Voices Read online

  This book made available by the Internet Archive.

  Introduction

  Born in the eastern region of the Nile delta in 1929, Soleiman Fayyad published his first collection of short stories in Cairo in 1961, five years after obtaining a degree from Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Over the course of his career he has published eight volumes of short stories and the novel, Voices, as well as several children's books and dictionaries of Arabic grammar and usage.

  Beyond these bare facts, the task of introducing Fayyad and his work is difficult since both the man and the work tend to slip between the epochs, themes and styles which exemplify traditional categorizations of

  modern Egyptian literature. Fayyad was born after the two standard bearers of the generation traditionally credited with laying the foundation for contemporary Egyptian narrative — Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel Prize winning novelist, and Yusuf Idriss, usually considered the father of the modern Egyptian short story. At the same time, he is older than many of the writers associated with Egypt's 'generation of the sixties', a group whose intellectual formation was dramatically influenced by the coming to power of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the country's subsequent two and a half decades of confrontation with Israel and the West. Like many of the younger generation of writers, Fayyad was a student when Nasser led the free officers in a revolt against British interests which eventually led to the abdication and exile of King Farouk in July of 1952. He began writing at the zenith of Nasser's popularity and had become a skilled writer by the time of Nasser's great defeat in 1967.

  This means that politics in general, and Western hegemony in particular, were as important a theme for Fayyad as for other writers who developed intellectually in Nasser's Egypt. In fact, in 1969 Fayyad published a volume of short fiction directly in response to the defeat of'67.

  But it should be made clear that Fayyad's reputation has grown from less overtly political material. His intense interest in rural Egypt is more characteristic of early writers like Muhammad Hussein Haykal, Tawfik al-Hakim, or Abdel Rahman al-Sharqawi, and his precise depictions of the psychological makeup of his char-

  acters rivals some of the finest work of Mahfouz and Idriss.

  If then the author could be defined as a writer who slips between the categories, his novel Voices is an equally uncategorizable book. First written in 1972 after a brief visit to East Germany, marking the author's first trip outside the Arab world, Voices was revised by Fayyad in 1977 and again in 1990 and is his only novel, his most popular and (by any imaginable measure) his best work. It combines all of the themes mentioned above — the East-West confrontation, rural Egypt, and psychological emphasis — to create a work which flies in the face of Arabic literature's conventional wisdoms.

  When the police commissioner refers in the final pages of the novel to two other well known Egyptian novels, Yahya Haqqi's The Saint's Lamp and Al-Hakim's Bird from the East, he is invoking a well-worn novelistic genre which takes the clash between Orient and Occident as its subject matter. Both these novels (and many others like them) tell the story of a young Egyptian male who travels to Europe on a voyage of discovery. These novels inevitably end up asserting through their events the ethical superiority of the East over the technologically advanced but morally decadent West.

  Structurally, Voices is the exact converse of these novels. Instead of an Arab male travelling to Europe, a French woman comes to Egypt; instead of seeing everything through the eyes of this central figure, we see nothing through her eyes; instead of everything leading to resolution, everything leads only to bitterness. Could it be that after what happened in 1967 the Egyptian

  intelligentsia found no solace in being morally superior but technologically backward? Or that the whole idea of this moral superiority had become meaningless?

  The English reader should not overlook the way the novel reinforces this theme of East-West conflict by deftly working into the background references to virtually every French military venture in Egypt since recorded history began. The first of these references occurs in the penultimate section of the first chapter when the village Omda makes an extended reference to Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. French forces occupied the country from 1798 to 1801, but despite the brevity of the occupation, its impact on Egyptian society was dramatic and long-lasting. Supposedly, Egyptians saw their language printed for the first time when the French troops distributed handbills printed on an Arabic press which Napoleon had brought with him. For this and other reasons, traditionalist critics often argue that the event marked the beginning of a modern literary renaissance in Egypt after 1801. The French who stayed behind after Napoleon's departure and assimilated into Egyptian society, generally did so in the villages in the eastern half of the Nile delta, where Voices is set.

