Friendly Fire Page 4

  That evening, my mother woke me up and said, as she offered me a glass of tea, “You father wants to see you.” I wasn’t thinking about anything specific and said to myself I’d drink my tea, smoke a cigarette, and then wash my face and go see him.

  The evening session was in full swing as usual and I was greeted by a thick cloud of smoke and the piercing smell of hashish. My father’s bloodshot eyes showed me that he’d been smoking for a while. Uncle Anwar sang out his welcome.

  “Hello, Isam! Where’ve you been?”

  My father invited me to sit down, so I sat, and Uncle Anwar held out the goza to me, but I declined because I had to study, to which Uncle Anwar responded, as he put the mouthpiece into his mouth, “What of it? Is that any reason not to? You can do your best studying when you’re stoned. Did you know that when I was in Secondary I’d roll my usual couple of cigarettes, settle back, and then the biggest bitch of a math problem wouldn’t take me a second?”

  “Which would explain why you made such a mess of school, you loser!”

  So cried Muhammad Irfan before bursting into laughter, and other low laughs issued from those present. I sensed that the atmosphere was strained for some reason and it wasn’t long before I realized that my entrance had interrupted a heated discussion between my father and el-Ghamdi.

  El-Ghamdi was over fifty but seemed younger. He was good-looking, with wide green eyes and well-defined strong clear features. His chestnut hair was combed carefully back and he had a light rosy complexion. I found something off-putting about the man, the same thing I often find in Arabic language teachers—a meekness of spirit and a hateful clinging nature. El-Ghamdi smiled and said in a clear voice and measured tones, as though he were a professor delivering the lesson of the day to his students, “Your problem, Abduh, is that you’re an optimist. Too much so. You have to be aware that art and literature in Egypt are completely dead. We need at least half a century before the Egyptians can recover their interest in the arts, before a real public for the arts can be formed—with all due respect to the colleague who sent you the letter.”

  He smiled as he spoke and stared with his trusting green eyes into the faces of those around him. It was clear that he was having an effect on them and that they were convinced by what he was saying. My father seemed agitated and bursting to express his disagreement. He squirmed in his seat and sighed. Then he said, his words rapid and staccato, “All the same, Ghamdi, you have to make allowances. A few individuals are enough to make a start.”

  El-Ghamdi cried out in tones of histrionic disagreement and it became clear that he was determined to carry my father’s defeat to the bitter end.

  “What start, my dear sir? Wake up! All this fuss because one admirer wrote you a letter, and you want to convince us that there’s a public for art in Egypt? Go down into the street and then you’ll get it! Make a tour of the bus stops! Look at the people’s faces! You think those people could give a damn about art? Those people? When people like that go to sleep all they dream about is finding chickens at the co-op!”

  El-Ghamdi laughed and so did everyone else. I didn’t, though, and nor did Uncle Anwar, who busied himself cleaning the goza, though he did seem to be following the conversation with interest. El-Ghamdi bent forward where he was sitting and said with the air of one putting an end to the discussion of a trivial subject that has gone on too long, “Listen, Abduh. Let me set your mind at rest. What did you tell me the writer does for a living?”

  “He’s a teacher,” mumbled my father in a low voice.

  “I know, but what does he teach?”

  My father said nothing for a moment and then he answered, “An art teacher, but….”

  “But what? An art teacher and he’s not supposed to understand art? At least he’d have the basics that he studied. An art teacher, who interests himself in the progress of art? My dear fellow, that’s you! And you think that that’s a sign of artistic awareness? Give me a break!”

  El-Ghamdi made a dismissive gesture with his hand, laughed, and looked at the others, like a chess champion who makes a final masterful move that brings the match to an end in his favor. Then he turned back to my father and said in dismissive tones oozing sarcasm, “My dear Professor Abd el-Ati, you’re giving this business of the letter more importance than it deserves.”

