Lyrics Alley

IX

London is an interrupted dream. A tall ship docks and his fortnight’s journey from Alexandria is over. Dark skies, even though it is late summer. Englishmen mill around his stretcher with coarse accents and rough hands, doing heavy manual work. They are not like the English he is used to seeing, his teachers at Victoria and his father’s friends. They unload him from the ship like they unload the luggage. He used to walk everywhere by himself, and now his movements are someone else’s achievement.

London is not unknown to Nur, even though this is his first visit. Mr Dickens had told him about it and there were the films he had watched at the Blue Nile Cinema. But even though it is 1951, what Nur sees is war-damaged, dented buildings, glimpses of a ruin waiting to be rebuilt. The city is in rehabilitation, poised between peace and construction, between austerity and boom, between rationing and plenty. He understands, because he is injured, too. He wants to mend; he wants to be normal again.

It is not meant to be like this — his first visit to London. He should have been among a batch of new Sudanese students. They would have arrived by ship together, to be met by a Sudan Student Office representative who would whisk them off to Sudan House where they would stare around them with wide grins, conscious of their new clothes, their accents, their skin. They would be tense with the sense of adventure, shy, but too excited to be truly shy.

‘Let’s go dancing tonight,’ they’d laugh, their first allowance warm in their pockets.

And in a few days’ time, when all the paperwork was sorted, they would hug each other and disperse. Some to Oxford, Nur to Cambridge, others to Edinburgh and Dublin. This is what it should have been like: his hands in the pocket of a new jacket, buying a newspaper from a vendor, a jaunty step on the train at King’s Cross.

The hospital ward reminds Nur of the dormitory at school. It is spacious, with a high ceiling. The man in the next bed is called Jack. A wall had fallen on him during the Blitz and he is now in hospital because of a urinary complication. Nur tries to start a conversation, but Jack is busy reading the paper. With a device like a thin metal rod clasped between his teeth, he can flip over the pages of a newspaper. Jack cannot walk, but he can light his own cigarettes. His teeth are strong and clever. Nur admires him.

But he will not end up like Jack. He will get better and everything will go back to how it was before. He will go to Cambridge as planned. He will ride a bicycle and go rowing and dancing. He will reach high in the library for thick, heavy books. He will be free from this stay in one place, from this keep still against your will. And if the operation doesn’t succeed? No! It will, it must. Because all this good future is just around the corner, he can see it.

Nur feels as if he is wrapped tight in a bandage, a mummy who is alive and seeing. This inertia is a new kind of physical pain, not intense but constant. His body clamours for movement. It is a fight — this struggle to be free — it is an effort. Awkward, too, to want to reach out, to be straining all the time, awkward and frustrating. He wants to pull the sheet up. He wants to scratch his chin, to rub his eyes, to pick his nose. He wants to draw the curtain around his bed. He wants to push his feet in slippers, to adjust the collar of his shirt. He wants to hold a pen. He wants to hold a pen and write. And he wants to walk the pavements of London like everyone else.

He can move his head from side to side, he can nod and clutch his upper arms closer to his body. Chicken wings, says the nurse. She is young and flirty and there is another nurse, older, like Matron, who looked after the boys at school. Nur likes their accents.

‘Judy Garland’s singin’ at the Theatre Royal. .’

He copies how they talk, practising by himself. It shames him that English ladies are changing and washing him, sticking the enema in the morning, shaving his chin. They should not be doing such menial work, and it makes his face hot and his eyes moist with anger. Dressed and clean, he would like to chat to them, be nice to them, but they are busy. Most of the men in the ward are war heroes with ongoing complications. They don’t look triumphant or strong, and they shout in their sleep, but they are heroes all the same. Even though parts of them are missing, even though they are spastic and scarred, they have medals to their name. He is different. He was on a day out at the beach.

Although he does not like Nabilah, she is someone familiar and she speaks to him in Arabic. He can tell that she does not like the hospital and is unsettled by the men with missing limbs. One winked at her, and she blushed and frowned. The man’s left arm had been amputated and his left eye was missing but he could wink with the right. Nabilah comes to visit more than his father.

‘He is busy,’ she says. ‘Guess who he was introduced to yesterday? A duke! And this duke has a huge aviary full of amazing birds from all over the world. Your father has agreed to ship monkey nuts from Sudan for these birds. He is arranging the shipment now. Of course, the Duke is delighted to have met him.’ She is lively with pride and a sense of adventure. She describes the first television she has seen. ‘In the hotel lounge,’ she says. ‘How long do you think it will be before we have television sets in Egypt and Sudan?’

