A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore Read online

  The cold wind started up again, freezing their faces. They made slow progress, Aisha’s mother supporting her firmly. There was no time for falling down, no opportunity to rest. They passed the rocks and the low openings into the mountain, and then the gray water came in sight once more. Aisha collapsed unconscious upon the ground.

  The ferryman rushed to her side. He had managed to drag the boat in and tie it to a willow tree. Beside her child’s prostrate form the mother stood striking her cheeks in distress. Not stopping to ask permission, the ferryman knelt, picked up the fragile body, and headed for the boat.

  “This is a bitter day, a bitter day for us all.”

  He studied her face, pale as if she were at death’s door, as he lifted her strongly in his arms. Circumstances had granted him an opportunity greater than he had dreamed of. He waded into the water, climbed aboard the boat, and laid her down, wrapped in her shawl. Then he turned accusingly to the mother and found her face bathed in tears. He began rowing swiftly. The wolf, fortunately, had taken itself off, and the whirlpools had abated. He plied the oars vigorously, knowing that the girl’s salvation rested upon their achieving as quickly as possible the comfort of the warm hut that was his home.

  Disembarking, the ferryman picked Aisha up once more and waded through the water to the door of the hut. The donkeys were waiting patiently, with nothing within reach for them to eat except brambles and wild grass. The mother looked on in silence, not daring to raise any objection. She watched as he laid Aisha down by the fire and covered her. He stoked the fire, careful to direct the smoke away from the girl. He smiled with satisfaction to see the glow of the flames reflected on her pale cheeks, and prepared to go back outside.

  “You can’t go far with her in this condition, ma’am,” he told the mother.

  “I wanted to go the rest of the way to Asyout,” she said.

  “How far from Asyout do you think we are?” the ferryman replied. “You’ve miscalculated. The railway station is a long way from here—the donkeys won’t be able to make it that far.”

  In the ensuing silence, the mother revised her calculations. The man left her and made a circuit of the beach, looking for dry kindling and some good grass to feed the donkeys. He went wordlessly about his work and avoided meeting the eyes of the mother, who was staring into space. The hut bore the smell of a man on his own; there was a pile of dirty clothes, a clay pot containing the remains of some bread, and the bed of straw upon which Aisha was lying. The ferryman put more wood on the fire and turned to the mother. “There’s the sugarcane railway,” he said.

  The mother came out of her reverie and focused on him. “What?”

  “It stops near here. It passes through the sugar cane fields until it reaches el-Hawamdeyya, stopping every so often to take on more bundles of cane. The problem is that it’s slow, its cargo is rough and scratchy, and riding it is forbidden.”

  “Then how can I take it?”

  “You’re an expert at persuasion. You can come to an understanding with the guards and the driver. The main question is whether you can put up with the hardship of traveling that way.”

  The mother looked at Aisha’s shrouded form. Her eyes were still closed, but that blue pallor had receded from her cheek, and been replaced by a faint blush. Life was stealing softly back into her.

  “The train won’t come until morning,” said the ferryman. “It’s late now, and the weather’s turned bad. You can stay in the hut—I’ll sleep outside.”

  The mother stared at him, perplexed. She had not expected such an extraordinary gesture of hospitality. Then a shrewd look came into her eye. “I have no more silver,” she said.

  He didn’t reply. He reached under the bed where Aisha lay and brought out a small packet of tea and another of sugar, handling them like valuable treasure. He set the blackened tin kettle on the fire and said, “What you’ve given me is more than enough, ma’am. Now you’re my guests.”

  Aisha moaned and opened her eyes for a moment. She stared at them in wonder, and then shut her eyes once more. But it was a good sign and restored her mother’s peace of mind: a bit of magic, as it seemed, and the ferryman’s heartbeat quickened to see it. He handed the mother a cup of strong tea, and made another for himself. The mother tried to rouse Aisha so she could join them, but the girl turned her back. So the two of them sat sipping their tea in silence. Trying to keep his voice down the ferryman said, “I can see that you are people of means. What’s the purpose of this punishing journey? You’re not running away from something, are you?”