  My father cried out to interrupt him, appearing for the first time to be starting to doubt his own opinion, “No! It’s got nothing to do with his being an art teacher! I sensed from what he said that he’s someone who understands.”

  “Understands? Someone like that understands?”

  El-Ghamdi posed these questions and let out a sarcastic

  laugh, the malign intent of his words clear to all, since how could anyone who liked Abd el-Ati’s work understand anything. My father’s face clouded with real anger and he muttered fervently, “Yes, Ghamdi, he understands. I’m certain he understands.”

  My father looked around him as though he was searching for something. Then he saw me and said, “Isam, go get the letter from inside.”

  I looked at him and found myself rising slowly and turning toward the door. Perhaps interpreting my hesitation as due to forgetfulness, he said, “You’ll find the letter in the parlor. On the table, as I remember.”

  I turned back once more, looked at my father, and said in hollow tones, “I tore it up.”

  “What?” shouted my father, his eyes dilating. I felt I was sliding toward the end, so I said, deliberately and slowly, “I tore the letter up.”

  It was more than he could take. He leaped up and came toward me. He came so close that I could feel the heat of his panting breath on my face. I was expecting him to slap me but he suddenly turned around and shouted, “You’re insane! Totally insane! You tore up the letter, you madman?”

  He seemed to have nothing more to say, and he started moving, turning, and shouting out the same words, while Uncle Anwar went to him and took hold of him to calm him down and I stood and watched what was happening. I didn’t feel fear or regret. My consciousness had been disconnected. I could see my father and Anwar and the people sitting there and they looked to me like undefined, floating shapes. When I came to, I heard my father saying, “Do you hear what I say? Get out of my sight, God damn you!”

  Silence reigned for a moment and I heard Uncle Anwar whisper to my father, “That’s not the way, Abduh. You’re making too much of it.”

  The voice of my mother, low and insistent, buzzed in my ears as I crossed the hallway: “What a thing to do, Isam! Tear up the letter? Couldn’t you see how happy it made your father? And you go and tear it up?”

  I paid no attention to her. I went on to my room and closed the door behind me. Then I sat down calmly at the desk, lit the lamp, took out a book, and started reviewing. I can still remember that the chapter that I read that night was “Osmotic Pressure”: fluids move through the semi-permeable membrane and the exchange of fluids in either direction comes to an end when the pressure around the membrane is equalized. My father, Uncle Anwar, el-Ghamdi, the letter, and Farghal’s beautiful handwriting—all these came into my mind from time to time as I read, like disconnected images that shone and then died out, but they didn’t upset me. When I’m taken by surprise by something, my mind records its details precisely and it takes a little while before my rational faculties put everything in order again; that’s when I react strongly. My reaction may be powerful, but it’s delayed. I stopped reviewing at about three in the morning, and I could hear a distant din coming from the studio—voices, laughter, and music. I had undressed, put on my pajamas, and was ready to go to sleep when I heard heavy footsteps in the corridor, my father’s footsteps. He drummed with his fingers on the door. I didn’t answer. He opened the door slowly, peered in, smiled, and entered. I remained where I was, standing in front of the bed, and he approached and threw himself into the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him; from his face, whose details were illumined by the light of the desk lamp, he appeared to be both comp
letely intoxicated and tired. A moment passed, and I sat down slowly on the bed. Suddenly my father said, “What time do you have lectures tomorrow?”

  I replied, “Twelve o’clock.”

  Then he said, as though the times of the lectures were what really concerned him, “Excellent. You have a little time to sleep so that tomorrow you can go off refreshed.”

  Silence returned and I felt a sudden irritation and wished that my father would go and leave me alone, but he yawned and said, “You know, Isam, I’m very optimistic about your future. I’m sure you’ll be a great scientist. I sense that you love your studies. Don’t you love chemistry?”

