EZZEDINE CHOUKRI FISHERE

with nothing to say – was on the other. It confirmed what she had long supposed but never dared to admit to herself. He was not like them; he was some other species. They were normal and natural and engaged in the life they found around them but he was an awkward, alien presence, from their first schooldays until now, whenever they invited friends over. Their beautiful, powerful mother was admittedly a bit brash too, but she always welcomed her classmates into their home – showering them with attention and questions and food – and was well liked by their families. Her sister was crazy, but no more than others of her age. He was the strange element in their world, the Arab immigrant who had never adapted. She had no time for the mentality of immigrants who left their country to begin a new one in another place and then spent the whole time complaining that they were homesick. Her father had always stood in the way of the normal life she wanted – he was a dead weight. Now it seemed he wanted to drive them all even further apart. She did not articulate any of this in her head as such but it stalked around her heart. She asked him the obvious question: “Where are you going with all this? Where do you want this to take us?”

The second consequence of this conversation was Rami’s realisation of his true feelings about the choice he had made all those years ago. He had not been able to put it into words or even straightforward thoughts, but he was dumbstruck by the distance between where he was now and where he had wanted to be. He was shocked to realise that his life had gone down a road he had not wished it to take, one which had truly damaged his ambitions. He asked himself why he hadn’t thought it all through before but, thinking it over, realised he probably had, but had not paid it much attention at the time. He had been busy building a life, chasing stability, professional advancement and financial security for himself and his family. Above all, he had looked after his wife and his daughters, his children’s education and upbringing, the house and what was left of his family in Egypt.This had been a greater, more pressing concern in his daily life and had left him little time to ponder ideas of isolation. Now, with the children in college, his sense of solitude grew. At first, he told himself it was just the bereavement that all fathers feel when their children leave home. He had wanted to tell his wife everything but found he just couldn’t. He tried to find a true friend to confide in but, when he realised he had none, saw the problem was much deeper than he had thought. Then along came Sasha with her questions and concerns, and it had brought home his sense of imprisonment. From that time on, his alienation and bitter sense of confinement became ever more aggravated, invading further into his psyche and consuming more and more of his waking thoughts. And, the more

114 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES