And G.o.d"s forgotten me
In the harbour
Come, little flower
Come with me -"
Amal has intuition. She has imagination. Does she still believe that every question has an answer? She goes again over Layla"s words: "Oh the day after my brother"s murder Mabrouka rolled up Anna"s tapestry in three bags of muslin. One she gave to me "for Ahmad", she said, "and his children after him." The other she gave to Anna for Nur. I do not know what she did with the third." Layla had given the Isis panel to Ahmad and he had given it to Omar. Anna had not given the Osiris panel to Nur. Or if she had, it had still ended up wrapped inside her trunk and been pa.s.sed down to Jasmine. What had Mabrouka done with the third?
They have not yet told Omar that it has appeared. It seems too strange a thing to mention casually over the phone. They have thought perhaps they should surprise him. St.i.tch the whole thing together, iron it, and have it hanging there for him to see.
"Come, little flower.
Come with me.
I mean you well
And my heart is whole -"
When would he come? When would he call? Isabel is not worried, but she has not known him long enough. She does not realise what a solitary figure he now cuts. Beloved by many, hated by many, but essentially solitary. How else could he have ended up - living where he lives, doing what he does - except alone in that no-man"s-land between East and West? For her it has been different. She has not had a public life. She has concentrated on the boys, and she has translated novels - or done her best to translate them. It is so difficult to truly translate from one language into another, from one culture into another; almost impossible really. Take that concept "tarab", for example; a paragraph of explanation for something as simple as a breath, a lifting of the heart, tarab, mutrib, shabb tereb, tarabattatta tarabattattee, Taroob, Jamal wa Taroob: etmanni mniyyah / I"ve wished / w"estanni "alayyah / I"ve waited / "iddili l"miyyah / I"ve counted ... Amal catches herself falling asleep and considers whether she should go to bed - or would the baby wake and get her up again immediately? She cannot wait to see Omar with him. She has grown used to worrying about her brother over the last few years. She worries, and then he phones. He will phone soon. She looks up at the tapestry. Tomorrow they can st.i.tch it and have it ironed. They can put little Sharif in his bouncer seat under it. He would look at it as Nur used to look at it when she was a baby, lying at her mother"s feet in the courtyard watching the b.a.l.l.s of silk jumping on their threads. Once more Amal sees Anna sitting in the sunshine, working at her loom, old Baroudi Bey beside her, his eyes on his rosary, the baby in the basket, the sounds from the house drifting into the courtyard. She sees Sharif Basha coming through the doorway, pausing to take in the scene and to feel his heart flood once again with love. She sees Anna take each finished panel from the loom. Mabrouka holds one end and the two women roll the length of cloth carefully between them. She sees Sharif Basha lying on the diwan in the salamlek and she sees hands draw a white sheet over him and she hears the sobs of the men and the keening of the women. She sees Mabrouka in her room, tying wrappings of muslin around three long rolls of cloth, weeping, pausing to dash away the tears that blind her, muttering, muttering all the while. Amal makes out a few of her words: "from the dead come the living", "the branch is cut but the tree remains". Mabrouka weeps and wraps and mutters, "The precious one goes and the precious one comes." The tears make their ragged way down the lines on the old face. "The Nile divides and meets again," and again, and again. "He brings forth the living from the dead" - the baby"s cry sounds through the house and the sudden fear that seizes Amal"s heart is so strong that it jolts her off the sofa and to her feet.
Omar!" she cries out loud. "My brother ...!"
The battered trunk, ransacked of its treasure, sits by the wall. The old journals, emptied of their secrets, lie on the table. Beside them are the pages, neatly stacked, in which Amal has written down the story of Anna and Sharif al-Baroudi. Next door, Isabel sleeps soundly. Sharif is cradled in Amal"s arms as, once again, she makes her way with him down the long, dark corridor. She holds him close, patting his back. Whispering. "Hush, my precious," she whispers, "hush ..."
GLOSSARY.
Abeih: t.i.tle of respect for an older brother or male relative (feminine: Abla). Turkish.
Abuzeid: an epic ballad describing the life and deeds of Abuzeid al-Hilali.
afandiyyah (also effendis); plural of afandi (effendi or efen-di): an urban (Western-) educated man (see Basha).
ahlan wa sahlan: welcome. Literally "[you are among] your people [and on] your plain".
akhi: my brother.
al- (and el-): prefix meaning "the". "A1-" is formal, while "el -" is colloquial.
al-hamdu-1-illah (also el-hamdu-1-Illah): thanks be to G.o.d.
alf mabrouk: a thousand congratulations.
Allahu Akbar: G.o.d is the greatest.
am: uncle. Specifically father"s brother. Used as t.i.tle of respect for older man.
amrad: a man who has no facial hair.
Antar: an epic ballad of the love story of Antar and Abla.
Aqsa: the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Islam"s third holiest shrine (after the Kaba in Makkah and the Mosque of the Prophet in Madinah).
aragoz: a Punch and Judy show.
arbagi: driver of a cart. Derogatory.
