Telepathy

— 6 –

It was about one in the morning when I dropped Nishan Hamza Nishan off in the Wadi al-Hikma District, a neighborhood being developed on the western edge of the capital. Although it may well become an upscale neighborhood in the future, in its current condition it resembles the miserable district I described in great detail in Hunger’s Hopes. I had never visited it before, because I have no family or friends who live there.

Nishan Hamza was calm except for a slight tremor of his hands and feet, and appeared to be extraordinarily alert mentally. He clasped his copy of Hunger’s Hopes firmly in his right hand while he groped in his pocket with his left hand for a cigarette, although I suspected that he had run out of them. I handed him what was left of my pack and told him as he stepped out of the car that I would return to meet with him again. I didn’t give him my telephone number or ask for his, for fear of consequences I didn’t feel like incurring then.

Most of the houses in Wadi al-Hikma were unfinished skeletons of concrete and red brick. Some were one story, others had two, and a few stretched even higher. In front of them were cots with frames of rough wood and webbing woven from torn ropes. Men hired as sentries to guard the houses were stretched out on these. Other homes, constructed from canvas, corrugated metal, and tree trunks, were scattered through the area. These appeared to house poor people or migrants from remote areas, fleeing war or famine. They had built these shacks on vacant lands that hadn’t been developed yet, and the inhabitants would doubtless be forced to evacuate them when the true owners of the property returned and began building. My companion’s home was one of these huts.

Electricity wasn’t readily available there, and thus the depressing, faint light of scattered gas lanterns provided the night with desolate depth. I thought no one here could have read Hunger’s Hopes. Where there was no intellectual vigor, there would certainly be no reading. As long as Nishan said nothing about this calamity, no one here would know anything.

Before leaving, I made several quick turns through the district in my car pursued by dozens of barking dogs. Then a number of the recumbent sentries rose from their cots to investigate the situation.

I wasn’t alarmed but didn’t really feel calm either. I experienced a moment of extreme neutrality that I’ll attempt to maintain for as long as possible while I search for suitable answers to the striking eeriness I experienced for more than two hours while I listened to Nishan Hamza in the home of Malikat al-Dar. I was trying hard to comprehend all of this but not succeeding.

Nishan Hamza Nishan in the novel Hunger’s Hopes was the same as the real Nishan Hamza Nishan. His family had emigrated from N’Djamena in Chad during the rule of the dictator François Tombalbaye at the start of the 1960s. His father had settled in the Sudanese capital, where he had worked as a guard for a private residential development. He had made special efforts to find his son work as a messenger in an elementary school when Nishan was ten, and his son had continued working in this position till he was thirty, when, at the prodding of the young pupils, he embraced education. He began to study and finished all his school exams through to the secondary level in two years. Then he worked hard to enter university and study law, only to be blindsided by the symptoms of seasonal schizophrenia. That had obviously impeded his progress.

During his first bout of illness, Nishan had fallen in love with a nurse named Yaqutah who actually served as a nurse in the government psychiatric hospital until last year. She had done her best to care for him during his ordeal. But she had suddenly disappeared, changed her name to Ranim, and traveled to work in Libya once it was liberated from Gaddafi’s rule, after she found a position there.

The aristocratic lady, who vaunted her superiority, without or without cause, was Su‘ad Mu‘tasim, the owner of the building where Nishan’s father worked as a security guard until he passed. She had died as a result of a blood clot in the brain last year. The ambitious soldier, who had attempted to overthrow the government without even the attributes that would have qualified him to lead a fringe football team and who was executed after the attempted coup along with his comrades, was a dead ringer for Asil Muqado, a member of Nishan’s tribe, and had embarked on the same adventure. He came close to seizing power but wasn’t executed, because he fled at a decisive, climactic moment. Now he was living in his ancestral homeland, Chad, where he bragged about being an adventurer who had almost succeeded.

Nishan’s life story was very close to events in Hunger’s Hopes — even the page where I had suspended any grounding in reality. That was the folded page Nishan kept reading and annotating at the bottom when he sat beside me in the car. It was page 120, when the hero again succumbs to seasonal schizophrenia.

