The Collar and the Bracelet: An Egyptian Novel

Chapter One

The Absent One

With the men, Mustafa departed for the Sudan while still a boy. A year passed, and the twelfth month of the second year came to its end without news of the absent beloved.

Hazina’s Thoughts, a Mother’s Heart

Hazina’s thoughts are with her son, there, in faraway lands. Her right ear—the one that hears—is here with the cooing doves that cry, He is the Lord of Creation! The light deserted her right eye two years ago. Her left eye watches: Bikhit al-Bishari stretched out on the stone bench that circles the trunk of the doum tree. (At the end of those long years that had passed like a boat lifted from a spot of sun and deposited in a spot of shade, he took to gazing at the sun as it raced through the sky and shouting at times, I want the sun! and at others, I want the shade! Thus, all day long. Thus, the day passes. Thus, the days that make up a life pass. She and her daughter carry the boat from the sun to the shade and from the shade to the sun. He is her legally wedded husband and the father of Mustafa and Fahima.)

Her two hands stroke—here, the spindle which never ceases turning and gathering up the thread. Her thoughts are there, with the absent one in faraway foreign lands.

Bikhit al-Bishari in a Waking Monologue

The lamp oil burns low and the long, dark night approaches. Oh, these aches and pains of old age! Sleep eludes me and I can’t control my bladder anymore. Feeble-minded Hazina sees evil omens in an overturned shoe, in the breeze that carries off a garlic husk, in the foot that carelessly steps on a discarded crust of bread. It’s not her fault. She is a woman after all, and the men of the house are resigned to affliction. Her thoughts are with the boy and the boy is in distant Sudan. The boy’s heart is made of stone and I’m the invalid of the house. I want to sleep—I crave sleep. If I sleep a long, deep sleep without dreams or nightmares I’ll go straight up to the merciful God—I, the Muslim—and I’ll be rid of these aches and of this hateful life. I’ll go to heaven.

If I had some tobacco, I’d smoke to pass this leaden time that I can no longer bear.

Of the Wisdom of Night, Master of Villages

I

A shooting star fell through the lofty blue sky and flared out before reaching earth. If it were to touch man or beast or field or even jinn, they would be instantly transformed into cinder.

II

Mustafa is the younger by two and a half years but he is Fahima’s master: he beats her and she loves him. The mother does not object and the father does not object. Mustafa protects Fahima and instills the fear of disgrace in her. Mustafa is a man and Fahima is a girl. A girl is a long-trained white dress. She must gather up the hem of her dress and pick her way carefully along the muddy, refuse-strewn road.

The Girl is Anxious and Night is

the Friend of Reverie

She is the daughter of the mother and the father, and he is her brother. She loves him and he certainly returns that love. At first, she used to cry. As time passed, she began to provoke him into beating her. Then she would only pretend to cry, and she would hurl insults at him. And so the fire within him would spark and flare and his blows grow violent. His man-face would redden with warm pulsing blood and the veins of his neck dilate till they seemed on the point of exploding.

O Lord, protect us from his anger, he who used to climb Grabana the Christian’s date palm at night right under the nose of the sleeping watchman! Mustafa stole the dates and sold them to buy tobacco. Fahima never told Hazina, her mother, nor Bikhit, her father, that Mustafa smoked. And even now, they don’t know it. Mustafa is afraid of his mother and of his ailing father.

He used to swim in the irrigation canal with the other boys behind his parents’ back. They forbade him to swim in the canal. They feared that he would drown, or that a lovely sprite would steal his heart and lead him down into the blue deep.

He stripped and stood naked as on the day he was born. Fahima followed him secretly, without a word to her parents. Could she have spoken even if she so desired? And even now, neither he nor they know. He went outside, relieved himself, and came back into the house. Fahima crept along under veil of night. The mixture of urine and earth gave off the smell of rotted green sycamore fruit. Fahima would secretly sniff the odor of Mustafa’s sweat—the odor of the dirty clothes that had gathered up his body—before washing them.

And here is the girl, gazing up at her shooting star with trembling heart: how far away it is, that deep blue sky. And how terrifying you are in spite of the distance that separates us, my dear, absent brother.

