Stealth (New Directions Paperbook) Read online

  My father steps into the room and closes the door to the balcony. He stays there for a moment, keeping his eyes on the balcony facing ours.

  Um Nazira calls out from the living area: “The water is hot.” I pick up my clean clothes and my loofah and leave our room. Father follows me carrying an old newspaper. He closes the door, locks it, and puts the key in the pocket of his robe. We head towards the guest room. The iron washbasin is in the middle. There’s a primus stove with a water tap over it that gives off wafts of steam. A large can of cold water. Father takes off his robe. He squats. He mixes the cold water with the hot and then tests its temperature with his hand. I try to remember what the science teacher taught us about how to measure the boiling point. The water boils over the primus stove. Mother fills a metal pitcher with boiling water. She adds water from the tap, then she pours it over my naked body. She fills the pitcher with the hot water again, but this time, she forgets to add the cool tap water before she pours it over me. I scream. My father rushes to me. He carries me to the bedroom. He dries me off tenderly. He sprinkles white powder on me. He dresses me and takes me with him to the mosque.

  I take my clothes off and plunge into the water in the basin. He scrubs my head with the Nablus soap and my body with the loofah. He asks me to stand up, so he can rinse me off with clean water. He dries me off. I look up at the picture of the king on the wall. He wraps the newspaper around my chest and I put my clothes on over it. He calls Um Nazira to throw out the dirty water and refill the can.

  We go back to our room. He takes off the robe and gallabiya. He turns away from me and takes off his woolen shirt, showing me his bare back. He asks me to scratch it. I put on my glasses. I scratch around the three blue pimples spread across his back. His body is white, just like his face and his arms up to the elbows. He tells me to look for the lice hidden in the seams of his shirt. He points me to the crevices in the seams on each side and asks me to look closely at them. I find one fat white louse. There’s a black spot on its back. I like that kind better than the thin black ones. I put it on my left thumbnail and I press against it with my right thumbnail. I listen to its splat. He hangs up the shirt, saying: “That’s enough.”

  He picks out clean clothes from the dresser. He says in a hushed tone: “Watch out for Um Nazira.” I follow him to the door of our room. Um Nazira sits at the table in the living area whittling the skin off bulbs of taro.

  I sit at my desk. I get up. I steal a glance at Um Nazira from the crack in the door. She slices her knife through one of the bulbs and begins to cut it into small cubes.

  My father comes out of the guest room wearing a clean gallabiya. He tells Um Nazira to throw out the dirty water and dry off the floor of the room.

  She says: “After I’m done with this.”

  He says the floor has to be dried right away before water gathers in the crevices of the hard wood flooring. She’s mad as she gets up and goes past him to the kitchen. She takes up her mop rag and bucket and goes into the guest room. She comes out after a little bit with the bucket and goes to the kitchen, then she comes back in and sits down. He tells her to go back and wash her hands. She goes to wash them. I tell him in a hushed voice that she didn’t wash the taro after peeling it. She comes back and sits down and starts cutting again. He asks her if she washed it after peeling it. She says she’ll do it after she finishes cutting it. He yells at her, saying: “Didn’t I tell you to wash it first and then dry it with a towel?”

  She says: “It doesn’t matter.”

  He says: “Do what I say.”

  Her lips tighten and she goes on cutting the bulbs without saying anything.

  He takes a razor out of his shaving kit. A little box to hold cigarettes made of cardboard. He unfastens the case for the razor that has a picture of a crocodile on it. He puts his right foot over the edge of the bed. He bends forward and slices off the corn on his little toe. He says it’s from the pointy toed shoes that he wore as a young man, after the style of the day. He cuts a corn off his left foot and puts the blade back into its case. He takes out little scissors. He cuts at his hardened toenails with some effort. Leaves the room to wash his hands. He comes back. He puts on socks made of wool.

