The House of Jasmine by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

Author:Ibrahim Abdel Meguid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Interlink Publishing

8

There is always a huge crowd on al-Tarikh Bridge every Wednesday. Young and old men and children in rags and bare feet start to arrive in the early morning and line up on the bridge with their faces toward the port, their gazes fixed on the empty space. The tram stops at its station behind them, and no one leaves his spot until evening.

A long time after this started happening, the people realized that there was an incinerator at the port where the police burned drugs they had confiscated after stopping smuggling attempts or raiding dealers’ storage places. Wednesday was the day on which the burning took place, and the sea breeze blowing at the bridge always passed the incinerator and, carrying the smoke of burning hashish, brought the people on the bridge pleasure and comfort free of charge. Now many vehicles besides the tram loiter on the bridge on Wednesdays.

I was sitting in my office thinking of how women lived longer than men because God wanted them to suffer longer. Why did God want His beautiful creatures to suffer? I felt that my mind was about to burst, and I was scared. . .

Kawthar’s mother had cried when she saw me. Her husband, ‘Abd al-‘Al, had died of sorrow for Hani, who was killed in Sinai during the war. Mr. ‘Abd al-‘Al was a distinguished person in the neighborhood. He was a handsome man who had passed his good looks down to his daughters. He was always clean and nicely dressed, and wore a full suit in both winter and summer. He was a quiet man who talked very little. He often came into the room where Hani and I used to study in the evenings, opened a small closet with a key that he kept, took out a small book and left. Hani used to talk to me about his father’s wide knowledge of poets and poetry.

Nur, Kawthar’s little girl, was dark because her father, who left her and two other children and went to work in Dubai, was dark. Where is this Dubai on the world map? And how can I get to it now? Ahlam had quietly married a month ago and left for Dubai with her husband as well. Maybe Ahlam was married on the same day on which I saw Kawthar in the tram.

Why did I not expect all this? Why did I forget that there had been a big war in October 1973, and that many people had been killed in this war? Was it because ‘Abd al-Salam, who was besieged with the third army, had returned safely? Was ‘Abd al-Salam our entire army?

Why did I not realize that as Ahlam grew up she also matured and came to have her own magic and secret world? As soon as I had entered the apartment, I had a sudden cold impression that I didn’t really know anyone there, and that feeling didn’t surprise me. If you lose something and then find it again when you don’t need it anymore, does it mean anything? Kawthar must have felt the same way.

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