  There was a tone to his voice that increased my irritation but he continued, “I’m sure you love chemistry. How else could you be doing so well? The important thing, though, champ, is just to see it through. Right! Not just get your baccalaureate and take it easy. You have to get your PhD. In my day, the baccalaureate was a big deal, but now! You have to have at least a PhD before you can say you really did something. And anyway, what else do you have to do? You’re not in a relationship with a girl and you’re not in a hurry to get married. Aren’t I right? Tell me. Tell me and don’t be shy.”

  My father let out a laugh, and his playfulness seemed embarrassing and heavy. He resumed, apparently determined to be jolly, “Even if there is a girl on your mind, you can still go on with your studies. In fact, an early marriage might even motivate you to work harder. The important thing is that you shouldn’t have any ambitions in the arts field. Art is the only thing I’m afraid of. You know, Isam, when I abandoned my studies, I didn’t think for a minute. I felt I was doing something very natural. I have no regrets, of course. I’ve never regretted giving my life to art. I was incapable of imagining myself as anything else. True, things were often against me but I did what I had to. Before the Revolution I used to work at three newspapers, and people used to read and understand and compare. Any new artist who came up, people would see him and judge his talent. After nationalization, it became just a matter of earning a living. Sometimes it seems to me that neither people have the desire to laugh nor artists the desire to produce. The whole thing’s turned into just a matter of doing what you have to. You draw a joke and you know it’s stupid and people read it and know it’s stupid, but they read it.”

  I prepared myself to ask my father to leave but couldn’t.

  “Did you see Shakir’s cartoon in al-Ahram today?”*

  “No.”

  “You have to see it. It’s very strange. I don’t what’s happened to Shakir—has he gone nuts or what? Do you know what he drew today? A sun’s disc with two lines coming out of it that he’d twisted round each other and underneath he’d written ‘Knitting.’ Get how dumb that is? It’s supposed to be a joke and people expect to laugh when they read it. Laugh at what? At the artist’s stupidity, of course. But Mr. Shakir is of course a well-known artist and al-Ahram pays him eight hundred pounds a month. Even if he turned in a few scribbles, no one could say anything. No, what matters is that Shakir thinks he’s a great artist and if you run into him at the Journalists’ Syndicate he pretends not to know you, or he’ll remember you after a while and say, ‘My dear friend! Please excuse me, but you’ve changed a lot and you know what my mind’s like!’ Of course, he doesn’t try that stuff with me, of all people. He comes right over to me and minds his manners.”

  I couldn’t stand it any more so I jumped up. My father seemed taken aback. There was a moment of silence. Then he got up from his chair and said as he turned to go out, just as though we’d just come to the end of an ordinary conversation on an ordinary night,

  “Right. Well, I’ll leave you to get some sleep. Good night.”

  He took some steps toward the door. I hung my head and looked at the interwoven colors of the design on the carpet and for a moment was overcome by an obscure feeling that my father hadn’t left the room and that he’d come over to me—and when I raised my eyes, there he was standing in front of me, and he stretched out his hand without speaking, put it on my shoulder, looked at me for a moment, and then said, “I’m sorry, Isam.”

  When your father is a weak sick old man who clings onto your hand as you walk down the street next to him, leaning his weight on you for fear of falling over, and the passersby stare at your father’s infirmity and examine you with curious glances that come to rest on your face, how are you likely to feel? You may feel embarrassed at your father’s weakness and you may exaggerate your display of concern so as to garner appreciative looks, or you may talk nastily and cruelly to him because you love him and are sad for his sake and you want him to go back to being the way he was, strong and capable.

  Life comes out on Wednesdays and I went to the news vendor in front of the mosque to buy it but he didn’t know of it, and I went to another vendor, in Giza Square, and to a third, and a fourth, and I took a bus to Suleiman Pasha Square and went to the big newsstand there and when the vendor approached me I asked him with a show of indifference, “Have you ever heard of a magazine called Life?”