  The sound of the Friday sermon comes out of Um Zakia’s radio. She lives on the first floor of the house next door and her window looks down over the skylight. Father gets up off the bed and stands straight up. He walks over to the wall. He places his palms on it then brings them to his face and wipes it with them both while he mutters little prayers begging for God’s help. He finishes with the ritual and starts to get ready for prayer. I stop my red car at the door of the dining room with my hands on the steering wheel, waiting all in a hurry with my eyes focused on his frowning face. I pretend I’m like the drivers waiting at the traffic light. The imam finishes the Friday sermon and starts to ask blessings on the king. My father unfolds his rug in the guest room. I am bored as I wait and so I start to count how many times he bows. He turns his head to the right to ask peace on the guardian angel on the right shoulder, then he does the same to the guardian angel on the left shoulder. Before he gets up and folds his rug, I’ve shot off.

  He prays on the bed. I go out to the living area. I take a plate down from the sideboard. I pour some molasses on to it, and study it closely to make sure there are no ants in it. I add some tahini from a jar. I get a loaf of bread and have to work hard to balance everything. The plate wobbles and a few drops fall to the floor. I put the plate down on the table. I lick a drop of molasses from my finger. Um Nazira spots the drops of molasses on the floor and says angrily: “I’m not going to mop again.”

  The prayer ends and father appears in the doorway. He asks her what she’s screaming about. He is mad as he tells her that he will not let her raise her voice to me. He orders her to wipe up the bits of molasses. She gives in gloomily. He waits until she’s finished and gets up to go back to the table, then he tells her to wash her hands with soap.

  We go back to our room. I am waiting for him to scold me, but he doesn’t. I take my place behind my desk and open the math notebook. He tells me to keep an eye on Um Nazira to make sure she doesn’t drink all our ghee. He sits cross legged on top of the bed. He takes hold of a long string of dark wooden prayer beads. He starts to count on it, muttering to himself in the name of “the Gentle.”

  I steal a glance at Um Nazira through the crack in the door. I see her carrying the pan of taro, headed toward the kitchen. I follow her. I glance sideways at the bathroom. I come closer to the kitchen door softly. I stop and cling to the wall. I pull my head back a little for fear that she might see me.

  She puts the pan on the stove and adds water to it. She peels the garlic and chops it into small pieces with her knife. She throws it in with the chard in a metal skillet with a long handle. She grabs the jar of ghee and takes a spoonful. She throws it into the skillet with the garlic. I hold my breath when she sticks the spoon back into the jar. She fills it again. Is she going to eat it herself? I watch her hand as it moves toward the skillet.

  I feel movement behind me. Father is coming up sneakily. He puts his hand on my shoulder. He cranes his neck to try to see her. She grabs the pot of taro with a towel and picks it up off the fire. She puts it on the table. She puts the skillet over the flame then stirs the mixture with a spoon. She leans forward to take a good look at it then heads towards the jar of ghee with the spoon in her hand. Father tilts his head some more to see what she is doing. She turns suddenly and catches sight of him. She screams. Her hand slips off the handle of the pan and what’s in it spills all over the floor. She beats her chest with her hand: “You scared me. Damn you!”

  Father goes into the kitchen and yells: “Damn you and damn your life! Can’t you be careful?”

  She screams back: “What kind of a job is this?”

  “Pick up what you’ve spilled.”

  She pushes him and goes toward the front door: “Just see for yourself who’ll pick up for you. I’m leaving.”
r />   Father screams after her: “Then go to hell.”

  We walk behind a woman wrapped up in a wide black sheet. Her face is covered with a burka that shows only her eyes and that is held up by a shiny brass chain that comes to a point over her nose with a light fabric hanging down like a flap covering her mouth. She is walking with quick steps while she clutches the sheet around her body. From the corner of my eye, I pick up father’s glances at the swaying of her full bottom. I trip over a brick and he scolds me: “Be careful.”

  Narrow crowded alleyways. Old doors and stone benches in front of tiny shops. Smells of mud, decay, and axle grease. She stops until a vegetable cart passes, pulled along by a horse. She stretches the black sheet around her body, making its shape more clear. A beautiful perfume comes from her body. I go out to the living room. I look around for my mother. The annoying sound of the stove’s fire comes from the kitchen. I steal inside their bedroom. The bed. Across their mattress is a lace bedspread. I take the blue perfume bottle from on top of the dresser and I smell its rim.

