Lyrics Alley

XII

So Nur goes on strike. He will not eat. He will not drink. He will not talk, even. His demands are death or a miraculous recovery that will restore Soraya to him. The latter, of course, is preferable but he no longer believes it can happen and neither does anyone around him. Therefore the former is more realistic. Death, a violent death, because every door of reprieve has shut down and left him in darkness. His sentence has barely started and he will not serve his time. He is innocent and does not deserve this punishment, this life which is not a life. Rebellion fizzes in him. They want him to be sweet; they want him to smile and chat. They want him, against all odds, not to look at what they have and what he has lost, without feeling bitter. Yesterday, his mother, who will not give up hope, brought him a spiritual healer. He read verses from the Qur’an in a rasping voice, mumbling the words, oblivious to their beauty. Nur, who loved rhythm and appreciated metaphor, whose intellect thrived on eloquence, took offence. The faqih leaned over him, squeezed his rigid arms and motionless legs, and the man’s breath stank and his eyes were bloodshot and yellow. He poured water over Nur’s body, as if it were a wilting plant that could be brought back to life. He made Nur drink water in which he had soaked pieces of paper and ink. It was the last thing he drank before he went on strike. .

His mother is weeping. If he starts to feel sorry for her, he will soften and give in. He is seeing too much of her and this is part of the problem. The men go to work in the mornings, and again after their lunch and midday siesta, while he is stuck at home with the babble of women. At first he had taken an interest in their activities; curious to see rituals he had been excluded from — the woman squatting to pat henna on his mother’s feet, the mashata braiding her hair, the fuss over Batool’s wedding. Hours spent grooming and hours spent cooking, the sideways, quirky ways they chat. But this voyeuristic streak hadn’t lasted long. He wants to be the hero of his own life. He wants to do, to reach, to contribute.

The weather dictates his movements — if they can be called such. In the late afternoon, when it starts to get pleasant, he is carried outside to the hoash. His bed is placed as far away as possible from the cooking area, but the other angharaibs are arranged around him and he becomes a natural part of the gathering. When the women are not cooking, they come and lounge adjacent to him, sipping their coffee and gossiping. They move back again to their pots and stoves when male visitors arrive. At night, everyone sleeps outside. This is Nur’s favourite time, the most normal and familiar, staring up at the stars as he had done all his life, waiting for sleep to come, listening to the night sounds of the alley or the ululations and beat of the dallooka that mark a bridegroom’s procession to the home of his future wife. In the morning, when the sun becomes too hot and the flies start to annoy him, he asks to be moved to his room. This is where the radio stands, taking up the whole corner. There is the telephone and the fan, as well as all the things that are his — clothes, watch, comb — which he must ask someone to fetch. He has lost all sense of privacy. There is no bathroom he can lock himself in, rub his own body with a towel, pull, scratch, wipe, fiddle. He hates. There is nothing, now, he does not hate. Anger is solid and opaque; it blocks his way and is insurmountable. There is nothing for him, so he should gracefully leave. Broken spine, broken engagement, broken heart — they should put him out of his misery. Prisoners sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labour are better off than him.

He closes his eyes. They think he is asleep and start to talk among themselves.

‘What’s wrong with him today?’ they drawl.

There is a creeping tediousness in their voices for the drama of his accident had been played out. People’s shock, indignation and pity had gushed forth in this particular order, but now they are drifting away. Now everyone is inclined to move on to another challenge, another crisis, or, better still, a cause for celebration — something cheerful, or even just the swing of ordinary life. They will leave him behind — for what?

His new nurse, Shukry, offers him soup, but Nur clenches his teeth and purses his lips. He does not particularly like this cousin of Ustaz Badr, who is unlike him in every way. But Nur’s refusal to eat is a matter of principle, unrelated to the performance and disposition of this reluctant nurse.

Nassir comes in. He leans and whispers, ‘What you need is to get drunk! Drunk out of your mind so that you can’t think any more. Leave it to me, I’ll come tonight and make you oblivious.’

