He is installed on a camp bed up on the terrace. It is a wide, semi-circular, paved pavilion, surrounded by the upper branches of the trees growing below and encircled by a low railing that overlooks the Blue Nile. Nur can smell the river and hear it gushing. It is swollen, this time of year, with the rains that have been falling in Ethiopia. All his senses are alert. The place is full of memories: the front lawn in daylight, and picnics with his father. Now Nassir bustles about, bellowing at the servants, eager to arrange the slaughter of the sheep, the seating for his guests, the drinks and the barbeque. Woe to the cook if he had forgotten the slightest thing. They are too far away from even the smallest shop.
It is cool, compared to Umdurman, and everyone is grateful for that. A breeze blows through the trees. And there’s a smell of water and grass. This particular Sudanese beauty makes Nur heave inside, makes him want to gather the place and the mood. It must be a skill, like fishing, to cast your net into a river of dreams and catch a splendid array of words. That first poem had compelled itself into being, thrust itself out of him almost in spite of himself. Words that clamoured to exist. There is value and charm in that, but now he craves ability, a sense of control; he wants to excel at that smooth transition between emotion and art.
Nur had seen photos of Hamza Al-Naggar in the newspapers. In person, his energy is his most striking feature, a radiating vigour and healthy white teeth, a mix of confidence and modesty. He is handsome and impeccably dressed. As if already
forewarned, he displays neither surprise nor pity at Nur’s condition. When he strums his oud and sings, Nur is rapt. It is the songs he listens to every day on Radio Umdurman, lyrics that inspire and console him. They speak to him of love and he understands. They speak to him of sadness and he understands. Without Hamza’s quartet of violin players, without a microphone, accordion or any other oud but his own, Hamza sounds different than he does on the radio. He sings songs that have not yet been broadcast, works in progress that sound urgent and, at the same time, more relaxed. Hamza is repeating and changing, improvising as much as he wants. Nur feels as if he is being given a glimpse into the gradual development of a song in its early, promising stage, the anticipation before it is cast into a black vinyl record.
Hamza stops singing and Nur looks up. Yes, it is late at night and he is lying on a cot on the terrace of the Burri farm. Yes, everyone seated in a large circle is clapping and he cannot. He looks up to see Nassir, concerned and looking at his watch. The wrestling girls have not shown up. The circle of listeners breaks up and their attention drifts off. Chairs are turned and private conversations spring up.
‘Nassir, where’s dinner?’ someone calls out. ‘You’re starving us!’
The tantalising smell of grilled lamb chops – that tied up sheep who had been scuffling in the boot of the car – is now wafting up from the grounds. All the appetisers; olives, cucumbers and nuts have been eaten up.
‘In a minute. Stay put,’ Nassir replies. He holds a glass of whisky in his hand and a dark look on his face. He is not sure whether the girls have stood him up or not.
Nur is grateful for this lull. He has ample time to talk to the musician sitting close to his cot, the man who is Sudan’s rising star.
‘Is it true,’ he asks tentatively, ‘that Hamza Al-Naggar is not your real name?’
‘Hamza is, but I changed my last name. I was afraid of my family’s response to my chosen career. I come from a conservative family, the kind of people who think that all musicians are debauched.’
He doesn’t smile when he says the word ‘debauched’; it is not a joke.
Nur is touched by Hamza’s response. He has heard this disparagement of the arts often from the adults of his own family.
‘Sudanese society has to change,’ he says with passion. ‘It has to give poets and musicians, all artists, the respect they deserve.’
Hamza smiles. ‘With time people do change. My family now knows the truth. They’ve accepted me and now even support me.’
‘How come you don’t write your own lyrics?’ Nur blurts out. ‘I mean, how do you choose the lyrics to your songs?’
‘Poets submit their work to me. If I am inspired by a poem, I compose a tune that goes with the words and then I sing it. Or sometimes I pick up my oud and improvise a tune as I go along, but it remains incomplete until I find the suitable words.’
‘I have a poem,’ Nur blurts out.
His voice is loud, even strident. Such an opportunity might never come again. Nur, the young man, might be diplomatic and mild, but Nur, the poet, has no inhibitions. Ambition propels him, a new, bold urge to speak out, to show off and share his words. Besides, what does he have to lose? At least he might gain an honest opinion from a professional who has experience and skill.
