Read Online That Smell and Notes From Prison by Sonallah Ibrahim - Free Book Online

the son’s
wife encouraged her children to rip his clothes and hide his shoes and make a
mess in his room. My cousin said, He’ll drink up the shilling. My sister said,
When he visits his daughter she leaves him in the living room and shuts her
bedroom door on him. My cousin said, He’ll spend the day drinking and begging
from all his relatives.
    Many years ago in that same room, my aunt sat in her white
veil on the sofa, smoking, and next to her my father was still panting from the
stairs and the heat. He used a handkerchief to wipe his bald head, fringed with
white hairs. The cook came in and my aunt took out her purse and gave him a
guinea and the cook left. My father said something and she shook her head. My
father got up and walked toward the north-facing room out onto the veranda and
lit his black cigarette and leaned his elbows on the veranda’s ledge and
smoked.
    My sister said that Nihad was engaged to a director in the public
sector. She told my cousin about the relative of Nihad who’d asked me if I was
the son of the man with the pointed mustache and we laughed and my sister said
Nihad’s grandmother was sick and that her family couldn’t stand her. Before my
mother died she went months without leaving her bed and she would pee in it, my
cousin said. And my sister said that the wife of another cousin had had a
miscarriage in her sixth month. Lucky her, I said. My sister got mad at me and
told me I had no feelings. She said I was the only one who wouldn’t be able to
come to her wedding because it would be after sunset. And she said that her
friend Husniyya would get married a week after her and then Husniyya’s uncle
would go back home. And she said that Husniyya’s uncle had lived with Husniyya
since he left his wife. And she said that his wife never took off her mourning
clothes, that according to him even her underclothes were black. My cousin’s dog
approached me, wagging his head. I put my hand down to pet him and he
immediately went to sleep on his back and peed all over the floor. They said
that was how he was these days, as soon as he slept on his back, he peed. I went
home and undressed and prepared a cup of tea and sat down and read a book about
Van Gogh. I must have dozed off, because I imagined that I met my father. He
seemed tired. He sat cross-legged on his bed, frowning. I didn’t know what to
say to him. It had been a long time since I tried to see him. He had been there
the whole time, but I didn’t think to visit. I woke up suddenly at the sound of
the doorbell. I got up and opened it. It was the policeman. I went and got my
notebook and he signed it and left and I went back to my room and turned off the
light and lit a cigarette and stretched out on the bed, thinking of my
father.
    It was night and my father was screaming with pain. I wanted
to sleep and so when they took him to the hospital I stayed at home by myself
and was happy. When I went to see him, I was shocked by the look in his eyes.
They were wide and anxious and he asked why I’d taken so long. That was as much
as he had to say to me. Read to me, he said. I sat on the chair next to him and
he rolled over and I picked up a magazine and read to him. After a little while,
I leaned over to see his eyes. They were shut. I stopped reading. But then he
opened them and said, I’m not done yet, and I read some more. I felt a headache
coming on and soon I stopped. He opened his eyes. I went on reading. Finally he
said, That’s enough, you can go. I left quickly, with a sigh of relief. He
didn’t ask anything from me after that and I didn’t have to see the fear in his
eyes. When they brought him home, they carried him from the car to the bed. My
brother changed all the seat covers in his place for a darker color, which I
didn’t understand. When the blood ran out of my father’s mouth my brother went
downstairs to look for a jar, then returned breathing heavily and said, I looked
everywhere. Then he threw himself on the