Lyrics Alley (34 page)

‘You know what I think,’ said Fatma, taking a sip of her tea. ‘It’s that new song that’s upsetting Father. He heard it again this morning and switched the radio off. The lyrics are shameless.
Her ripe cheeks, her gentle lips. Your beauty keeps me up all night
.’

Soraya laughed. Just hearing Nur’s words banished all the badness and put her in a good mood.

‘
I want to be alone with you
,’ she sang.

Fatma rolled her eyes.

‘And then, when Nur says she is slender like the baan tree, Father can put two and two together and of course he doesn’t like it. Especially when he worries that everyone else in Umdurman will reach the same conclusion.’

Soraya’s eyes were shining. ‘Nur will
never
give my name away, and Father’s hands are tied. He won’t dare criticise Nur now!’

‘Yes, but it’s your honour, and our whole reputation, which is at stake.’ Fatma was serious. ‘No one must ever know that you reciprocate Nur’s feelings. That would be a scandal. That’s why you can’t take a wrong step. You have to be above suspicion. Because Nur’s lyrics aren’t confined to his room. Do you know how far Radio Umdurman’s broadcasts are reaching? People from Sinja have been phoning Uncle Mahmoud!’

‘Good!’ said Soraya. ‘I want
everyone
to hear Nur’s lyrics again and again.’

‘Well, then, you will have to put up with Father’s anger. Believe me, he will take out all his frustrations on you.’

Soraya folded her arms. ‘Keeping me prisoner here won’t solve anything.’

‘A husband for you would solve everything,’ retorted Fatma. ‘Don’t you want to get away from Father and be the mistress of your own house?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’ That had always been the hope, the logical solution.

‘Tell me, apart from a handful, what have the rest of your classmates done since they left school?’

‘They got married.’

‘See? This is the natural thing. So stop being stubborn. When the next suitable suitor comes along, promise you will consider him.’ Fatma was looking at her, beseeching. ‘Promise you won’t dismiss him out of hand. Soraya, you have to look to the future in a different way.’

She knew. At last she knew.

‘I promise,’ she said, and wondered who he would be.

A few days later, on the first cool evening of the season, the two sisters walked down the alley to Waheeba’s hoash. It was the first time Soraya had gone out since Idris sentenced her to house arrest, but a plea for help from their aunt had made Fatma relent. Besides, she did not want to walk all alone in the dark. Nur was inundated with guests, Waheeba had said on the telephone.

‘I must serve them dinner and you must come and help.’

They found their aunt and the other women screened from Nur and his guests by several green wooden screens with a lattice design. The coal stoves were lit and Waheeba was sitting on a stool in front of a large pot of boiling oil, shaping each piece of ta’miyyah in her palm and throwing it in. She was pleased to see the two sisters.

‘Who are all these guests?’ Soraya tried to peer through the screen.

‘How do I know, my child? They are all strangers. Ever since these songs have gone out on the radio, we’ve had men coming and going.’

‘You will need to have a separate entrance for them,’ said Fatma scooping, with a long ladle, those pieces of falafel that were now a crunchy brown.

‘I will talk to your uncle,’ said Waheeba. ‘Nur needs more
space now – not only his own entrance, but also a diwan, so that we’re not so cramped here.

Soraya edged closer to the screen. If she pressed her face close, she could see the whole of the men’s gathering. She put on her glasses and saw Nur propped up on his bed at the head of a large circle. One of the men was holding an oud on his lap and an elderly man was reciting a poem from a sheet of paper he was holding in his hand. She listened to the words, and when he finished, the comments of the others held her attention. She heard Nur’s voice. It came to her clearer than anyone else’s. She liked the look on his face; serious and happy, totally engaged. Some of the men spoke more than others, and some were quietly smoking. She saw Zaki come close to Nur and hold up a glass of water to his lips. Nassir walked in and shook hands all around, touching his brother’s elbow before taking a seat. Zaki passed round a tray full of glasses of water. Following a comment made by Nassir, the gentleman with the oud began to play and sing. It was a traditional folk song and the others nodded their heads with the melody.

When Zaki came over to the women’s area to refill the water jugs, Soraya called him over.

‘Tell me who is who,’ she whispered.

They ducked down together, for she had found a spot on the screen where several segments of wood were missing and that gave her a wider range of vision.

