The Map of Love (17 page)

‘Closed it? Who closed it?’ I ask.

The school has been running for ninety years, although it’s had rough patches. In ‘63, with Nasser’s land-reform laws, my father, although saddened by the loss of most of his land, saw a historical inevitability in it. My mother raged: ‘What more should we lose? Will we be thrown out of this country as well?’ ‘It’s different,’ he said, ‘it’s going to the fallaheen
who’ve lived on it all their lives — not to strangers. And besides,’ he added, ‘what’s left will be enough for our children and grandchildren. What more do we need?’ I was a child and did not really understand what was happening. But I understood two things: that we were always to be responsible for keeping the school and clinic going, and that the land that remained to us was held in partnership with the fallaheen who worked it. There was to be no talk of rent. We had a share of the crop that came out of each holding, and we paid our share of the money needed to buy fertilisers or update the watering machines.

‘The government,’
Am Abu el-Ma
ati says.

‘But why? Why should we have problems with the government?’

We are not an official school, just two supplementary classes to help the children with their work and one class for literacy used by the women. All the classes are held in the evening, after the day’s work is done. And the teachers are volunteers, really, who get paid a small sum for their work.

‘There are problems everywhere now, ya Sett Hanim, problems between the people, and between the people and the government. It’s been in the papers: battles with weapons, burning down the sugar-cane fields —’

‘The sugar cane was burned because the terrorists hid in it.’

‘They call them terrorists …’

‘Well, what are they then?’

‘They’re our children, ya Sett Hanim. Youth ground down and easy to lead astray.’

‘Ya
Am Abu el-Ma
ati, your daughter was widowed by them —’

‘Lives are in the hand of God. It was a battle, ya Sett Hanim, who knows who killed who?’

‘In any case. What’s this to do with the school?’

‘The teachers, the volunteers, they said they were terrorists and ruining the children’s minds.’

‘And the women’s class?’

‘That too.’

‘And the clinic?’

‘Everything.’

‘La hawl illah.’

I stand up. I’m not sure what to do so I stand up. I walk over to the balcony and make a business of opening the french windows to let in the afternoon air. It has been some time since anyone presented me with a real-life problem. I walk back and sit down.

‘What do you think,
Am Abu el-Ma
ati? Were they teaching the children wrong things?’

He spreads out his hands. ‘They teach them nothing that they’re not taught in the government schools in town. You know, ya Sett Hanim, these are just helping classes. The children go after sunset, they do their homework there, and they study.’

‘The children can’t study at home,’ Tahiyya puts in. ‘There’s noise and there’s the little ones —’

‘It’s just tightening up on people. The government’s hand is heavy. And now, of course, there will be more problems.’

‘What problems?’ I ask.

‘Because of the new laws.’

‘The land laws?’

‘Naturally.’

A new set of laws is to come into force in September. It ends the rent freeze imposed on lands in the Sixties and allows landowners to demand rent according to the real value of the land.

‘But what’s it to do with us? The people all know I won’t move anyone from the land. And rent won’t be raised, because we don’t take rent. Everything will stay the same.’

‘May he put good in your path, pray God,’ Tahiyya says.

‘They say the teachers have been inciting the children. Telling them the law is evil and the land belongs to those who work it. And talk runs; it doesn’t stay in our district. And you know the countryside is boiling —’

‘Are they Islamists or communists, these teachers?’

‘They speak of justice —’

‘But people have known about these laws for a while. The government announced them two years ago. They wait till the last minute —’

‘Ya Sett Hanim, the fallah tills his land and the government talks in Cairo. If he takes account of every word the government says, he’ll go mad. Most of it is talk in the air, it comes to nothing. And even if he believes that there will be a law like this — what will he do? What
can
he do?’

‘Will he put his children on his shoulder and leave the land?’ Tahiyya asks. ‘Where will he go? The land isn’t enough for the fallaheen as it is. See how each one is flung out somewhere far: one in Cairo, one in Kuwait, one in Libya —’

‘That’s why the government tells people to practise family planning,’ I say, giving her a look.

‘Yakhti ya Daktora —’ she tosses her head — ‘the ones who plan have as much trouble as the ones who don’t. The world doesn’t leave anyone alone.’

‘
Am Abu el-Ma
ati,’ I say, ‘aside from the school, are there any problems in our village. About the land laws?’

‘No, ya Sett Hanim. Everyone knows you are a gracious lady and you preserve the memory of your grandfathers. But it would be good if you came to us for a while.’

‘But what can I do about the school?’

‘Come and see. Talk to people. Talk with the teachers and judge for yourself. And when you come back you can talk to the government.’

‘Me, ya
Am Abu el-Ma
ati, I talk to the government?’