The House of Jasmine (11 page)

I thought that maybe they were truly happy to discover they had a neighbor, but I wondered why I was so excited. Residents moving into one of the apartments in the building could not explain such excitement. It was all quite silly, and I was annoyed at my foolishness. In the evening I went to see Magid at the pharmacy, but he wasn't there. I bought a cream to relieve rheumatic pains from Dr. Musa. I was starting to have rheumatic pains because I slept naked at night and the apartment was empty. I once heard my father say that furniture breathes in a place and makes it warmer—but a woman would have been even better. She would breathe warmth like a steam engine. I know this is true, even though I haven't tried it. I was afraid that I was bound to live alone until I died, and I even thought of asking ‘Abdu al-Fakahani to find me a wife—yes, ask him to sell me a woman and buy me in exchange!

Magid and Hassanayn laughed heartily at my story, which I told without many of the details that I just wrote, and I almost wished that I hadn't said the last sentence. Magid said that ‘Abdu al-Fakahani doesn't care for such minor exchanges, that he was now trading in big plots of land in ‘Agami, and that he had recently bought five feddans on Abu Yusif beach and another five on Abu Talat beach.

Magid had learned all this from some of his customers at the pharmacy, who used to be Bedouins and were now driving Peugeots and Jeeps. He said that they had sold the lands which their parents had traditionally planted with figs to tourism companies or to individual investors, often Egyptians who had been working in one of the Gulf countries. Magid also said that they were often surprised to know that he didn't sell aphrodisiacs at his pharmacy and didn't know how to prepare them.

“There will come a day when we won't be able to find a single fig. What a tragedy!” Hassanayn said gravely, and we all laughed. Then he turned to me and asked, “Are you really thinking of marriage?”

“Of course I am.”

“Then finish your story, and we will find you a wife,” he said, and went on laughing. I wasn't upset. I felt that it was just an innocent joke, and I went on with the story.

I told them how I had been unable to sleep the previous night. I watched television until the end of the broadcast, and was thinking of a strange dance that appeared on the show “We Chose It for You.” The dance ended with the hands of the male dancers placed on the rear ends of the female dancers. It was quite a scene! It almost jumped out of the television screen at my face. How is it that television shows are so daring these days? Anyway, that wasn't all that happened that night.

A little before dawn, I heard a loud splash in the sea. I heard the sound repeatedly and thought that a ship might have drifted to the shore, but then I realized that this was impossible because the ship would get stuck in the sand long before it reached the shore. I opened the window and cold air struck my face. I saw several dark objects floating on the surface of the waves. I turned on the balcony light and stood there. Chairs, mattresses, boards, suitcases, and many other pieces of furniture were flying off the balcony above mine. Each item glowed briefly in the light of my balcony before sinking into the darkness below and finally splashing into the sea. It was the same furniture that I had seen the delivery men bring up two weeks earlier. Of course I didn't hesitate to go up to the apartment above. I wasn't scared, and didn't find the matter surprising for long. I was sure that it was the work of an intruder in my neighbors' apartment. I expected a fight, so I took a knife with me.

When I got to the door of their apartment, I found it open, so I tiptoed inside. I saw the young man whom I had seen earlier with the girl and her mother. He was wearing only a bathing suit, and his thick hair was sticking out like the quills of a porcupine.

“Can I help you?” he growled at me with a fierce look.

“I'm sorry,” I mumbled as I retreated out of his apartment.

“What do you say we all spend the rest of the night in Qabbari?” Hassanayn suggested. “Hagg Luqman has set up a big tent for his election campaign that's worth seeing.”

It was almost ten o'clock, and the effect of my story on my two friends was gone except for occasional smiles that appeared on their lips every now and then when they interrupted the backgammon game and looked at me. We had exhausted all the comments and jokes that we could make about the story, all revolving around how strangely people behaved these days. We laughed hardest when Hassanayn said, “If he had decided to get rid of his furniture, why didn't he give it to you or ask you if you knew someone who needed it?”