The Sixth Month of the Third Year

The gypsy muttered something that set the rings in her nose and ears dancing, and she drew a cloth purse from her basket. She untied the purse, revealing a pile of sand and stones. Hazina offered her two eggs. Three, the gypsy said and grinned at Hazina. Her silver tooth shone. The girl is comely… like the full moon, she mumbled slyly. Hazina stared at the dancing rings, and she thought, I won’t let her steal my daughter away, this woman with no hearth of her own, child- and chicken-thief, mistress of trickery. I won’t let her steal my daughter. But she knows how to speak with the stones. Three eggs it is, she replied. Hmph!

What the Stones Said

and What the Gypsy Said

I see him. There he is. Come closer Mother, and look.

A train of black iron, throwing up smoke and dust and fields and houses and families.

And a ship rocked by water and sped by wind. The hills are black and the sand on either side is yellow. Kings walk the country. Sun passes through sky and water. In the water is a moon and in the sky is a moon: it’s the days and months, Auntie.

Rejoice, Mother! On the day of the eighth sun your boy-child set safe foot on land.

News

From the river Fahima returned. She struck the wooden door of the house with her foot and cried, Mother, Mother! Anger gripped Hazina. She heard the wooden door bang against the mud wall. She heard Fahima’s shouts and the clatter of the clay jar as it fell from Fahima’s head and shattered into pieces. The idiot, Hazina muttered. Al-Bishari kicked the covers off his face. Does the girl think she’s at market, howling over rotten produce? he shouted. What’s going on? Has the Day of Judgment come upon us?

A letter has arrived from Abd al-Hakam to his family, Fahima yelled.

The girl still thinks she’s at the market! Who’s this Abd al-Hakam, and what’s he got to do with us?

Abd al-Hakam is the son of Tafida, daughter of Ali, Mustafa’s companion in his exile, Hazina said.

You mean Abd al-Hakam Taha? Taha al-Hajjaj Muhammad’s son? Abd al-Hakam, son of Taha Muhammad? And then he asked, And Mustafa? What news of Mustafa?

Hazina looked at the broken jar and a shadow passed over her heart. This is the harbinger. She paused while putting on her outdoor cloak. I’ll go. I’ll find out from them.

Happy Tidings

In Abd al-Hakam’s letter to his family, there are greetings from Mustafa to his family. Now Hazina’s mind is at rest. She settled down with the women and with Tafida, daughter of Ali, mother of Abd al-Hakam. She ate dried dates, drank tea, and listened to five tons of talk about the men, about the letter, and about money (such daydreams!) and she repeated it all, parrot-like, to al-Bishari and Fahima.

They sleep in rows upon rows of tents. The good earth needs water. They dig canals and lay railroad tracks. Black soldiers who jabber in the tongue of the red Englishmen share their tents and their work. The men hear the distant howls of wild animals at night. The snakes are enormous, winged, their necks ringed with black collars, and scorpions also abound. Sudan is the land of saints and of the virtuous. Sudan is the land of magic and amulets and of the long-awaited Savior. Some of its people prefer human flesh, but they inhabit the forests far from the men.

Praise and Thanks Be to God

At Mansur al-Sadiq’s shop, Hazina bartered six eggs for a large packet of sweet tobacco emblazoned with a star. She took the packet and gave it to Yusuf Salim, Shaykh Musa’s collector of offerings. Hazina asked Yusuf Salim to give the packet of tobacco to the blessed shaykh and to ask him to pray for Mustafa’s safety in faraway foreign lands.

A Discussion

Bikhit al-Bishari said to Hazina, Yusuf Salim will keep the tobacco for himself, and he thought, A large packet of tobacco emblazoned with a star.

Bikhit al-Bishari wanted me to give him the tobacco, Hazina thought, so that he could order me to light the firewood and the girl to fill the pipe with water, so that he could set his pipe singing and blow smoke out of his mouth and nostrils like a real king. Yusuf Salim is a good man.

Yusuf Salim is a good man, she said to Bikhit. The shaykh chose him from amongst the whole village to be his deputy. He didn’t choose you, did he?

Bikhit al-Bishari contemplated Hazina. He knew her inside and out from long intimacy. Hazina is a troublemaker. Now she’s after my bones. She wants to dig her claws into my flesh. I’m the man of the house. When I was young and strong I knew how to shut her up. When night falls, I’ll weep under my covers. If Hazina or Fahima wake up from the noise, I’ll scream at them, ‘Leave me alone! I’m mourning my affliction. Let me be!’

Shaykh Musa is a blessed man, Fahima said in order to break the silence between the mother and the father. She thought to herself, "When he was the same age as me he threw his cloak onto the water and it floated. He sat on it and crossed the river from east to west and back again, then he put it