That Smell and Notes From Prison (5 page)

I left him and went to the offices of the magazine. I walked down a
long hallway, looking in all the rooms, but no one was there. As I approached
the last room at the end of the hallway I saw a woman seated at a desk with her
cheek in her hand. There were tears in her eyes. I turned around and went back
the way I had come. I walked toward the metro and got on, taking a seat next to
the window, and as we pulled away from Midan Ramses another train pulled
alongside us heading in the same direction. It was full of soldiers returning
from Yemen. They were shouting from the windows and calling out and waving their
hands. When our train pulled up across from them and they saw the passengers
they grew more excited. The passengers looked at them coldly, without interest,
and slowly the soldiers became less and less excited. Our train had pulled ahead
of theirs by now and I turned around to look. The soldiers’ hands hung from the
windows of the train and I saw one throw his cap on the ground. I got off at my
house and saw the pretty girl who walked next to the train rails every day. Now
I saw that she was a cripple. I bought some food and went upstairs and found the
door of the apartment open and my neighbor inside, fixing the lock to his room.
I went in and ate, then smoked and slept. I woke up to find that my sister had
come in. I went into the bathroom and undressed and released the water onto my
body. I heard the sound of a doorknob falling onto the floor tiles. I turned off
the water, dried myself, dressed, then came out of the bathroom. There was a
constant knocking sound. I talked to my sister and combed my hair. I heard the
knocking again. I realized that the sound was coming from the other side of the
wall. I said to my sister that we always did that when we wanted to speak to
each other, or to warn each other.

It happened every morning. We opened our eyes to the sound of
regular knocks coming from the other side of the wall. We jumped out of bed,
still half asleep, and tidied up, trying to remember not to forget anything.
Then we squatted on our heels next to the wall, shivering with cold. The
knocking would stop and we would wait. Then we heard the sound of their steps on
the floor tiles, the jangling of chains and keys. When the key slammed into the
lock, we flinched. Then they came in. Our eyes flew to their eyes, hard beyond
description. Quick, sharp, frightening sounds attacked our ears. Their hands —
fat and coarse and cruel — squeezed our hearts. The walls made four corners. The
door was shut. The ceiling was near. No help.

I went out to the living room and glanced toward my neighbor’s
apartment. The glass door was shut and I made out his shadow behind the glass.
He was pounding it with his hand. I saw the key on the ground and picked it up
and put it in the door and opened it. He told me through his tears that he’d
forgotten to take the key when he went in and had been knocking for an hour. My
sister said she had to visit Husniyya and see her fiancé. We left. Husniyya’s
mother welcomed me, saying: You have to get settled. And to my sister she said,
Make him get married and he’ll calm down. Husniyya’s fiancé came in and said
that he had arranged his desk at the ministry in the most wonderful way. A thick
pane of glass covered the top, a foreign notepad was on the right, an ivory
inkwell — the kind you can’t get anymore — was in the middle, on the left were
his urgent files, and over his head was a plaque with a Quranic verse. I said
the sun was almost down and I had to go. I rushed home but the policeman was
already on the stairs. You’re late, he said. I pulled out a pack of cigarettes
but he shook his head. You could spend tonight in prison, he said. So I took out
ten piastres and he walked with me up to the apartment. I brought him the
notebook and he signed it and left. I slowly took off my clothes, washed my
face, then prepared a cup of coffee and tidied up my desk, wiping away the dust
that had gathered on it. I grabbed the pen. But I couldn’t write. I picked up a
magazine and there was an article in it about literature and how it should be
written. The writer said that Maupassant said that the artist must create a
world that is more beautiful and more simple than our world. He said that
literature must be optimistic and alive with the most beautiful sentiments. I
stood and went to the window, looking over at yesterday’s window. It was closed.
I went back to the desk and picked up the pen but couldn’t write. I shut my eyes
and imagined the girl from yesterday, her plump white body on the bed in front
of me, freshly washed hair, me kissing every part of her. I rubbed my cheek
along her leg and rested it on her breast. I put my hand between my legs. I
began playing with myself and at last I sighed. Then I threw myself back in the
chair, exhausted, staring at the page with a blank look. A little while later I
got up and stepped carefully over the traces I’d left on the floor under the
chair and went into the bathroom to wash my socks and shirt and hang them by the
window. Then I turned off the light, leaving the door open so I could hear the
policeman when he came. I lit a cigarette and stretched out on the bed and
slept. In the morning I went to my brother’s house. Wrinkles marched over his
face and his skin was splotched with white. Everything’s ruined since the
workers joined the Administrative Committees, he said, and suggested we go
upstairs to see his older daughter.

My brother built the villa fifteen years ago and he said it
was his wife who bought the land, which was when he realized she had money. My
father was alive at the time. He would come every day to supervise the
construction. We lived in a little room. My brother finished the construction
and rented out the first floor and lived on the second, then married off his
older daughter and rented the third floor to her. When his younger daughter
married he emptied the first floor and rented it to her and stayed on the middle
floor with his wife. In the beginning, he spent an hour each day pruning the
hedges in his garden and smoking his pipe.

