Season of Migration to the North (3 page)

My grandfather was talking to me of a tyrant who had ruled
over the district in the days of the Turks. I do not know what it was that
brought Mustafa to mind but suddenly I remembered him and said to myself that
I’d ask my grandfather about him, for he was very knowledgeable about the
genealogy of everyone in the village and even of people scattered up and down
the river. But my grandfather shook his head and said that he knew nothing
about him except that he was from the vicinity of Khartoum and that about five
years ago he had come to the village and had bought some land. All of the
inheritors of this land had, with the exception of one woman, gone away. The
man had therefore tempted her with money and bought it from her. Then, four
years ago, Mahmoud had given him one of his daughters in marriage.

‘Which daughter?’ I asked my grandfather.

‘I think it was Hosna,’ he said. Then he shook his head and
said, ‘That tribe doesn’t mind to whom they marry their daughters.’ However, he
added, as though by way of apology that Mustafa during his whole stay in the
village had never done anything which could cause offence, that he regularly attended
the mosque for Friday prayers, and that he was ‘always ready to give of his labour
and his means in glad times and sad’ — this was the way in which my grandfather
expressed himself.

Two days later I was on my own reading in the early
afternoon. My mother and sister were noisily chattering with some other women
in the farthest part of the house, my father was asleep, and my brothers had
gone out on some errand or other. I was therefore alone when I heard a faint
cough coming from outside the house and on getting up I found it was Mustafa
carrying a large water melon and a basketful of oranges. Perhaps he saw the
surprise on my face.

‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d
bring some of the first fruit from my field for you to try I’d also like to get
to know you. Noon is not the time for calling — forgive me.’

His excessive politeness was not lost on me, for the people
of our village do not trouble themselves with expressions of courtesy — they
enter upon a subject at one fell swoop, visit you at noon or evening, and don’t trouble to apologize. I reciprocated his expressions of friendship, then
tea was brought.

I scrutinized his face as he sat with bowed head. He was
without doubt a handsome man, his forehead broad and generous, his eyebrows set
well apart and forming crescent-moons above his eyes; his head with its thick greying
hair was in perfect proportion to his neck and shoulders, while his nose was
sharply-pointed but with hair sprouting from the nostrils. When he raised his
face during the conversation and I looked at his mouth and eyes, I was aware of
a strange combination of strength and weakness. His mouth was loose and his
sleepy eyes gave his face a look more of beauty than of handsomeness. Though he
spoke quietly his voice was clear and incisive. When his face was at rest it
gained in strength; when he laughed weakness predominated. On looking at his
arms I saw that they were strong, with prominent veins; his fingers none the
less were long and elegant, and when one’s glance reached them, after taking in
his arms and hands, there was the sensation of having all of a sudden descended
from a mountain into a valley

I decided to let him speak, for he had not come at such a
time of intense heat unless he had something important to say to me. Perhaps,
on the other hand, he had been prompted to come out of pure goodwill. However,
he cut across my conjectures by saying, ‘You’re most likely the only person in
the village I haven’t already had the good fortune of getting to know.’ Why
doesn’t he discard this formal politeness, being as we are in a village where
the men when roused to anger address one another as ‘You son of a bitch’?

‘I have heard a lot about you from your family and friends.’

 No wonder, for I used to regard myself as the outstanding
young man in the village.

‘They said you gained a high certificate — what do you call
it? A doctorate?’ What do you call it? he says to me. This did not please me
for I had reckoned that the ten million inhabitants of the country had all
heard of my achievement.

‘They say you were remarkable from childhood.’

‘Not at all.’ Though I spoke thus, I had in those days, if
the truth be told, a rather high opinion of myself .

A doctorate — that’s really something.’

Putting on an act of humility I told him that the matter
entailed no more than spending three years delving into the life of an obscure
English poet.

I was furious — I won’t disguise the fact from you — when the
man laughed unashamedly and said: ‘We have no need of poetry here. It would
have been better if you’d studied agriculture, engineering or medicine.’ Look
at the way he says ‘we’ and does not include me, though he knows that this is
my village and that it is he — not I — who is the stranger.

However, he smiled gently at me and I noticed how the
weakness in his face prevailed over the strength and how his eyes really
contained a feminine beauty

‘But we’re farmers and think only of what concerns us,’ he
said with a smile. ‘Knowledge, though, of whatsoever kind is necessary for the
advancement of our country.’

I was silent for a while as numerous questions crowded into
my head: Where was he from? Why had he settled in this village? What was he
about? However, I preferred to bide my time.

He came to my aid and said: ‘Life in this village is simple
and gracious. The people are good and easy to get along with.’

‘They speak highly of you,’ I said to him. ‘My grandfather
says you’re a most excellent person.’

At this he laughed, perhaps because he remembered some
encounter he had had with my grandfather, and he appeared pleased at what I had
said. ‘Your grandfather — there’s a man for you,’ he said. ‘There’s a man —
ninety years of age, erect, keen of eye and without a tooth missing in his
head. He jumps nimbly on to his donkey walks from his house to the mosque at
dawn. Ah, there’s a man for you.’ He was sincere in what he said — and why not,
seeing that my grandfather is a veritable miracle?

I feared that the man would slip away before I had found out
anything about him — my curiosity reached such a pitch — and, without thinking,
the question came to my tongue: ‘Is it true you’re from Khartoum?’

The man was slightly taken aback and I had the impression
that a shadow of displeasure showed between his eyes. Nevertheless he quickly
and skillfully regained his composure. ‘From the outskirts of Khartoum in
actual fact,’ he said to me with a forced smile. ‘Call it Khartoum.’

He was silent for a brief instant as though debating with
himself whether he should keep quiet or say any more to me. Then I saw the
mocking phantom of a smile hovering round his eyes exactly as I had seen it the
first day.