Magid was not in favor of going to Qabbari because he wanted to drive us around the city as he had promised. He pointed to the steady flow of cars coming from ‘Agami and said, “We should spend the night in Bahari like other car owners.”

As usual, I was uninterested in the elections. I knew that President Sadat had dissolved the People's Assembly, and that there were going to be elections for the new members. I also knew that there was strong popular opposition to the Camp David agreement and that the government newspapers were fiercely attacking the opposition parties, but I never really bothered to read the details or get into any conversations about what was going on. I saw several signs hanging on stores and on the streets with pledges of support for Hagg Luqman, but I didn't care. I don't remember ever having voted in any elections or referenda. I don't even carry a voter's registration card, although I still keep my father's card with all the other papers of his that I have kept since he died.

Besides, I had completely stopped committing my crimes, because the President still flew to Alexandria in his helicopter on the twenty-sixth of July and his visitors from among the other world leaders came only in the winter, when he was usually in Aswan. I sometimes thought that they came to enjoy the warm Aswan sun and take the opportunity to be cured of rheumatism rather than to meet with the President. The shipyard still sent a few members of the workers' union to participate in the Labor Day ceremony. When I was told to lead the workers who were sent to take part in Begin's reception, I did exactly as I was told, and didn't make a single penny off of the assignment.

“Who is Hagg Luqman?” I asked, without any real interest.

“There isn't a single person in Alexandria who doesn't know who Hagg Luqman is,” Magid said. “Even I have had the honor of meeting him. One day a black Mercedes stopped in front of the pharmacy, and the driver came in to buy five boxes of Givrin. I saw Hagg Luqman in the back seat and he waved at me. I recognized him from the pictures that were hanging everywhere, and I waved back. Then I saw him get out of the car, and thought that he was going to come into the pharmacy to talk to me about the upcoming elections, but he only walked into the side alley, then walked out, buttoning his pants, and got back into his car.”

We all laughed. Hassanayn was surprised at the large amount of Givrin which Hagg Luqman had bought. I wondered if he were really ill, but Magid said that Givrin was a general dietary supplement and also effective as an aphrodisiac.

“You only saw him once,” Hassanayn said to Magid, “but I have seen him many times. At the Lansh Café in Mafruza he used to sell goods stolen from the customs warehouse, such as sweaters, jeans, and transistor radios. Then he disappeared about three ago, and when he returned he had acquired the title Hagg and was known to be one of the biggest importers of girders in Egypt. He's worth seeing, especially since I've heard that he gives public speeches even though he's illiterate. Come on! We have nothing to lose. If we don't like it, we can still go to Bahari.”

#

We got into Magid's car and for the whole trip I was thinking about what a crazy mood we were in. This whole trip was a joke and we took it no more seriously than a game of backgammon. When we got to Qabbari, I almost asked Magid to drive on to Bahari, but I saw the white and yellow lights on Sidi al-Qabbari Street making the night as bright as the middle of the day. There was a huge crowd of people and a tent which took up half the street, and I became really curious to see this Hagg Luqman who could attract so many people.

Magid had a hard time finding a place to park on one of the nearby side streets. We had to push our way through the huge crowd to get to the entrance of the tent. It was only by chance that I was ahead of Magid and Hassanayn when we walked in.

“The men of Dikhayla have arrived,” a man shouted, raising both his arms high in the air to point at us and at the stage where Hagg Luqman was seated in the midst of a large number of men in dark suits and
galabiyyas.
Hagg Luqman was wearing a dark glittery suit. His dark face glittered as well and looked as if it had been rubbed with oil. “The men of Dikhayla have arrived,” the man yelled out again, and I recognized him as al-Dakruri, the head of the workers' union at the shipyard. I was surprised to see him here, and wondered what he was doing and what his relationship to Hagg Luqman was.

