Nur is the new boy. He speaks Arabic and the prefect has gone to report him. Nur is bewildered by the new rules. No underwear to be worn at night, only pyjamas, cold showers first thing in the morning, grey flannels. Two types of boys fail in Victoria College – those who are religious and those who are poor at sports. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Muslim, Christian or Jew. It doesn’t matter if you’re Russian, Palestinian, Sudanese or Greek. Maybe Nur will succeed. Maybe he will crawl his way through this first term, but the more he struggles, the more he is bullied; the more the masters despair of him, the more his schoolmates despise him. At the end of the term, it is time to return to Umdurman and never be seen again. Nur is being punished. He has to sit down in the empty classroom and copy out five hundred lines from the telephone directory. He copies and copies, stopping to count the lines but still they are not enough. Tedious. Tedious.
‘Alhamdulillah for your safe recovery,’ Nabilah peers down at him. What is she doing in London? He remembers as his father touches his forehead and hair. ‘How are you feeling? The anaesthetic troubled you.’
Nur is not sure how he is feeling. He should be better; he should be able to get up. He is still wrapped in a cocoon.
‘Squeeze my hand,’ his father says but Nur doesn’t know where his father’s hand is. He turns his head and sees that his father is holding his hand.
Mr Copeland appears with his needle and trusty hammer. He goes away and then returns. He addresses his father, who stands up straight and deferential. Mr Copeland pushes his glasses up
his nose and talks in a steady voice. He says that, unfortunately, there is no significant progress. The likelihood of any recovery at this point is remote. We can offer an extensive programme of rehabilitation. It normally takes eighteen months. A progress from bed to wheelchair. The patient will learn how to feed himself. His father’s face darkens and he interrupts in a mixture of Arabic and English.
‘With what, Doctor?’ Mahmoud sounds angry. ‘Feed himself with what? No sir, I can hire tens of people to serve him day and night.’
His father is being rude to an Englishman. Mr Copeland is unsettled, and now Mahmoud gives him his back. He turns to the wall, cradles his head in his hands and sobs. Nur has never seen his father crying. Nabilah touches Mahmoud’s arm and murmurs things Nur cannot hear. He can only hear his father’s sobs.
Mr Copeland turns to Nur, blinks and speaks again of rehabilitation and gaining some degree of independence. Nur can’t listen any more. The words pour out of him.
‘I want to use my arms. It doesn’t matter about my legs, but I want to hold a pen.’ He has seen the patients in crutches and wheelchairs and he could live like that, but . . . please Sir, he needs his arms. Nur is bartering and negotiating. Swapping his legs for his arms, his feet for his hands. He is begging, but Mr Copeland is powerless. He looks at Nur as if Nur is speaking a foreign language.
‘I need my hands to do simple things like turning over the pages of a book. Please, Sir!’
Summers in Khartoum were dry, shimmering heat, with the sun’s lashing rays and not a single breeze, not a breath. This would intensify to an unbearable stillness when even the nights and dawns became hot. Such tightness had to give, had to break; it did, not gently, but through dust clouds, reddish brown formations gathering on the horizon. They would advance, looking innocent and colourful, then, closer, they revealed their menace and crushed the city in an embrace of grit and sand. Visibility diminished and the wind would blow and howl, churning dust and ripping loose garbage and bushes. Branches fell off trees and chicken pens were ripped apart, and hours later, when the air cleared and became fresh, there would be ripples of sand on the ground, swirls and patterns as if the desert had visited and left its tracks.
Badr was not entitled to paid leave this summer. His contract gave him this privilege only once every two years. To go home to Egypt he would have had to finance the trip himself, and after calculating the travel expenses for himself, Haniyyah, his father and the four boys, it became clear that this was not an option. So, even with the school closed, he remained in Khartoum and Haniyyah, in the late stages of pregnancy, had to endure the Sudanese weather. When the dust storms came, they huddled in their one room, hot and restless. When it rained, and it started to rain in July, usually at dawn or at night, as if the water feared the sun, Osama, Bilal and Radwan stripped to their underpants and ran out to splash and laugh, opening their mouths up to the sky. Little Ali, toddling proficiently now, would join them – and then retreat back to cover because the
rain alarmed him, and his puzzled face made them all laugh. Prayers made when it’s raining are accepted, Badr would remind his family, and he prayed that Haniyyah would have a safe and easy delivery.