Some of the names were real — Nishan, of course, and the nurse Yaqutah, although the end of her story was different. In the text she retained her name to the end, cared for the hero till his last moments, and wept for him when he passed. In real life, she changed her name to Ranim and traveled abroad in search of a better life. Asil, similarly, fled instead of being executed. In my novel, Su‘ad Mu‘tasim did not die of a blood clot; she died halfway through my work of liver failure. The work on the whole, however, consisted of true-to-life pages that described the life of a poor, desperate, marginalized man, who had communicated his story to me in some fashion and had even made me fiddle with the details of some passages, while I retained his name, life story, and present circumstances. Because the text was actually published, while reality was stuck at the folded page, neither Nishan nor I could say definitively whether his end and the novel’s would converge.

But how had all this happened?

“How has this happened?” I asked him with icy limbs, a pounding heart, and a mind that was totally blank.

He didn’t know, and no one else could know, I believed. Something strange had happened. I had simply to accept that it had happened and strive to find some explanation for it if I could. I had to forget I had once visited Kuala Lumpur with its mischievous vigor and returned with Eastern spices that were going to produce a novel. I was obliged to work to create for this man a better destiny than the one I granted him in the text. Success in this effort would not be entirely in my hands or within my powers, but I had to attempt it. I felt a warm sympathy for the man and thought of a number of steps to take. I asked him, “Did you know about me before Hunger’s Hopes? Had you read any of my other works?”

“Because of my circumstances, I don’t read literature or anything else on a regular basis. I’m a poor man whose education came late in life — but I definitely knew about you. I had read some isolated chapters from your novels in the newspapers. I also read some of your interviews and essays, which I didn’t understand too well.”

“And Hunger’s Hopes? How did you happen to read it, since you don’t read many books?”

“Someone I know who lives in the district brought me a copy when he found my name and story in it. He was enraged when he handed me the book, because he thought I knew you personally and had narrated my story to you to write.”

“Was he one of the characters who appear in the novel?” I asked, gripped by anxious fear that I might have written about some ordinary person and distorted his life enough that he would wish to destroy me, especially since he got hold of a copy of the novel and actually read it, only to discover his neighbor and his neighbor’s story inside it. What I found most unusual was that Nishan was acting normally and hadn’t attacked me or accused me of anything.

“No, he’s not in the novel,” Nishan replied as he silenced his old cell phone, which had begun to ring persistently.

I sighed with relief. I was spared that then.

Another question: “The Chadian man who purchased your sister Mabruka when she was a child and disappeared with her to unknown reaches of Africa — was he real? And your sister, herself — do you have a sister named Mabruka?”

“No, I don’t have a sister or a brother. I was an only child. Now I’m the only one left, as you know.”

Questions began to multiply in my mind and raced toward my tongue. What about the truck driver who bound Nishan with ropes when he was delirious? Or the perfume dealer Nashshar, who loaned him money from time to time? How about the exploding dolls — did he actually throw them at elegant men and beautiful girls in the streets? Did he take his treatment seriously? Did he go to prison, as happened in a passage in the novel, for example? But these questions were quashed when Nishan suddenly changed. I saw his eyes redden, his lips quiver, his hands gesture convulsively in the air, and something like thick slobber drool from his mouth. He cried out in response to an imaginary voice calling him: “Wait for me, Rabi! Wait for me, I beg you!” I thought he might shatter one of the glasses of orange juice over my head or smash one of the velvet chairs. He might escape into the interior rooms and strangle Malikat al-Dar, Dhu al-Nun, and his mother, Fatima.

I couldn’t predict what a lunatic might do in his delirium, because I had observed people like him in moments of sudden frenzy. I’ll never forget a youth I saw one day in my neighborhood — he had throttled his male organ with a circular piece of rusty metal, and it exploded in front of me.

I stood up quickly, feeling alarmed and guilty for paying attention to him in the first place and then for bringing him inside a household that respected and honored me. I grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the house as best I could. I was panting, because he was heavy and rigid. I pushed him into the car’s back seat and searched wildly for a rope to bind his hands and feet. Despite her age and cranky knees, Malikat al-Dar came running out with Fatima’s husband, her son-in-law. They asked what the problem was and I insisted that there was no problem, that my friend the writer had simply had an epileptic fit, and that I was rushing to find medical assistance for him. Nishan had calmed down a little, luckily, and I was able to drive him to his house without any fear.