‘Most of them,’ said Zaki with authority, ‘are from the Poets’ Syndicate.’ He named a few names, some of which Soraya recognised. These distinguished poets, when they performed at the university, packed whole lecture halls, and now they were sitting casually in Nur’s hoash!

‘The one sitting right next to Nur,’ continued Zaki, ‘is his friend from Victoria College. Everyone calls him Tuf Tuf, but that’s not his real name.’

Soraya smiled and took a closer look at Nur’s friend. He was
sitting with his legs crossed, the back of his hand rubbing against his chin as if checking for stubble.

‘Is he always that quiet?’

‘No, it’s just that he doesn’t seem to know much about poetry. He was here visiting Nur and suddenly all these others dropped by. The man with the oud is, of course, Hamza Al-Naggar. He almost comes every evening. It’s the others who are here for the first time.’

Hamza Al-Naggar started to sing
Travel is the Cause
and Soraya didn’t want to ask Zaki any more questions. She wanted to listen. Nur’s song.
Her
song. Nur joined in the singing and Hamza smiled and let him lead. ‘
Ah ya kanari wa ah ya gamari
. . .’ and when Nur sang
Ah
the ache was there for everyone to hear, and everyone to share. His passion in colloquial truth.

Soraya wanted this combination of music and poetry to last and last and to become part of the fabric of Umdurman. For every wedding party, for boys to hum in the alleys on their way to school, for schoolgirls to copy in secret notes. For lovers, not yet born, to sing in the style of their times . . .

She pressed her face against the wooden screen and listened. Hamza had stopped playing his oud and there was a hush. It was Nur’s turn to recite his new poem, in his own voice, his own words.

The prettiest girl in the alley can’t stand harsh words

‘I will not shackle you to an invalid,’ her Uncle Mahmoud had said.

She’s pampered
, Nur was saying,
but don’t ever scold my love

She could not be Nur’s nurse. She was incapable of such a sacrifice. She would feel hard done by and ignored, she who aspired, like her Uncle Mahmoud, to a modern, upbeat life.

This, instead, was where she belonged with Nur, right here, here in his songs. Here within the lyrics they were intimate, caught in the rhythm of his words, propelled by the substance of his dreams.

These songs would be their story and these lyrics their home.

The blow, inevitable in itself, comes straight from the source without any intermediaries. It is a direct hit which finds him defenceless, unprepared. Tuf Tuf is visiting him around sunset, a quiet time before Hamza Al-Naggar and the other poets come over for what has become an almost daily literary salon in Nur’s hoash. The focus of the salon is the connection between poetry and song, the bonus is Waheeba’s lavish dinner. Tuf Tuf is one of Nur’s friends who had not stayed away, not said, ‘I can’t bear to see him like that.’

Now he sits with his legs crossed and his knuckles hovering over his mouth. He is in his bashful mood and blurts out, ‘My mother finally selected a bride for me.’

Nur smiles. ‘Well, who is she? Have you seen her?’

Tuf Tuf, beleaguered, uncrosses his legs and crosses them again.

‘Don’t you like her?’ Nur chuckles.

Tuf Tuf doesn’t smile.

‘There is no fault in her,’ he whispers.

There is no fault in her
. When Hamza sings that line on the radio it sounds boastful and joyful. But Tuf Tuf wraps the words in amazement.

It is a warning, and Nur turns to look away, as if to search for armour, to reach for shield.

‘I saw her here,’ says Tuf Tuf. ‘In one the gatherings, the day you sang
Travel
with Hamza. She was watching from behind the wooden screen. She didn’t think anyone could see her, but I did. I walked over to the women’s section, never mind if they thought me bold or rude. I reckoned I was here nearly every day and
Aunt Waheeba would welcome me as one of the family. It was like a dream. First, I was hearing about her in your poem and aware of her behind the screen. Then, when I crossed over, there she was in the flesh. I tried to get her out of my mind; I tried hard, until my mother said her name . . .’

‘No,’ says Nur. ‘No! Tell your mother to find you another bride.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean why? You know very well why.’

‘Now that my mother is so keen on her, I will have to come up with a reason to refuse. I will have to find fault in her choice.’

‘That is such a lame excuse. Tell her Soraya is not your type, tell her you don’t want to marry a girl from Umdurman.’ A pulse beats in his temple.

