The Time and the Place: And Other Stories

The Ditch

Despite the great care I take in respect to personal hygiene and health in general, the sensation of dirt and disease besets me like some constant nagging thought.

I do not dwell solely in a human body, but also in an ancient and dilapidated flat in a decrepit alley submerged in garbage. The ceiling of the flat is bare of paint and reveals in places colorless veins, the walls are split into parallel and intersecting lines, while the floor has burst out into bulges and cavities that are in constant strife, through threadbare rugs, with the soles of one’s feet. In summer the ceiling and walls exude a scorching heat, in winter a damp drizzle. The stairs are being eaten away, and one of the steps has come apart, so that half of it has collapsed, presenting an obstacle to anyone going up or down, and a not inconsiderable danger in the dark. On top of all this there is the crack that runs down the outside of the house on the side that abuts the lavatories, a side where the mortar and lime have flaked off and the stones have become exposed.

Hosni Alley is now without a sidewalk altogether, and no one recollects that it used to have two — no one, that is, other than myself, since I was actually born in the house. In this I am unlike the families of Ibrahim Effendi, the occupier of the middle floor, and of Sheikh Moharram, the tenant on the ground floor, who came to the house at the very earliest twenty years ago.

In my childhood days, the house was of mature age and in fair shape, and the alley, paved with stones and with two sidewalks, was no less splendid than Shurafa Street, to which it sloped down. The two sidewalks have by now disappeared under dirt and garbage, which, accumulating day by day, advances from the two sides toward the middle of the narrow road. Soon all that will be left will be a ditchlike passageway by which to come and go; it may even become so narrow as not to admit the body of Sitt Fawziyya, the wife of Ibrahim Effendi.

The shadow of times long past, the expectation of the house collapsing, and the diffusion of filth all pervaded my feelings and gave me a sensation of disease — and of fear as well. I was alone in a flat whose earlier occupants had been dispersed among new houses and the cemeteries. In addition, I was a civil servant, the one and only civil servant in a house that was well on its way to falling down, a civil servant groaning in the grip of rising prices and asking himself what would be his fate were an earthquake to occur or — in these days ominous with the possibilities of war — an air raid. Or what would happen were the house to bring to a close its exhausted life and die a natural death. Then I would make up my mind to chase away these anxieties with the same intensity as they were chasing me, and to commit myself to God’s care and not to anticipate trouble before it actually came. At the café among my friends (overworked civil servants), or in front of the café television, I would become oblivious of my worries. But they would return in their most concentrated form on the first day of every month. This was a day about which both Sheikh Moharram and Sitt Fawziyya (who because of her strong personality used to act for her husband in all business matters) were extremely anxious, while I too would be full of apprehension. It was on that day that Abd al-Fattah Effendi, a postman and owner of the old house, would show up.

A man in his fifties, he still persisted in wearing a tarboosh; he was an unattractive person, though not perhaps because of any particular defect. I would become aware of his presence when I heard Sitt Fawziyya chiding him harshly, not letting him get a word in edgeways. As for me, It would deal with him with all the tact of which I was capable. I would receive him and sit him down on the only sofa and give him tea. He used to enjoy returning my greeting by saying, “I’d like someday to come and find you’d done your religious duty by getting married.”

Concealing the fact that I had a lump in my throat, I would ask him, “Have you got a bride and a wedding going for free?”

He would blow at the steam from the tea, take a noisy sip, and nod his head without uttering a word. I would hand the rent to him — three pounds — and he would take it, smiling scornfully, and saying, as he counted the money off between his fingers, “Less than the price of a kilo of meat — and they call me a landlord!” Then, encouraged by my silence, he would continue, “It’s money that’s destined for orphans, I swear by God.”

And I’d say, “Two wretches squabbling over nothing — but what’s to be done?”

“If you weren’t occupying the house, I’d have sold it for a good amount.” Then, in an admonitory tone, “It’s on the way to collapsing. Didn’t the Council warn you?”

“And are we to throw ourselves into the street?” I would inquire.

I am always deprived of the feeling of stability and security, as well as of being clean and healthy. Even so, I am better off than others, for I am at least on my own — from lack of means rather than from choice, but I am nevertheless on my own: a lonely and repressed hermit in a house about to fall down in an alley buried under garbage. I perform miracles to obtain a tasty meal (though not all that often) and a suit of clothes to cover the self-respect of a branch office manager. I dream of a home like those I see in the advertisements of the cooperatives and a bride like those on view in the weekly “brides” page — or even like Sitt Fawziyya. I console myself by reading The Finery of the Saints, the lives of pious, ascetic saints who live trusting in God, casting worldly cares aside, and finding refuge in everlasting peace. However, some chance item of news about a house collapsing, or about the police forcibly evacuating a building immediately after one side of it has come apart, would shake me to the core. Such news would call me back from the paradise of the saints and fill me with terror. Where would the people go? What belongings would be left to them? How would they manage? My sense of loneliness would be redoubled, despite the fact that the family I belonged to was a veritable tribe, scattered over different parts of the city, brothers and sisters and other relatives. And yet, with all that, what a suffocating loneliness! There were kind enough feelings about, but not a house to welcome a newcomer. Each house had just enough room for its occupants, and each branch of the family bore its own troubles. I might well find shelter for a day or a week, but permanent residence would constitute a cancerous growth in any house.