  The subtext of Franco-Egyptian conflict is thrown even further back at the beginning of the third Section when Simone and Mahmoud Ibn al-Munsi visit the museum and house of Ibn-Luqman in the town of Mansura in the eastern delta region. Here the reference is to the final offensive of the crusades initiated by an attack on Egypt led by the French King Louis IX in the summer of 1249. In the spring of 1250 French forces were

  defeated; Louis was taken prisoner and jailed in Man-sura. There he was held in the house of the secretary, Fakhr ad-Din Ibn-Luqman and guarded by a Eunuch named Sabih Al-Mu'azzami who, some legends say, castrated the king about whom medieval poet Jamal ad-Din Ibn-Yahya wrote the lines of poetry quoted in that passage. Several weeks later French forces agreed to leave Egypt, and their king was released.

  When Simone and the Egyptian student, Mahmoud Ibn al-Munsi, discuss the crusade during the visit, the apparent nonchalance of the Frenchwoman contrasts with the hypersensitivity of the young Egyptian, and at this point (as throughout the novel) psychology and politics meet.

  I would be remiss if I didn't thank several friends: Abbas al-Tonsi, Mohamed Aboul-Ela, Jean Aboul-Ela, Ayman El- Desouky, Chris Hudson and Robert Macdonald who provided help of various types. I would also like to thank Marion Boyars Publishers for their encouragement and assistance; and I would particularly like to thank the author for the honor of being associated with this story, which — as the reader is about to see — could hardly be more powerful.

  Table of Narrators

  THE MAAMUR: police commissioner from the nearest metropolitan area responsible for security and other administrative functions in an area including the village of Darawish.

  MAHMOUD IBN AL-MUNSI: advanced high school student, famous throughout the village for his precocious intellect.

  AHMED AL-BAHAIRI: village shopkeeper whose life is overturned by the return of his long lost elder brother from France.

  THE OMDA: appointed administrative chief of the village, usually chosen from the village's most propertied (and thus most politically powerful) family.

  HAMID AL-BAHAIRI: native son of Darawish whose entire adult life has been spent in France.

  UM AHMED: mother of Ahmed and Hamid. 'Urn' means 'mother of and is often used in rural areas and among the urban working-class with the name of the first-born

  son instead of the mother's own name. Because of Hamid's disappearance in childhood she has taken the name of her remaining son.

  ZEINAB: wife of Ahmed.

  THE RETURN

  The Maamur

  The time was precisely 10 o'clock. I sat at my desk and unfastened the top buttons of my shirt to dry my perspiration and relieve my suffering from the smothering humidity. The soldier brought me my morning coffee, and I began to drink it leisurely as I ran my eyes through my favorite morning paper, then scrutinized the presiding officer's reports regarding yesterday's incidents. I didn't find anything worthy of my attention: just the usual petty crimes that happen every day and that I was more than used to. They barely aroused
my curiosity now. I closed the file and leaned my cheek against my fist — elbow propped against the arm of my chair — and

  let my thoughts wander through various and sundry trivialities.

  Then the soldier opened the door again, pushed it shut behind him and clicked his heels together. It was not time for the mail yet, but he thrust toward me an envelope that looked, from its shape and the rectangular cellophane window containing my name and official title, like a telegram. I felt a sudden anxiety, expecting some sort of problem, the kind I'm always watching out for whenever I see a telegram. But I feigned composure and waved away the soldier, who promptly left me free to tear the envelope open. I shifted into a state of extreme attention and began to feel as though I were waking suddenly from a long nap. The telegram had been sent from Europe: Paris to be precise. I double checked to be sure that it really was addressed to me and had not come by mistake, then was overcome by an uncontrollable curiosity about its contents. It read:

  MR MAAMUR

  I HOPE THAT YOU CAN HELP ME IN SEARCHING FOR WHOEVER OF MY FAMILY IS STILL ALIVE STOP I LEFT MY VILLAGE DARAWISH THIRTY YEARS AGO AT AGE TEN STOP GOD BLESSED ME OVER THE YEARS STOP I CAME TO PARIS AND BECAME WEALTHY STOP NOW FEEL A DEEP YEARNING TO SEE FAMILY AND HOME AND LEND A HELPING HAND IF I CAN STOP MY NAME IS HAMID MUSTAFA AL-BAHAIRI YOU WILL FIND MY FAMILY IS KNOWN IN DARAWISH STOP PLEASE SEND ALL INFORMATION I NEED AT ABOVE ADDRESS BY TELE-

