Ibrahim Meguid - The House of Jasmine

Magid often seemed preoccupied, and on several occasions, I thought of asking him about it, but then I forgot. On the first of October, he cleared up the mystery, and said as if he were spellbound, “She is dark with green eyes and black hair. Can there be anything prettier than that? She said that she was a student at the school of natural sciences. First she came in to buy shampoo, then she came again, and that time, we talked a little and she laughed. The third time she came, she was crying, and asked me to help her find her aunt’s house. She had its address, but didn’t know how to get there. She said that she had come from Cairo to spend the day with her uncle, but his wife mistreated her, and she wanted to stay with another aunt. She said that she would not leave for Cairo without calling me, and that she was going to write to me afterwards, but two months have passed and she has neither called nor written. I will go see her in Cairo.”

“And that is why you have been so preoccupied?” Hassanayn asked, but Magid didn’t reply. It was as if his mind were already somewhere else. After that he went to Cairo every week, and came back saying “I don’t know if she is at Cairo or ‘Ayn Shams University. She didn’t say what year she was, and I believe she said that she was studying at the school of natural science, but I may be wrong. I don’t know.” Then he traveled again and came back to say, “It is difficult to enter the campus because of the university police and security. The university is like a fortress. I stand at the gate asking the students if they are at the school of natural science. Cairo University has more than one gate. I’m scared.” He continued to make frequent trips to Cairo, and our meetings became fewer and fewer. Then winter came, and they stopped altogether.

#

Al-Dakruri came into my office, and before he’d even greeted me, he said, “Isn’t it about time you left this badly lit office?”

I looked at him standing between my desk and the door, then asked, “Al-Dakruri, you are the president of the workers’ union, aren’t you?”

He smiled, and seemed as surprised as a little kid. Then his pale face turned red and he said, “Are you making fun of me?”

“Not at all, but I wanted to ask you why you never wear your overalls. I know that you are an electrical technician. Right?”

He laughed and said, “You’re right, but I have forgotten all about electricity. There are always problems between the workers and the administration to be worked out, as you know.”

I smiled. He always said that I knew things that I didn’t actually know.

“Why do you want me to leave this office?” I asked.

“This is the normal thing for anyone to do,” he said.

“You’ve been working here for ten years. You deserve to get a promotion and have additional employees working under your supervision. But they may forget about you like this. Write me a complaint, and I will look into it for you.” I laughed and offered him a cigarette. He said that he had quit smoking because it was bad for one’s health, and because he was trying to save enough money to get married, having delayed it for too long already.

“The President’s reception ceremonies are going to be huge this time,” he said. “The newspapers say that the Camp David meeting will end the Arab — Israeli conflict forever. They will broadcast the signing of the treaty on air the day after tomorrow, so get ready.”

“Am I going to take the workers to the rally? You know that I have stopped doing that.”

“You will regain the workers’ respect for you by doing it this time. It is true that a long time has passed since what happened, but it’s necessary to fully regain their respect, and don’t forget that the new chairman doesn’t know anything about it. You have to take the workers to a rally at least one more time to erase all memory of the old incident among the workers and employees.”

He went out and left me thinking about what he was doing. How could he know that I was a thief, and still show no objection or surprise about it? And why was he so concerned about me regaining respect one and a half years after the incident? Surely, that was enough time to erase all memory of the incident, which, in fact, didn’t really concern anybody except me. He always wanted me to be promoted. This al-Dakruri must be a messenger of divine providence, a prophet maybe. I thought about what he had said about saving money for his marriage, felt sorry for him, and liked him even more. I also felt that I did indeed need to regain the workers’ respect.

#

The day before our scheduled trip to Cairo, I called Usta Zinhum, and he came to see me in my office. I told him that this time we were going to take five hundred workers and four drivers. He already knew about it. I asked him about the fourth driver, who was coming with us for the first time, and he said that he would take care of him. Then I explained to Usta Zinhum that he should come alone to meet me at five in the morning in the square outside Masr Station and should leave the bus parked in front of his house. I also told him to ask the three other drivers to come and meet me at Aqta’ Café between six and seven, and leave their buses parked in front of their houses as well, or in any other place they chose so that no one from the shipyard could see them.

“Aren’t we going to spend the day somewhere?” he asked.

“We’ll finish this job before it even begins,” I said, and he smiled, then asked me about the pre-prepared meals which would be loaded in the buses for the workers. I laughed and said, “Sell them and share the revenue with the other drivers, or eat them.”

At five o’clock the next morning, I was standing at the station, wearing two pullovers, and still chilled with the cold of March. It was still dark. Usta Zinhum arrived, looking like a big round ball because of the pile of clothes that he had put on. He seemed to be rolling along the ground. I handed him four lists with the names of the workers, and asked him to cross off the name of each worker as he arrived to receive his pay. We must have stood out in the sleepy square, for the workers found us pretty quickly. Usta Zinhum crossed out the names as I handed each worker three pounds. At six-thirty, I met the three drivers at Aqta’ Café. There was a little more movement in the square, which was lazily waking up around us.

“Mr. Shagara, we really like you, but life is difficult these days,” said the driver who had objected to the hundred pounds last time, then taken them, and then offered to return them when the trick was discovered. “We want two hundred pounds each.”

I looked at the fourth driver, who was going out with us for the first time, and who was engrossed in drinking a glass of tea with milk in complete silence, as if the whole matter didn’t concern him. His silence stirred my fears — something about him suggested a hardened criminal.

“Is this a mutiny?” I asked.

“We’ll make it up to you next time,” said Usta Zinhum, looking at the ground. So it was he who planned it, this old man bundled up in his clothes like a ball. I had decided to give each driver a hundred pounds, and save six hundred, having taken two pounds from the pay of each of the five hundred workers.

“What if I refuse?”

“We won’t ruin our friendship. We won’t take anything at all,” they said, almost together. So they would let the crime be all mine. My face must have shown signs of consent, for I saw Usta Zinhum smile, and heard the new driver say, “The President will always be there, the people will be there, and we have loads of problems with other nations, and there will be no end to the visitors and the treaties.”

So the scoundrel has finally said something! He was quite firm, and soon went back to sipping his tea. So be it.