designed by: M. Aladdin & H. Fathy

Monday, March 18, 2013

"Голос"








Аля ад-Дин Мухаммад "Голос"

Как это происходит со  всеми пророками, а также и с некоторыми безумцами, с ним начал вести беседы некий уверенный голос. Уже успев в изрядной степени превратиться в пророка, наш герой отнесся к этим беседам, как к некой обыденной вещи. С другой стороны, став в изрядной степени и безумцем, он никому об этом не рассказывал. В самом начале он, конечно, забеспокоился и начал было уже подыскивать себе тихое местечко в каком-нибудь медицинском учреждении; мысли об этом одолевали его какое-то время, пока не превратились в  воспоминания, а он не сумел убедить себя, что все мы заслуживаем медицинского вмешательства в той или иной степени.

Он научился бормотать Голосу утренние приветствия таким образом, чтобы  этого не заметила его подозрительная жена, хотя она и сказала как-то, что разговаривать с самим собой вполне естественно для человека. Этой же новой привычки он придерживался и с коллегами на работе, и со знакомыми за чашкой кофе.

Пытался он было обсуждать с Голосом некоторые из взглядов, которые тот высказывал (они, надо признать, были довольно интересны), в спокойной обстановке, находясь в своем убежище, уборной, однако его всегда мучило опасение, что длинные разговоры с Голосом (конечно, они будут длинными после такого долгого молчания!) могут быть ненароком услышаны его детьми. Поэтому ему приходилось прикладывать огромные усилия, чтобы не поддаться искушению и продолжать молчать. Он уже довольно сильно привязался к Голосу, к его мужскому тембру и спокойным интонациям, он даже мог бы принять его за голос отца, если бы не это спокойствие. Он пытался сконцентрироваться на обычно длинных предложениях Голоса: может быть тот скажет нечто, что позволит обнаружить близкую связь между ними, какую-нибудь историю или воспоминания о самом отце или о его сестре, которую, как он знал, очень любил отец, или может быть о дяде, который измучил и отца, и самого себя бессмысленной враждой. Наконец, о матери, которой отец изменял направо и налево так, что их отношения достигли той стадии, когда, как это часто бывает между супругами, невозможно было сказать, любовь это или ненависть. Ничего. Попытка сконцентрироваться привела лишь к тому, что он пролил горячий чай прямо на то место, где брюки застегиваются на молнию, когда, задумавшись, пронес стакан мимо рта. Это, в свою очередь, вызвало улыбки у сослуживцев, увидевших, куда именно был пролит чай.

Голос говорил ему о вещах, казавшихся очень простыми, однако, несмотря на кажущуюся простоту, именно эти вещи казались ему заслуживающими долгого размышления. Например, устройство колеса: эти ступицы, которые есть в центре некоторых колес, вращаются вслед за колесом, при этом от них разбегаются спицы в направлении обода, да так, что даже можно себе представить, как они иногда вертятся в направлении, противоположном направлению движения колеса. А еще эта крутящаяся вокруг шестеренок металлическая цепь, которую, в свою очередь, приводит в движение нога. А еще что человек превосходит льва, который не знает, что такое колесо.

Это были очень глубокие беседы, но, как и все глубокие беседы на свете, они имели определенную цену. Однажды, когда его начальник увидел, что в последнем написанном нашем героем докладе один из сотрудников был назван "господин Колесо", он страшно разозлился и устроил ему дикую выволочку за ненависть к сослуживцу, которую он осмелился выплеснуть в официальном документе.

Таким образом, Голос совсем не рассказывал о родственниках, даже не намекал на них. Но в какой-то момент он все-таки стал склоняться к мысли, что Голос - это голос его отца, и что его отец просто стал спокойнее разговаривать. Он также отметил, что Голос значительно умнее, чем когда-то был его отец. От таких непочтительных мыслей ему стало стыдно и он предположил, что отец после смерти обрел спокойствие и значительно поумнел.

Жизнь его теперь была настолько беззаботной, что он занял очень большие деньги, чтобы купить в кредит машину, чему, естественно, сначала очень обрадовался его старший сын. Однако позже он понял, что отец проводит в новой машине все свое время. На все просьбы родственников и друзей  подвезти, он отговаривался необходимостью расплатиться с долгом, а также дороговизной бензина. Все это ради того, чтобы хоть ненадолго остаться наедине с Голосом, не написать ненароком в каком-нибудь документе "господин Колесо" и не пролить горячий чай на причинное место. Из-за его постоянного пребывания в машине, жена его стала что-то подозревать: думая, что замешана женщина, она подвергла обыску его карманы, тщательно проверила сообщения на мобильном телефоне, изучила записные книжки. Ничего не найдя, она стала подозревать другие причины, например, нездоровое пристрастие к какому-то дурману. Именно эта мысль пришла в голову и одному полицейскому, увидевшему как-то человека лет пятидесяти сидящего в припаркованной на боковой улочке машине, что-то возбужденно говорящего скороговоркой и размахивающего руками. Внимательно рассмотрев его, полицейский понял, что человек находится в состоянии крайнего эмоционального возбуждения, фактически в клинической стадии, пришлось, однако, его отпустить. Странно, правда, что совершенно нельзя было разобрать, что именно говорил этот странный человек.