She asked if I would read to her husband. Her husband said that
Sheikh Abdel Basit said that one prayer at al-Aqsa Mosque was worth a thousand
piety points. They suggested we go downstairs to see the younger daughter. She
met us at the door with her child in her arms. His eyes were close together.
Isn’t my son beautiful? she said. She laughed, then laughed a little more to
prompt her husband. He was standing next to her, fingering the stars of his
uniform. He said that if a private so much as opened his mouth, he’d crack him
across the face and shut him up. Then he said, It’s time for you to get married.
Do as I did, he said. The most important thing about a girl is where she comes
from. They turned on the television. My brother straightened his robe and smiled
and said, Just watch this film. It was a story about a young woman who left a
man her age and fell in love with an older man. When the film was over, my
brother gave us a superior look. He took me to his room and shut the door and
took out some old folders, then sat at his desk and lit a pipe. He showed me
some stories he’d written and others he’d translated, a bunch of articles
entitled “Dear Sir,” a book on body building, another
on the battles of
the Second World War, a third about Prince Omar Toussoun, an old photograph of
himself with a little hat and pipe in his garden, and another picture of him
with a German girl. He said it was from the days of Rommel’s advance on
Alexandria, when he’d started to learn German. Then he showed me a third picture
of him at the offices of an American company and another of him at the offices
of an Egyptian importer. I wish I had a little young thing, he said. And he said
he had never been in love. And he said that yesterday he had wanted to sleep
with his wife but she wouldn’t let him because he had made her buy fruit with
her own money, but when he gave her two guineas she opened up. He gathered the
papers and photographs and put them back in their folders. I’m finished now, he
said. I’m going to raise rabbits. They called us to eat. Afterward, I left and
went to the magazine and met Sirri. He said he’d like to help me but that under
the circumstances there was nothing he could do. Have you read my pieces? he
said. I’m the only one who writes like that now. Fuad is a trifler, he said, and
would you believe he claimed I was his disciple? I left him and went to Sami’s
office at the end of the corridor. This time he was there. I have no idea what
you’ve been writing lately, he said. I stood next to his desk while he wrote
something. He look up at me, puzzled. I won’t keep you, he said. Come see me in
a couple days. I went out to the street and walked to the metro. I saw an
extremely pretty girl through the window of an airlines office. I rode the metro
home. There were no empty seats, so I stood and looked at the people. In the
women’s car I saw a woman in profile. She was staring from the window wearing a
sleeveless white dress. She looked exceptionally clean. She must have taken a
shower before heading out. Her hair was long and silky and there was no way
she’d had it done at a hairdresser. I noticed a little girl next to her. When
she turned her whole face toward me and I saw her wine-dark complexion, my chest
clenched. Her face had no shadow, no paint. I found myself staring into her
eyes, which were large and clear, and for a moment I lost myself.

Her eyes were stars in silent space where I was swimming and
sinking. It was night. Our eyes met and hers glimmered in the light and I saw
myself in their wide-open whites and I saw her in their black depths. Her bare
arm was next to me. Its skin was dark with a little red mixed in. It seemed
warm. I wanted to touch it at the plump joint just below the shoulder. Her white
blouse was airy and she wasn’t wearing an undershirt. I could see the points of
her nipples beneath the blouse where they brushed against the silk. The skin of
her face was soft, her lips were full and parted, the lower one making a little
arch, and they were dark-colored as though scorched by some fire. When she
looked at me she smiled and let her look linger. I got dizzy. When I pulled her
toward me she went still, then pushed me away. We were sitting in the dark. She
reached out her hand and played with my hair. It crept to the collar of my
shirt, then to my back. She caressed my back with her palm. I drew her toward me
and buried my face in her neck, taking pleasure in the softness of her skin on
my cheek. I breathed in her clean smell and raised my head and kissed her lips
and was lost. When I returned to the attack, she pushed me away. I studied her
moods. When she tightened her lips and would not speak, I went mad wanting to
know why. When she looked vulnerable or pitiable, I adored her. When I sat in
front of her, looking at her face, her hands, her legs, I almost wept with
desire. It hurt to look at her bright eyes, her mouthwatering cheeks. It hurt
when my fingers crept over her arm and my leg inched toward her leg and she
refused me. I was finally on the point of madness. I had almost given up when
she took me in her arms and let me touch her breasts and hands and kiss her
cheek and lips. But she was cold.

She turned her eyes away and didn’t look at me again. I got off at
my stop and bought some food and went upstairs. The light was on in the
wood-paneled room used by Husaniyya’s uncle and the door was open. When I looked
in I saw him with his head in his hands, looking at a picture of a girl in a
gold frame on the small table in front of him. It was a picture of Husaniyya. In
the picture, her eyes were big and beautiful. I moved away before he sensed I
was there. I went up to my room and took my clothes off and turned on the
transistor, but there were no songs or music and it started to crackle. I sat
and tried to write. The traces of my pleasure looked like black spots on the
floor. Hasan came in and I told him we needed to get a woman right away. He said
he would do his best, and left. He came back in half an hour and said, My
brother’s on the stairs with a girl. Make yourself scarce for a while. We told
her there were only two of us. I went to the kitchen and made some tea. Hasan
came in and said his brother and the girl were in my room now. I carried the tea
into the living room and put it on the table, then sat at the table. Hasan lit a
cigarette and drummed his fingers on the table. Soon the door to the room opened
and Hasan’s brother came out and I shook his hand. I had never met him before.
He was a big man in his forties. Hasan went into the room and I offered his
brother some tea. He said, How are things? Very good, I said. I pointed to the
room and said, How is she? He shrugged. Not bad, he said. We drove all over but
it was so late she was the only one we found. Hasan came out and said to me,
Your turn. I took him aside and said, I can’t. He looked at me, surprised. What
do you mean? I don’t know, I said. I don’t feel like it. He shook me. You’ve got
to go in there, he said. This is a big deal. I said that I knew it was but that
I couldn’t. Come on, he said, and shoved me toward the door. I went in and
locked the door behind me. Hasan’s brother said from behind the door that the
rubber was on the desk. I lit a cigarette and offered her one. She was sitting
on the bed in her underclothes, wearing a cheap pink shirt with holes in it,
like a white rag that had been dipped in blood and washed over and over but
still kept the faded color of the blood. Her legs were bare. Her skirt was
carefully folded on the desk. She said, I don’t want to smoke, let’s get on with
it. Let’s have a cigarette first, I said. What’s your name? I want to get this
over with, she said, and put her hand out to unbutton my pants. I turned her
hand away gently and said, Just sleep with me tonight, then leave in the
morning. Yeah, right, she laughed, and then pulled me toward her, trying to kiss
me. I turned my mouth away from her face and stood up and took off my pants and
underwear and picked up the rubber and began putting it on, but it ripped. I
looked for another on the desk. There wasn’t one. The girl said, I’m clean. I
opened the door and called to Hasan, I need one, and he gave me one from his
pocket and I put it on and I threw myself on top of her. She tried to kiss me so
I moved my face away and finally got up and put my clothes on. The other two
took her out and I sat down and lit a cigarette. Ramsi came and I told him I
hadn’t been able to sleep with the girl and he made fun of me. He had managed
it. He met a girl in the street and went home with her and turned off the
lights. It took ten minutes, then he gave her twenty-five piastres and looked at
his face in the mirror. It was red. Nothing is worth anything, he said. Then he
left. Soon the policeman came and then I turned off the light and slept. In the
morning I went out and had breakfast in the street. I didn’t buy the papers. I
went back to my room and my sister said my uncle was returning from Alexandria
and that he was very sick and that I needed to go meet him. I went out and
caught a metro, taking it to the station. I got off and crossed the square,
passing through the entrance in the wall that surrounded the station. I found
him standing on the platform. He looked just fine and his wife was standing next
to him with an umbrella in her hand. His kids rushed to hail a taxi and they all
got in and told me to meet them at home, so I got on the metro and went to meet
them at their house and found him sitting on the sofa in his pajamas. His body
seemed small and suddenly shrunken. I looked at his shoulders, which were thin
beneath his t-shirt, and his little eyes, which were almost lost behind his
thick glasses. His pajama pants were stained with big yellow blotches above the
pouch between his legs. He said it had come on all of a sudden with shaking and
a fever. They called the doctor, who said there was absolutely nothing wrong. He
said his temperature had gone up in the night and that he thought he was going
to die and sent for the doctor right away. The doctor said, Eat boiled
vegetables and get a urine test. My uncle said he followed the doctor’s orders
for one day. The day after he said, I’m eating chicken. We got up to eat and he
fell on the meat, devouring it with gusto. Give me some liver, he said. I left
them and went out, catching a metro to my cousin’s house. I told myself I would
know the house by its blue windows, but when I got there I discovered they
weren’t blue as I’d imagined. They were just ordinary, uncolored glass. It was
the sky that had sometimes made them seem blue. All the panes were cracked. The
facade of the house was yellow and dirty. The gate to the garden was open,
propped against the wall. The garden itself was untended and its paving stones
were torn up here and there. I took the path leading to the front door. There
was dog shit along the wall. I climbed the stairs with their crumbling steps and
knocked at the door. My aunt’s daughter opened it. At first I didn’t recognize
her. Her hair was unkempt and scraggly, with many strands of gray. Her eyes were
dull and the skin of her face was brown. From the living room, I looked into the
south-facing room. I went in and said, Where’s the sewing machine you used to
have here? She said, Do you still remember?