‘Nur, if it’s not me it will be another man. You
know
that.’

‘But you’re my friend! How dare you? How
can
you?’ Tears alter his voice.

‘That’s why I’m telling you,’ Tuf Tuf pleads. ‘That’s why I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.’

‘I want to punch you. Oh God, what would I give to shove a fist in your face!’

Tuf Tuf bolts out of the hoash.

Later, it is Nassir who seals the bitterness and what is left of the hope. He bears the formal bad news.

‘Soraya’s engaged. Your friendship with Tuf Tuf must have stood him in good stead because Father and Uncle Idris gave their consent.’

Nur opens his mouth and blackness sweeps up in front of his eyes. He wants to speak, but his voice cannot form words. He wants to scream, and the scream consumes him. He is nothing, and nothing exists but pain. He is trapped; he is squeezed. There is Nassir’s dazed, flaccid face, his stupid words of condolence. Leave me alone! Stop taking away one thing, then another, then another. Breathing is difficult and breathing unfurls the foul, ultimate question. Why me? But life still claims him, and he is
pulled back against his will. Hamza’s voice when he was introducing
Travel is the Cause
at the National Theatre: ‘The lyrics are those of a new poet, Nur Abuzeid. I composed the tune in tribute to his talent.’

But I am not a real poet,
Travel is the Cause
was a one-off. There is nothing inside me, because the dead can’t be creative. Leave me alone! Let me go on strike. Stop taking away from me one thing and then another.

The doctor diagnoses nervous exhaustion and prescribes sedation. No visitors, he says. A needle is thrust in Nur’s arms. He sleeps, but he is still speaking to Tuf Tuf, still locked in the moment he heard the news.

‘What about that girl in Dublin?’ he screeches. ‘The one you go dancing with, the one who works in the hat department.’

He demands an answer; he demands an answer until it hurts. His mind wants to escape towards pleasant, comforting images, while the pain keeps him in one spot, as if a dagger has passed through his stomach and is pinning him down. He remembers the Shakespeare he learnt at school, remembers incidents in the dormitory, the thrill and heave of a football match. His memories of school are crystal clear, but when Tuf Tuf returned from Dublin and they spoke, Nur realised that his friend had shelved these memories, simply because other events had taken place in his life. He had gone to Dublin, sat in lecture halls and made new friends. Not like Nur – Victoria College, Alexandria. Then stop. Nur cries, wrestling bitterness, which demands dry eyes and a constricted throat, choking.

It’s past midnight when he opens his eyes. There is no one in the room except his mother and she is silent, not with concern, but with an attitude hovering near disapproval. Nur struggles to understand.

‘You must eat,’ his mother says.

With her fingers, she scoops kisra and mullah into his mouth. He swallows, and feels the sadness well up inside him. In the days to come, so much will change. There will be no end to
the celebrations, and he must live through them. Pull yourself together, he tells himself; this was bound to happen, sooner or later. And, for some reason, he thinks of the day of Eid, and the crescent, which celebrates the end of Ramadan. Everyone wears new clothes, everyone goes visiting; the children play games and eat sweets, and the alleys are alive with celebrations. Friends hug each other while he waits aside for something new or special to lift this day out of the ordinary and make him celebrate.

‘Did anyone ask about me?’ he asks his mother.

‘Yes, Hamza came and he had some young men with him.’ She is becoming more comfortable with Hamza now. He comes so often that he is no longer a stranger. ‘He left a magazine for you.’

Nur’s curiosity is ruffled. He wants to see the magazine, to have Zaki search through the pages for what Hamza would have wanted him to read. But he is too tired now, too drained. Later.

‘And your Arabic teacher came too. He said he heard your lyrics on the radio and I said to him it’s about time, these broadcasts have been going out for months!’

Ustaz Badr hadn’t been to see him since the robbery.

‘I hope you were kind to him, Mother. I hope you’re not holding a grudge against him.’

Waheeba sighs.

‘He is innocent. It was that accursed nurse, Shukry, who plotted everything and executed the crime. Your father said we mustn’t lay any blame on Ustaz Badr and he is to be welcomed here. And anyone you value, Nur, I will value and honour. Anyone who makes your burden lighter will find me on his side. But you mustn’t let your anger affect your health.’