В конце-концов, жена была вынуждена спросить его прямо: что же он делает все то время после того, как  усядется в машину и исчезает почти на весь день?

Наш герой, который, как и любой маленький служащий предпенсионного возраста,  боялся прямо поставленных вопросов и не умел отвечать на них, сказал лишь, что сидит в машине, чтобы немного подумать в одиночестве.

Конечно, это происшествие преследовало беднягу всю оставшуюся жизнь: историю с полицейским со злорадством  пересказывал его сын, а невестка конечно же разболтала все своей подруге. Однако он продолжал вести длинные разговоры с Голосом, Голосом, ставшим для него смыслом всей жизни, так как он был похож на линзу фотоаппарата, которая запечатлевала чистое и понятное для него изображение этой жизни. Так, например: один из его сослуживцев, Магди, умер необычной смертью; однажды, когда тот переходил улицу, торопясь на работу,  его сбил огромный грузовик. Тем не менее,  Магди остался жив и отделался всего лишь несколькими царапинами. Когда же Магди потягивал из стакана тростниковый сок, которым он на радостях  решил себя побаловать, то, в размышлениях о милости Божьей, забылся на несколько мгновений, захлебнулся соком и умер. Голос объяснил, что эта смерть прекрасно характеризует покойного Магди: тот был очень наивным человеком и для того, чтобы умереть, ему совершенно не требовался грузовик. Так образом, эта смерть помогла нашему герою лучше понять своего сослуживца.

В какой-то день, однако, Голос решил пропасть, что заставило нашего героя изрядно взволноваться. Все началось с того, что Голос теперь уже не разговаривал с ним непрерывно с утра до позднего вечера, громкость его  становилась все тише, а предложения все неразборчивее, да так, что в какой-то момент фразы, произносимые Голосом, стали прерываться на середине. Как-то раз, он сидел на балконе своего дома с пришедшими в гости родственниками и пытался разобрать нечеткие слова Голоса. Стараясь быть вежливым с гостями, он сначала старался скрыть свое беспокойство, но в какой-то момент оказалось, что он кричит на свою жену, забывшую положить ему в чай сахара. Гости смотрели на него с удивлением, с непонимающим выражением лица глядела на него и жена, не понимавшая, почему муж ее после того визита стал тихо увядать. Она также не понимала, почему он стал  уединяться в своей комнате после прихода с работы (а после того, как попытки не удались, он сидел в одиночестве в машине, все еще стараясь услышать Голос). Она не понимала, почему супруг ее стал пренебрегать своей работой и проводить все время в кровати, не отвечая на вопросы и не вставая (что очень обрадовало его старшего сына, который теперь полностью располагал машиной по вечерам). Найдя упаковку снотворного, она не могла понять, что заставило мужа начать его принимать. А дело было всего - навсего в том, что только так ее муж мог говорить с Голосом, который перестал приходить к нему в моменты бодрствования, но, однако, стал навещать его во сне. Ему пришлось с нетерпением ожидать наступления ночи, а потом и создавать себе ночь только для того, чтобы вновь увидеть мир таким, каким мог показать его только Голос. Теперь он поднимался с кровати только чтобы что-то съесть чтобы не умереть с голоду или чтобы опорожнить желудок.

Снотворное постепенно погрузило его в почти беспробудный сон, он перестал есть и пить и лежал в кровати почти без движения. Не пот, покрывший тело покойного мужа, не высохшее как спичка тело, не отвисшая челюсть и не иссохшие ноги поразили его жену. Ее поразила счастливая улыбка, застывшая на мертвом лице.

..........................................
This is the Russian translation of Aladdin's short story "The Voice". First published in Arabic in Aladdin's short story collection "Al Sagheer Wa Al Hali" by Merit Publishing house, 2012.
 This was published by the prestigious Russian newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets in their Egypt edition. 

Translated by Sarali Gintsburg.


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Young Lover, New Lover.


When she’d been there alone with the cat and it had bit her playfully,
a shudder had run through her body.
The way it had sunk its teeth into her, the unhurried cruelty, the
guttural sound, and the downwards and slightly backwards jerk of its
head had been just like what he did to her on that bed there, close by.
Triggered by the surprise, a rush of terror had filled her. She had
moved away from the ginger tom instantly, shaken her hand hard, stood
at a distance from him that seemed, for no good reason, to be safe,
and gazed at the cat, which had looked back at her with an unwavering
stare.
Once, on a far-off day, he’d laughed when she told him the story,
joking that of course he was with her always, even when he was far
away. Her immediate thought had been that he meant it figuratively,
but he’d meant that he really was watching her, and when a young lover
had tried to insinuate himself into her life like a masked friend, telling
her that winter was a holy season, that to wake early in the morning
was his cherished dream, and that his next novel would be about sex, it
had occurred to her that her new lover was always saying that winter
was a holy season, that to wake early in the morning was his cherished
dream, and that he had had to give up his next novel because a young
friend was thinking about writing on the same subject. Again, she had
found herself shuddering.
She’d been aware of a connection between the two lovers that
couldn‘t be characterized as anything so elevated as friendship or so
trivial as mere acquaintance, but when she’d heard that the young lover
had dropped a small piece of paper beneath a chair in a down-market
café and that her new lover had found it and read the young lover’s
name, telephone number, and email address in his sprawling hand,