When I finally reached my house after three a.m., the street was still busy, in a city that never quiets down. The trappings of a wedding that apparently had taken place on the street in front of a nearby house were visible; drowsy workmen were trying to guard the temporary pavilion and chairs but not faring too well, because I saw a couple of men in ragged clothing put several chairs on a donkey cart and flee with their booty.

I spotted a trembling shadow in front of my house. Thinking that it was Nishan Hamza, I felt alarmed and drove around the block a number of times. When I returned, no one was there. I realized I would never fall asleep and would pass the remaining hours before the morning’s commotion as a wakeful fool, waiting impatiently for the arrival of all the bustle so I could slip into it, pursuing any openings it might provide me with.

I sat at my desk in the living room, which was crammed with books, and turned on the computer. I cast a quick glance at the Kuala Lumpur file, and it seemed to me that what I had written thus far was merely contemptible scribbling on the wall of a novel that was destined to go unwritten — during a period when no novels would be written.

The Chinese acupuncturist Tuli was there, and the features that made him so striking had begun to be sketched: his lavish elegance, his carefully crafted smile and the way he bowed repeatedly before every visitor and rubbed his fingers from one moment to the next. But I felt in no mood for him — not at all. For the American-Japanese Leftist Hoshika I had chosen a perilous future in a country that he did not comprehend. He would never live to be a hundred here, although that was what he aspired to. I had sketched the secretary Anania Faruq, outlining her eyes with antinomy, decorating her hands with dark henna patterns, and dressing her in an embroidered Sudanese thobe. I had reached the stage of planting her in potting soil so that she would grow to be captivating but fully capable of inflicting harm. I was in no mood for her now and felt opposed to any attempt to revive her. I wouldn’t proceed any further with her in the text.

There was a Chinese alcoholic named Yanyan, who had a room near mine in the Kuala Lumpur hotel where I stayed. He would knock on the door of my room every night for no apparent reason. I had made him an entrepreneur visiting a country that lacked the wherewithal for drunkenness. I depicted him undergoing the distressing complications of alcohol withdrawal. Now I would leave him dangling as well.

I closed the folder of my thoughts and entered the world of Facebook in an attempt to forget what was happening around me. I stumbled upon Najma’s traces. She had switched out her personal photo for one that showed her without a headscarf and with her hair permed. She had written a number of lines about her event with Professor Hazaz. As usual there were hundreds of likes and comments. Some of her friends criticized her for not inviting them to the event. I added my “like” and wrote: “What a splendid evening!” I quickly clicked on another page which seemed like a treasure to me, of a girl calling herself Nariman. That might actually be her name or perhaps it was a fantasy nom de web for a world that was both open and frequently conservative. On her page she had assembled friends who could never have assembled in real life. Among those friends were bearded and turbaned men who had fallen head over heels for the temptation she represented. They referred to her as “Virtuous Sister” and competed with each other to describe qualities of which they were ignorant and to write what they referred to as chaste love poetry about the eyes in the picture posted showing a girl wearing a niqab that revealed only her eyes. She wrote verses, discussions, and aphorisms and advocated virtue as well. Her friends included enigmas like Bird Milk Vendor, the Anti-Christ, Mobile Charger, Tartura Sorceress of the Happy Home, Wounding Breeze, and I’m the Chameleon. Many wrote silly remarks, discussed their frustrations, or were content to add a swift “like”.

I read a new poem by someone calling himself Sheikh Ma‘ruf. It celebrated the large eyes on a face that was radiant even when covered. There was a pressing call from a person — Love-Struck Rural Guy — for her to remove the veil from her picture and simply wear a headscarf to show her piety or to send him an altered photo in a personal email because he had a surprise for her. Since a clear picture of a Kerry Cleaning Machine was at the center of the page for no apparent reason, someone had written: “We need that to clean our hearts.”

I smiled and left this unfamiliar atmosphere. I returned to my own page and wrote: “Telepathy.” I didn’t expect any comments. I closed the page on that strange world, filled with everything a novelist needs.

Suddenly I remembered the folded page in Hunger’s Hopes — page 120 — and began to rummage through my shelves for the novel, now that the state of neutrality that had seized hold of me after midnight had lifted. I was sure I still had a number of copies somewhere but couldn’t think where I had put them. I searched my living room, where most of my books were shelved, with mounting anxiety. Then I moved to the two rooms I use as branch libraries. I discovered all the works I have written, even those I have dropped from my vita and never mention in statements or interviews. I didn’t find my most recent novel, although I had to have at least one copy of it. Perhaps I had given all the copies to my friends. Perhaps I had put them some place I couldn’t remember. Perhaps I was daydreaming and had never written a novel called Hunger’s Hopes. I finished my search of the house, looking even in my bedroom where only my slumber or insomnia intrude, although I was certain it wouldn’t be there. I went outside to search the car, where I triumphantly found two copies in the boot.

