The House of Jasmine (2 page)

The street was as clean as it always is. It gave me the familiar feeling that it was mine, that I was the one who designed it and designated its beginning and end. Here was the usual morning breeze blowing gently with the taste of fresh spring water. The noon sun shed only its brightest and most tender rays. It seemed as if it had been years since I last walked down this street. Why am I suddenly realizing all of this?

I thought of throwing the newspaper in the nearest trash can so I could be alone. I was busy catching the breeze, which was scented with women's perfumes. My eyes raced with the sun's rays over their brilliant legs. I didn't want to sit in the spacious and loud billiard hall. Hani always won there. I had run into him three years ago near the telephone office. He was laughing constantly, as he usually was. How can a sergeant in the army laugh so hard in a public square? But I was glad. He didn't ignore me. I asked him if Rashid still knew all of ‘Abd al-Halim's songs by heart. He said that Rashid had finished medical school, and joined the army, and that he didn't see him anymore. The army is a big place. . . He also said that no one left the army these days.

“Haven't you been drafted by the army?” he asked.

“I am an only son, as you know,” I answered.

“So you are responsible for the home front,” he said, and giggled freely. Then he told me that it had been a long time since he came to this place at Raml Station, and that he was there to call his fiancée in Cairo. Then he left.

#

“Breaded scallopini,” I said.

“I'm sorry, but we don't have that today,” said the handsome black waiter. I didn't know what else to order, and I hadn't realized there was a menu on the table. At Elite, there are always couples on dates, and you can always hear them kissing. Hani used to tell us amazing stories. He said that he joined the military academy to get the most girls to fall in love with him. What brought me to Elite just now?

I had stopped in front of Rialto Cinema, enchanted by the pictures hanging outside the box office. The Jane Mansfield picture was still at the center, her big bosom almost ready to jump into my hands. But I have stopped collecting her postcard photographs to take into the bathroom with me at home. I have stopped buying postcard photographs altogether, and the factories have also stopped producing bars of soap with pictures of nude women on their wrappers. It must have been a government decision. It must also have been the government who changed the kinds and brands of soap. It didn't know that I had already, without any conscious decision, quit my bad habit.

I hadn't thrown away the newspaper yet. I let it fall out of my hand. Then I saw a young couple looking at the pictures while holding hands. They were glancing at me, then whispering to each other and smiling. I bent down to pick up the newspaper, and felt a pain in my stomach, so I crossed the street and went into Elite.

“Why is there no scallopini?”

“There are no eggs. We ran out unexpectedly.”

“Shrimp then. Large grilled shrimp, and beer.”

I wasn't going to retreat. At the tables, young men sat with women ripe with both femininity and happiness, and the music was what you could call dreamy. Why this silence following my entry? The atmosphere may be sweet but it also invites sleep. With no kisses or whispers around me, I lit a cigarette, found the menu on the table, and started reading it. Will there be more orders to take the workers out to greet the President? He always visits Alexandria on the twenty-sixth of July. He practically moves his headquarters to Alexandria during the summer now. My fortune, therefore, lies with those who will visit the President during the summer. But. . . Oh God! The relationship between Egypt and Syria has been strained, between Egypt and Libya, between Egypt and the Soviet Union, between Egypt and the Palestinians. That's four leaders who will not visit Egypt this year, and perhaps even more.

The waiter placed a bottle of beer on my table, and I drank it all. My stomach hurt. I drank the beer like water on an empty stomach. Then came the shrimp, their powerful aroma preceding them as the waiter hurried to the table. I thought that I should put some food in my stomach quickly. I ordered a second beer. My only hope is the twenty-sixth of July. What if he actually moves his headquarters to Alexandria before then? There won't be any receptions. He cannot visit Alexandria if he is already here. Then it is all a matter of luck. I had a headache, which was strongest at the front of my head. I had never had beer before.