  GRAM TO ME AND HOPE WE WILL BECOME FRIENDS WHEN WE MEET END

  According to the dates on it, the telegram had been sent from Paris a week ago and arrived in Cairo the same day on which it was sent. I imagined that my successful and rich fellow countryman was deeply worried by now and possibly even becoming desperate. Normally, I would have disregarded any such personal matter, falling as it does outside the spheres of my professional or personal obligations, but this matter seemed to me to be important, perhaps even urgent. Hamid Mustafa Al-Bahairi was not an ordinary person. Surely here was a citizen more deserving of my attention than any other. For me his social status made him worthy of interest, especially in my capacity as keeper of public safety.

  I leaped from my chair and proceeded to attend personally to this extraordinary matter; a matter in which I felt I must be involved if only to secure the safety of a person of note and to insure a safe and happy outcome to the whole affair. Such a result would no doubt help my own cause, too. I trusted no one else with this affair. I could not send someone else to call on the Omda of Darawish and acquire from him the needed information. I ordered my soldier to prepare my official private car and accompany me to Darawish. Soon, the two of us and our driver were flying toward the village over a pock-marked country road.

  Mahmoud Ibn Al-Munsi

  Suddenly, and with no warning, our world was turned upside-down before our very eyes, within our very minds. A stroke of fate fell unexpectedly, coming from the unknown, out of that dark and mysterious world beyond our vision and above our intellects. The sun still rose and set at its appointed time; the stars still came out at night, trailing after one another. Birds still fluttered their wings with the rise and set of the sun, and the tips of the trees and plants shook around us with each gust of wind. Babies had been born that morning, and people of all ages and both sexes had died, in our village and all neighboring villages, from As-Siyalla to Kafr Al-Liban.

  Life went on as always. Bathwater and dishwater mixed with sweat and soap ran down the alleys and side-streets, spreading flies in its wake, and attracting the bills of ducks, hens' beaks, and geese. Donkeys brayed, dogs barked, and livestock clamored for their feed as children splashed in puddles of shallow water — flowing from the bodies of their bathing fathers — and from their mothers, who took their daughters up on the rooftops or in front of the houses and ran gasoline through their hair to kill lice and then combed it out with white or black combs made locally from animal bones. At each new dawn, the muezzin of the Mosque summoned the faithful to the dark and musty-smelling house of prayer following with the seasons the progress of the sun across the sky, and when, at night, some unknown stars shone, he announced the hours of darkness, of sleep, of sex and dreams. And then everything began again when, next morning, the women took off their soiled colored night clothes and dressed themselves in black for the day, and covered their heads and necks with light black shawls.

  Everything happened just as it always had. Before this unexpected shock befell our village, everything had appeared natural in our eyes — familiar to our minds. This was life and there was no other life outside of it. It had accustomed us to people living and dying around us as well as to their hearty laughs and their faint groans, their careless smiles and concerned frowns. But now, even before anything tangible and material appeared for our eyes to inspect and our hands to grasp, we began to look toward this new awe-inspiring thing coming toward us, descending upon our village from above. We fell

  under its force in our feelings of backwardness and shame, our breathless anticipation, and our fear that we might see ourselves with new eyes. . . And that the Other might see us. That Other coming from a world ever unknown to us all, notwithstanding that small percentage of villagers who read the papers or peered through atlases and geography books with trachoma-stricken and night-blind eyes on the steps of the school classrooms in the nearest town. Now, I myself began to live with this new and coming thing. I awaited its arrival from Paris and forgot all possibility of my success or failure in the exams for my high school diploma. We could no longer have any conversation in our village unless it was about Hamid Ibn-Mustafa Al-Bahairi, our amazing and adventurous favorite son and worker of wonders.