The men on the stage craned their necks to look at us, and Hagg Luqman greeted us with a slight nod of his big head, while al-Dakruri made room for us to be seated in the front row. We put on a grave look, appropriate for the “men of Dikhayla,” as he had called us. I heard Magid say that we would never be able to walk out of this trap. Shortly after we sat down, al-Dakruri approached us and grabbed me by the arm. He wanted me to follow him, so I did, and it struck me that I looked like a blind man being led by the arm. We stopped behind the stage and he said, “Wait here and don't move.”

I stood there on ground which had been covered with sand, paying no attention to what he was up to. I was trying to read some of the calligraphy printed on the sides of the tent when he returned, carrying a small bulging envelope.

“The Hagg offers this envelope to you, and you will be responsible for the votes of the people of Dikhayla,” al-Dakruri said. “I know you can do it.”

Have I become a machine whose hand automatically stretches out to snatch up money? Hadn't I proved my honesty on the day of Begin's visit? I almost laughed, thinking that maybe al-Dakruri knew me better than I knew myself.

“Five hundred pounds,” he said.

“Don't worry. He will win and all the competing candidates will fail,” I said, after a few moments of silence. I was wondering whether I should share the money with Magid and Hassanayn or whether I should even tell them about it, but I boldly said, “This is a small sum for a neighborhood such as Dikhayla.”

Al-Dakruri's eyes gleamed like those of a fox.

“Then we can just give it back,” he said. I was flustered, even though I was capable of sending him flying in the air with a single blow.

“Give my congratulations to the Hagg. The votes of Dikhayla will all be for him,” I said. Then I took the money out of the envelope and stuffed it in my pocket. I was walking away from him when he stopped me and whispered in my ear: “The Hagg will give me an apartment.”

#

I found myself walking toward the street which I had been avoiding for some time. I saw that the house of jasmine was completely dark. No sweet scent met my nose anymore. The flowers were wilted, and the leaves on the trees were dry and dusty and many of them had fallen to the street, where they crackled under my feet. I saw a huge lock on the gate. Under the light of the sole street lamp, which was in front of ‘Abd al-Salam's house, I looked at the pipes on the walls of the house of jasmine, where the paint was peeling and moisture had left several large stains, and I saw a ferret climbing upward.

9

A man and a woman got married, and the next morning several members of the bride's family went to visit them. When no one opened the door, they broke it down and found the man on top of his bride, unable to pull his animal out of her. They were both in tears, having tried in vain all night to separate themselves. The relatives wrapped the couple in a sheet and took them to a hospital, where they were separated and returned to their apartment by midnight.

Two days later, the same thing happened again, and the man cried for help from the neighbors, who carried them to the hospital, wrapped in the sheet. They returned, separated, shortly after midnight.

People started whispering, pointing up at the high apartment and laughing every time they passed the building. Then a month passed and nothing more happened. No one knew that the couple had lost their ability to have intercourse.

But finally they went back to it, and then tore the flesh off of their own faces with their fingernails out of fear and repentance for what they had done. The man had to cry for the neighbors' help once again, and they took the couple to the hospital to be separated, and the couple returned home at dawn. In the morning the man stood alone on the fifth-floor balcony, screaming and slapping his face. He was looking at the street below as if he were going to jump off the balcony. His bride came out and threw herself to the street. He watched her body hit the pavement and make one movement, like a final throb.

I opened the door to the balcony and walked out. I was wrapped in the bright daylight that extended infinitely in front of me and felt as if I were flying in space. I looked down and saw the sea as an azure velvet carpet, and I could almost feel its softness as I stood barefoot on the balcony's tiled floor. I looked up and saw the dome of the sky, so close. Its pure blue tempted me to jump up and touch it with my hands. This was a day unlike any other that I could remember. Perhaps God had returned to live with us as He had when we were children.

I took my fishing rod, my basket, line and hooks, and went to the beach. I hadn't planned on going fishing, and hadn't bought any bait, but I figured that I would find someone to sell me some on the beach. This was a day on which nothing could go wrong.