Read Online The Penguin's Song by Hassan Daoud, Translated by Marilyn Booth - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Hassan Daoud, Translated by Marilyn Booth
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register the degree to which his eyesight had left him. Some time after we moved to this place of ours my father began to expand the circle in the air inside of which he set his shop; then he would let his finger drop to the point he judged as the center of the circle. Is that where our shop is? he would ask, making it sound like an earnest question, even if he didnât seem to care much about what the response would be. The colossus of dust rising from a felled building would not be visible to him until it was very high, and then it would appear to him suddenly as a dirty cloud in the intensely blue sky.
Where have they gotten to now? he would ask, getting me to describe for him what I could see of their work down there. When I answered that they were working at the lowest edge on the eastern side of the city he would start naming names, some of which I didnât know. You mean Bukhari Rise, he would say, identifying the spot I had described. Or are they in the Mansions Quarter? He wanted to sound as though he knew every inch of that territory. So, what are they working at down there? he would ask meâyet again. I would have to tell him what the bulldozers and trucks I could see were doing, where they were stopping before they converged into one mass, performing some task that I could not make out.
Theyâre still knocking down buildings, I would tell him. Or I would say that they were close to finishing in this district, since only a few buildings still remained for them to knock down.
As I described what I saw he would begin to sketch outlines, plans for what they ought to do as they worked there. They will join up the Nouriyya souq and the Amir mosque, he would declare, since theyâre destroying whatâs left of the buildings between them. Or he would say that it would have been better for them to begin with the structures at the edge of the souq so they could clear a path for themselves from there to the sea. When this enthusiasm for giving advice and correcting errors and reworking plans got a firm hold on him, he would suddenly turn to me and remark of my mother (who was staring at the little stitches her needles made) that she was working with wool in the height of summer. She would hear him, but rather than answer she would look at me with a sly smile as if to remind me that we had a secret understanding, knowing to keep quiet about his tiresome drivel. That will put burns on your hands, he would announce as he turned to her, wanting to put a stop to the collusion heâd noticed between us, and to sweep it away altogether.
It comforts her to work her hands by moving them in those tiny and regular movements. The routine diverts her. A little upward movement with one hand, ending in a knot that her other hand flies up to conceal. As her hand sweeps upward she senses herself in a light and cheery mood, the way little girls feel when they amuse themselves by chewing gum. In the years since our move, my mother grew used to having us stay at home and she began shifting from one mode to another throughout the long day. Sitting down in the late afternoon, hair and clothes patted into place, she had the air of having just returned from somewhere else. Or she looked as though she had been readying herself to receive guests whom she knew would not show up. My father thought that this daily ritual she had, of sitting like this in her good clothes, demonstrated that she was empty-headed. She just went on smiling for no apparent reasonâsince nothing called for a smileâand she seemed so like a child, humming to herself in a low and light voice or staring at the space between the needles as if to toy with the stitch that had slipped between them. He thought she was featherbrained and childish, sitting there just so in the late afternoon, but he didnât say anything about it or even hint at it. It showed, though, in the way he looked at her and then turned away like someone who has seen
Where have they gotten to now? he would ask, getting me to describe for him what I could see of their work down there. When I answered that they were working at the lowest edge on the eastern side of the city he would start naming names, some of which I didnât know. You mean Bukhari Rise, he would say, identifying the spot I had described. Or are they in the Mansions Quarter? He wanted to sound as though he knew every inch of that territory. So, what are they working at down there? he would ask meâyet again. I would have to tell him what the bulldozers and trucks I could see were doing, where they were stopping before they converged into one mass, performing some task that I could not make out.
Theyâre still knocking down buildings, I would tell him. Or I would say that they were close to finishing in this district, since only a few buildings still remained for them to knock down.
As I described what I saw he would begin to sketch outlines, plans for what they ought to do as they worked there. They will join up the Nouriyya souq and the Amir mosque, he would declare, since theyâre destroying whatâs left of the buildings between them. Or he would say that it would have been better for them to begin with the structures at the edge of the souq so they could clear a path for themselves from there to the sea. When this enthusiasm for giving advice and correcting errors and reworking plans got a firm hold on him, he would suddenly turn to me and remark of my mother (who was staring at the little stitches her needles made) that she was working with wool in the height of summer. She would hear him, but rather than answer she would look at me with a sly smile as if to remind me that we had a secret understanding, knowing to keep quiet about his tiresome drivel. That will put burns on your hands, he would announce as he turned to her, wanting to put a stop to the collusion heâd noticed between us, and to sweep it away altogether.
It comforts her to work her hands by moving them in those tiny and regular movements. The routine diverts her. A little upward movement with one hand, ending in a knot that her other hand flies up to conceal. As her hand sweeps upward she senses herself in a light and cheery mood, the way little girls feel when they amuse themselves by chewing gum. In the years since our move, my mother grew used to having us stay at home and she began shifting from one mode to another throughout the long day. Sitting down in the late afternoon, hair and clothes patted into place, she had the air of having just returned from somewhere else. Or she looked as though she had been readying herself to receive guests whom she knew would not show up. My father thought that this daily ritual she had, of sitting like this in her good clothes, demonstrated that she was empty-headed. She just went on smiling for no apparent reasonâsince nothing called for a smileâand she seemed so like a child, humming to herself in a low and light voice or staring at the space between the needles as if to toy with the stitch that had slipped between them. He thought she was featherbrained and childish, sitting there just so in the late afternoon, but he didnât say anything about it or even hint at it. It showed, though, in the way he looked at her and then turned away like someone who has seen
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