  She moves away from us, then disappears. A darkened alley. Narrow stairs with worn-out steps. Father lights a match. We go up a few floors. We stop in front of a door with two glass windows. One of them is covered over with sackcloth. He knocks on the door and an angry-sounding voice inside calls out: “Who’s there?” He knocks again. An old woman opens up, carrying an oil lamp. She lifts the lamp up high to see us. The light falls down over a face that is pale and frowning. A droopy eye tries to stare out from its hiding place under a swollen eyelid. “Is Sheikh Affifi here?”

  She stands back for us without saying anything. Old furniture in piles. A door is opened by a skinny old man wrapped in a caftan made of shiny, striped cloth. He greets father and leads him over to a table with an oil lamp on top of it. He makes a big effort just to walk and teeters from side to side, on the verge of falling. He clutches the caftan to his body as he sits in a chair by the table. Father sits in front of him and I stand next to father. He takes two glasses and pours some liquid into them. One of them smells like musk. He takes a reed pen and dips it into one. He pulls over a plate made of white china. He puts his eyes right next to it. It’s decorated with boxes and dark lettering. The light from the lamp spreads across his thin, clean-shaven face and his two eyes that never stop blinking. Father’s eyes stay fixed on the pen. Framed Quranic verses are hung on the wall. There’s a Coca-Cola sign too that says it quenches thirst in the winter also. The chairs are covered with dirty cloth. One of them has a sunken chair that almost touches the ground.

  I move away from father. I come closer to the door that’s left ajar. I turn my eyes to the open crack. Right in front of me, there’s a blue circle with a surface that stands out. The bad eye of the old woman who opened the door for us becomes clear in it. She is craning her body, bending her knees, trying to hear. I step back and begin to feel for the safety of father, clinging to him. His head is tilted and he’s taking in the words of the old man. His bottom lip is plump and dangling. He tells father: “How do you feel about reading my horoscope for me?”

  Father says in a surprised voice: “Who, me?”

  “Yes, you. I’ll teach you. It’s very simple.”

  “Well then do it yourself.”

  “I wish. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Well, what do you want to know?”

  “How much longer shall I live?”

  Father sighs and says: You’ve already lived long, and you’ll only live a little longer.”

  He gives him a silver coin. He asks him about a good woman who can clean and cook. He says he’s ready to marry her if she comes from good stock.

  We leave the house and go to board the tram. I ask him how long he will live. He says he’ll live to 100. We pass in front of the chemist. It is closed even though it’s not closing time. Father heads towards a hand cart with a pile of date paste on it, covered in a sheer white cloth. A light shines down from a mantle lamp fastened over the middle of it. He buys a pound. Hajj Abdel ’Alim, the neighborhood sheikh, starts to call out to us. We go into his shop. Hajj is behind his desk. Next to him is another sheikh, Sheikh Fadhl. Wearing a turban, and he has no teeth. He is holding the newspaper Akhbar al Youm in his hand. My father tells Selim that one of the eggs he sold him two days ago was rotten. He sits down on a chair and I sit on the one next to him. Abdel ’Alim says while he’s clearing his throat that the chemist’s owner sold a copybook at a price that was two millimes over the regulation price, and that he was sentenced to six months and a fine of 100 pounds.

  Father asks him about Maged Effendi. The neighborhood sheik says: “He’s gone to Zarakish.”

  “Who’s Zarakish?”

  “You mean you don’t know? It’s the genie he’s married.”

  “He married a genie? How do you mean?”

  Abdel ’Alim says that a white cat fastened itself to him and started to share his bed. Then one day it stood on its two hind legs, and stretched upwards. Then it peeled off its fur and a beautiful woman appeared. He asked her name and she said: “Zarakish.” She began to dance and then asked him to marry her, saying that she was Muslim like him.

  Father asks about the butcher that disappeared. Abdel ’Alim says that he married a second wife without telling the first. Father asks: “A spring chicken?” No, he answers. She’s a divorcée who has been married three times before. He left the shop to his son and left the neighborhood altogether. He says that Um Nazira came to him today and begged him for sympathy. She’s ready to kiss his foot if he’ll let her come back. Father says sternly: “No. I don’t want her.” Abdel ’Alim asks him: “Have you tried the Maid Services Office?” Father says he doesn’t trust the girls that they send, and besides that, the agent takes a big commission.