  The mother said with a sigh, “It’s a complicated matter—more than I can explain to a passing stranger.”

  “Perhaps it would do you good to unburden yourself to a ‘passing stranger.’ Who better than a ferryman, who lives always between two shores, with no land of his own, no family to go home to? The water is my country, and the fishes are my family.”

  The mother sighed again and replied, “I can say only that I’m looking for a safe place, a new life.”

  She didn’t tell him about the canals and irrigation ditches she and Aisha had negotiated, the obscure villages they had avoided, or the mountain passes they had traversed. She said nothing to him of the jewelry she had sold to cover the cost of this journey. She merely set down her empty teacup, leaned back against the wall of the hut, and closed her eyes.

  The ferryman observed that, despite the creases that lined her face and the leathery husk of her skin, there was a strong resemblance between mother and daughter. He got up slowly and, keeping his promise, went to sit outside the hut. He contemplated the fading light of day as it sank and dissolved into the waters of the river.

  Night in Egypt is darker than anywhere else, especially when the moon hides its pale face. Then the darkness is perpetual, the light an unexpected phenomenon, its dim particles assembled at the edges of the valley over thousands of years: light from reed fires set to repel the hungry crocodile and hippopotamus; from the brick furnaces for baking adobe; from the pottery kilns in which vessels for food and for burial are fired; from the brewery where steam rises off the fermenting hops; from the fragments of rocks quarried and cut to build houses and tombs; from piles of burning quicklime radiating heat night and day; from fires fed by palm fronds and straw for warmth and cooking; from the cane fields set alight to fertilize the earth with the residue of ash; from smoldering temple sacrifices; from burning scented oils, frankincense, and myrrh; and from the fires the builders of the pyramids kept burning throughout the night for twenty years. All these things had coated the earth with their blackness, and the nights with darkness so dense even the winds of the khamsin could not dispel it.

  The ferryman sat, a small figure before the chill winds blowing in off the river, contemplating the dark clouds that obscured the moon and stars. He leaned against the trunk of a palm tree, feeling its rough bark dig into his back. A change had come over him—suddenly he was conscious of loneliness and hunger as never before. He was aware of life’s passing days, the meanness of the hut in which he lived, the poverty of his meals. It was as if the mere presence of this helpless young girl had altered everything around him. He fingered the silver coin in his pocket. It was his talisman: he would never spend it, for it would remind him always of her lovely face. These thoughts, to his surprise, helped him to endure the cold until morning.

  Aisha, the first to wake, saw her sleeping mother and the dying fire. Her arm was aching, and she remembered what had happened the day before. She stood up, reeling with hunger. She went out of the hut and saw the ferryman curled up beneath the palm tree. Sensing her presence, he opened his eyes to find her standing there, silently observing him, her face pale, beautiful, and sad. She didn’t know he had carried her in his arms, that he had seized the opportunity to press her to his chest a bit more than necessary, furtively, so that her mother wouldn’t see.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her. “Did you sleep well?”

  She nodded her head and gave him a little smi
le. Her mother hurried from the hut and said to him, “Which way is the sugarcane railway? Is it far?”

  Crestfallen, the ferryman pointed in the direction she needed to go. “It’s not far from here—just a little way.”

  Pointing to the donkeys, the mother said, “I want to leave these animals in your care. Later I’ll send someone to bring them back to me.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.”

  She took Aisha’s hand, and away they went, the ferryman waving sadly as the wind stirred their black abayas, until they vanished from his sight.

  The cane fields were not far from the riverbank. They were exposed, the sugarcane having been cut; its roots still clung to the earth, awaiting the fire that would reduce it to black, salty ash. The ash would then be witness to a small miracle, as new green shoots pushed their heads up through its layers. The harvested cane was divided up and tied in bundles, each one bound by the long, coarse leaves of the plant, which would serve as cords until they dried out and became brittle.