‘Well, let me listen to it,’ says Hamza. He puts down his oud and draws his chair closer to Nur.
As Nur starts to recite
Travel is the Cause
, he suddenly thinks that this is not good enough, that these words are weird, that they don’t sound like a poem, don’t sound like a song. They just sound like me, he thinks. He falters – and goes on. The words lure him and pull him along. The poem is his home –
In you, Egypt, are the causes of my injury
– his own space, and no one
else’s, his own pain and no one else’s. He belongs within its lines. This is his shelter, adorned and unadorned. By the time he nears the end, he is no longer reciting to Hamza Al-Naggar or to anyone from this particular gathering. Nur is talking to Soraya, and Nur is talking to the night, scratching his story on the scrolls of time.
When he finishes, he ducks his head and waits for Hamza to speak, but the gathering is instantly disrupted by the servants carrying the much-anticipated trays of food. The guests of honour, Tuf Tuf and Hamza, are urged to lean forward and extend their arms. The moment is lost. One of the servants (Nassir’s houseboy in the Khartoum villa, Babiker, a boy Nur has never seen before) is set the task of feeding Nur. Nur is resigned to this dependence but Babiker, who has never done this before, makes a sloppy job of the procedure and Nur loses his appetite, inhibited by the quick, sharp looks of pity that come his way from the guests as they scoop mouthfuls of meat and bread into their mouths. Nothing disturbs people as much as his inability to feed himself.
Hamza leaves after dinner without a word about the poem or even an acknowledgement. But Nur plans to send him a written copy tomorrow. He composes a covering letter in his head, and then tells himself not to dwell on it too much. He had, after all, enjoyed reciting his poem. And he is now confident again that it is good. ‘Where are these girls you promised?’ he teases Nassir.
Nassir answers with his mouth full, ‘That pimp took my money and then stood me up. Bastard! Tomorrow I will chase him up.’
So this is how the Abuzeid money is squandered. If their father ever hears of this, he will be furious.
Nur feels tired in a pleasant way. His first meeting with Hamza Al-Naggar, this outing, and seeing Tuf Tuf again, is such abundance, all on one evening, all a surprise. So life can be pleasurable, life can be good. Fate, it seems, has not finished with him yet. He dozes, and elation spreads through his incoherent
dreams. A world of mist and colours; Soraya’s skin and Soraya’s laugh . . . He moves. He punches the air; he runs down the Victoria College track and jumps over one hurdle and another. He lands knowing he has jumped his furthest, his highest yet. His feet on the ground, carrying the weight of his body, he crouches and springs up again. When he wakes up, he sees Nassir and Tuf Tuf sitting side by side. Nassir is holding another glass of whiskey and Tuf Tuf is lighting a cigarette. They seem to have bonded this evening. Nur closes his eyes and listens to Nassir’s drunken tirade against the wrestling girls.
‘I think I’m going to have to drive us home,’ Tuf Tuf says. ‘In this state you’ll get us all killed.’
Nur joins his friend in quelling Nassir’s objections. He, too, doesn’t want to die. A new poem is stirring, triggered by this night and this setting, nurtured by the breeze in the trees and the Nile’s water that heard him recite his first poem and carried it on.
Tomorrow we will be as we want
And walk at sunset by the Nile.
It was Time that defeated Soraya at the end. Changes all around, but weeks, months and a whole year passing without the slightest improvement in his condition, or the faintest of progress. She had held on to hope for so long, she had been stubborn and she had been fierce, but Time won at the end. Not what people said to her, and not even when Uncle Mahmoud broke off the engagement. It was the ticking clock. It was life moving forward, and sweeping away her hopes for a miracle. It was how days and days passed, and Nur didn’t recover. Now, when they said he was ill, they meant he had influenza or an upset stomach. Now, when they said he was well, they meant he was singing along with the radio and laughing out loud with his friends. Enough of her tantrums and tears, enough of her threats and scenes every time her sisters said, ‘You won’t marry Nur, you will marry someone else.’
