Sonallah Ibrahim - Stealth

Father’s voice: “Do you see your brother?” My sister’s voice: “Rarely? You?” “He’s cut me off ever since your blessed mother died and he found out that I remarried.” “How’s Rowhaya doing?” Father’s voice: “Same as always.” “And the Turkish woman? What’s her name? Basima?” Her legs are crossed as she sits on the couch covered with colored cloth and I’m next to her. She’s white and plump and wears a shiny red dress. Her head is covered with a white scarf. On the wall there’s a picture of an important officer with a huge moustache riding a stallion and waving his sword in his hand. She gives me a big piece of chocolate. I peel off its shiny red wrapper with the gold lining and bite off a piece then put it back in its wrapper. I stick it in my jacket pocket. After a while, I take it out and bite off another piece. A hum of voices comes from the guest room. I make out my father’s voice and that of another man. The plump woman listens in on the voices with interest. She sees that I’m watching her. She calls the servant woman and tells her to turn on the radio. It sits on a small shelf on the wall facing us, covered with a white cloth. She asks me how old I am. I say: “Nine.”She listens to the radio. First talk, then music. I get up the courage to ask: “What’s that?” “A movie.” “What kind of movie?” “It’s called The Mysterious Past.” I recognize the voice of Laila Murad. She sings: “I wish you were close enough for my eyes to see you. .” I get up and go towards the guest room. Its door with its square glass panels is opened a crack. I listen to the talking. The man’s voice: “The boy’s too big.”My father’s voice: “But he studies hard and does what he’s told.” He comes out. He takes me by the hand and we head towards the door. The plump woman’s disappeared, but Laila Murad is still singing.

Father’s voice: “She didn’t ask me for a thing. We just went our separate ways.”

My sister: “Papa, that’s enough marrying for you.”

“With God as my witness, I only married her after I’d been ruined by the maids and housekeepers.”

“Papa, you know no one can put up with you.”

Father asks about Samira, Uncle Fahmi’s sister. She says she is busy helping her daughter shop for furniture from Al-Samry Furniture Gallery. She asks him about my uncle. She says he hasn’t come round since the last holiday. Their chatting stops for a minute and the sound of the dice clattering down on to the backgammon board resounds. Uncle Fahmi’s voice: “It looks like they’re closing up the whorehouses.” My sister’s voice: “And where are the girls supposed to go now?” “They’ll head out to the streets.”

I walk into the terrace room. The talking stops. I stand next to father. He plays as though he’s bored. The game ends with my sister’s husband winning. Father closes the backgammon set, saying that it is getting dark and we had better get going. Uncle Fahmi goes out to get a new pack of cigarettes. Father leans over and whispers something to Nabila. She shakes her head. Father stands up. Uncle Fahmi comes back. He urges us to stay and my sister joins in: “Spend the night. Dinner’s already ready.” She spreads out a comfy mattress for us on the ground and covers it with a clean sheet that has its own fresh smell. Maybe some rose water mixed in with the detergent. The pillows are soft and clean, not lumpy and rough like our pillows. The quilt is also clean and smells nice. My father wears a gallabiya they’ve put aside for him. It’s perfect and white. As the light stays on, I lie and listen to the soft clatter of the dice on the backgammon board.

He stands firm on his decision to leave. My sister brings him a small pair of rose-colored pyjama bottoms. “Papa, do you remember these pyjamas? You brought them for me when I was in primary school. I wanted to throw them away at first, but then I said, ‘they’ll do.’ ” She brings them over to me and measures them against the side of my leg. She wraps them in newspaper. Father takes them without saying anything. Uncle Fahmy turns on the lights on the stairs.

“Don’t be a stranger, papa.”

“Good night.”

Each floor has its own stair lamp, but the lamp on the ground floor is out. We edge through the dark towards the door to the building. I hear the sound of dogs and cling to father. We go out into the street. The smell of flowers comes from the gardens in the nearby villas. We wait at the tram stop. A car passes slowly. Its driver leans on the woman next to him and kisses her on the mouth. I put my arm against father’s leg to make him notice them. “What is it?” I don’t answer.

We hear the sound of the tramcar before it appears. It shoots off with us at a scary speed. The car rocks from side to side. Father is frowning. I hear him muttering. “My heart is breaking over my son and my son’s heart is like a stone.” The stations are all empty so we blow past them without stopping.

At Abbasiya Square we switch to another tram. We get off that one at our square and cross the street. We stop in front of Abdel Malik’s French-style bakery. Father buys a bag of stuffed cookies with sesame seeds. We take a side street so that we won’t pass in front of the grocer’s shop. The quarter is covered in darkness and so is our building. We go into our dark apartment. The lamp in the hallway is burned out. I cling to father’s clothes until he can open the door to our room and light the lamp inside. He heats a cup of sugar and water. He puts a tray on top of the bed and we sit next to it. We dip the cookies in the water. He says our house is the best place in the world.

I open my old science notebook. I make sure the feather that was pressed between the pages is still there. I linger over the picture of the hoopoe that I love so much. The electric reading lamp grows dim, like it does every night. I take up the Pharaonic history of Egypt textbook with the blue cover. I flip through the pages, looking at the pictures. Menes of the two kingdoms. Father finishes the evening prayer on top of the bed. He gets down. He pulls the woolen cap down all the way over his head to his neck. He wraps his robe around his body. He makes two tight fists and shoves them down into his pockets. He paces the room backwards and forwards. He is “taking a stroll,” as he says when he explains how important it is after eating dinner.

I complain about the cold. He brings the primus stove from the living area, lights it, and sets it near the edge of the rug. The covering of my notebook is torn. I ask him to make it a new cover. I hand him some yellow cover paper. I bring him the scissors but he refuses to use them. He sits on the edge of the bed, folds the paper, and passes over it with his fingers several times. Then he carefully tears it at the crease. He divides the paper into two equal halves with no sign of cutting at their edges. He sets one of them aside, then puts the book in the center of the other. He folds the paper inside the front cover of the book, then overlays its top edge. He sticks it between the paper and the cover. He repeats the same thing with the bottom flap, then moves on to the back cover and does the same thing.

There is a knock at the door of the room. I open it for Uncle Kareem, the constable. He is wearing a black military overcoat on top of a white gallabiya. He has a thick moustache that stretches across his upper lip. Father welcomes him and nods for him to sit down on the edge of the bed. I go back to my desk. He has his back to me. I can smell that odor of his military overcoat that I like so much. Father sits with his legs crossed on top of the bed. He turns his body a little until he is facing both the constable and me. He rests his back against the headboard of the bed.