This is disingenuous of Nassir. He knows that drink makes Nur weepy and querulous, intoxicated with self-pity. It eventually provides the convulsion of migraine and the stillness of exhaustion, but neither a deep nor lasting release. Nassir suggests drink as a remedy because he, himself, wants to drink (always) and if he can convince Waheeba that liquor is beneficial to her ill son, she will fish for her leather wallet which hangs on a string around her neck and start funding. Nassir is a buffoon, and Nur looks straight at his brother, at his flaccid face, his shifty, bleary eyes and thinks, ‘Why wasn’t it you instead?’

His father comes in.

‘I will call the doctor.’

His father can’t stand the sight of him, he never meets his eye. Politeness urges Nur to greet his father, to reply to his questions, but still he resists. Even if Soraya were standing in front of him, he would not speak to her or smile, because looking at her is like nourishment, and he will not cross that picket line yet.

Fatma says, ‘He is upset because of all the preparations for Batool’s wedding.’

She is completely wrong. His mother wails and says, ‘His father broke off his engagement to Soraya. Now he wants to die and leave me.’

She is right, of course.

When he first came back from London, he was happy to be home. Umdurman wrapped itself around him like satin and wiped his tears away. Love was everywhere: in the visitors who came to welcome him, in the sound of the birds, the smells of the hoash, the very texture of the wind, which, at night, carried snatches of songs and wedding drums. He relished the early morning coolness, the shady coolness, the dewy, supple air that was as fresh as young skin. He inhaled the smells of cardamom with coffee, incense with sandalwood, cumin with cooking, luxuriated in the sounds of water being poured on the ground, a donkey braying, the birds riotous, knowing, hopeful and small; loud and fragile. His senses were sharpened, as if by not walking or touching with his hands, his skin had become more sensitive, his vision, hearing and sense of smell sharper than ever before.

Then, after the first two months, people drifted away. The occasion of his return was over and he must get on with his new life. But what to do with himself? When a fly hovers around his face, irritating him by scratching his eyelashes, flurrying in front of his nostrils, he cannot brush it away. Someone else must do that. So many are at his service day and night, it is disgusting. It makes no sense. People are labouring away just so that he can exist. The English shoot injured horses. They lay them down to rest. And that makes perfect sense.

Second morning of the strike: the fresh, gentle sun. When he was young, he used to run around this hoash, his bare feet on the uneven floor, his arms flapping against the sheets of the angharaibs. He used to pick guava from that tree in the corner and eat it raw. He used to take pieces of coal from the kitchen area and scribble on the wall. And when he was a little older and outgrew the hoash, the whole alley became his playground, to kick ball with the neighbourhood boys or follow the donkey that delivered milk from hoash to hoash.

Another dinner uneaten, and the crescendo of concern rises.

‘Perhaps he has malaria. Has the doctor seen him?’

‘He likes the radio. Put it on for him, to amuse him.’

‘Prop him up with pillows.’

‘Lie him flat on his back, it’s more comfortable.’

‘Call the English doctor from Khartoum.’

‘Make him something tasty to eat, something special. Send for some sponge cake from Papa Costa’s, or those Groppi chocolates his father saves for guests.’

‘Instead of kirsa and mullah, stuff a sandwich for him.’

‘Nassir, take him out for a drive. The fresh air will do him good and it will be a change of scene.’

‘Poor lad.’

He wants to spit in the face of pity. He wants to end it all, not with pills and a deep sleep. No, he wants a dagger plunged in his heart, or the whirling ceiling fan dropping straight down at him, the blades ripping through his useless long limbs. Or his neck sliced like that of a bull. He wants blood, anger and bile erupting.

His mother says, ‘Cry, my son. Don’t keep things to yourself. Talk and cry so that you can relieve yourself.’

Can he really cry? His heart is hard and bitterness blocks the tear ducts. Soraya will marry someone else. In a year or two she will be a bride and there is nothing he can do about it. He will not take his place at the Abuzeid office; he is finished in that respect. He will not go to Cambridge University, even though he excelled in his exams. He will not play football again, he will not drive a car. He will not, he will not, he will not. It is wave upon wave of anger, and not a single drop of tears.

