The Dreams

Dream 30

This was our house in Abbasiya. I went into the salon. My mother walked toward the entrance as my sister approached. My sister stopped for a few moments before joining her. We didn’t greet each other, but I declared my intense hunger in a loud voice. No one replied, so I repeated my demand.

I heard voices in the room overlooking the field, so I went toward it, discovering my oldest brother sitting in silence. Across from him, the Shaykh of al-Azhar sat cross-legged on the couch. The shaykh was speaking beautifully. When he finished, I told him I was hungry. He retorted that no one had served him coffee, or even a glass of water. I left the room and said — in a voice that my mother and sister would hear — that someone should bring coffee to His Eminence the Shaykh. But I heard only silence, except for the phonograph and the recordings that I adored — and I found the neighbors’ daughter who would visit me to borrow some records, especially that of Sayyid Darwish, which I loved the most. She was looking for a needle with which to play the record.

I told her I was hungry, and she said that she was hungry, too. My hunger overcame me and I went out of the room and called out, begging for a bite of something! Finding nothing, I left the house as evening shaded the empty street. Fearing that all the shops were closed, I made for the bakery — faint with starvation, yet enticed by hope.