers found us pretty quickly. Usta Zinhum crossed out the names as I handed each worker three pounds. At six-thirty, I met the three drivers at Aqta' Café. There was a little more movement in the square, which was lazily waking up around us.

“Mr. Shagara, we really like you, but life is difficult these days,” said the driver who had objected to the hundred pounds last time, then taken them, and then offered to return them when the trick was discovered. “We want two hundred pounds each.”

I looked at the fourth driver, who was going out with us for the first time, and who was engrossed in drinking a glass of tea with milk in complete silence, as if the whole matter didn't concern him. His silence stirred my fears—something about him suggested a hardened criminal.

“Is this a mutiny?” I asked.

“We'll make it up to you next time,” said Usta Zinhum, looking at the ground. So it was he who planned it, this old man bundled up in his clothes like a ball. I had decided to give each driver a hundred pounds, and save six hundred, having taken two pounds from the pay of each of the five hundred workers.

“What if I refuse?”

“We won't ruin our friendship. We won't take anything at all,” they said, almost together. So they would let the crime be all mine. My face must have shown signs of consent, for I saw Usta Zinhum smile, and heard the new driver say, “The President will always be there, the people will be there, and we have loads of problems with other nations, and there will be no end to the visitors and the treaties.”

So the scoundrel has finally said something! He was quite firm, and soon went back to sipping his tea. So be it.

I smiled and said, “It seems that this will be the last time.”

When I returned to the apartment, I remembered the five hundred meals which Zinhum must have sold or even left at the store and received a cash refund. I was quite mad at first, and then I laughed at it all.

#

It had been a month since I had last visited my parents' graves. I left work at eleven o'clock in the morning, and went to Masr Bank to deposit the new two hundred pounds in my account. I walked a little down Salah Salim Street, and in Manshiyya I found myself getting on the number five tram. What made me do that? It must have been my parents. I had thought of visiting them before, but I had never gotten around to it. My desire must have been stronger this time. It was one-thirty in the afternoon, and it was not yet summer, but the tram was crowded. I picked a spot next to the conductor, who was sitting by the back door. I leaned against the side of the tram. I was too preoccupied to let the crowding bother me. I didn't want to complain to my parents about anything. I didn't want to apologize for anything. I wanted only to see them, even in a dream. I didn't have any photographs of either of them, and I had nearly forgotten what they looked like.

Suddenly I felt someone looking at me. I looked around and found a woman with a brilliant smile watching me. I was confused. I wasn't ready for any adventures, so I tried to fix my eyes on my feet, but I continued to feel her gentle gaze on my face. I could not help looking up at her. She looked both radiant and a bit surprised. Her face disappeared behind a tall man who stood between us. It was over, but I kept trying to get another peek at her face every time the tall man moved. I didn't realize that my attempts were embarrassing him, until I caught his eyes and saw that he was both uncomfortable and suspicious. I lowered my eyes and calmed myself.

At the entrance of the cemetery, I was received by dirty barefoot children begging for “charity,” skinny Quran reciters who hopped like wagtails and recited too quickly Quranic verses they didn't know very well. I almost left. I needed to cry. I knew that, but I didn't know why. I needed the tears to wash my soul, to clear my heart and mind of their burdens. Have I really turned out the way my father asked God that I would? At my parents' graves, I stood alone, having waved my arms and shooed the kids and the reciters away. I suddenly remembered who the woman who had smiled at me on the tram was. She was Kawthar, Hani's sister, who had been also like a sister to me in beautiful times past.

#

A month later, I was in a taxi, and couldn't believe that the road the driver had taken was going to take us where I wanted to go. He was driving in alleys flanked by tall buildings that blocked the light and left the alleys quite dark, and streets that were crowded with workshops and cafés. He stopped in front of an area filled with shabby dark-colored tents, and said: “Here we are.”

He was right. There was the hospital, with its bare trees standing farther apart from each other than I remembered. A few people were looking out of each of its windows, and the houses around it looked as if they were frightened by their gloomy surroundings.

“As you can see, I can't go any further,” the driver said.

“What is this?”

“You must have been gone a while. Those are shelters.”

I left the taxi and was met by clouds of moths and flies and a foul, stagnant stench. Should I go back? Why did I come, then? I stepped forward
.

Naked children and pale women were standing outside the tents and tin shacks. A few men were busy with some wooden boards and tin sheets, and they all looked very desolate. Feces, feces! There were feces everywhere on the ground. A mesh of wires was hanging over the shelters, and I could hear the sounds of televisions and radios. There was only one meter between the tents and the entrance to the building across from them, and it was filled with chickens and ducks running in the mud and the bodies of dead cats. Where has God gone now? In the past, He had given us His paradise, so how could He leave us now? And in such a short time?

What a fool I am. A long time has passed. How had I failed to notice that when I brushed my hair in front of the mirror every morning? Oh Kawthar, did you have to look at me? I will probably not find anyone. You must have gotten married. A woman like you does not remain unmarried for long. Your amazing beauty and sweet fragrance stir the heart. Your face has become fuller and rounder, the face of a mature woman. I will not find you or Hani, who must be living with his wife in Cairo. Didn't he tell me when I ran into him at Raml Station that he was going to call his fiancée in Cairo? Here I'm at the entrance of the dark stairway, where a man with a swollen face lies with his crutch next to his one leg. He doesn't notice me going in as I tiptoe past him. He's surrounded by chickens and ducks. The windows on the stairway are all closed and covered with dust and cobwebs. It's pitch dark. Here I'm going up the stairs in the dark without meeting a single person, not a young man whom I knew as a child or an old man who might ask me about my parents. I know that a law was passed just after we left our apartment here, giving the residents permanent ownership of their apartments. Maybe this law was among the causes of my father's death soon after our move, for he saw it as the ultimate proof of bad luck. Maybe he neither disliked the hills nor wished to disappoint me. Yet, it is impossible to live here, even after that law. No one can live in a place that God has deserted.

But I'm going up the stairs. I will not miss your apartment, Kawthar. It was larger than ours. Your father had finished grade school, and so got a three-bedroom apartment when he was employed. Will Ahlam meet me? Your little sister whom I remembered on the day you smiled at me in the tram. She had passed her grade-school exams on the day we moved out of here. She must be a grown woman now, and it is for her that I'm here today.

Ahlam had your fragrance when you and I were growing up together. You always matured faster than I did, while she remained a child to me. Maybe if she sees me, she will remember how I used to make her feel better after Hani, who was always joking, had teased her and then asked her to make us some mint tea. She would leave the room angrily, and a little later you would bring in the tea with a smile and rosy cheeks, and you would also offer us peanuts and pumpkin seeds. Sometimes you told us that a good movie was showing that evening on the new television set your father had just bought, and sometimes you said how relieved you were that you had quit after middle school, and didn't have to study anymore, and sometimes you complained that nothing was on television except Gamal ‘Abd al-Nassir receiving other Arab presidents and kings all day. Do you remember that I tried to explain to you that the Arab leaders were coming for a summit meeting, and you shrugged and said: “What summit?” Hani and I both laughed at your response, and Hani said that his family was a bunch of losers.