Time tamed her at the end. Not knowing where to turn or what to do, she put her head down and poured her energy into studying for the school leaving certificate. She had always been a good student, but this dedication was new. Sister Josephine was shining a light in another direction and challenging her to work harder. And there was a prize to be won. Unlike Halima and Fatma, Soraya had managed to complete school. Now she could be the first Abuzeid girl to step into university, the first girl in the alley to get a university degree. When the examination results came out, and Soraya’s science grades exceeded all expectations, Sister Josephine invited the Abuzeid brothers to a meeting in her office.
Soraya stood outside the door and strained to listen. She
would miss the familiar columns and the blue tiles stretching all the way to the statue of the Virgin Mary; the open, shady courtyard, the nuns bustling and in white. How purposefully they walked! If she never, ever married, she would be like them, forever a virgin, cut off from motherhood and running her own house. The prospect filled her with self-pity. She moved closer to the door of the office. She could hear her father’s voice, loud and irritated. Idris seemed to be addressing Mahmoud, ‘
You
insisted that she be allowed to wear her spectacles and I gave in for your sake. Enough! Why more?’
Sister Josephine replied to this, but her voice was too low for Soraya to hear. Without the spectacles, she would not have succeeded in her examinations. But Idris had not completely caved in. The permission did not extend to wearing the spectacles in his presence. That would be asking too much! On one occasion she forgot to take them off as she was bringing him a glass of water.
‘Get away from my face!’ had been his immediate reaction.
She could now hear Uncle Mahmoud saying, ‘Soraya will not be the only girl there. She will be in good company.’
He began listing the names of their acquaintances whose daughters were allowed to enter university. Idris merely grunted and resumed his predictable objections. No need for university. No need whatsoever. If only Sister Josephine could talk a little louder, but only a few snatches were audible: ‘. . . instead of sitting . . . let her attend . . . Medicine is an honourable profession.’
Soraya heard Uncle Mahmoud’s gentle response, but she could not now make out his exact words. When the meeting was over and the Abuzeid brothers walked out of the office, Sister Josephine looked tired. She put her arm around Soraya’s shoulder and said, ‘Apply yourself well.’
Soraya knew then that Sister Josephine had won, but it would not be wise to reveal any expression of glee now, because Idris was scowling and in a hurry to get to the car.
‘Thank you, Uncle,’ she whispered, and Mahmoud smiled at her and winked.
The new academic year started and she was one of the handfuls of girls to enrol at Kitchener’s School of Medicine. At first she was in awe of her surroundings, of the lush, spacious lawns of the campus with their tall palm trees, and the young men who stared at her and gave her shy smiles. She had to wear her white to be every day.
‘Don’t even dream of taking it off,’ warned Fatma. ‘One wrong move and Father will put an end to this university business!’
It was a miracle that Idris had agreed to let her attend in the first place. He was even dropping her off every day, driving through the main gate, right up to the quadrangle in front of the library. To become a doctor . . . It still didn’t feel real. Soraya would do her lab work and study until the small hours, but she found it hard to believe in herself. Campus gossip had it that the boys were laying bets on which of the girls would be married off and out of college by the end of the academic year. Soraya was a strong contender, but she was not the favourite. She was, it was agreed, ‘too tall’. When she heard this, she was strangely disappointed. It was not just hurt vanity or a competitive spirit, she genuinely felt bypassed. Such a reaction did not make sense, because, of course, she wanted to continue and had no intention of abandoning her studies. If she was not going to marry Nur, she told herself, she would have a vocation where she could be passionate and useful, respected and more reliant on herself.
It was her old schoolfriend, Amal, who was voted most likely to be whisked off to the marital nest. When the two of them walked together to classes, they provoked comments on how Amal was petite and curvaceous, while Soraya was slim. It was one thing to be tall in a girls’ school and quite another matter in university. Here, she was taller than many of the male students and that was something, she realised, they didn’t like. No wonder
Amal and her dimples were so widely admired. In the girls’ common room, which Soraya hated because it was the hottest, stuffiest room on campus, Amal stretched out on a bench and said, ‘We need to find you a bridegroom taller than you.’
When Soraya was engaged to Nur, she was flawless. Now that she was available on the marriage market, her imperfections were all on display: short-sighted, loose-limbed and soon to be over-educated.