I left after paying a whole six pounds, half the revenue of Nixon's visit. There were rumors in the city about American ships unloading mounds of butter and powdered milk, rumors so strong that Hassanayn told me yesterday that the people of the Bahari and Anfushi neighborhoods were hogging the foodstuffs and keeping them from everyone else. It was also said that American marines were giving out dollars in Manshiyya, that helicopters were dropping sacks of flour tied to parachutes of Japanese silk, and that the parachutes were even better than the flour, because the cloth was so soft that it was perfect for making lingerie. . . None of this was true. The only person who gained anything from Nixon's visit was me, at least so far. It's a shame that Alexandria didn't know that, and that I had wasted half of what I made. I was afraid that I might collapse on the street with my headache, drunkenness, and stuffed stomach. It would be loud and comical, like the collapse of the Hafi Building. A tall person should never get drunk. Why did I take this little tour? Is this what thieves do? I had planned to buy a new dress and a pair of shoes for my mother. Why did I forget?

#

It was past three o'clock when I stood in front of the entrance of Elite. I was covered with sweat and the weather was scorching. The noise and glitter of Safiyya Zaghlul Street disappointed me.

“Can you take me to Dikhayla?”

“Of course,” answered the cab driver with a smirk. I wasn't sure whether he was smirking at my height, at my posture as I bent down, or at the smell of beer coming from my mouth, but I couldn't care less about such happy people. I fell asleep, and he woke me up after we had passed Maks. I wiped away the sweat flowing down my neck. I gave him a whole pound, twice what he deserved, and he was grateful.

The first thing that struck me about my house was its untiled floor. My father had covered the floor with an uneven layer of concrete seven years ago. I took off my clothes and hung them on a hanger next to all my other clothes. I put on my pajamas and found a five-piaster coin in one of the pockets. When and why did I put it there? Mother was taking a nap, so she must have eaten lunch alone and not waited for me. I lay down in bed and lit a cigarette. I tried to blow the smoke strongly to make it reach the wooden ceiling, but it didn't. I must have left the newspaper at Elite. I thought of selling the house, and of following international politics in the newspapers. What is this sudden sexual appetite?

#

I saw my mother standing wearily at the door staring at me, as if in disbelief that I had come home alone
.
If only the President would visit Alexandria on Mother's Day!

“What's the matter with you, Shagara?”
¹

“Nothing. Just thinking about getting married.”

¹
Shagara, the narrator's name, means “tree.”

2

After the 1967 defeat, there appeared a man with bare feet, ragged clothes, and a thick beard and mustache, who roamed the streets of Qabbari. He often stopped to yell: “Fuck the Empire where the sun never sets!” And he would beat a dog he kept and called Johnson. A year later another dog appeared with him, which he called Jacqueline, and a third, which he called U Thant. Then there were more dogs, whom he called Brent, Mobutu, Indira, Lord Caradon, Golda, Elizabeth, Pompidou, and so on. This parade became quite a sight, and people always opened their windows to watch it. The children ran after him yelling: “Fuck the Empire where the sun never sets!”

There were, however, two unforgettable days. The first was the day his dog Johnson died, and he got drunk and lay down on the sidewalk crying bitterly, the dog's body on his lap. The other dogs, which he had also gotten drunk, were swaying from side to side, and barking sadly, interrupted by hiccups, which no one had thought dogs could get. And then there was the day last week when the man himself died, and his dogs roamed the streets alone yelling: “Fuck the Empire where the sun never sets!”

The next day was the coldest and most depressing day of my life. Every minute, I thought that someone must have reported what I had done, and that the word had spread as quickly as the shipyard's machinery turned. I remained in my office all day, alone with my fears. But at the end of the day I saw the driver Usta Zinhum at the door of the administration building looking at me. I shook hands with him, and felt that I really loved this old man with his big potbelly.

#

The days passed as usual. In the mornings I worked in a room crowded with dusty files that piled ever higher and gradually crept toward me. In the evenings I played backgammon with my only friends, Hassanayn, Magid, and ‘Abd al-Salam. We preferred to meet at Masikh Café because it was on the main road between Dikhayla al-Bahariyya, the old neighborhood on the shore, and the newer South Dikhayla, which crept into the hills. The residents of both areas preferred their local cafés, and only passersby sat at Masikh Café. There were also a few young students who came to avoid the crowds, but because they saw that we were older, they never mixed with us.

