Ibrahim Meguid - The House of Jasmine

“Shagara! I mean, Mr. Shagara, please come in.”

There is always a huge crowd on al-Tarikh Bridge every Wednesday. Young and old men and children in rags and bare feet start to arrive in the early morning and line up on the bridge with their faces toward the port, their gazes fixed on the empty space. The tram stops at its station behind them, and no one leaves his spot until evening.

A long time after this started happening, the people realized that there was an incinerator at the port where the police burned drugs they had confiscated after stopping smuggling attempts or raiding dealers’ storage places. Wednesday was the day on which the burning took place, and the sea breeze blowing at the bridge always passed the incinerator and, carrying the smoke of burning hashish, brought the people on the bridge pleasure and comfort free of charge. Now many vehicles besides the tram loiter on the bridge on Wednesdays.

I was sitting in my office thinking of how women lived longer than men because God wanted them to suffer longer. Why did God want His beautiful creatures to suffer? I felt that my mind was about to burst, and I was scared. .

Kawthar’s mother had cried when she saw me. Her husband, ‘Abd al-‘Al, had died of sorrow for Hani, who was killed in Sinai during the war. Mr. ‘Abd al-‘Al was a distinguished person in the neighborhood. He was a handsome man who had passed his good looks down to his daughters. He was always clean and nicely dressed, and wore a full suit in both winter and summer. He was a quiet man who talked very little. He often came into the room where Hani and I used to study in the evenings, opened a small closet with a key that he kept, took out a small book and left. Hani used to talk to me about his father’s wide knowledge of poets and poetry.

Nur, Kawthar’s little girl, was dark because her father, who left her and two other children and went to work in Dubai, was dark. Where is this Dubai on the world map? And how can I get to it now? Ahlam had quietly married a month ago and left for Dubai with her husband as well. Maybe Ahlam was married on the same day on which I saw Kawthar in the tram.

Why did I not expect all this? Why did I forget that there had been a big war in October 1973, and that many people had been killed in this war? Was it because ‘Abd al-Salam, who was besieged with the third army, had returned safely? Was ‘Abd al-Salam our entire army?

Why did I not realize that as Ahlam grew up she also matured and came to have her own magic and secret world? As soon as I had entered the apartment, I had a sudden cold impression that I didn’t really know anyone there, and that feeling didn’t surprise me. If you lose something and then find it again when you don’t need it anymore, does it mean anything? Kawthar must have felt the same way. She sat down and smiled, then got up and brought her mother, leaning on her arm, to sit with us. We sat in silence, and all the mother said was: “How are you, son?” Then she started to weep quietly. Kawthar helped her up, and took her out of the room, then came back to say that her mother never stopped crying. So it was not seeing me that made her cry as I had thought. It was not that I reminded her of her son, his childhood and early youth. I didn’t feel like talking to Kawthar about anything, and she didn’t ask me about my parents. I don’t think that she even wondered about the cause of my strange visit. When we had been silent for too long, I started to ask questions, and the answers were like blows on my head. Did Kawthar think that I knew every misfortune that happened to them? I didn’t ask her about Rashid. If Hani, who never stopped joking and laughing, was dead, then Rashid, who used to memorize and sing ‘Abd al-Halim’s songs, must have been suffering in the “Loyalty and Hope” institution for the disabled. Is life a tasteless farce or a futile tragedy? I wasn’t surprised that Kawthar had smiled at me in the tram. She must have remembered that this tall man in front of her was once her neighbor, and maybe she remembered that I had kissed her once, and she thought of her husband and enjoyed a pleasant moment. She probably didn’t expect anything more than a smile in return.

#

I was struck by a frenzy of desire, so I went around our shipyard offices peeking at the legs of the female employees. I sat with the ones I knew and chatted in order to get a look at the breasts tucked inside their clothes and smell their cheap and heavy perfumes. I imagined them in sexual positions with their husbands, whom I either knew if they worked in our shipyard or didn’t know. At home, I created an imaginary palace of sexual pleasures and got so good at my fantasizing that I could ejaculate without touching myself.

When al-Dakruri came to visit me, he was horrified to see my long beard and my bushy unbrushed hair, which had not been washed in a long time.

“Shagara, you should get married,” he said. A sarcastic smile came to my face.

“You have an apartment, so what are you waiting for? You are in a better position than I am.”

I did not reply.

“Money? It’s on its way. Prepare yourself. Begin has arrived in Alexandria, as you know, and the day after tomorrow he will leave Ras al-Tin Palace to go to the President’s summer house in Ma’mura. The shipyard will participate in greeting them on Gamal ‘Abd al-Nassir Street.

Screw him! I almost screamed at al-Dakruri, almost picked him up and threw him out the window into the back street. He knew everything about me and didn’t object or ask for anything in return for his silence. What kind of a person was he? He was not a saint, an angel, or a devil. He didn’t deserve to be thanked or cursed. And who was I, exactly? I didn’t even know that Begin had arrived in Alexandria. I no longer read any newspapers or watched television news programs. I was on a quest for women, women’s scents, sweat, lips, breasts, and I was thinking of buying a color television set in order to look at their warm flesh. This Begin was the one who had thrown God out of His land where the government housing in Kum al-Shuqafa stood, and he was the one who filled the area with a shanty town.

I’m not an idiot, as you all must think. I understand how things work. I really do. I only have one modest desire — I want to find a woman to marry. Then I would become even more isolated, my life would revolve around her and our children, and I would become even more stupid. This is the desire which has never been fulfilled, and which I have always tried to ignore. I’m Shagara Muhammad ‘Ali, the tall dark man with the attractive face and the black eyes, strong as a wall, manhood running thick in my veins, almost bursting out of my skin, turning my blood into fire, and pouring out effortlessly. I have an apartment and more than five hundred pounds in my bank account. I have no relatives, and both my parents are dead. I, Shagara Muhammad ‘Ali, cannot find a woman. Isn’t there one single girl courageous enough to come forward and end my loneliness? Isn’t there one of my colleagues who could present a friend or a sister that I could marry? Why have women given up their historical role of trying to secure a man for themselves? And they want me to participate in Begin’s reception? Shit! I will receive Begin and Begin’s mother! I will make the employees like him. I won’t steal any of their pay this time. I will sit at the café near the train station, and leave them in the street, in the square in front of the station, where the buildings are far apart and the sunlight scorches the ground without a single spot of shade. I will carry out this dirty mission to the end.

#

The door bell rang, and I opened it to find Hassanayn standing there with his arms open and his face as flushed as ever. I was very happy to see him.