I lit a cigarette and impatiently opened the book to Nishan’s page. I began to read noncommittally, like any neutral person without a vested interest in the topic. I wanted to check where Nishan actually was, even though I could almost recall the entire novel and could replay it in my mind, as I had at the Social Harmony Club. He himself had told me where to find him in the novel.

I read:

For the second year in a row, something happened to Nishan Hamza during August, which was hot and humid despite an occasional, autumnal cloudburst, to shake his stability and ambition. It was after Nishan filed his application for admission to the national university, just when it seemed that he would be admitted and that his ambition to study law and become a judge would be realized. Many of his acquaintances and neighbors in that neglected district had mocked his desire, asking, “Why law school, Nishan?”

He had replied with a laugh, “In order to prosecute Sahla the hairdresser for oiling women’s hair.”

In the district, people were organizing a number of voluntary campaigns at the same time. One set out to spruce up the district at the behest of residents who knew nothing about sprucing up besides the words. A campaign against disturbing the public order was led by Mas‘ud the Nurse, who was without doubt the greatest threat to public order in the district. They entrusted to Nishan the leadership of a third, exceptional campaign against envy.

But who was there to envy in this impoverished place? What was there to envy among people who were alike even with regard to constipation and diarrhea and to the way they were ground between the jaws of misery and hunger?

“Just lead it, Nishan.”

He led the campaign but discovered — as the low, mud-brick houses or the dwellings made of random scraps of corrugated metal did too — that everyone in the district was envious and envied. One man envied another his tunic, which was washed and starched, while someone else envied the first man his shorts, which didn’t have a single rip or patch. One fellow envied a beggar his mellifluous voice that attracted almsgivers, but the beggar envied him his full head of hair. One woman envied her neighbor for being able to light a cook-fire that day, and the neighbor envied her for having a son who was taking enlistment exams and might become a soldier.

Nishan was engrossed in this campaign, which he directed without excitement or passion. Together with members of his team, he strove to sift people’s souls thoroughly to remove envious feelings from his district’s residents forever.

No one would ever envy anyone else there again. If the existence of such a feeling proved inevitable, it should be one-sided — all the residents might be envied by strangers who didn’t and wouldn’t live in the district.

During the past year Nishan had experienced some unusual symptoms that simple people attributed to jinn they said were breeding inside him. Some people who healed with amulets attempted to evict this tribe of jinn but failed. When he became truly dangerous and started making ragdolls packed with explosives and lobbing them at pedestrians in the capital’s congested streets, he was arrested and ended up tied to a worn-out bed in a psychiatric hospital, where he was treated with injections of tranquilizers and electric shock therapy. There he fell in love with a nurse named Yaqutah, who came from a background comparable to his. Her tribe had African roots like his. This nurse lavished care on him, told him about herself, and allowed him to say whatever he wanted to her without interruption. Nishan seemed to make a full recovery and after his release strove to maintain contact with the woman who had befriended him during his delirium and fever. He visited her at the hospital, watched for her on the roads she traversed, and rode public buses with her, conversing with her all the way. She frequently loaned him money that he was unable to refuse.

Now that he was able to love freely, he was considering marriage, the way a normal person would, conducting himself in his neighborhood circumspectly, and spearheading the campaign against envy. Eventually his symptoms returned, though, and he became agitated, suffered from nightmares, heard voices calling him, and searched for means to hurt other people to ensure that he himself would be hurt. At moments when he was thinking clearly, he wept alone in a tumble-down, corrugated metal house, on the streets, or in any dusty nook he found to rest.

The page with the folded corner ended with a clear convergence between real and fictitious elements. I interpreted it the way any reader would: as an SOS tossed into my life’s waters, muddying them.

Night had ended and the morning’s raw materials were in evidence: the sounds of vendors selling bread and milk door-to-door, of school pupils, of car horns, and of strident jackhammers. I retreated to my bedroom, to which I brought insomnia and grief, and tried to avoid thinking — but failed.