not to ask questions of the others.
Farther off, resting against a tree, the blind man was worried, too. He wondered what had happened to Sit Samya. Why was Sit Rachida shouting? It was impossible to make out what she was yelling over and over again.
The people were crowding into the house now while Rachida bent even further over the balcony to watch them push inside. She heard them coming up the stairs, shoving against one another as they climbed.
As soon as they reach the room Rachida will be able to collapse.
“If I had known! If I had known!” she will repeat over and over again. “I would have given up my walk. I would have given up petting the calf! I wouldn’t have bothered checking the locks!”
The steps were narrow. The men and women were jostling and pushing one another.
Her hands pressed against her breast, Ammal came forward, murmuring, I only hope nothing has happened to Sit Samya!:She tried to push through the people. She wanted to get to Sit Samya before the others, to save her. But to save her from what?
The clamor was becoming louder and more brutal. Maybe they would forget that the bannister was rickety. Maybe the stairs would collapse, and they would all fall. Maybe, too, there would be no stairway any longer. Rachida will stop screaming, and a person will finally be able to get some sleep.
But if they do reach the room, she will seize the past and hold it up between them and herself, creating of the past a watertight compartment. She will summon up the past and watch it unroll behind her as one follows a vanishing landscape through the window of a moving train. The past, she must recapture it, to hide herself in it!
But suddenly it seems so far away!
“Once I was a child, one day. . . . But I do not remember. Where is my childhood? And the face of my mother? Where is it? I can see nothing. I am in a very dark corridor, and I can’t see anything. But much later. Yes, now I remember. I remember certain evenings. . . .”
. . .
2
Those Sunday evenings!
The car rolled through the city, its hood sleek and shiny, its windows closed. Inside were wood panels and dark leather. The house, the garden, the well-known faces were now far behind us. The car rolled past the shops, the street lamps, the sidewalks. It came to a sudden stop in the square which was dominated by the huge brown railway station; the station clock rang out the hours but they were drowned, lost, in the uproar of the streets.
Ali said that from this station trains departed for other countries, countries where, perhaps, there were no boarding schools. I had never been on a train; I had never been anywhere. Like so many other things, travel was reserved for grown-ups.
Tightly buttoned into his suit of shiny marine blue, Ali drove at top speed. I had to turn quickly and peer out of the rear window to catch a glimpse of the station, of the rushing passengers, of the porters, wearing long blue robes and loaded down with baggage. The streets were a confusion of bicycles, cars and donkey carts.
Ali drove so quickly! I hardly had time to look at the billboards, to try to catch the names of the streets, even to recognize the grain and spice shop in front of which, about a year earlier, we had had an accident. Having hit a bus, Ali had been forced to turn the car onto the sidewalk.
“Those people should be locked up! Bastards!” he had shouted. The grain and spice merchant had come to the front of his shop, a starched apron tied around his waist. His lips were trembling with emotion, but his plumpness and the lopsided angle of his fez gave him an air of friendliness. He had helped me out of the car.
“You have escaped! You have had a narrow escape!” he exclaimed, guiding me into the shop by my elbow. He settled me in a corner in a cane chair and brought me a glass of anise and water in a pretty blue glass. I still remember every detail. I managed to drink without making a face as the merchant looked on, almost tenderly.
Out in the street Ali was examining the tires and the engine. My brother Antoun, who always accompanied me back to school on Sunday evenings, had leaped out of the car. I could hear him discussing the accident with. the gathering crowd, his tone alternately friendly, alternately defensive.
Standing near me the merchant looked at me for a long time. Perhaps he was imagining what might have happened, for from time to time he clicked his tongue against his teeth, clapped his palms together, and raised his eyes to heaven as if he saw me there. “You have had a narrow escape,” he kept repeating.
When the car was ready to start again the shopkeeper refused to accept any money. “No, no,” he shook his head firmly. Until the very last minute he went on expressing his good wishes and giving us advice.
Ever since that day I have tried to catch a glimpse of his door to give him a friendly wave. I have not forgotten his kindness nor his tender face. But Ali was always in a hurry. The doors of the boarding school opened at seven, and Ali was anxious that I be on time. He drove quickly. . . .
Those Sunday evenings!
In the winters especially when darkness seemed to fall so swiftly, and images of the city were reflected, distorted, onto the gleaming hood of the limousine.
My brother Antoun accompanied me. He felt that it was his duty to do so. At sixteen, he was reliable. Seated beside me, he would dig into his pockets and bring out newspaper clippings about stocks and bonds. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses he read them with a serious air. Often, his mood would become heavy, dignified, as if he were assuming the years that would turn him into the man he was to become.
It was cold sitting beside my brother.
The car sped onward. I looked out at the houses. They fled past at a dizzying pace with their crowded balconies, flowers like patches of color hurled against the walls. The edges of the sidewalks resembled hard gray lines sharply intersected by alleys. With a sharp braking motion, Ali stopped the car in front of a tall gate.
We had arrived at the school.
The murky flame of a solitary street lamp was reflected against Ali’s black scarred cheek. My brother shook off his torpor and embraced me. Older than me by two years, he felt obliged to give me some advice before giving me the bag containing the sweets or nuts he always kept hidden until the last minute. Nuts were forbidden, but Antoun never remembered this. One had to be very clever to dispose of the shells. His white teeth gleaming, Ali smiled as if to say: “We’ll be back to pick you up again next Sunday.”
The gate was tall. I saw nothing but that. With the bag of sweets in one hand and my overnight bag in the other, I raised the latch with my elbow, pushing open the gate with my shoulder. It gave way easily but instantly closed behind me with a sharp metallic click. And now, where was my brother? The motor car? The shiny cheek of Ali?
I tried to postpone looking at the heavy somber facade of the school, which reminded me, somehow, of a widow’s garb. For a time I lingered in the garden, crunching the gravel beneath my feet, imagining that they were pebbles of sand at the beach. I wanted to turn back and run, to run, to open the gate, to flee into the street. But where would I go?
I could hear the gate opening, then closing, the sound of footsteps hurrying. How much longer could I remain outside? I took a few halting steps. Standing on tiptoe, I allowed myself one last glimpse of the city.
Very tense, my shoulders tightly hunched up, I made myself
