The House of Jasmine by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

anything? Kawthar must have felt the same way. She sat down and smiled, then got up and brought her mother, leaning on her arm, to sit with us. We sat in silence, and all the mother said was: “How are you, son?” Then she started to weep quietly. Kawthar helped her up, and took her out of the room, then came back to say that her mother never stopped crying. So it was not seeing me that made her cry as I had thought. It was not that I reminded her of her son, his childhood and early youth. I didn’t feel like talking to Kawthar about anything, and she didn’t ask me about my parents. I don’t think that she even wondered about the cause of my strange visit. When we had been silent for too long, I started to ask questions, and the answers were like blows on my head. Did Kawthar think that I knew every misfortune that happened to them? I didn’t ask her about Rashid. If Hani, who never stopped joking and laughing, was dead, then Rashid, who used to memorize and sing ‘Abd al-Halim’s songs, must have been suffering in the “Loyalty and Hope” institution for the disabled. Is life a tasteless farce or a futile tragedy? I wasn’t surprised that Kawthar had smiled at me in the tram. She must have remembered that this tall man in front of her was once her neighbor, and maybe she remembered that I had kissed her once, and she thought of her husband and enjoyed a pleasant moment. She probably didn’t expect anything more than a smile in return.
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    I was struck by a frenzy of desire, so I went around our shipyard offices peeking at the legs of the female employees. I sat with the ones I knew and chatted in order to get a look at the breasts tucked inside their clothes and smell their cheap and heavy perfumes. I imagined them in sexual positions with their husbands, whom I either knew if they worked in our shipyard or didn’t know. At home, I created an imaginary palace of sexual pleasures and got so good at my fantasizing that I could ejaculate without touching myself.
    When al-Dakruri came to visit me, he was horrified to see my long beard and my bushy unbrushed hair, which had not been washed in a long time.
    â€œShagara, you should get married,” he said. A sarcastic smile came to my face.
    â€œYou have an apartment, so what are you waiting for? You are in a better position than I am.”
    I did not reply.
    â€œMoney? It’s on its way. Prepare yourself. Begin has arrived in Alexandria, as you know, and the day after tomorrow he will leave Ras al-Tin Palace to go to the President’s summer house in Ma’mura. The shipyard will participate in greeting them on Gamal ‘Abd al-Nassir Street.
    Screw him! I almost screamed at al-Dakruri, almost picked him up and threw him out the window into the back street. He knew everything about me and didn’t object or ask for anything in return for his silence. What kind of a person was he? He was not a saint, an angel, or a devil. He didn’t deserve to be thanked or cursed. And who was I, exactly? I didn’t even know that Begin had arrived in Alexandria. I no longer read any newspapers or watched television news programs. I was on a quest for women, women’s scents, sweat, lips, breasts, and I was thinking of buying a color television set in order to look at their warm flesh. This Begin was the one who had thrown God out of His land where the government housing in Kum al-Shuqafa stood, and he was the one who filled the area with a shanty town.
    I’m not an idiot, as you all must think. I understand how things work. I really do. I only have one modest desire—I want to find a woman to marry. Then I would become even more isolated, my life would revolve around her and our children, and I would become even more stupid. This is the desire which has never been fulfilled, and which I have always tried to ignore. I’m Shagara Muhammad ‘Ali, the tall dark man with the attractive face and the