2012 INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION
JABBOUR DOUAIHY
The Vagrant
AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL, TRANSLATED BY GHENWA HAYEK
The apartment in al-Manara, where chaos reigned. The small apartment with its wide balcony became a ship groaning beneath the weight of its cargo, bustling, its front door wide open by day, its lights beckoning at night, the hungry bringing their own food and drink.The only one who paid the electricity and water bills when the collector came by was Vasco. No one cleaned, no one complained.
Nizam kept a black-and-white photograph of those crowded days, revealing the young men’s long, ugly sideburns and their obligatory thick moustaches, both markers of revolutionary dourness. It was a group picture of the gang, with all its members saveYusra Maktabi.They had heard her father never stopped complaining that he had spent his life in Africa only to see his daughter imprisoned for theft. But her parents gave her a lot of money, most of which she distributed among her fellow prisoners; they would bring her hot food, and she would share it. Her mother fretted that her daughter would catch something.
Yusra left, and Maysaloun came. She, too, remembered his birthday. Nizam had forgotten it himself until Rakhima reminded him. From Houra, she sent down what she called “a plate” of food, which, in reality, would easily feed twenty. Two large pots of dolmas stuffed with rice, topped with the small intestines of young goats, also stuffed with rice, pine nuts and chopped meat, with small bundles of mint and garlic nestling in between. She must have spent over two days cooking. She sent along a note, written in her shaky hand, saying that Touma was “tired”, which meant that he was getting sicker, and that he had become “fussy”, which meant that the diabetes was making him angrier. She wished him a long life, a hundred years of happiness, and ended the note by writing that he only had to heat the dolmas on a low flame, then eat them to his heart’s content. Maysaloun showed up unannounced, bringing her husband and a cake. Nizam was slightly perturbed by this, but yielded to her presence. Her
BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 105