she’d found herself wondering about the lines that divided the young,
the new, and the ginger tom. He’d laughed as he told her how he’d
come across the scrap of paper and given it back to the young lover at
a chance encounter at a publisher’s office. Had it been that same day?
The same night? She’d asked him and he’d said, with his quiet smile,
that he’d forgotten that it was in the pocket of his pants and it was the
same pair of pants he’d been wearing two days later, when he was sitting
in a publisher’s office smoking hashish.
He’d told her he liked the young lover: he seemed talented and
quick on the uptake. He said this as he was taking off a different pair
of pants, at the foot of the bed.
She’d asked him how he’d spent the evening afterwards, and he’d
stretched out, flexing his muscles, and said he’d had dinner with the
young lover; the hashish had made him a bit tired. “You know how it
is when you come down,” he’d said, pursing his lips and shaking his
head laughingly. She knew that most of the time he didn’t feel any
embarrassment when he told stories of that sort, just as the young lover
hadn’t been ashamed to tell her, smiling calmly, that he hadn’t been
much of a stud with his previous girlfriend. Her feeling of foreboding
seemed to her too large for the life she knew, or like the disquiet one
feels before a delicate operation.
One night she’d been alone and she’d taken a piece of paper and a
pen and started enumerating the similarities and differences between the
two lovers. She’d written a lot, it seemed to her, but when she came to
the differences, she’d found herself at a loss. There was six years between
them in age. Six years between them in age. Six years between them
in age. She thought again; surely there must be some other difference.
Obviously, they didn’t live in the same house. One of them was a Cairene
to his fingertips. The other came from somewhere in the north. Great.
She’d almost finished going over the list of similarities when it occurred
to her that the young lover was a little taller. No, they were the same
height. Their hair was the same color. They had the same eyes. The
new lover was a little smoother-skinned, a little fairer-complexioned.
She made a moue of disbelief when she realized that she could not—to
cap it all—identify any important difference between their penises.
“How long is it, exactly?”The young lover had laughed till he choked. To tease her, he’d
refused to tell. But his voice had taken on a slightly (no more than slightly,
of course) more serious tone when he asked her for the reason behind
her strange question. She’d thought she’d be ridiculous or insane to tell
him because he would, of course, think she was ridiculous or insane.
He’d suggested she come and see for herself, and she’d cursed him as
angrily as a conservative young lady and rung off in his face.
When she called the new lover, his cell phone was off. Maybe he was
having sex with some girl. Of course he was having sex with some girl!
He was always doing it. He kept saying to her, with a grimace, that
they had an open relationship, which meant no commitment of any
sort. Those were the rules of engagement. She’d bawled him out once,
when he’d analyzed the way the young lover behaved toward his current
girlfriend by saying that it was a form of self-defense. He’d said, with
haughty confidence, that the open relationship thing was a pretext so
that a young man could practice his petty infidelities without anyone
chiding him. He’d smiled his quiet smile, which at that moment took
on a slightly satanic look, while lighting his cigarette with a familiar
ironic showiness. She’d said only that he too behaved the way he was
describing. His smile went rigid on his face for a second, and then he
spread it over his lips and answered with a calm bordering on insolence,
“And why not?”
Had that been the day when she’d spoken about his smell? Probably.
In any case, she’d told him, as she sniffed and then licked his armpit,
that she loved his smell. “Why?” he asked. “I just do,” she’d replied. She
became lost in thought and her words came out slowly. “Your smell is…
different. Close. Piercing.” Since “piercing” was the only word of her
description he could understand, he’d asked her if all nice smells were
piercing. After some hemming and hawing, she’d said yes.
Had she been lying? She didn’t know.
The young lover didn’t have a smell. It seemed strange but it was
true. He wasn’t exactly odorless, but his smell was light, a whisper.
She couldn’t come up with a way to describe that smell, or explain to
herself why it was so meager and elusive. He didn’t bring with him thesmells of the village—its little houses, its fields, its wretched animals,
its pure white clotted cream. He didn’t carry with him all those things
that would delight the heart of a member of the bourgeoisie thinking
of a boy coming from a northern village. She stood up and stretched
out her hand toward her clothes closet. She couldn’t bear to be in the
house a moment longer.
As she walked smartly over the cruel asphalt, placing her hands
in the pockets of her short overcoat, swathed in her bright red scarf
and long crinkly hair, she asked herself why she hadn’t asked either of
them about her own smell—the young lover with his dim smell, the
new lover with his blazing smell. She was walking determinedly in
the direction of Downtown. She might find the new lover there. The
ginger-colored cat leapt into her mind. The only smell of his she could
remember was that of the baby powder that the new lover put on him
on the rare occasions when he took the trouble to give him a bath. A
deceptive smell. She hated that smell, which reminded her of artifice.
A smell that resembled his disturbing look when she shied away from
him. A piercing smell? Yes.
She leapt up the marble steps and made her way to the large dining
room, encumbered by its dozens of tables. She scanned the spaces
between them. No sign of the young or the new lover. She saw a hand
raised in greeting.
She drank from the glass of red wine with a greed that seemed to
take her by surprise. She noticed the marveling, slightly amused, looks of
her friend. “What’s up?” he asked. “I’m fine,” she replied. She watched