  A fancy looking brown-skinned man comes in wearing a white shirt with a starched collar and a fez tilted slightly to the left. The neighborhood sheikh greets him: “Welcome, Refaat Effendi.” Father lifts me on to his lap to give Refaat my seat. He sits down and says that today he defended a woman facing the death penalty. She is twenty-three years old and married to an old man who is older than sixty. They sent him to the hospital throwing up violently.

  Abdel ’Alim asks: “Cholera?”

  The lawyer shakes his head: “Cholera’s on holiday until the summer.”

  ‘Then what the hell?”

  The lawyer says that the old man accused the wife of trying to poison him so she could get rid of him and marry a young buck her own age. The physician of the court testified that the old man had drunk an amount of whisky mixed with camphor oil.

  He is quiet for a while, then says: “All the evidence was against the girl. She would’ve been thrown to the lions if I hadn’t asked the old codger three questions.”

  Everyone except father asks him in one voice: “What were they?”

  He says: “I asked him if he was in the habit of rubbing his legs with camphor oil before he went to bed. The man said yes. I asked him where he kept the bottle of camphor oil. He said on the night stand next to the bed. Then I asked him: “And where exactly was the whisky?” He said it was by the camphor oil.”

  He looks around at us full of pride: “The court drew the conclusion that the man got drunk, reached for the whisky bottle, grabbed the camphor oil instead, and took a sip.”

  The sheikh wearing the turban looks at father and says: “That’s what he gets for marrying a woman that’s his daughter’s age.” Father’s face twists into a frown. Then the neighborhood sheikh steps in and asks if father wants to go in with the rest of the group in buying Al Ahram newspaper. Everyone would pitch in a piastre and they could get the paper for the whole month. Father says that he reads the paper at the shoeshine shop, “and anyway, today’s news is the same as yesterday’s.”

  Refaat Effendi says: “You can say that again. Look at the story today about the Yemeni Jews and how the English are smuggling them into Palestine. Ever since the partition, ships keep coming and going, gathering th
em up from near and far.”

  Then he lowers his voice and adds that the university students tore up the king’s picture and made fun of his fooling around. They chanted that he was “Ruler of Egypt, Sudan . . . and the dancer Samia Gamal!” Sheikh Fadhl says that the king dumped Samia Gamal long ago and replaced her with Um Kalthoum. The lawyer says that an electric air-conditioner was installed in her private villa. The turbaned sheikh says his son got a university degree by being granted a tuition waiver, then he went to work in the Qena district office for six pounds a month at the ninth clerical rank. The lawyer says that Lutfi Al-Sayyid Pasha, as president of the Academy of the Arabic Language, makes nine pounds a month, with a stipend for inflation of three pounds. He was getting four pounds a month when he was appointed at the council fifty years ago. The sheikh says: “An oka of sugar with a ration certificate is 75 millimes and it costs 200 on the black market.”

  Hajj Abdel ’Alim asks: “Did you read Fikry Abaza? He’s demanding a tax increase on the rich, limits on the monarchy, redistribution of land, and a war on inflation.”

  Sheikh Fadhl comments: “Calling for limits on land ownership is sacrilegious. Verily, the Sheikh of Al Azhar himself issued a fatwa saying so.” The neighborhood sheikh cuts him off: “Let’s get off politics, please. Have you heard the latest joke? It goes that the Heliopolis tram has two lines. One stops at Manshiyat al Bakry terminal and the other at Manshiyat al Boozem terminal. One day a girl with huge breasts gets on and asks the ticket collector if it stops at Manshiyat al Bakry. He stares at her breasts and says: ‘No, we go to Manshiyat al Boozem and we stop there.’ ”

  Everyone laughs except for father. He pushes to his feet and excuses himself, then walks out. I ask him when we get to our quarter what the joke meant and why everyone laughed. He doesn’t answer. I ask him: “What does the neighborhood sheikh do?”