Leila Aboulela - The Translator

‘The shower doesn’t work,’ he said. ‘That is worse than the rat… I think.’

‘Did you complain?’

He nodded. ‘They promised to fix the shower. They gave me a pail and a pitcher in the meantime. But they didn’t seem worried about the rat.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. He had all her sympathy because he looked so resigned.

‘The view is great though,’ he said. ‘The room has a balcony and today at dawn the river… it was very picturesque.’

She imagined him standing on the balcony looking out at the Nile. The hotel was built by the British in colonial times. It once glittered and ruled. Now it was a crumbling sleepy place, tolerant of rats and with showers that didn’t work. But still the view was as before, something natural brimming over, the last stretch of the Blue Nile before it curved and met with the other river, changed colour and went north.

He talked about the view from the balcony, his first impressions of Khartoum. Last night: the dimly lit airport, the quietness. The taxi driver told him there was a curfew but taxis to and from the airport had passes. On the way to the hotel, they were stopped at a road block, an inspection point. The policeman wore a grey coat, had a gun slung over his shoulder. After an exchange of greeting, he took the pass from the driver, checked it by the headlights of the car. He did not ask Rae for any identification.

‘The streets are dark like you said they were,’ Rae said. ‘It comes as a surprise, this dependence on the moon and stars.’

He would not forget this city, he told her. He would remember it for life. There was something in its air, something bleak and delicate, heightened by the flat desert and the domineering sky. He asked her about Umdurman. Was it far from here?

She said, ‘Umdurman is more beautiful. Across the bridge, down the road from your hotel. Saints are buried in Umdurman.’

He said, ‘When I was young, my father had old maps. Ones on which Eritrea and Palestine existed. I liked looking at them. I used to see the name Umdurman, written near the blue line of the Nile. I would say Umdurman to myself, over and over again, liking the sound of it.’

They would go and visit Umdurman then, before they left. There were old houses to walk through, a camel market.

She said, ‘All the dust here… I’m worried that it’s bad for your chest.’

‘It’s not bothering me, my asthma is intrinsic. The dry weather is good for me. It’s very dry here I noticed, good for the bones.’

‘Old age?’ she smiled.

He laughed and said, ‘When I started praying my knees hurt, and I also thought “old age”, but they don’t hurt so much now…’

‘I missed all that, you learning to pray…’ The sounds of the garden, a car in the street far away.

‘It’s a lonely thing,’ he said, ‘you can’t avoid it.’

‘What?’

‘The spiritual path. Everyone is on his own in this.’

Dalia was trying to haul the bicycle up on to the porch. After some struggle she succeeded and they watched her cycle between the pots of cacti and bougainvillea, wheels smooth on the tiles of the porch.

Let’s play a game!’ I said. I wanted my eyes to shine and please him. ‘We’ll give each other thoughts,’ he said. ‘They would come out of us and then take shape and colour, become tangible gifts.’

‘Your turn first,’ he said. ‘What did you receive from me?’

I showed him three pieces of cloth. I unfolded silk the colour of deserts, mahogany wool, white cotton from a cloud. I said, ‘You gave me silk because of how I was created and you gave me wool to keep me warm.’

He said, ‘Wool because I want to protect you and cotton because you are clean.’

Then I looked at what he had received from me. The smoothest bowl, inside it a milky liquid, the scent of musk. ‘Is it perfume?’ I asked, as if I had given birth and now wanted to know if the child I carried for months was a boy or a girl.

‘No,’ he paused and spoke slowly, ‘it is something from you that will make me strong.’

When he named it he looked away as if he was shy. ‘Admiration,’ he said.