a young woman blowing contentedly on the cup of hot chocolate in her
hands. Her cleavage was visible behind the cup and next to her an older
man was sipping from a glass of whisky. Her friend asked her how her
new lover was. She said he was fine, then asked him if he’d seen him
that day. He said he hadn’t.
She excused herself from the crowd of people, including her friend,
and took her bottle of wine and glass and went to a table that was off
on its own, though not far away.
She felt a familiar desire to be on her own, and the two glasses
of wine that she’d drunk made her a little more daring in asking forwhat she wanted. The young lover had criticized her for her habitual
reticence, while the new lover praised her for her sweetness and self-
abnegation. He would stroke her cheek and gaze into her eyes with a
wonderfully tender look—so wonderfully tender indeed that one might
suspect deceit—and tell her how beautiful she was.
How long was it since their first night? Four months. The first
time she’d met him, the ginger tom was two months old. Six months—
the little monster was six months old now. She poured her fourth glass
from the ungenerous bottle and thought about the transmigration of
souls. Could the same soul be in three different bodies? Once more, she
didn’t know. She had a bright idea: a soul like Batman. Bat and Bruce
Wayne at the same time. Her own personal bat would be Robin too.
Bruce Wayne and Batman and Robin.
The waiter went by so she ordered another bottle. He said that
hers was the last bottle of red wine. How dumb could you get? The last
bottle, in a bar? She heaved a sigh of disgust, then made do with white.
She tossed the last drops of red from the fifth glass down her throat,
telling herself, “So they deserve it.” For the first time in her life, she
was ordering something she didn’t have the money to pay for. Not the
first bottle and not the second bottle and not the plate of meat in front
of her. She threw a piece of it to the fat white cat that roamed, as was
its wont, among the tables. It was a strange cat in that it didn’t meow
impatiently if you gave it something or if it smelled something. It was
like a queen whose wants were all taken care of: she would eat what
you tossed to her in silence and walk away in silence. The ginger tom
was noisy, almost too noisy to put up with. Until that last bite, she’d
liked his crazy playing that kept them awake. Now, however, she had
taken a stand.
Her friend at the next table asked her how she was. She noticed him
looking at the bulge of her thighs where they emerged from her short
skirt. “What have you got to do with women, sweetie?” she wondered,
as she answered him with a foolish smile that everything was fine. For
sure, she must know she was lying this time. He noticed her watchful
looks and her smile, so he smiled. Suddenly he told her, “It’s always
nice to try new things, isn’t it?” She laughed and nodded her head. Soit was. So it was.
She laughed suddenly, recalling the new lover’s fantasies about
lesbianism and how he’d ask her from time to time how she’d felt when
she did it once with an old friend. She used to tell him she hadn’t enjoyed
it; she’d just had a fit of curiosity and that was the end of it. He’d tell
her, “It’s always nice to try new things, isn’t it?” She’d ask him, teasingly,
why he didn’t try out homosexuality, then. Laughing, he’d push her
jokingly out of the house. She knew he was afraid of homosexuals.
Despite all his apparent liberalism and transient tolerance, that’s the
way he was. She’d told him that she thought the one before might have
had homosexual tendencies. Her new lover had said that was unfair.
She’d told him he used to like to have sex with her from behind, was
happy when she took charge, and was afraid of the sight of her vagina.
He’d adopted an air of gravitas and said that the first two were true but
that he could say, with the utmost frankness, that he was not afraid of
the sight of her vagina.
Maybe he was just saying that, she thought, half-way through her
second glass. He must have homosexual tendencies like the young lover.
Obviously a morbid fear of homosexuality reflected a repressed desire
to practice it. Obviously that was why he defended the young lover. A
thread stretched from him to the young lover that made him identify
with him. She was always breaking through his defenses and discovering
his secrets, and he hated it every time she did so. He was forever saying
that she was wrong when she was sure that he knew in his heart of hearts
that she was right.
Once she’d told him, after six consecutive hours of foreplay and love-
making that had left her wrung out like an old rag, that he was “pleased
with his own performance” or that his performance had “turned him
on” (she couldn’t remember exactly). He had exhaled the smoke from
his cigarette in a stream and asked, with initial calm, why, if that were
the case, he wouldn’t just watch himself in the mirror for the ultimately
pleasurable ejaculation. Why he would go to the trouble of being with a
stupid female like her? His voice had turned into a scream as he’d asked
her what was wrong with her. What was wrong with women? Why didwomen always make such a big deal of acknowledging the man’s virility,
or his generosity, or his kindness, or whatever? She’d wanted to argue but
instead she’d said nothing for a while and then said she’d been joking,
or he’d misunderstood her, or she hadn’t meant it literally. After being
angry for a bit, he’d sighed in exasperation and gone into the bathroom
to drench his body with water. She’d looked at the great wide mirrors
opposite the bed. She’d asked him why he didn’t move them and he’d
mumbled something inaudible. She knew he watched their bodies on
the bed while he was inside her and this gave his thrusts more force and
vigor. She didn’t have good judgment, because she’d asked him once why
he was looking in the mirror, and embarrassed him somewhat. She didn’t
have good judgment, because when he became somewhat embarrassed,
his thrusts, which she greatly enjoyed, would become uneven; they’d
become uneven and falter and she’d start to become aware once more
