Fayoum!”
After a moment’s reflection, she said as if talking to herself, “His uncle didn’t make that offer just because he happens to like him so much. He must be planning to marry Medhat to one of his daughters.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” I asked ingenuously.
In response, she cast me a strange look. More than once she began to speak, but thought better of it and held her tongue.
My mother’s hunch proved correct. It wasn’t long before we received a letter from Medhat, informing us of his engagement to his paternal cousin, telling us the wedding date, and inviting us to attend. Scandalized that he would have become engaged without consulting her first, my mother made no attempt to conceal her indignation.
“Do you see how that madman’s brother has gone and stolen my son?” she asked my grandfather furiously.
We didn’t attend because I fell ill not long before the wedding and was bedridden for two weeks. Hence, mymother forgot all about the wedding with its joys and sorrows. And thus it was that Medhat’s nuptials were attended by neither his mother nor his father.
Commenting sardonically as usual, my grandfather said, “God created this family as one of the wonders of mankind. Every family is a unit except this one, which is scattered this way and that and never comes together. O God, Your pardon and good pleasure!”
The summer drew to a close and it was nearly time for the schools to be back in session, so my grandfather enrolled me in Saidiya. We went there together, and on the way he said, “If you were really a man, you wouldn’t need me to come with you, but you’re seventeen years old and you still don’t know the way to Giza. Memorize the route we take to get there. I was an officer at your age!”
My grandfather was putting on a show of discontent and offense. However, in my heart I sensed that he was happy, even overjoyed, and I could feel his affection wrapped about me. Consequently, it shamed me to think of all the trouble he was going to for my sake even though by this time he was a seventy-year-old man.
When we came home, he thumped me gently with his cane, saying, “You’re now a student at Saidiya, so do your best and make us proud. I want to see you an officer before I pass away.”
And I prayed with all my heart for him to be granted length of days.
He fell silent for quite some time. Then, without any apparent occasion, he said, “Back in my generation, aprimary school certificate was a great thing. In fact, it was rightly considered the equivalent of the highest degrees they give out these days.”
Then he continued with a nod of his head, saying, “Those were the days! And we were real men!”
14
T he summer vacation ended and I was smitten with gloom. School was the bane of my existence, and I genuinely and profoundly detested it. It was true, of course, that I was about to start out at a new school that was associated in my mind with manliness and glory. However, it was still a school, which meant that like any other school, it would have scheduled times, classrooms, students, teachers, punishments, and lessons that were bound to be more difficult than the ones in primary school.
On the first Saturday morning of October I woke up early, four months since the last time I’d had to engage in this wearisome habit. I put on a suit, spruced myself up as usual and chose a necktie out of my grandfather’s wardrobe. My mother took a long look at me, then said to me with satisfaction, “You’re as beautiful as the moon, I swear to God! You’ve got your mother’s face, but with a fair complexion the likes of which I’ve never had. May the Merciful One’s care protect you.”
She instructed me to be careful when I walked, got on and off the tram, and crossed the street, then uttered a long prayer of supplication for me. When I left the house, she stood on the balcony watching me till I rounded the bend and disappeared from view. I kept walking, all
After a moment’s reflection, she said as if talking to herself, “His uncle didn’t make that offer just because he happens to like him so much. He must be planning to marry Medhat to one of his daughters.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” I asked ingenuously.
In response, she cast me a strange look. More than once she began to speak, but thought better of it and held her tongue.
My mother’s hunch proved correct. It wasn’t long before we received a letter from Medhat, informing us of his engagement to his paternal cousin, telling us the wedding date, and inviting us to attend. Scandalized that he would have become engaged without consulting her first, my mother made no attempt to conceal her indignation.
“Do you see how that madman’s brother has gone and stolen my son?” she asked my grandfather furiously.
We didn’t attend because I fell ill not long before the wedding and was bedridden for two weeks. Hence, mymother forgot all about the wedding with its joys and sorrows. And thus it was that Medhat’s nuptials were attended by neither his mother nor his father.
Commenting sardonically as usual, my grandfather said, “God created this family as one of the wonders of mankind. Every family is a unit except this one, which is scattered this way and that and never comes together. O God, Your pardon and good pleasure!”
The summer drew to a close and it was nearly time for the schools to be back in session, so my grandfather enrolled me in Saidiya. We went there together, and on the way he said, “If you were really a man, you wouldn’t need me to come with you, but you’re seventeen years old and you still don’t know the way to Giza. Memorize the route we take to get there. I was an officer at your age!”
My grandfather was putting on a show of discontent and offense. However, in my heart I sensed that he was happy, even overjoyed, and I could feel his affection wrapped about me. Consequently, it shamed me to think of all the trouble he was going to for my sake even though by this time he was a seventy-year-old man.
When we came home, he thumped me gently with his cane, saying, “You’re now a student at Saidiya, so do your best and make us proud. I want to see you an officer before I pass away.”
And I prayed with all my heart for him to be granted length of days.
He fell silent for quite some time. Then, without any apparent occasion, he said, “Back in my generation, aprimary school certificate was a great thing. In fact, it was rightly considered the equivalent of the highest degrees they give out these days.”
Then he continued with a nod of his head, saying, “Those were the days! And we were real men!”
14
T he summer vacation ended and I was smitten with gloom. School was the bane of my existence, and I genuinely and profoundly detested it. It was true, of course, that I was about to start out at a new school that was associated in my mind with manliness and glory. However, it was still a school, which meant that like any other school, it would have scheduled times, classrooms, students, teachers, punishments, and lessons that were bound to be more difficult than the ones in primary school.
On the first Saturday morning of October I woke up early, four months since the last time I’d had to engage in this wearisome habit. I put on a suit, spruced myself up as usual and chose a necktie out of my grandfather’s wardrobe. My mother took a long look at me, then said to me with satisfaction, “You’re as beautiful as the moon, I swear to God! You’ve got your mother’s face, but with a fair complexion the likes of which I’ve never had. May the Merciful One’s care protect you.”
She instructed me to be careful when I walked, got on and off the tram, and crossed the street, then uttered a long prayer of supplication for me. When I left the house, she stood on the balcony watching me till I rounded the bend and disappeared from view. I kept walking, all
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