The Penguin's Song by Hassan Daoud, Translated by Marilyn Booth Page B

some time after we had moved, my father had gotten to districts much farther away than this, for he had seen rows of shops where one sold goods that the next one did not. Or perhaps he followed different routes to those places he would describe to us when he came home. I might be taking the wrong streets and getting farther away rather than closer to the place I must reach. I can ask which general direction I’m going, at least. That man who has just finished sweeping out his shop will answer me, pointing in one single direction rather than directing me to a mass of intersecting and intertwining streets. Go that way, from there, he says to me, and so I retrace my steps, still searching for a place where the shops sell something other than the foodstuffs these apartment dwellers need. I must ask someone, before the residents all come down to the streets and crowd the way. Once they have clogged my route I’ll have to constantly extricate my body from them. And after every step I’ll find myself face to face with someone who stares at me at the same time I look at him, both of us trying to figure out who will make way for the other. Or the person I ask for help will point me in the same direction I’m already walking, extending his entire arm as if to make me understand that I am still far from my destination and many streets lie ahead that I must walk down before I’m there. Instead of asking now, I will go on walking until I feel I’ve found a place where I don’t mind asking someone.
    And then, too, if I spot a change in what the merchants are selling, I’ll know I have begun to get somewhere on my own. I will feel that I’ve gotten close, or at least that I’m beginning to get close when I see, for example, a clothing store or a shop that sells bed linens or pots and pans. I will sense that I have gotten close when I reach a shop that’s bigger than the others I’ve seen, and so I’ll know that it’s meant for customers coming from streets farther away. That will tell me that I’m close, or that I’ve begun to get close, and I’ll also know that I’m about to reach broad streets—wider than these, at least. They will certainly lead to still other streets where the shops sell things to people who come great distances to buy them. I will arrive there. I must do so, if I just go on walking. There’s really no need for me to ask anyone, since such long stretches as these must be leading somewhere. But I must hurry. I have to get across as many streets as I can before they all come down from their apartments. They will slow down my walking. With the street in front of me filled with them, I will no longer be able to look ahead as far as a distance of three or four shops, which allows me to stay at a remove from what I’m seeing, to keep myself apart. They’ll advance and surround me, I’ll be caught in their midst while I try to detach myself from the crowd they make as they stare at me, each from his own direction, and I won’t be able to keep from being hemmed in by people who are far too close to my body.

XIV
    AS I TURNED ONTO THE sand track, I could see the unmistakable figure of my father at the window, waiting for me to return. I knew he had doubted I would make it back; that was why he had heaved his body upward, hoping to see me more clearly, and had even leant heavily out the window. When the mass of shadow at the window was suddenly gone, as he hurried away to open the door, I was puzzled. Surely his eyes had not allowed him to see me clearly from that distance at all. Perhaps, ever since I’d gone out in the morning, he had gotten to his feet many times, in that way of his, and had headed toward the door. As I began to climb the stairs I sensed his presence above me, hesitating between the open door and the balustrade, which was not a place where he would stand for long. As I came in, he was standing facing the doorway,