of everything around her, that curse from which she fled to him. She
loved his body, she didn’t mind admitting it.
The whirlpool of her thoughts, now stained red and white, escaped her,
and she looked around. The place had cleared a bit. She stretched her
hand into the pocket of her coat which was hung over the back of her
chair and called his number. It rang and rang. The echo of an old idea
that had pursued her ever since she’d got to know the new lover mixed
with the ringing—the idea that it was always she that phoned him. He
only troubled himself to call her on very rare occasions. Or was it only
somewhat rarely?
His voice came to her, and extricated her from these old echoes:
“I’m sorry. My battery ran out.”
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
The voice paused and then resumed, laughingly, “I’m at the house
of our mutual friend.”
An uncontrollable rage took hold of her. She asked him sharply what
he was doing with their “mutual friend.” He answered sarcastically that
he’d decided to try having sex with him.
  She rang off in his face. She rose to her feet and pulled on her coat.
Her friend who didn’t like women but thought it was nice to try new
things looked at her enquiringly. She told him something to the effect
that she’d be back right away. She left through the door like a storm,
without looking behind her. The ringing of the phone in her pocket
grew louder. It was the new lover. She turned the phone off in his face
once again. She’d known that this would happen one day. They would
have sex with one another and they’d leave her. Maybe the ginger tom
would take part too, licking this one’s balls or that one’s dick. She hoped
one of them fucked it and it died of the wounds. That shitty cat and its
shittier master. She would run to his house. She wouldn’t let them go
through with it. The new lover would say to the old that he’d told her
of his terror of her vagina. They’d fuck one another. The young lover
would tell him about how he’d put his cock in her ass unprotected, and
afterwards she’d run to the bathroom. She felt shame. She felt shame
and anger.
As she hurried down the dark street, she felt nauseous. She leant
against a wall. She knew that churning inside her belly. Obviously she’d
find the cat there. She’d find the cat because the new lover was there.
She’d find the new lover because the young lover was there. She’d find
the three of them because she was certain, in some corner of her soul,
that the three of them were one; just one, who delighted in crushing her,
each time in a new guise. The contents of her stomach rose to her mouth
and she spewed them over the wall in front of her. He knew everything
about her and told it to himself with relish. He hadn’t even left her to
live in the bliss of ignorance. Why hadn’t she realized that until the cat
bit her? How could she not have realized it when handsome Narcissus
got such pleasure from watching himself fuck her in the mirror? He’d
attain the climactic revelation when he fucked himself. The universe
would suddenly seem to him to be filled with shining light, while she
was in a black hole of shame, a black hole as shameful and degrading
as her anus.
She became aware of a hand extended toward her and a voice
caressing her. She pushed the hand roughly away and struck out with
her voice. She wiped warm runny threads off her face and left the dark
street at a run. It became clear to her that she couldn’t make it to theyoung lover’s house either walking or running, so she shouted to a taxi
whose fate had brought it to a corner near which she’d collapsed in a
heap. The driver set off, she urging him on like a madwoman, the driver
glancing at her every now and then in anxiety.
When she arrived, she leapt away from the tattered old back seat
paying no attention to the man’s cry. She crossed the lobby at a run. She
climbed the stairs on foot. One floor. Two floors. Three. The fourth
on the right. She held her finger down on the button. The bell let out
an endless shriek. The door opened and behind it was the young lover,
crying, “What’s the matter?” He looked at her in astonishment and then
let her in. She found the new lover, looking tense, sitting on a sofa with
the paraphernalia spread out in front of him. She looked around her
carefully. She searched the whole apartment feverishly, even the furthest
corner of the closet, where he hid his hashish, far from the eyes of his
visiting father or any spongers who might descend on his establishment.
Your Holy Ghost that bestows the largesse of his lacerations on the hands
of your lovers, the cat with the ginger color and the sharp, piercing
eyes that shine like diamonds. She didn’t find him. They watched her
from the hall, while she searched like someone deranged, crying out,
“Where is he? Where is he?” They tried asking her, “Who?” but gave
up in despair when she didn’t answer, her feverish energy seeming too
great to allow them to object, or scream in her face.
Eventually she came back to them in the hall. There were tears in
her eyes and her arms hung limply by her sides. Frustration and despair
had consumed her tongue. But, in a moment of liminal magic, she caught
a glimpse of something through the window. Her eyes flashed as she
gazed at it and her smile broadened. It was a body covered with thick,
smooth fur and a finely moulded head resembling a triangle, from which
whiskers sprang and above whose surface two further hairy triangles
stood erect. The head turned in her direction and she turned her gaze,
her eyes triumphant, her smile victorious, back to the two faces of the
same creature, between whose four eyes much astonishment, and a little
disquiet, were divided.
.........................................................................
This is the English translation of Muhammad Aladdin's "Al Sagheer Wa Al Hali", first published in Arabic in November 2010 by The Supreme Council of Culture- Egypt, in its anthology "Best Egyptian Short Stories Ever", Then it was the title name of Aladdin's short story collection of Merit publishing house in 2012.
The English translation was published by A Public Space, New york, in October 2010.
TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC BY HUMPHREY DAVIES.