  Aisha and her mother seated themselves amid the closely packed bundles. The place was deserted. The narrow iron rails wound a twisting course through the fields and disappeared at the horizon. The guards had not yet awoken. A weak sun shone and there was a bit of warmth. “I’m hungry, Mother,” said Aisha. “I feel dizzy.”

  Her mother pulled out one of the sugarcanes and peeled back the leaves that tightly enclosed it. She snapped it into small pieces at the joints, ignoring the little cuts it made in her hands, and extracted the gleaming white marrow, which she offered to Aisha. “What if they see us?” whispered the girl.

  Stripping the rind with her teeth, the mother said, “I’ll work something out with them.”

  Aisha sucked on the sugarcane, tasting the sweet juice as it ran down her throat and feeling her body revive as if a life-giving potion was flowing through her pores. Nearby, there were stirrings of movement. The mother took hold of the girl’s hand and they hid themselves behind a small thicket. Some transport workers appeared and called to one another as they began hefting bundles of cane and placing them near the tracks. Aisha and her mother stayed where they were, silently watching.

  At last a piercing whistle sounded, the still earth rumbled, and a smell of smoke drifted in the air as the train came into view. It was smaller than Aisha had expected. A black locomotive went in front, chugging out a great cloud of smoke bigger than itself and pulling behind it a number of cars, all but the last two loaded with cane. The train came to a stop and the driver jumped down. He talked loudly with the workers, and then the labor of loading the cane commenced. Watching all this, Aisha was alarmed. Could there be room for her amid those prickly bundles?

  Gradually the bundles of cane were cleared from the area. The driver was finishing up his noisy exchange with the workers and preparing to remount the locomotive. The whistle sounded, warning everyone to stand back from the tracks. The wheels began to screech on the rusty rails. Aisha looked despairingly at her mother who, on the other hand, was ready to throw caution to the winds. She took her daughter by the hand and they made their way back toward the last car.

  The workers stared at them in astonishment. “What are you doing?” one of them shouted. “Passengers are forbidden on this train!”

  A group of men stood in front of them, raising their arms to block the way. At this moment the wolf appeared. No one knew where it came from, but it insinuated itself among the men, weaving between their legs, as if it too wanted to catch up with the train. The men retreated in alarm. Even those who were blocking access to the train leapt out of the way and scattered, while Aisha and her mother ran faster, until they caught hold of the last car. First the mother jumped aboard, then she held out her hand and pulled Aisha up beside her. The coarse leaves buffeted them and scratched their faces. The wolf left the men behind and began running along beside the train, accelerating until it drew even with the driver, who stared fearfully at it and increased his speed. The wolf stopped, its mission accomplished. It stood still with its mouth open and its tongue hanging out, until Aisha came into its line of sight. She stared out at it, meeting its mournful gaze.

  The driver made no stops—there were no more loads of cane to collect. The last car rattled along, jouncing its passengers up and down as it went. It was not a comfortable journey, and they were still more fearful each time the train crossed one of the canals or irrigation ditches, when they felt as if they were suspended in empty space, surrounded by nothing that was familiar. Aisha watched in growing alarm as the briny canals passed beneath the train, hoping only that she might not die beneath their choking waters.

  When they had gone a long way, the Nile appeared to widen and the mountains to close in. The train was now proceeding through narrow passages amid tilled fields. It picked up speed as it traveled downhill. Mud-brick houses could be seen, as well as stone minarets in the distance. Aisha, at last, breathed freely.

  In Asyout the river valley narrows; the mountain—where lawless folk roam the slopes—looms closer. The rocks look alike, rather resembling a spine joining the north to the south. It is not remarkable, then, that the first attempts to unite the two should have been undertaken at Asyout, or that the first seeds of discord should have been sown there, just as the mummies were interred there along with potsherds and the remains of the citadel built by King Menes.

  The train did not go all the way to Asyout, but stopped at a depot well outside the city. There, all the bundles of cane, which had originated in various parts of Upper Egypt, were gathered up to await the arrival of a stronger locomotive that would transport all of them to the sugar-processing plant at el-Hawamdeyya. Amidst the hustle and bustle of loading and unloading, Aisha and her mother were able to slip away, while the driver stayed put, not moving from his seat for fear of the wolf’s making another appearance.