Nassir bounces in, waving a letter.

‘It’s for you, from Dublin. I didn’t know you had a friend called Fuad?’

Tuf Tuf is what everyone called him in Victoria College, the best of the ‘Old Boys’. Nur yearns to tear open the envelope, to draw Tuf Tuf close. But he will not have Nassir’s voice reading out his friend’s words of comfort and well wishes. He stares past his brother, to the swaying branch of an alley tree that yields only thorns. Receiving no response, Nassir gets bored and goes away.

Finding Nur alone, Fatma sits by his side.

‘Please eat something, Nur, you are making your father and mother very anxious. All of us are worried about you. Please, for our sake. Are you upset with Uncle Mahmoud because he broke off your engagement to Soraya? She is sad, too, but Nur, Uncle Mahmoud is the head of the family. You know that when he makes a decision we have to obey, because he knows what is best for us. You and Soraya will always be cousins. She will come and see you.’ Fatma pauses. ‘On occasions, of course, not like before. It’s only that she needs to keep away these days. It was never an official betrothal, and now it has to be made clear to Umdurman society that she is free. Do you understand what I mean?’

Nur closes his eyes and pretends to doze. Hunger and thirst give vivid dreams. He dreams of a sensation, singular, focused and distilled. He dreams of his foot touching the floor, of the weight of his body bearing down. He dreams of gravity.

Day three of the strike. He is weak from hunger. He drinks milk but will not talk.

‘Look,’ his mother says. ‘Look who has come to stay with us. All the way from Sinja.’

Another trick to make him perk up, to get him to speak? A new face. He gazes at a boy of about ten years old. He has an earnest, trustful face, a tranquillity.

His mother prattles on, explaining the boy’s lineage; a son of a distant cousin.

‘Zaki’s been sent here to go to school. There are no junior schools in Sinja and he’s been crying to continue after elementary school, he’s that clever.’

Nur remembers his relations in Sinja but doesn’t remember this particular boy. It’s been years since he was there, and Zaki must have been very young. Nur used to feel sorry for that branch of the family, because they were poor; now he doesn’t any more. Why should he, when his misfortune is greater than theirs?

Zaki looks at Nur with curiosity. There is no pity in his eyes. Zaki accepts Nur as he is, because he has no concept of what he was like before the accident. He extends his hand to shake his, and when he finds no response, cups his palm around Nur’s elbow. Nur can move his elbow if he wants, in a jabbing, upward flutter. He remembers that he is on strike. He closes his eyes, and speaks for the first time in two days.

‘Get out of my room.’

He also answers Ustaz Badr’s greeting when he walks in.

‘How is my star pupil?’

Nur shakes his head.

‘I am the most useless of your students.’ It feels strange to talk again.

‘Don’t say that, man, say alhamdullilah instead.’

‘For what?’

Badr is taken aback but moves his seat closer.

‘Well, for one you can be thankful for your eyesight.’

‘I would rather be blind.’

‘Really?’

Never seeing Soraya’s face again. If he was blind and mobile, walking towards the unseen, touching, pushing, carrying. Would he be good enough for her then?

‘And your mind,’ says Badr.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean your intellect, your reason, your ability to recognise. Losing one’s mind is one of the saddest of fates. It is an exile.’

Nur recognises the fleeting pain in Badr’s eyes and wants him to keep talking.

‘You are with us, Nur, in our company. You are among your family and friends. You are blessed with love and care.’

‘I am a burden on them. I have no future.’ His voice is thick, but he needs to say these ugly words.

‘Only Allah knows our future.’

Nur looks away and the question comes out in a whisper, ‘Why did He do this to me? I don’t deserve it. I am not a bad person. I shouldn’t be punished.’

Badr sighs.

‘The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, When Allah loves a people, He tries them. This is a trial, son, not a punishment. You are being drawn into the company of the Lord.’

Tears come to Nur’s eyes.

‘But it doesn’t feel good! I just want to be ordinary. To be like everyone else.’

