No Road to Paradise by Daoud Hassan;Booth Marilyn;

Author:Daoud, Hassan;Booth, Marilyn;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
Published: 2017-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Your brother’s wife was here.

Those were the words my wife said to me after turning aside from the door she had opened for me, and taking several steps toward the kitchen.

By herself?

She did not hear me. I hadn’t raised my voice, wanting to keep it sounding unconcerned. But I did ask again, a little louder this time. Was she here by herself?

With her son, came her voice from somewhere in the kitchen. I wanted to know more but she—my wife—was not going to add anything unless she was asked specifically. Because I did not want to appear any more interested than would be proper, I decided that I must wait. I must find an opportunity to ask at a moment when my question would seem to arise inadvertently, perhaps out of my own absentmindedness. I found my chance before long. Going to my father’s bedside ostensibly to check on his condition, I remained in there for a few moments inspecting him and pulling the coverlet over him up to his chin. On the way back to the reception room I looked in on her to ask, Did my father know who she was?

He was asleep. He didn’t open his eyes once.

It was no use, standing here in the doorway. She was not going to say anything more. Any further explanation would amount to some kind of intimacy, a coming-closer that she didn’t want and would never make an effort to achieve. But it wouldn’t raise any suspicions if I asked her a different question. Her son—did he come, too? This time she dragged herself away from the kitchen to ask me to repeat my words.

Her son. Did he come with her to see his grandfather? Somehow, that reference to his grandfather came out sounding a bit artificial.

He came too, she answered. She said it in a manner meant to inform me that this exchange wasn’t worth her having to stop doing whatever it was she had been busy with in the kitchen. Whatever else I wanted to know I would have to find out for myself. I wasn’t interested in how long she had stayed here with her son, nor where she had sat, nor where exactly in the house she went. I wasn’t even interested in what she was wearing . . . . What I had to know—and I had next to nothing to go by—was whether she had come to see me. Whether she came so that she could tell me that she had come for my sake, and that it wasn’t so important whether or not I was there, as long as my wife would inform me of her visit. It’s a long trip, I must start back now, I imagined her saying as she rose. And then she would have said, Give my best wishes to the Sayyid. I can see her turning, propelling her son before her, and walking through the doorway, for the door is already open. Give my best wishes to the Sayyid.

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