Ard, el-: The Land, a 1970 cla.s.sic of the Egyptian cinema by Yusuf Chahine. Based on the novel by Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi, it shows the peasants uniting with a religious leader and a patriotic city lawyer to take issue with unjust irrigation laws.
asr: afternoon. Also the name of the third of the five prayers of the day.
a.s.siuti chairs: a particular type of wooden armchair with reclining back originating in a.s.siut in Upper Egypt.
awqaf (plural of waqf): an endowment or trust. Most great Muslim inst.i.tutions in Egypt, such as hospitals, schools, libraries and mosques, are established upon endowments, or awqaf, which come under the supervision of a ministry of that name.
aya: a verse from the Qur an, a sign demonstrating the existence of G.o.d, also a woman"s name.
aywa: yes.
Azhari: a graduate of al-Azhar, the thousand-year-old religious university in Cairo.
Bahawat: plural of Bey (see Basha).
balah el-Sham: a sweet pastry (literally dates of the Levant).
Balfour Declaration: Arthur Balfour, British foreign minister in 1917: "His Majesty"s Government looks with favour upon the creation of a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine ..."
barakah: blessing or grace.
barsim: a green plant similar to clover. Used for feeding cattle, donkeys, etc.
Basha: Ottoman t.i.tle, roughly equivalent to "Lord". Can be placed at the end of a name or in the middle. The t.i.tles in use in Egypt - and all countries subject to Turkish Ottoman rule - were "Efendi" (an urban person with a secular education and wearing Western dress - although not Western himself), "Bey" and "Basha" (Turkish: Pasha). The last two were conferred formally by the Khedive in Egypt or the Sultan in Constantinople. The Khedive, alone, was known as "Efendeena" (or Our Efendi).
The Arab t.i.tles, acquired through attaining a degree of learning, were "Ustaz": master; and "Sheikh": head or princ.i.p.al.
ba.s.s: Stop it! Enough! Probably from Italian "Basta!"
Bey: see Basha.
b"iftikarak ...: What good will it do you to remember?
brawa aleiha: bravo (on her).
Coptic calendar: the most extreme persecution of Christians in Egypt took place in the reign of the Roman emperor Diclidia.n.u.s. The Coptic Church adopted the year of his ascension, AD 284, as the beginning of a new calendar: the Time of the Martyrs.
corvee: forced labour - employed for large national projects like digging the Suez Ca.n.a.l, but also for work on the Pashas" or the Khedive"s lands.
courbash (kurbaj): the whip. Normally made of rhinoceros hide.
Dar al-Kutub: the National Library of Egypt.
Donme: a member of a Judaeo-Islamic syncretist sect.
Dustur: Const.i.tution.
el- and al-: prefix meaning "the"; see al.
faddan (also feddan): a measure of area used for agricultural land in Egypt. Roughly equivalent to an acre.
Fadilatuk.u.m: form of address to a sheikh who holds a religious position. Similar to Your Grace. Literally "Your Virtue", from "fadeelah": that by which one person is preferred (f/dd/1) over another.
fallah (also fellah): peasant. Feminine: fallaha. Plural: fal-laheen, from (f/l/h) to till the land. The root also means: to be successful.
fantasia: fantaziyya, a display of extravagant joie de vivre (as in "what"s all this fantaziyya" to a child wearing fancy ribbons in her hair). British travellers used it specifically as a name for an event of Bedouin horsemanship.
fasakhani: a shop that specialises in salted fish and roe.
Firman: an absolute decree issued by the Ottoman sultan from Constantinople.
galabiyya: long, loose robe worn by peasants and traditional people of Egypt.
Ghezirah (also Gezira): island. Also a district of Cairo which is an island in the Nile.
gibba (also djibbah): traditional long garment of sarinised cotton, usually white with thin black stripes, worn by men of religion under the quftan.
habara: a woman"s cloak.
habbet el-barakah: a seed, the oil of which is widely used for medicinal purposes. Recently found to have a good effect on the immune system.
habibi: my darling, my beloved - masculine (feminine: habibti).
hadith: discourse.
hanim: Turkish for "lady".
haraam: it is sinful, it is pitiful, it is arousing of compa.s.sion, it should not be done.
haraam aleik: literally "it is a sin upon you", used as "please don"t say that" or "you should not do that".
haram: the root h/r/m denotes a sacred or inviolable s.p.a.ce. The haram of a mosque is the s.p.a.ce within its walls. The haram of a university is its campus. The haram of a man is his wife. A man is referred to as the "zawg" or "the other half of the pair" of his wife.
haramlek: the area in a house reserved for women.
hareem (also harem): women, from h/r/m: sacred.
hasal kheir: "good has come about", to be said when something not so good has happened but has ended without too much damage. Equivalent: "it"s not that bad".
hay a wan: animal.
hayy: alive.
ibn: son.
ibni: my son.
Ibrahimiyyah: large irrigation ca.n.a.l from the Nile.
iftar: literally "breaking the fast". Used for breakfast on normal days and for the sunset meal during Ramadan.
imma: turban.
ingelisi: Englishman; feminine ingeliziyya.
insha Allah (also inshalla): if G.o.d wills. Used as "I hope" or "let"s hope so" or "I wish", etc.
Isa: Jesus - a name common to both Muslims and Copts.
"Isha: dusk or early evening. From a/sh/a: to become unable to see. Also the name of the prayers performed at dusk - the last of the day"s five prayers.