I had met Hassanayn about a year earlier, after we both helped to save a girl from drowning. He said that he lived at Qabbari and had been coming to Dikhayla beach since his childhood, and that he used to have many friends in the area, but none of them were left except Magid, the pharmacist to whom he introduced me on the same day. They both talked a lot about their friend ‘Abd al-Salam, who was in his tenth year in the army.

“You have been in Dikhayla for six years, and you don't know anybody?” Hassanayn asked me.

“I go to work and return home in silence. I don't meet anybody, and only rarely do I come to the beach,” I replied.

He smiled and said, “There was a man like you on our street, who people thought worked for the intelligence.”

Two months after we met, the war started. Magid was recruited into the reserve army. We later learned that he was behind the lines with the medical corps. I found myself worrying, together with Hassanayn, about ‘Abd al-Salam, whom I had never met. We became even more worried when Magid returned at the end of the war, and we learned that ‘Abd al-Salam was surrounded with the forces of the third army. When he returned, after the siege was over, I hugged him as though I really knew him. I told him that, since the beginning of the war, I had been having sexual dreams, and that one of them involved Golda Meir. He chuckled, but I swear I wasn't lying.

#

Decorations filled the streets of Alexandria, so I knew that it was New Year's, but I didn't care. I buried both my marriage plans and my thoughts of selling the house. I didn't want to look out my windows because if I opened them I could be seen. There was no way out except committing a big robbery, and that was something I could not bring myself to do, or going to work in an oil country, which, because of my mother, I could not do either. But al-Dakruri, the thin pale representative of the workers' union, told me: “There will be two hundred workers this time, a large number, and you should know how to keep them under control. A pound and a half for each worker.”

It was decided that on the twenty-sixth of July I should take them to Gamal ‘Abd al-Nassir Avenue, near Sidi Gabir train station, where President Sadat was going to get off the special train on his way to Ma'mura. I stopped the two buses at the intersection of Saba' Banat Street and Haqqaniyya marketplace. I gave every worker one pound. It took a while for them to get off the buses, so the street filled with honking vehicles, and Manshiyya Square became a living hell. But everything ended well, and I gave fifteen pounds to Usta Zinhum, who had also been the driver on the previous trip, and another fifteen to the other driver, who was on his first trip with me. He laughed when he realized what we had done.

“No ratting,” I said.

“No ratting.”

“No ratting,” they said, one after the other, and left happily.

My hopes were revived, but there was no news of any important visitor to Egypt this summer. I hid the seventy pounds in the mattress on which I slept, and they became a hundred when the shipyard gave us a bonus on the occasion of inaugurating a new ship. The summer passed quietly. On Fridays I met with Hassanayn and ‘Abd al-Salam on the beach, but Magid had to work on Fridays. He always said that he dreamed of having his own pharmacy so he could take Friday off, and not Sundays, and that he was working hard to realize that dream.

We used to sit at Biso Bistro and watch the people around us. ‘Abd al-Salam often talked of Dikhayla beach in the old days when it was clean and not crowded. There used to be foreigners living in the villas behind the courthouse, and they would hold musical and theatrical performances, as well as sports matches that were open to the public. Now the beach was neglected, and its visitors came from Qabbari and Mitras, bringing noise and arguments as well as cooking utensils and numerous children.

Hassanayn never stopped smiling and waving at the girls and women who passed by. Whenever he got a response, he blushed and said with embarrassment: “That's it for me. I can't go any further.” We usually laughed at him, and only minutes later he'd resume his smiles and waves.

I often thought about the one hundred pounds, and, in moments of despair, repeatedly thought of wasting them. At the end of summer, winter arrived. One night at the café, Hassanayn asked me, “Why do you look so distracted these days?”