So I would hurry off to the café, my paradisiacal refuge. I would meet up with colleagues and find solace in exchanging complaints. And strange as it may seem, I was regarded among them as one of the lucky ones, being on my own and the load I carried being consequently light. My terrible solitude was something of value, something to be envied. How lucky you are — no wife, no daughter, no son! None of the problems of the generation gap, or of marrying off daughters, or of paying for private lessons. You are in a position to eat meat once a week, or even twice. A home just for yourself, which knows no arguments or quarrels. I would nod my head with satisfaction, but deep down I would wonder whether they had not forgotten the pains of repression and loneliness. Even so I would find in their continual moaning and groaning a certain comfort, like a flash of light being cast upon a tomb.

Once one of them said to me, “I have a solution to all your difficulties.” I looked at him intently and waited. “A wedding,” he said, “that will provide you with a home and an easy life, and which won’t cost you a penny.” Then in a whisper, “A woman befitting your position.”

At once I imagined a woman with nothing female about her beyond being so described on the civil register certificate: an abnormal way of salvation (like perversion and clandestine affairs), a life belt in the shape of a floating corpse. In truth I had lost hope, though I still retained my pride. For this reason they used to describe me as having a good nature, which was a synonym for stupidity.

I would persevere and struggle on. I would return to The Finery of the Saints, and read the opposition newspapers. Sometimes, maybe, I would resort to the wiles of spongers — a pardonable offense. I would visit the homes of relatives, but avoiding mealtimes — thus assiduously demonstrating my innocence, yet still in the hope I might be invited to a banquet of a meal. But the spirit of the time no longer believed in such age-old traditions, and what is more, things are now different in relation to feasts and holidays. I am thus lucky if I get one or two good meals a year. On these occasions I would hear the voice of the lady of the house saying, “Don’t stand on ceremony, you’re not a stranger or a guest. Treat the house as your own.” And no sooner would the green light be given than I would swoop down like a ravenous eagle, as though seeing my last meal.

Worse than all this, I was an ordinary person, a person without ambitions or imagination. I had had just sufficient education for the powers-that-be to put me into a certain department. Beyond that all I had hoped for was a nice girl and a small flat. But things did not turn out like that; I don’t know why. Thus my place of residence was destined to be the tumbledown house, and whenever my salary was raised I somehow found myself having less money — it was like one of those riddles they pose to radio audiences in the month of Ramadan. My youth melted away in inflation, and every day I wrestled against surging waves that threatened to drown me.

Someone said, “Go abroad, there are a hundred and one advantages to traveling.” But I procrastinate and am attached to my homeland. However, I did not surrender to the grip of despair. From time to time in my darkened sky there flashed a gleam of light. I was stimulated by the statements of ministers, shots fired by the opposition, and anecdotes about the saints — such as the story that the great jurisprudent Ibn Hanbal, when convulsed with hunger, nevertheless was generous in his giving of alms. Sometimes I would amuse myself at my window watching Sitt Fawziyya strutting up and down the ditch between the two sides that were growing ever closer together.

Then one day, after a long absence, I decided to visit the family burial vault, seeing that it was the final place of refuge if things came to the worst. There was after all the mourning room, and there was also a lavatory. It was a shelter for someone who had none.

I saw the two old tombs open to the sky and the prickly pears growing in the corners. The mourning room, to the right as one entered, had become a veritable beehive: it surged with women and children and was piled high with tattered furniture, kerosene stoves, and pots and pans, the whole place redolent of garlic sauce, beans, eggplant, and frying oil. The residents regarded me with apprehension, and I read in the depths of their eyes a warning of challenge. I smiled in capitulation and stood directly in front of them, divested of all power and glory. I addressed a woman whose bulk reminded me of Sitt Fawziyya. “It’s all right, but what’s to be done if I need the room as a place to live?”

“You’re the person with the rights,” she answered, laughing, “and we’re your guests. We’d give up a corner to you, because after all, people must help one another.”

Outwardly showing gratitude, I said, “God bless you.”

I went through to the two tombs to recite the opening chapter of the Koran over them. I imagined the many generations of whom nothing remained but skeletons — squadrons of craftsmen and traders and civil servants and housewives. I remembered too an uncle on my mother’s side, of whom, although I am not sure exactly when he was born, I have heard recounted the legend of his heroic death in the 1919 Revolution.

I stood for a while in intimate conversation with them in an inaudible voice. “May God have mercy upon you, impart to me your faith. And, Uncle, please give me something of your courage!”