Ramadan came in the middle of the summer. Badr welcomed it and made a schedule for himself. Every day he would read a section of the Qur’an, one thirtieth or more. He would wake up a couple of hours before dawn for the tahajud prayers and at night he would go to the mosque for isha and taraweeh. At the hottest time of the day, he had a nap, and his plan was that he would spend the last ten days of Ramadan in seclusion at the mosque. He made time, too, to read his favourite books; the tafseer of Ibn Kathir, and Imam Ghazali’s
The Revival of the Sciences of Religions
. There were the household chores, too, for Haniyyah was becoming increasingly heavy and tired. He told her to stop fasting but she didn’t listen.
‘I don’t want to miss out,’ she said.
She was involved in an exchange of dishes and drinks with their Sudanese neighbours, noting their love of sweet drinks and how they drank more than they ate when it was time to break the fast. Helu Mur and Abre, the children, sipped and made faces, but grew to like them before long and they were fascinated by the cannon that was fired from the barracks at precisely the time of the iftar. Osama and Bilal were fasting, and during the day they were quiet and thirsty, becoming boisterous and energetic after the evening meal and late into the night. This was part of the charm of Ramadan, turning day into night, treats of mixed nuts, dried apricots and dates. Badr did not begrudge his family any delicacies. Every day he went to the souq and every day Haniyyah cooked delicious meals and satisfying puddings. It was a month of plenty, and he marvelled at how rigorous it was, and at the same time buoyant; solemn, and at the same time merry, with the children playing football in the street by the light of Ramadan lanterns.
He felt a surge of love for his family that month. Often, he
would draw the boys into his arms and kiss them, enjoying their smell and childish skin. Little Ali would sit on his lap, listening and lulled as Badr recited the Qur’an, going over the suras he had memorised. He taught Osama Surat Yasin, Bilal completed Juzu’ Aama and Radwan learnt Surat Al-Borooj. This was joy; his sons loving him and wanting to please him, strong in body and in faith.
Badr revelled, too, in the closure of the school. No need to wake up early and rush with the boys to catch the tram, no need to be punctual, no need to scurry around from one private lesson to the next, and no need to dress formally. He felt relaxed and free. At home he would wear his underwear of long johns and vest, and when he went out to the mosque or the souq he wore his jellabiya. His father, seeing him in the clothes of the Egyptian peasant, mistook him for his older brother, Abdel-Salaam.
‘It’s me, Badr,’ he repeated, but the old man looked at him as if he were a trickster or Abdel-Salaam trying to pull his leg.
Abdel-Salaam had died years ago, of dysentery. If he were still alive, their father would not have needed to travel with Badr to Khartoum, he would have lived at Kafr-el-Dawar. Abdel-Salaam had been the reason Badr was able to continue his studies and go to Teachers’ College. Abdel-Salaam was the older brother who looked after the farm and followed in their father’s footsteps. He was the one who devoted his early life to family duty and gave Badr the luxury of time off for education. But humans plan, yet Allah has different plans for them.
‘Father, Abdel-Salaam died seven years ago,’ Badr spoke gently.
‘Ah, yes, I remember now,’ roused grief and fresh tears.
How soft and small he had become. He used to be rough; he used to be strong. He used to be cheerful, too, or at least good-natured. He used to be brown from the sun; now his skin was pale from sitting in the shade all day. Badr chided himself for insisting that Abdel-Salaam had died. He was never sure whether
to fix his father’s mind to the present, humour him, or just leave him to his delusions and meanderings.
‘Today is the middle of Ramadan, Father.’
‘Yes, of course. I am fasting.’
But he was not fasting, nor was he required to. His body was too frail and his mind could not distinguish between day and night. Often he would skip meals, insisting to Haniyyah that he had already eaten, and sometimes he would demand breakfast as soon as his dish was cleared away, forgetting completely the ful he had just minutes earlier consumed.