Nur likes the story of the caged birds that will eat nuts from the Sudan. He misses his mother and her food. The food at the hospital is even more horrible than at school, except for the puddings. He loves custard and jelly, but they are scarce and the portions minuscule. At night he dreams of Soraya. They are walking on the beach and she is smiling and beautiful. They lie down together and she doesn’t push him away. In the morning when the nurse comes to change his clothes, she rolls her eyes at the stains and shakes her head. A part of him is still working, is still free and moving, after all.

At last, Jack from the next bed, is talking to him. He wants to know about Alexandria during the war. Nur was in elementary school in Umdurman then, but not wanting to disappoint his new friend, he makes up a story based on experiences he had heard from older VC students. It is easy, he discovers, to put himself in a different place and time. He says that the school buildings were used as a military hospital and that the masters, pupils and books were moved to the San Stefano hotel, which had its own beach. There were air raid shelters dug on the side of the hotel and most of the bombing raids were at night. In the summer, when Rommel threatened Alexandria, the school was closed and Nur was in Sudan. By the time the October term started, the emergency had passed. He talks about his friends; Tuf Tuf, Ramzy, Joe and Yacoub. He explains that Tuf Tuf’s real name is Fuad and how he got into trouble with Ahmed Saad, the prefect, until Jack says, ‘Steady on, lad, you’re a chatterbox!’

Nur has more to say about the role of the Sudan Defence Force in the Abyssinian Campaign. They served with distinction again the Italians on the eastern border. Then, to entertain Jack, Nur sings Sudanese songs. He gets carried away, enjoying the sound of the Arabic words and the simple sadness of the melodies. Oh come to me. Why are you dry towards me, my love? At first Jack is amused and then he is bored.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ he says and Nur laughs out loud, delighted to hear an Englishman swearing.

With the clever metal rod between his teeth, Jack flips over the newspaper and Nur twists his neck to read about Clement Atlee opening the largest oil refinery in Europe. Jack mutters under his breath. Inside him is bitterness, small and hard, like bullets inside a gun. He is also tired. Tired of the war and how what happened to him will never go away. He looks handsome but unkempt. No matter how well someone else washes you, Nur learns, no matter how well they shave you, groom you, dress you and comb your hair — they can never get it right. They will never do it exactly like you would have done it yourself. The constant, constant irritation. Jack knows more than Nur. It is not only being in a wheelchair and having useless arms, but the things that go wrong inside; infections and minor complications that keep him in and out of hospital.

There is an operation scheduled. Nur does not like the neurologist Mr Copeland. Mr Copeland sticks a needle in his thumb and knocks his knees with a hammer. He has hairy arms and hunched shoulders. He does not look pleased with this case from overseas, but he will operate. So, no dinner or pudding the night before and nil by mouth, and in the morning his father kisses him. He smells of aftershave and days in a London hotel. His face seems larger, pumped up with anticipation. Next to him, Nabilah, in a new hat, smiles. Everyone has hope. Everyone wishes him well. They roll him away, down unfamiliar corridors and up in a huge lift. The anaesthetist asks him to count. Nur counts out loud and finds it hard to believe that he will ever stop counting. But the darkness does come.

He is back at school on the playing field. Tuf Tuf passes him the ball and he flies with it, on and on, knowing he can score, knowing he will score. Ramzy tackles him; he is well built, but Nur is lean and light. Tuf Tuf is shouting and the referee blows his whistle. A light shines on Nur’s face and there is the ugly clang of metal on metal. Someone is saying his name, insistent, irritating. They want him to wake up but he wants to continue sleeping. They insist, and he has to obey. He opens his eyes and the brightness hurts. It stabs his eyes and the back of his throat. Nausea makes him groan. He leans forward to retch but he is still lying on his back when the bile comes out.

They give him something for the pain and it makes him light-headed; it makes him float, not sink into sleep. Sensations and dimensions are out of proportion. Soraya’s skin is incredibly smooth and there is more and more of her to kiss. She is not slender or coy as in real life, but abundant and overflowing; accessible and generous. His mother’s hoash, too, is vast, bigger than a football field and it is full of people who love him and love each other. There are fruit trees and colourful, chirping birds. The Nile flows through with vigour. The wind carries the scent of fresh grass and everyone knows that it has been raining in the provinces. There are swings, there are tents and music and songs. Batool is dancing, her back arched, her breasts high. Someone is playing the oud and children kick a ball; yet all of these people and all of these things — turtle doves and laughter, canaries and incense, henna and lyrics — are in that one hoash in Umdurman.