  I spoke to him like this because every time a vendor denied the existence of the magazine for which my father drew, I felt embarrassed and sad. I was expecting that this one wouldn’t know it either and my seemingly indifferent question reduced my embarrassment and placed me and the vendor on the same side—as though I too, in spite of my question, was denying that any such magazine existed. The vendor, however, and to my surprise, knew it and said, “Fifteen piasters.”

  I felt relieved and paid the price, and I took the magazine and searched on the last page until I found my father’s name. There was a small square with, at the bottom, the signature “Abd el-Ati.” On the way home, I studied the cartoon. When I got to the house it was two o’clock in the afternoon and my father was still asleep, so I opened the door to his room and entered quietly. Then I swept aside the heavy black curtains and light flooded the space. My father opened his eyes and noticed me, and I said, smiling, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Isam. What time is it?”

  I told him the time and he yawned, stretched his hand out to the bedside table, picked up a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a drag that turned into a fit of coughing. I took up a chair, came close, and sat myself in front of him, the magazine in my hand. Tapping it, I said, laughing, “Happy now, my dear sir? That cartoon you did today almost got me sent to the police station!”

  Taken aback, my father asked what I meant, so I told him, “No big deal. I got into a fight with a friend of mine over what the cartoon meant.” As I said this I straightened the edge of the carpet with my foot so that I seemed to be speaking about something quite incidental and ordinary that happened all the time.

  “Good heavens! You got into a fight?” my father asked me in amazement.

  “I want to ask you first. The man in the cartoon today, isn’t he supposed to be Anwar Sadat?”

  My father responded, “Yes. Absolutely.”

  I let out my breath as though relieved and said, “So I was right.”

  My father pulled himself up, rested his back against the head of the bed, and said, worry starting to appear in his eyes, “What’s the story?”

  “No big deal. As you know, they read Life at the university, so every Wednesday I have to have this quarrel with my friends. They all look at your cartoon and then they keep pestering me with questions about ‘Does your father mean So-and-so or So-and-so?’ Today, especially, if the drawing hadn’t been Anwar Sadat, the meaning would have changed completely.”

  My father asked me, as he put on his glasses and looked anxiously at the drawing, “Aren’t the features clear?”

  I answered emphatically, “Of course. They’re very clear. But this friend of mine, he’s a communist and you know what adolescents the communists are. He insists you’re a rightist and would never attack Sadat in your cartoons.”

  Thus I initiated a long discussion with my father on a topic over which we always disagreed, and which I knew well,
even though he sometimes got angry with me and attacked me, made him happy. And in the evening, my father would complain about me to his friends, telling them about his discussion with me and describing me as being—like all my generation—irritable and conceited, and then insert rapidly into the middle of what he was saying, “Just imagine, everyone! Isam tells me that they read Life at the university and that his colleagues got into a fight with him over today’s cartoon.”

  Having slipped this sentence in, my father would quickly finish what he was saying, and I could almost feel his anxiety lest anyone disagree with him or call him a liar.

  It was summer and Ramadan, and the university was on vacation. Neither I nor my father fasted but we respected my mother’s feelings and observed the Ramadan regime—breaking fast at sunset, eating again before sunrise. I had spent the night with my friends at el-Fishawi’s café, which was crowded and noisy, and returned to the house at three in the morning. My father and mother were seated at the table. My mother was eating her predawn meal and my father was busy devouring a plate of cookies, with tea. I divined, from the looseness of his lips, his vacant look, and the way the crumbs dribbled onto his gallabiya, that he had been smoking hashish. I exchanged a few words with them in passing, then went into my room, and leafed through the newspapers for the coming day, which I had bought in el-Hussein. Then I slept and woke up in the morning to find someone frantically shaking my body. I opened my eyes and found my mother beating her cheeks and pulling at me to get up. I ran after her to my father’s room. He lay naked on the bed and looked as though he was asleep, except that a mumbling sound was coming from his mouth and a feeble movement made his huge body tremble. There was an expression on his face that looked as though he was being pursued by a nightmare from which he was trying, unsuccessfully, to awake. My mother wailed out, “See your father, Isam!”