Friday, March 15, 2013

The Idol


Chapter 1

The wooden door is ancient. Dust has piled atop the misshapen roof give off a stench and slip between the spider’s threads. Its right-hand side is planted in the ground sloping down towards the narrow hall. The hall is dismal and gloomy, clung to by the smell of shoes and chicken excrement.

The boy stood in front of the entrance, terrified, taking in the ancient iron engravings on the upper half of the door until the pressure of his father’s hand on his back increased, forcing him to enter this strange house. He gulped and advanced behind him with faltering footsteps.

Behind him was the narrow alley with its ground of dust, filled with passersby, neighbours who were watching him and father attentively and curiously. The shadowy hall veiled his father’s piercing eyes and betrayed the ghost of a long white beard. The old man’s breathing was heavy and deliberate, and echoed off the crumbling walls from right and left. The boy followed him quietly, climbing behind him up the steep, narrow staircase to the third floor. His father stopped at the last apartment, coughed twice and knocked on the door.

A peevish female voice rises from inside, ‘Who is it?’ His father gives his name, with ‘Sheikh’ appended to it as usual. A voluptuous woman opens the door, with bronze skin and a sweet smile, and she leads them to where some dilapidated old chairs rest. The two of them become entangled in a discussion, neither long nor short, as a result of which the Sheikh reaches into his pocket to take out a certain amount of cash and the woman takes a key out of her bag. The boy is absorbed in gazing at the objects around him and isn’t aware of anything until the Sheikh places a hand on his shoulder and leads him outside. The woman brings the two of them to a halt to explain the absence in her second apartment, then she brings out a piece of chocolate from her pocket. She places it in the boy’s hand, who remains aloof like any respectable child and looks with secret hope into his father’s face.

‘What’s his name?’ asks the woman.

‘Rushdie.’ The father replies in a deep, husky voice. He smiles slightly, indicating to the boy to take the small, shiny, colourful square from her hand.

‘You seem tired,’ the woman says.

‘We came here from the main train station.’

‘Where did you come from?’

The old man fixes his gaze on her face and replies briefly, ‘From the land of God, where we will return.’

Before the woman replied, the man drew the boy outside. He turned his head at the last moment to look at her, sitting and smiling.


Chapter 2

He stood in front of the wall as if nailed to the spot. Sweat consumed him unhurriedly, and the cold breeze that slunk in from the window brushed him lightly. He felt the weight of his short galibeyya on his body and began to shiver, violently at first, then with calm regularity. Tears glistened in his eyes but they didn’t leave the rims of his eyes. Outside, his father was still practicing the rituals as usual, unaware of what was taking place inside. It was difficult for anything to escape his father, but this is what had happened.

The strange drawings were still on the wall.

The boy sees a small city, a woman, a young boy like himself. He sees a house, men, and a small fire. He doesn’t understand what is happening, but he knows it relates to himself in some way. He cries when he sees a man die quietly on his bed, a boy and a woman next to him. He revisits this scene many times, and cries each time he sees it.

His breathing had quietened completely now. He knows that he will feel limp after a few moments. His eyelids will become heavy and he’ll feel a need to sleep. He will sleep and the drawings will return to a new wall tomorrow, just like it had been in every house he and the old sheikh had been in. The day will come when he won’t cry or be scared. He knows this well.

He wrapped himself up in a blanket, carefully, and suffered the thunderous shock of his skin touching the wet galibeyya. He heard the sound of the Sheikh’s coughing and crossed the hall in front of the door to his room. He began to feel drowsy.