On a soft cool morning, blue grey with dawn’s rain, Badr stood in front of the construction site of the Abuzeid building. Ramadan seemed to have brought the work to a standstill and the building was far from complete. The entrance was a gaping hole, strewn with bricks and piles of sand. There were sacks of cement, wheelbarrows, and discarded spades. All of these things were soaked with rain, the ground covered in puddles. Badr counted five storeys and chose a flat for himself, the second floor on the right. Not the left, which overlooked the main road. Haniyyah would need to go out on the balcony to hang out the washing, and he did not want any man watching her. The balcony on the right was more secluded. His own flat indeed! Wishful thinking. The flat was as distant to him now as a glass of tea to his fasting lips. He smiled to himself at the likeness. He was not hungry now; the pre-dawn meal was comfortable in his lower belly, nor was he longing desperately for the flat.
He looked at the building dispassionately, surprised that it was so incomplete. But perhaps, now that it was up, it was in the last stages, and these last stages didn’t take long. What would he know? He was an Arabic and Religious Studies teacher with a farming background.
The guard of the building suddenly emerged from a flimsy shack which Badr hadn’t noticed. The man’s cheeks were etched with tribal scars and his eyes were bleary, as if he had just woken
up. They exchanged greetings and Badr asked about the building.
‘Sayyid Mahmoud is away travelling, that’s why the work is on hold. He’s been away a long time. His son is ill and he took him to the land of the English for treatment.’
‘Which son?’
The guard shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Once Mahmoud Bey gets back, how long will it be before the building is complete?’
‘Soon, Insha’ Allah,’ the guard replied. ‘But the materials from abroad have to arrive first, otherwise the work can’t go on.’
Badr still had hope of moving into a flat. Earlier today, after the heavy rain, his hoash had flooded and he had spent hours with his long johns rolled up, sweeping water into the street, and on his hands and knees, mopping up the concrete strip of terrace. He occupied his mind and made the task lighter and even pleasurable by reciting every verse from the Qur’an on the subject of rain. The skies opening, the water pouring to carry Noah’s ark to safety, heavy clouds, lightning splitting the sky and the anticipation of rain, the longing for goodness and moisture. Water from the sky to give life to the earth after it is dead. It is Allah who sends the winds and they raise the clouds. He spreads the clouds in the sky and then breaks them into fragments until you see the raindrops. Badr was jolted from the stream of his thoughts by Haniyyah’s voice, praying out loud that they could be delivered from this wretched housing. She had been, these past weeks, lulled by fasting and her heavy stomach, but the state of the hoash after this morning’s rain triggered her old refrain of moving. Badr knew fellow teachers who had to share their hoash with other families. He was paying extra to have his own hoash, but Haniyyah had aspirations.
If he loved her less, he would have kept her, his father and the children back home in Kafr-el-Dawar and he would have lived in Khartoum as a bachelor. Many of his colleagues had opted for this arrangement because it saved money and was less of a hassle. But Badr needed his wife. He knew he had a weakness
and a love for women. If the devil were going to tempt him, he would tempt him with adultery. So Haniyyah had to be close to him, protecting him and, at the same time, making day-to-day life sweet. He would be bored and miserable without his boys and he had hated being a bachelor: the constant pressure to avoid temptation, the dreams, the loneliness and frustration. He was proud that he had remained chaste until his wedding night. It was like an examination he had passed with flying colours. Now, caring for his elderly father was an examination, too, a responsibility and a duty. He must look after him because the reward of serving one’s parents was great. And the punishment for begrudging them and shunning them was great too.
He took the tram to Sirdar Street where the shops were stacked with items from England and Egypt, Greece and Lebanon. In a grocery run by an Armenian and his wife, Badr surveyed the numerous packets of biscuits, cold meats, pastries, and even, shamelessly, in this holy month, bottles of wine! He examined the boxes of sweets to see which ones were both value for money and Hanniyah’s favourites. The well-dressed man next to him, hair slicked back with Brylcream and a box of shortbread in his hand, looked familiar. Yes! He was the secretary of Mahmoud Bey, proof that this shop indeed was upmarket and reputable.
‘Good morning, Sir,’ said Badr.
Victor turned to look at him. It took him a second to place Badr, then they shook hands. Badr asked about Mahmoud Bey, then, ‘Which one of his sons has been taken ill?’
Victor spoke with the superiority of a man who enjoyed being privy to the intimate details of an important family. His words had the weight of accuracy and the two men shared a solemn moment. A sigh from Badr.