Then the nightmares blast through. A giant thumb pushes him to the ground; he feels the weight of it on his chest, the insistent pressure. The thumb, meaty and human, grotesque with a brittle purple nail, pins him down, and no matter how much he wriggles and crunches, he cannot break free. Soraya is smiling at another man, older and more established, a man who is loathsome and cunning. They are standing close together, too close and the man puts his arm around her waist. Nur must rescue her. He must drag her away, but first he wants to punch that man’s face. Anger rises. He shouts out loud and the sound makes him open his eyes. It is grey night in the dormitory. Someone is weeping; it must be the new boy. The new boy is homesick, he doesn’t understand the rules of this new school and his English is rudimentary. He thinks he can leave. Well, home is a long way away, in another country. Nur can explain all this to him, patronise him, enjoying the feeling that he is older and knows more. Here are your new friends; here are the masters who will teach you. Here are the prefects; you have to obey them and address them as Captain. You are a boarder; you are not a day boy. You will be called by your last name, everyone is. Do you know how to play cricket? Are you good at football? Dodge, tackle, dribble, and pass. Score. Score again. And remember, ‘English is the language of the school. Anyone caught speaking other languages will be severely punished.’

Nur is the new boy. He speaks Arabic and the prefect has gone to report him. Nur is bewildered by the new rules. No underwear to be worn at night, only pyjamas, cold showers first thing in the morning, grey flannels. Two types of boys fail in Victoria College — those who are religious and those who are poor at sports. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Muslim, Christian or Jew. It doesn’t matter if you’re Russian, Palestinian, Sudanese or Greek. Maybe Nur will succeed. Maybe he will crawl his way through this first term, but the more he struggles, the more he is bullied; the more the masters despair of him, the more his schoolmates despise him. At the end of the term, it is time to return to Umdurman and never be seen again. Nur is being punished. He has to sit down in the empty classroom and copy out five hundred lines from the telephone directory. He copies and copies, stopping to count the lines but still they are not enough. Tedious. Tedious.

‘Alhamdulillah for your safe recovery,’ Nabilah peers down at him. What is she doing in London? He remembers as his father touches his forehead and hair. ‘How are you feeling? The anaesthetic troubled you.’

Nur is not sure how he is feeling. He should be better; he should be able to get up. He is still wrapped in a cocoon.

‘Squeeze my hand,’ his father says but Nur doesn’t know where his father’s hand is. He turns his head and sees that his father is holding his hand.

Mr Copeland appears with his needle and trusty hammer. He goes away and then returns. He addresses his father, who stands up straight and deferential. Mr Copeland pushes his glasses up his nose and talks in a steady voice. He says that, unfortunately, there is no significant progress. The likelihood of any recovery at this point is remote. We can offer an extensive programme of rehabilitation. It normally takes eighteen months. A progress from bed to wheelchair. The patient will learn how to feed himself. His father’s face darkens and he interrupts in a mixture of Arabic and English.

‘With what, Doctor?’ Mahmoud sounds angry. ‘Feed himself with what? No sir, I can hire tens of people to serve him day and night.’

His father is being rude to an Englishman. Mr Copeland is unsettled, and now Mahmoud gives him his back. He turns to the wall, cradles his head in his hands and sobs. Nur has never seen his father crying. Nabilah touches Mahmoud’s arm and murmurs things Nur cannot hear. He can only hear his father’s sobs.

Mr Copeland turns to Nur, blinks and speaks again of rehabilitation and gaining some degree of independence. Nur can’t listen any more. The words pour out of him.

‘I want to use my arms. It doesn’t matter about my legs, but I want to hold a pen.’ He has seen the patients in crutches and wheelchairs and he could live like that, but. . please Sir, he needs his arms. Nur is bartering and negotiating. Swapping his legs for his arms, his feet for his hands. He is begging, but Mr Copeland is powerless. He looks at Nur as if Nur is speaking a foreign language.

‘I need my hands to do simple things like turning over the pages of a book. Please, Sir!’