Chapter 3

The weather is harsh and the wind batters the devastated tree trunks outside. He looks at the white sky behind the wooden window frame. Birds are hovering in infinite, intersecting circles. He shifts his gaze inside the classroom, austere yellow paint dripping from its walls. The blackboard is covered in black filth and has rusty edges. The teacher stands next to it, and his strangled, accelerating, nasal voice draws out the vowels of his speech like Punch. His neighbour, a dirty-clothed, long-legged student, looks at him disdainfully from time to time. This boy has annoyed him since he arrived a week ago. He remains silent as is his habit, casting his eyes far away.

A sudden feeling of hatred hits him. It rises up from inside him with satanic violence. He wants to leave this cursed place in as short a time as possible. He remembers the complaint to his father which went unregarded, as usual. His hatred turns to frustration burning his eyes. He clenches his jaw so he won’t cry. His eyes are fixed on an imaginary point but they don’t see anything.

He hears the teacher’s strangled voice from far away. An image of the school, a sombre castle in bygone days, pursues him. Slowly, slowly, its dome comes to him, a dome covered in branches of ivy. He saw a bird hovering around it and he trembled, thinking it was a bat. He gripped his father’s hand, dragged behind him as was the custom.

‘Answer, you animal.’

The words pierce him, and he found himself in front of the repulsive teacher. His breath emanated a hateful odour, and his eyes were knife-like. The boy increased the pressure on his jaw and he saw the thick cane which had pierced his field of vision. He remained mute, and the teacher asked him for the last words he said. The filthy student must be laughing at him by now. He didn’t look to the side.

‘Stand up. Open your hand.’

He stood. Without intending to, he looked beseechingly at the teacher, who hit him on his right arm and repeated his instruction to open his hand. The blow hurt him but he remained silent. He presented his palms, and the teacher rained four blows upon them as hard as he could. Pain consumed him and he struggled not to cry. His vision blurred a little.


Chapter 4


He knocks on the door as befits a polite child. The voluptuous, bronze-skinned lady opens it. Her sweet smile drowns him, and he extends his hand to give her a small envelope. She tells him, ‘Wait.’ She leaves for a moment, then returns with a plate covered with sheets of newspaper and tells him the traditional holiday greeting. He responds in a whisper as she laughs because but he hasn’t entered, as usual. He gives her a pale smile and turns to leave.

She bursts out, ‘Are you having visitors?’ She waves a hand, pointing downstairs.

‘A few.’

‘Could you tell your father I’ll visit you in an hour?’

He nods, yes, he will. She thanks him cheerfully and closes the door, locking it behind her.

He walks the crooked staircase carefully so he won’t fall; he’s still not used to it. He carries the plate protectively. It’s a short distance but the staircase is deceptive.

Silence lingers in the hall of their small apartment despite the overcrowding. He creeps quietly through the doorway. He casts his eyes on the people sitting in fierce silent. Three women and one man. The women were piled on the couch, which had been green a long time ago, and the man sat on a seat which groaned underneath him.

Several plates are crowded on the table opposite them covered in sheets and plastic bags. He puts the plate next to its brothers. They won’t need to eat for three days. It’s better this way. He mumbles to himself without noticing. Only Ahmed, the young man who likes doves, smiles when he sees him on the rooftop. Ahmed, yes, but not the others. He won’t need to face this for three days.

It was daytime, but the hall was always dark. The shadows turn their faces into pools of expectant cruelty. Statues turning deliberately; motivated, perhaps, by fear. He takes more and more opportunities, like this one, to be away from his elderly father for a little while. Slowness transforms into a panting rush towards the door.

He steps quietly towards his room. The three women remain on the sofa while the chair enjoys a temporary respite; the man had sauntered into his father’s room without any fuss. A bead of sweat fleeing the brow of one of the women glistens in the meagre light that the window lets in. He slides a glance to where his father’s room lies, its door silenced on both sides. He won’t tell him that the woman is coming, and he won’t care. She will arrive and enter, like her, like the rest of the alley’s people and their faces. He opens the door to his room and would have entered had a voice not followed him, quavering: ‘Will the session take a long time, son?’

It was the last of the women, and she was looking at him anxiously. The reply left his mouth that he had learned by heart. ‘It depends on the circumstances, ya Hagga.’

The shattered silence gathers up its parts quickly. His room contains him and he shuts the door behind him.


Chapter 5

Father’s room always wears an air of watchful stillness. An unbroken circle of ancient cushions is to be found around the large incense burner, laced with strange embellishment. Father, of course, retains the place of precedence, facing the door. His comfortable cushion is a dusty purple colour, placed slightly higher than its sisters in a genuine declaration of superiority.  The room always closes its shutters on that cheap concrete balcony overlooking the stink of the alleyway which is too narrow for its wandering souls. Night and day, this room swims in the light (which is closer to shadow than light) of a cheap electric lamp. At the beginning of the rituals on which the Father bestows the years of his long life, seven candles are lit around the circle. Each candle carries the same ornamentation as the gigantic cushion.