‘Remember at school we set you examinations to see which one of you would excel and which one of you would fail? It is the same in life. Allah tests our patience and our fortitude. He tests our strength of faith. Be patient and there will be endless rewards for you, Insha’ Allah.’

‘You mean I will die and go to Paradise. Well, let it happen now and get it over with.’

‘No, no don’t say that, Nur. You are young and you don’t know what the future has in store for you.’

‘I don’t believe that I will get better. This miracle won’t happen.’

‘But there are other exits, a release of some kind. Maybe none of us can see it now or imagine it, but we have to pray for it and wait. Trust in Allah’s mercy, be reassured that you are safely in His hands.’

Nur feels like a child who has been taken seriously by an adult. Badr had looked him in the eye and had talked, really talked, about what happened.

‘Come and see me again,’ he says.

His teacher’s words stay with him. They blend with a line of a poem he had studied at school. The winds don’t blow in the direction the ships favour.

Day four of the strike. He drinks soup, but will not have anything solid. He answers in monosyllables when questions are put to him. Zaki, thick skinned and unsmiling, comes home from school and barges into his room. He is wearing his school uniform and carrying a satchel. He reeks of the outside world, of sweat and the sweets schoolboys buy from the women who squat with their wares outside the school gates. Zaki clutches a paper cone full of peanuts and greets Nur the way he did the day before, grubby hand cupping elbow. Today Nur lifts his elbow in response, the little that he can, and Zaki does not expect more. To Nur he appears brave, away from home in a new city; his first day at school, and his presence in the room is not overbearing. There is no irritation radiating from the boy, or a desire to impose. He is blunt and matter of fact, but light, not weighed down by awkwardness and confusion.

‘Here take this. .’ He pops a peanut in Nur’s mouth.

Nur should spit it out, but his teeth crush the fresh nut and the taste is strange on his fasting tongue. Zaki pops another one in.

‘Enough,’ Nur protests, and Zaki obeys, neither meekly nor grudgingly but as if it is natural to move on and do something else.

He takes his reading book out of his satchel and holds it up in front of Nur’s face.

‘Can you help me with my homework?’

Nur could tell him to get out of the room. He could taunt him and say, ‘Are you stupid? Your folks have sent you all this way to get an education and you can’t do your homework by yourself?’

But, despite his age, Zaki commands respect, and Nur does not want to be mean. Besides, the words ‘help me’ rally his inherent sense of honour. Somewhere deep inside, beneath the crushed body, ‘help me’ reaches his real self, it chimes with his true voice, it touches his essence.

From across the room, Zaki collects three pillows from the other beds and arranges them on Nur’s lap in such a way that when he places the book on top of them, the words are in perfect line with Nur’s vision.

He opens the book to the first page.

‘See, now I don’t have to hold it up! When you finish reading this page, I will turn the page for you. Now read!’

Nur reads. He reads, and there is a reason not to die. This is an activity he had forgotten, a pleasure he can take up again. The boy, Zaki, has solved the problem of raising a book to eye level and he is willing to turn the pages. In a few days’ time, Ustaz Badr walks in, carrying a wooden easel dislodged from an unwanted desk in his school. He props it up in front of Nur like a table and other books, not just schoolbooks, are placed on it. Nur’s old books to read again, and now that his appetite is whetted he wants more, more words, more stories, more poems. Hajjah Waheeba gives Ustaz Badr money and Nur dictates the titles that he wants from the bookshop. Ustaz Badr recommends this author and remindes him of another. Nur is occupied; Nur is busy. Why has no one thought of this before? Why has the obvious taken so long? When he reads, he floats in a current of thoughts and images; he swims as if he is moving his arms and legs. This is a kind of movement, this is a momentum, a buildup, starting, strolling, wandering, exploring. He is blessed with literacy. Something has not been taken away from him. Something, like his family’s love and his family’s prosperity, is there to buffer him. The words on the page are like a breath that muffles his thoughts, tousles his sentiments, plays havoc with the arguments in his head. The words on the page are a mirror. They reflect his secrets and his beauty. He is more than an invalid; he is more than a tragedy.

He is Nur Abuzeid and he is reading again.