‘I was in business in Khartoum,’ he said, looking me straight
in the face. ‘Then, for a number of reasons, I decided to change over to
agriculture. All my life I’ve longed to settle down in this part of the country
for some unknown reason. I took the boat not knowing where I was bound for. When
it put in at this village, I liked the look of it. Something inside me told me
that this was the place. And so, as you see, that’s how it was. I was not
disappointed either in the village or its people.’ After a silence he got up,
saying that he was off to the fields, and invited me to dinner at his house two
days later.

‘Your grandfather knows the secret,’ he said to me with that
mocking phantom still more in evidence round his eyes, as I escorted him to the
door and he took his leave of me.

He did not, though, give me the chance of asking: ‘What
secret does my grandfather know? My grandfather has no secrets.’ He went off
with brisk, energetic step, his head inclined slightly to the left.

When
I went to dinner, I found Mahjoub there, together with the Omda, Sa’eed the
shopkeeper, and my father. We dined without Mustafa saying anything of
interest. As was his wont he listened more than he talked. When the
conversation fell away and I found myself not greatly interested in it, I would
look around me as though, trying to find in the rooms and walls of the house
the answer to the questions revolving in my head. It was, however, an ordinary
house, neither better nor worse than those of the well-to-do in the village.
Like the other houses it was divided into two parts: one for the women and the
other containing the diwan or reception-room, for the men. To the right of the diwan
I saw a rectangular room of red brick with green windows; its roof was not the
normal flat one but triangular like the back of an ox.

Mahjoub and I rose and left the rest. On the way I asked Mahjoub
about Mustafa. He told me nothing new but said, ‘Mustafa’s a deep one.’

 I spent two months happily enough in the village and several
times chance brought Mustafa and me together. On one occasion I was invited to
attend a meeting of the Agricultural Project Committee. It was Mahjoub, the
President of the Committee and a childhood friend of mine, who invited me. When
I entered, I found that Mustafa was a member of the Committee. They were
looking into a matter concerning the distribution of water to the fields. It
seemed that certain people, including some members of the Committee, were
opening up the water to their fields before the time allocated to them. The
discussion became heated and some of them began shouting at each other.
Suddenly I saw Mustafa jump to his feet, at which the uproar died down and they
listened to him with great respect. Mustafa said it was important that people
should submit to the rules of the Project, otherwise things would get out of
hand and chaos would reign; especially was it incumbent upon members of the
Committee to set a good example, and that if they were to contravene the law
they would be punished like anyone else. When he stopped speaking most members
of the Committee nodded their heads in approval; those against whom his words
had been directed kept silent.

There was not the slightest doubt that the man was of a
different clay; that by rights he should have been President of the Committee;
perhaps because he was not a local man they had not elected him.

About
a week later something occurred that stunned me. Mahjoub had invited me to a
drinking session and while we were sitting about chatting along came Mustafa to
talk to Mahjoub about something to do with the Project. Mahjoub asked him to
sit down, but he declined with apologies. When Mahjoub swore he would divorce
if he did not, I once again saw the cloud of irritation wrinkle Mustafa’s
brows. However, he sat down and quickly regained his usual composure.

Mahjoub passed him a glass, at which he hesitated an instant
before he took it and placed it beside him without drinking. Again Mahjoub
swore the same oath and Mustafa drank. I knew Mahjoub to be impetuous and it
occurred to me to stop him annoying the man, it being quite evident he did not
at all wish to join the gathering. On second thoughts, though, I desisted.
Mustafa drank the first glass with obvious distaste; he drank it quickly as
though it were some unpleasant medicine. But when he came to the third glass he
began to slow up and to sip the drink with pleasure, the tension disappeared
from the corners of his mouth, and his eyes became even more dreamy and
listless. The strength you were aware of in his head, brow and nose became
dissolved in the weakness that flowed with the drink over his eyes and mouth.
Mustafa drank a fourth glass and a fifth. He no longer needed any
encouragement, but Mahjoub was in any case continuing to swear he would divorce
if the other did not drink up. Mustafa sank down into the chair, stretched out
his legs, and grasped the glass in both hands; his eyes gave me the impression of
wandering in far-away horizons. Then, suddenly; I heard him reciting English
poetry in a clear voice and with an impeccable accent. It was a poem which I
later found in an anthology of poetry about the First World War and which goes
as follows:

Those women of
Flanders

Await the lost,

Await the lost who never will leave the harbour

They await the lost whom the train never will bring

To the embrace of those women with dead faces,

They await the lost, who lie dead in the trenches the
barricade and the mud

In the darkness of night

This is
Charing Cross
Station, the hour’s
past one,

There was a faint light,

There was a great pain.

After that he gave a deep sigh, still holding the glass
between his hands, his eyes wandering off into the horizon within himself.

I tell you that had the ground suddenly split open and
revealed an afreet standing before me, his eyes shooting out flames, I would
not have been more terrified. All of a sudden there came to me the ghastly
nightmarish feeling that we — the men grouped together in that room — were not
a reality but merely some illusion. Leaping up, I stood above the man and
shouted at him: ‘What’s this you’re saying? What’s this you’re saying?’ He gave
me an icy look — I don’t know how to describe it, though it was perhaps a
mixture of contempt and annoyance. Pushing me violently aside, he jumped to his
feet and went out of the room with firm tread, his head held high as though he
were something mechanical. Mahjoub, busy laughing with the rest of the people
in the gathering, did not notice what had occurred.

On the next day I went to him in his field. I found him busy
digging up the ground round a lemon tree. He was wearing dirty khaki shorts and
a rough cotton shirt that came down to his knees; there were smudges of mud on
his face. He greeted me as usual with great politeness and said, ‘Some of the
branches of this tree produce lemons, others oranges.’