He doesn’t see this every day, but he knows it to be so.

He moves slowly, sweeping the floor with the broom. He hunts dust, settled in provocative calm on top of the furniture. His roams his eyes over the room. It is an endlessly-repeated copy of the every room that his Father has ever had. He remembers days not too long ago. Eternal journeying. More faces than are countable. Dusty streets. Women immolated with the desire to provide succour. He is scared of dogs, and his father says they are scared of him as well. In every city there was a room. In every room, an incense burner, cushions, candles. In every room there was this idol, a weird idol with a form impossible to define or describe. He wipes it with a piece of cloth, in fear. His hands quiver but he regains control of himself. He rests the idol on its table and continues to sweep slowly and carefully.

He looks at it. It appears that an eye is looking at him; an eye engraved onto this idol. He sees an abhorrent radiance resting in the depths of that eye. That feeling drowned him in hatred. Fear, and hatred.

His father lifted him up to confront the mirror. He smiled and looked at his face, and said, ‘Look.’

‘At what, Dad?’ he whispered.

‘I’m looking at your eyes. They are my eyes, like brown almonds. I had coal-black hair like you only yesterday.’ His father smiled at him, he couldn’t help smiling. ‘The idol is like these, my son.’

His father said he had inherited it from his father; he must pass it on to his son. And his son must pass it on to his grandchildren, along with eyes, hair colour, blood type and intuition. His father smiles.

He doesn’t want this idol. He doesn’t want it.

He looked into the evil eye again, and imagined that he saw a mouth. The mouth smiles. Its smile is evil, loathsome. The smile of a wolf before the attack.

He knows he won’t break it. He won’t throw it to the ground to be smashed into a thousand pieces. He will pass it down to a son in hatred, who will preserve it in hatred; he can’t break it. The mouth smiles. His eyes howl.


Chapter 6

… silence invades things gently. Tender silence. Silence is a friend which does not accompany banishment with screaming. Silence sits beside him and smiles. Rivers of blood melt on the surface of the wall. Crows are flying, racing over distances far and near. Mountains behind mountains. Contours dissolve to form a woman’s face. He doesn’t know these features but he recognises the intimate companionship of silence. Quiet, regular breathing envelops him tenderly. His bladder consoles him and bulls watch him, inscribed with a look of anger. There is a man between the bulls. A man with a black coat and long, soft, coal-like hair. His shadow comes nearer, on the wall. Dust rises, forming a smile. He is not scared of the eyes of the bull, but he is scared of the gleam of that smile. Silence’s fangs and claws overbear him. Silence’s breathing snaps at him. Whirlpools of dust form a wide smile belonging to a strange man. Warmth flows over his thighs.


Chapter 7


The scissor blows rain down as fast as they were able, as delicately as they were able, and the silver tufts of Father’s hair collapse like ancient stones abandoning a mountain.

The barber seems frightened; a submissive fear shows in his eyes. He rubs his nose and wipes his hands on his trousers, glancing here and there. The boy knows he is torn between a violent desire to finish his task as quickly as possible, and a steady, careful madness, calling him to perfect what he does. A sheep’s complacency is to be found between these poles.

The old Sheikh closes his eyes, his back turned. His arms lie recumbent on the arms of the chair, solemn and immovable. His hands are flat, collapsed beside the arms of the chair. The sound of his quiet breathing mingles with the scissors’ squeak and the sound of the barber’s diffident footsteps.

The hair forms a circle of snow around them; an uninterrupted circle, as if one of them had arranged it that way. There is a slight, hidden struggle between the sanctity of the circle and the footsteps of the barber. Austere light pours onto the Sheikh from the window, left open on shaving days like a holy tradition; the Sheikh is a well-crafted idol. The Sheikh raises his hand slowly. The barber understands the signal and finishes the meticulous combing needed to clip stray hairs on the sheikh’s chin. Another couple of minutes and the barber is sitting in a corner.

The old man bends down, ripping the sanctity of the circle with greedy hands. He gathers the strands rapidly, and those that stray a little are throttled. The boy knows he is next. He waits until the circle is history, like usual, then calmly sits on the chair on which the barber has placed a wooden plank. The old man leaves without saying a word; the boy ascends the chair. The barber advances with his scissors, whose sequence of blows resumes. The warmth of fear creeps from the man’s hands into the boy’s skin; the boy’s fear was cold, drawing in the barber’s warmth. The scissor crunch echoes in the boy’s ear. He has a horrible misgiving that these scissors will clip his ear. The Sheikh’s chanting resounds from within, mixing with smoke that slinks into the room like a fox. Sweat pours down the barber’s face, and a drop hits the ground. The boy felt, for a moment, strange refreshment spreading slowly through his veins.

 .............................................................
First seven chapters of my novel The Idol- Published in 2008 by Al 'Ain Publishing.

Translated by Leri Price