  The mother moved confidently in the streets of Asyout, but this was the first time Aisha had ever seen such a big and lively city. Her mother, more experienced and streetwise, knew the place she was looking for and made for it unhesitatingly. Despite weariness and fatigue, she seemed to be in a race against time. She walked along, clutching Aisha’s arm as if she feared she would lose her in the crush of passersby, shops, flies, and beggars. The streets were dusty, unpaved, and crowded with carts drawn by donkeys and mules, with farmers, Saïdis, miscellaneous foreigners, and khaki-clad British soldiers.

  They stopped before an enormous building made of gleaming white stone and surrounded by iron fences, all of this surmounted by a high tower housing a shiny brass bell. It was a church, massive and clean, not like the brick churches on the outskirts of their village. Aisha’s mother breathed a sigh of relief. Aisha stood staring at the place—the sight of it took her breath away. There was a sign inscribed in black, but she didn’t know how to read or write. Impatient, her mother hurried over to the iron gate, which was closed. She seized it and rattled it, shouting, “Hello? Is anybody here?” There was no reply.

  “Is this the end of our journey?” Aisha wondered. “Will we go back?”

  Her mother, however, was not about to give up so easily. She circled, looking for a gap she might slip through. In a corner, on the other side of the gate, she spied a rope hanging down. She pushed her hand through the iron bars and pulled it as hard as she could. The chime of a metal bell rang out, resounding through the silence like a cry for help. She pulled and pulled, and the bell kept ringing.

  “Mother, that’s enough,” Aisha pleaded.

  “We have to let them know we’re here and that we need them.”

  At last someone appeared, a tall youth with a thick moustache and wearing a small turban. He approached them from the far end of the courtyard, his face betraying irritation. “What do you want?”

  “Please,” said the mother, “we’ve come a long way. We only want to meet with the abbess.”

  “She’s busy, and I can’t disturb her—impossible. Besides, she never sees anyone without an appointment.”

  Befor
e Aisha’s mother could say another word he turned, moved the bellpull out of reach, and walked away. The mother threw herself at the gate once more and called after him, but without turning or looking behind him he disappeared from sight. The mother protested angrily, striking the gate with her fist.

  Aisha was frightened. “Should we leave?” she said.

  Through clenched teeth, her mother answered, “Who said anything about leaving? We’ll sleep in front of the gate.”

  They sat on the ground, their backs to the iron bars. Some passersby glanced briefly at them. Aisha kept looking into her mother’s face, waiting for her to explain the reason for this arduous journey. The sun climbed high in the sky, then began its descent. Aisha was hungry and thirsty, but dared not complain. The building sat silent, no noise or movement issuing from it.

  Then they heard the sound of a door opening. They stood up together. It wasn’t the Saïdi youth coming this time, but a slight figure wearing a black abaya and walking with an odd gait. It was a woman, her voluminous robe hanging loose on her body and sweeping the ground. She carried her arms in front of her chest, one hand thrust into the sleeve of the other. She stopped and faced them. Aisha peered at her in surprise—she was a foreigner, dressed in a nun’s habit. Her round face was suffused with a modest blush, her blue eyes wide. She looked uneasily out at them through the bars, presumably taking them for a pair of beggars.

  She spoke in heavily accented Arabic. “What do you want? We have nothing to offer you.”

  The mother clutched the bars and entreated her, “We are at your mercy. We’ve come a long way and we can’t go back. Every way back is closed to us. I must meet with the abbess.”

  “We don’t receive transients.”

  The mother stepped back a little, then pointed to Aisha. “I’m not here for my own sake,” she said, “but for the sake of this child.” The foreigner turned and looked at Aisha. She could see the traces of exhaustion and hunger and hopelessness written plainly upon her face. “Her life is in danger,” continued the mother, “and if you turn us away from your door she will surely die.”