  We had been sitting at the coffeehouse near the bridge, playing cards, backgammon and dominoes. Buses, service cabs, horse-drawn carts, and private cars moved briskly past, heading north and south over the paved but cracked agricultural highway that was full of bumps and potholes and thirsting for a rinse and a new layer of asphalt. Then suddenly and unceremoniously, we found the messenger from the telegraph office pulling up beside us. Of course, by now we had already uttered under our breaths all the expectations, fantasies and dreams that could be whispered about Hamid Ibn-Mustafa Al-Bahairi. The messenger stepped off his bicycle and leaned it back on its stand. He extended an empty hand demanding a one pound tip from Ahmed Ibn-Mustafa Al-Bahairi, brother of Hamid and village greengrocer,

  who had left his shop in the care of his teenage son to come over and sit playing backgammon with us at the coffeehouse. Ahmed scoffed at the messenger until he defiantly waved the telegram in his other hand.

  'It's a telegram for you from Paris, Mister Ahmed.'

  'Paris?' Ahmed asked after swallowing hard.

  He jumped up as though he were frightened. He appeared dazed, alarmed and giddy all at the same time. Snatching away the telegram anxiously, he opened it and ran his eyes impotently over its words, momentarily forgetting his virtual illiteracy. After a moment, he stopped and began threatening to beat the messenger to death for no apparent reason as we laughed and shouted in open mockery, 'Telegram! From Paris! For Ahmed Al-Bahairi?'

  'Hand it to me,' I called out and proceeded to read it in a high voice while everyone listened silently as though we were in the presence of the Maamur or gathered before the prayer niche of the Mosque.

  DEAR MOTHER BROTHER AHMED

  I AM ALIVE AND WELL STOP MARRIED WITH SON AND DAUGHTER STOP COMING TO VISIT YOU ALL BUT FOR ONLY TWO WEEKS DUE TO MUCH WORK HERE STOP AM SENDING TWO THOUSAND POUNDS BY TELEGRAM FOR CONSTRUCTION OF LARGE HOUSE NEAR BRIDGE IN CONSULTATION WITH ARCHITECT TO ACCOMMODATE MY PARISIAN WIFE DURING TWO WEEK STAY STOP YOU MAY PICK UP MONEY IMMEDIATELY AT TELEGRAPH OFFICE STOP I YEARN TO SEE YOU ALL AND SIMONE YEARNS TO MEET YOU STOP I THINK YOU WILL LOVE

  HER MUCH AS SHE WILL LOVE YOU ESPECIALLY IF YOUR BEARING AND DEMEANOR TOWARD HER ARE GENTLE STOP UNTIL WE MEET MY DEARS. . .

  One phrase hung in our minds and we all began to repeat it excitedly; 'I am sending you two thousand pounds'. We asked eac
h other how two thousand pounds could possibly be sent like a wireless telegram. The messenger interrupted asking again for his due. Ahmed snatched the telegram from my hands and moved toward the doorway. He looked indescribably happy . . . not only about his brother but also about the two thousand pounds. When he seemed to be about to rush off to tell his mother the news, the messenger called after him again for his tip, even if it were only ten piastres. Ahmed stopped suddenly and stared for a moment, first toward town, then toward the bicycle, then came running back toward us shouting at the messenger to take him back into town while it was still mid-morning so he could claim his two thousand pounds before someone discovered a mistake in the telegram. The messenger protested at first, but when Ahmed promised to give him his pound upon claiming his money at the telegraph office, the messenger helped him onto the back of the bicycle and sped off with him toward the north, in the direction of the town.

  Then, a gray old man, whom death had given a long reprieve, spoke thusly: 'Hamid Ibn-Mustafa stole five piastres thirty years ago from his father, God rest his soul. His deceased father at that time beat him and

  kicked him out of the house. . . The young man took it hard and never returned.'

  But we were not really interested in wondering at the ways of the world. Something else was spinning in our minds. We were thinking of going and telling Hamid's mother the news. Except for a few people who were unconcerned by the matter or were just plain cold-hearted, the coffeehouse promptly emptied. We crowded through the doorway, in a rush.

  For two whole weeks, the impending visit of Hamid and Simone would be uppermost in our minds.

  Ahmed Al-Bahairi

  I had never seen my brother's face. I was born several years after him according to my mother and the village elders. My mother, who had grown senile, and my father, who had died of dropsy, had found in me a replacement for that long lost son, and the others who'd died both before and after him.