tell the difference. This game of one person with two heads appealed to their father. When he asked one of them to tell him a dream he’d dreamed, he’d interrupt him and ask the other son to finish it for him, so that the boys came to believe they were one soul with two bodies.
They slept in one large bed but when they turned nine Nasri decided the time had come for each to sleep by himself. They refused but the stubborn father exchanged the wide bed the boys had inherited from their mother for two beds, which he put in the same room. Karim and Nasim rebelled and took to sneakily sleeping together in one of the beds, so that the father had to carry one of them to the second bed at midnight, though when he got up in the morning he’d find them both sleeping in one.
They lived alone with their father, without relatives. Nasri, who was an only child, had no contact with his distant cousins. His wife, Laure, was from a large family but the fates had willed that her family should distance themselves from the two boys. When she died everyone expected Nasri would marry Laure’s younger sister. Marta was three years younger than her sister but “the doors of destiny had failed to open before her,” as they say. True, she was short and not beautiful, but the family decided to believe that the reason she had failed to marry was her devotion to her sick sister and the care she took of her sister’s two boys. Nasri thought it was all over for him and didn’t argue when his father-in-law visited him and opened the conversation by talking about the need for decency, saying Laure’s sister would make the best mother for the boys. Nasri just asked for a bit of time, arguing he couldn’t marry until a year after his wife’s death. The whole family thought this a logical arrangement and things seemed to be heading in the right direction, but they hadn’t reckoned with the boys going mad.
Nasri told Laure’s father that the boys had gone mad and that he wanted him to talk to them in his capacity as their grandfather.
Abdo Tibshirani was sixty-five years old. The dignity of white hair covered his head and thick mustaches adorned his broad white face – a man who knew life inside out. He had a shop in Souq el-Efrenj, where he sold the best kinds of fruit. He’d seen his three sons married and believed nothing could make up for the pain of the loss of his daughter Laure but the marriage of her sister. And now his son-in-law had come along to make a mess of his dignity.
Abdo placed a hand on his mustache and looked at Nasri with his bulbous eyes: “You think you can make a fool of these mustaches of mine?” he whispered. “You want me to believe a story like that
and
demean myself by negotiating with those brats?”
Nasri tried to tell him what had happened but the man refused to listen. “We’ve set the date for the wedding and I don’t want to hear any more such nonsense from you.”
Abdo closed his eyes; when the elderly man closed his eyes it meant that the conversation was over, for neither his wife nor his sons dared talk in the presence of this pantomime of sleep, during which he became another person. The whispered speech that was his means of communicating with his sons would turn into a yell, the calm that filled his face would turn into an angry flush, and in that condition he would think nothing of beating his sons or his wife. Nasri saw the closed eyes, but instead of leaving he made himself comfortable on the couch and closed his eyes too.
Two men with eyes closed, as though in a duel with the darkness, neither daring to open his eyes “out of fear of being trapped in a confrontation” from which there was no escape.
The first man opened his eyes, looked at Nasri, and whispered, “Getup, son, there’s a good fellow. Go back to your boys and sort things out for the best.”
“Honestly, uncle, I’d like to,” said Nasri, his eyes still closed. Then he opened them, looked into the older man’s eyes,
They slept in one large bed but when they turned nine Nasri decided the time had come for each to sleep by himself. They refused but the stubborn father exchanged the wide bed the boys had inherited from their mother for two beds, which he put in the same room. Karim and Nasim rebelled and took to sneakily sleeping together in one of the beds, so that the father had to carry one of them to the second bed at midnight, though when he got up in the morning he’d find them both sleeping in one.
They lived alone with their father, without relatives. Nasri, who was an only child, had no contact with his distant cousins. His wife, Laure, was from a large family but the fates had willed that her family should distance themselves from the two boys. When she died everyone expected Nasri would marry Laure’s younger sister. Marta was three years younger than her sister but “the doors of destiny had failed to open before her,” as they say. True, she was short and not beautiful, but the family decided to believe that the reason she had failed to marry was her devotion to her sick sister and the care she took of her sister’s two boys. Nasri thought it was all over for him and didn’t argue when his father-in-law visited him and opened the conversation by talking about the need for decency, saying Laure’s sister would make the best mother for the boys. Nasri just asked for a bit of time, arguing he couldn’t marry until a year after his wife’s death. The whole family thought this a logical arrangement and things seemed to be heading in the right direction, but they hadn’t reckoned with the boys going mad.
Nasri told Laure’s father that the boys had gone mad and that he wanted him to talk to them in his capacity as their grandfather.
Abdo Tibshirani was sixty-five years old. The dignity of white hair covered his head and thick mustaches adorned his broad white face – a man who knew life inside out. He had a shop in Souq el-Efrenj, where he sold the best kinds of fruit. He’d seen his three sons married and believed nothing could make up for the pain of the loss of his daughter Laure but the marriage of her sister. And now his son-in-law had come along to make a mess of his dignity.
Abdo placed a hand on his mustache and looked at Nasri with his bulbous eyes: “You think you can make a fool of these mustaches of mine?” he whispered. “You want me to believe a story like that
and
demean myself by negotiating with those brats?”
Nasri tried to tell him what had happened but the man refused to listen. “We’ve set the date for the wedding and I don’t want to hear any more such nonsense from you.”
Abdo closed his eyes; when the elderly man closed his eyes it meant that the conversation was over, for neither his wife nor his sons dared talk in the presence of this pantomime of sleep, during which he became another person. The whispered speech that was his means of communicating with his sons would turn into a yell, the calm that filled his face would turn into an angry flush, and in that condition he would think nothing of beating his sons or his wife. Nasri saw the closed eyes, but instead of leaving he made himself comfortable on the couch and closed his eyes too.
Two men with eyes closed, as though in a duel with the darkness, neither daring to open his eyes “out of fear of being trapped in a confrontation” from which there was no escape.
The first man opened his eyes, looked at Nasri, and whispered, “Getup, son, there’s a good fellow. Go back to your boys and sort things out for the best.”
“Honestly, uncle, I’d like to,” said Nasri, his eyes still closed. Then he opened them, looked into the older man’s eyes,
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