Leila Aboulela - Lyrics Alley

Back in her quarters, she stayed up late, writing a letter to her mother, sharing every small detail of the evening’s events. But she felt far away from Cairo, and somewhat excluded. Was it her fate to be always in the periphery? Her late father had been a provincial judge who toured the towns and cities of Egypt, and the years of Nabilah’s childhood were spent adjusting to, and departing from, different schools where she was treated well because of her father’s position. He had been an imposing, charismatic man, highly educated and liberal in his thinking. Had he lived, he would have risen high in the judiciary, and Nabilah remembered her mother tolerating the pettiness and deprivations of provincial life, struggling with packing, unpacking and setting up a new home; all in the hope of a brilliant future in Cairo. Yes, the Sudan was like a province of Egypt, and now she, Nabilah, like her mother before her, was yearning for the metropolitian centre.

Nabilah idolised her mother. She believed that she was less beautiful than Qadriyyah, though this was not true. She believed that her mother had the best clothes sense, the best hairstyle and that her cooking was superior. Nothing was good or real without her mother’s acknowledgement. That was exactly why Nabilah’s marriage had taken place and lasted for nine years. Her mother’s faith in Mahmoud Bey transmuted itself to the daughter and Qadriyyah Hanim had wholeheartedly, and with utter conviction, engineered her daughter into this marriage. She had brushed aside Nabilah’s protests: the twenty years age gap, his foreignness, his first wife and grown-up children.

‘You don’t want to marry an inexperienced youngster,’ Qadriyyah had argued, ‘who will wear you out and drag you around until he stands on his own two feet. You want someone established, mature, someone able to look after you and guide you. Mahmoud Bey will humour and indulge you; he will pamper and protect you. Wait and see, isn’t Mama always right?’

Yes, Mama was always right. Nabilah waited and Nabilah saw. But there were other things, like this exile from the one she loved most. Nabilah’s dissatisfaction, her low-grade unhappiness, was not entirely caused by this mismatched marriage, by this second-wife status or by this backward place. It was the banishment from her mother that was so hard to get used to.

Usually, after a massage, he slept deeply, but tonight he was restless. It had been years since Waheeba massaged his back — he couldn’t remember the last time, but it must have been before his second marriage. She was good at it, heavy-handed but effective. She might even have bruised him, and he would feel sore tomorrow, but after that the benefits of her treatment would be felt, significant and lasting. He shifted his weight and tried to find a more comfortable position. The room was airy because the windowpanes and shutters to the terrace were wide open. Without a full moon, the starlight was soft and untroubling and there was no reason for him not to sleep. He was not in pain; neither was he hungry or thirsty, nor was he lonely. His elder sons were spending the night in his room. Nassir, after his journey from Medani, was lying on his back, his hands folded on his belly, snoring loudly. Nur, on an extra angharaib, was lying on his side, the sheet as was his habit, pulled over his face. Mahmoud felt a surge of simultaneous fondness and grudge towards them. He was pleased that they were near him, but at the same time he envied how deeply they were sleeping. What were they dreaming of? He was not really interested, nor would he understand their generation’s concerns. His children were an extension of him and he had hopes and plans for them, which he expected them to obey, but his core, his inner depth, was independent of them.

This sleeplessness, he realised, getting out of bed and walking out onto the terrace, was a good sign, a sign that his illness was coming to an end. Perhaps in a day or two he could go back to work. He had been going over things with Idris, but not everything could be done from home. It would be good to be back in the office again. the office. This word meant a great deal to him. He was not a merchant in the Souq Al-Arabi, as his grandfather had been. He was not the head of an agency, as his father had been. He was the director of Abuzeid Trading, a private limited liability company, one of the leading firms in the Sudanese private sector. There were British companies, of course — Gellaty and Hankey, Sear and Colley, Mitchell Cotts and Sudan Mercantile; there were the fabulous long-established Syrian-Christian families the Haggars and the Bittars but he, Sayyid Mahmoud Abuzeid, was indigenous. Let no one call him an immigrant! The immigrants came fifty-five years ago with the Anglo-Egyptian force, sent to avenge Gordon’s death and recover the Sudan. Those newcomers were adventurers and opportunists who knew that the defeat of the Mahdiyyah and the new British administration would herald an era of prosperity. Instead, Mahmoud Abuzeid’s grandfather had come in the early 1800s, fleeing conscription in the Egyptian army.

The Abuzeids had risen by a combination of financial sharpness and the drive to modernise. Unlike the Mahdi and the Mirghani family firms, who were supported by the British in order to distract them from politics and play them one against the other, the Abuzeids were independent. Mahmoud was proud of that. And he wanted to do more. He wanted to steer his family firm through the uncertainties of self-determination and stake a place in the new, independent country, whenever and whatever form this independence took. This was why he loved his office. The other burgeoning family businesses did not put so much emphasis on form. He, though, had an office, just like a British company, with secretaries, filing cabinets, qualified accountants, telegram operators, and everything was written down, filed in order. He needed to get back to work. A number of important meetings had been postponed because of his illness and too many things were now on hold.

Walking on the terrace tired him and he sat back on one of the large metal chairs that made up the outdoor seating arrangement. The cushions were soft and cool underneath him, but by now he was bored with comfort. He wanted to be strong and energetic again. The doctor had assured him of a slow but complete recovery and Mahmoud wanted to forget these past days. He had not only been physically ill, but frightened, too, chastened in some way. Good health was a blessing, anything else a constraint. Being bedridden had made him feel morbid. Was he meant to think that death was around the corner? Should he start to put his affairs in order? He had seen the concern in his family’s eyes. His death would affect their lives. Nabilah and the children would return to Cairo — she would have no place here, he was sure, but Farouk and Ferial would be deprived of their country and their Sudanese family. It was an unhappy thought, and though he trusted that Idris would not deprive them of their inheritance, his young, half-Sudanese family, would bear the brunt of being orphaned more than their elder brothers, Nassir and Nur. He listened to the breeze from the Nile and the sounds that came from the fields on the riverbank. A donkey brayed and pigeons cooed, even though dawn was a long way off.

His mind turned to the names and faces of the friends and business acquaintances who had visited him. He challenged himself to remember them all, knowing that he would be able to check the accuracy of his memory by looking at the list Nur had been writing. Some had come more than once, and those who esteemed him most had come immediately on hearing that he was ill. Their concern was gratifying. It filled him with affection for them and a desire to reciprocate. He, too, if Allah continued to give him life, would visit them in sickness, commiserate with them in death and celebrate their happy occasions.