Arabian Stories

I woke up late and sweaty. The beast I had spent the whole night running from in my dreams had eventually caught up with me. I rubbed my joints and wetted my lips with my tongue. “Today is no ordinary day” I said to myself. I was meeting Louisa in the afternoon. She had promised herself to me. I was to unwrap and savor a woman for the very first time. My body was quivering with anticipation! I had welcomed her suggestion to meet at Le Bungalow with unbridled enthusiasm. I had hit twenty, an age at which men must put their manhood to the test. I couldn’t afford to stay behind in the race to become someone, especially in such an effervescent city like Fouka, and I didn’t want to wind up falling into the category of those Colin Wilson branded as mediocre.

I descended the rusting stairs of the derelict building while staring out over the city stretching before me. The big clock at the square said it was already two o’clock in the afternoon. It was September and at that hour the streets ...Read more →

The Arui is a cave bordering on the Beautiful Region, that lies around 200 kilometers away from the capital, in the Tafilah Governorate. It provides goat hunters shelter for the night during the hunting season, which takes place in October, and is bounded on the East by a green landscape with streams and waterfalls, and on the South by a place called Sulman’s Bite Mark in honor of a guy named Sulman who died there after being bitten by a poisonous snake.

By the time they reach the cave, the goat hunters have usually been hiking for a while already and are happy to find a place to rest where the temperatures aren’t that extreme and where they have fresh water flowing nearby. The arui, which is the goat that inhabits these parts, is usually pretty hard to spot and hunt down.

Many spend the night praying and reciting the names of the fellow hunters who have died in these high latitudes, while others make preparations for the following day.

Last year, rumor had ...Read more →

The electricity failed and the house sitting on the shore of Lake Qarun was plunged into pitch-black darkness. He counted on the reflection of his familiar surroundings on the still waters of the lake to allay his fears of hidden perils, but when he went out on the balcony, the moonless night revealed itself as more inclined to favor those with dubious intentions. An ominous silence prevailed. For a while, he just stood there, straining his senses to detect any sign that might point him to the proximity of the little beast that had fucked up his life before it loomed out of the darkness. He didn’t want to be caught off guard, because, not only had that ruthless bastard killed his father, who both him and his mother had loved dearly, by infecting him with a fatal disease, it had also set off the chain of events that had left them heavily in debt and had forced them to sell all their possessions, but for the house and the small plot surrounding it.

His mother had ...Read more →

Lightning lights up the night sky. A shiver runs up my spine. Perhaps, I ought to take the storm as a good omen. However, I can’t wait for this daunting night to be over. I return home, crawl into bed and throw a thick blanket over my head.

The sky has not yet cleared when I wake up the next morning. It seems daylight might never fully break again. I feel blue, as if my intention were to make up for how the sullen skies are shining. I get dressed, in the hope that, by the time I am ready to step out the door, the sky’s wrath has petered out. Once again, I come to realize that I am guilty of wishful thinking.

Hence, I sit down with the rest of my family to stuff myself with food and idle the day away, mostly, in silence, for none of us are any good at entertaining an audience with words. We just eyeball each other, while trying to find something to say. Someone suggests, jokingly—most likely—that we should offer a sacrifice to the sky, ...Read more →

The fountain with the statue of a naked woman rising out of it, close to the old mosque and in the middle of the beautiful city of Sétif, was built a year before he was born. He doesn’t like it. According to him, it mars the city’s appearance, because it signifies the values that were held by the French colonizers of his country. He hates himself for it, yet, for some inexplicable reason, he cannot help being titillated by it.

She always seems to be standing in the way when he goes out in the morning to do some shopping or sit down at the nearby café, and he never misses a chance to let the stone woman know how he feels about her.

He is now over seventy and retired. He used to run a café, but he has now bequeathed it to his sons. People show him respect and call him mister, because he attended a Koranic school and should thus be regarded as an enlightened person.

He didn’t mind the fountain when he was smaller. He used to play around ...Read more →

I decided to spend a few minutes observing him from afar before letting him know I had arrived. He was like a magnet, like what the homeland is to those who have been forced into exile, like the family one wrongly thought one could live without. I looked at him while he smoked, taking one puff after another. I had had mixed feelings about our rendezvous. With every step I had taken to get to where I was, I had felt tempted to turn around. And suddenly, I had arrived, at the Souq El Hamediya café, the agreed place, where he was already waiting for me. He looked up, saw me and chuckled. He had cleaned up well enough to let the handsome show through. On this occasion, he seemed to have gone the extra mile to impress, attire-wise, at least. And he certainly had achieved his goal. I immediately lamented having missed out on giving birth to that jolly man’s children.

He stood up to greet me and pressed a kiss on the palm of my ...Read more →

“And they found therein a wall about to collapse, so al-Khidh restored it.”

It is fall and early in the morning. I have left the house to go to work. I know exactly what I will find every step of the way, for I have been following the same route every day for the last five years.

Just across from where I live, stands a pumping station. In front of its iron gate, sits the compound’s security guard, who is always on the alert for intruders. I greet him, continue walking and pass by Sulman’s and Hasan’s workshops, the blacksmith and the carpenter. I then cross the muddy area verging on the city park and my shoes get dirty. I reach the garage with the white fence, whose paint has started to flake. Next to it, stands a wall that is covered with pictures of martyrs. Most of them are wearing military uniforms, carrying guns and smiling. Some have even been portrayed leaning against tanks. They appear to be glowing.

I greet them as well, like always. Suddenly, ...Read more →

I feel on top of the world: Ramadan just started. The Mahmoudiyah Canal glistens in the moon light. It is crammed with ships. Ali Samra, who has a special gift for remembering people’s names, picks us, kids, up to go from house to house bringing seasonal greetings to everyone. We sing in unison to the beat of his drum. We may not qualify for assembling a great symphony orchestra, but at least, we are having fun.

We kick off the day by meeting in front of the mosque to play in the water coming from the outdoor faucet installed between two palm trees. My grandfather, Abdel Razaq, whose appearance matches that of the typical eighty-year-old who has squeezed the most out of life, always to be seen covering his chrome dome with a checkered skull cap, comes prancing by. He doesn’t use his walking stick during Ramadan. He claims to feel rejuvenated by the sense of joy floating in the air. Word has it he has cheated death not once, but several ...Read more →

An elderly lady hands me a few coins, but I still need to make more cash before I can call it a day. My father won’t let me return home unless I have bagged a minimum of three hundred Egyptian pounds.

I am sitting curled up on the pavement with my arms wrapped around my legs. The temperature plummets when night falls. I have warmer clothes at home, but I am not allowed to wear them while at work. According to my father, I will be more successful arousing pity if I shiver. I see a young couple approaching. He tries to take her hand, but she jerks it back. That is what I call a great target. Pulling a long face, I go ask them for some spare change. She looks sad and defenseless, almost more so than myself. The boy glances at me, reproachfully? Pityingly? It doesn’t matter: it worked. He reaches for the wallet in his pocket, takes a banknote out of it and tosses it over to me. I can feel proud ...Read more →

I recall thinking that I had to be dreaming, for I was unable to believe my eyes the first time I set them on the archeological site.

I took the road flanked by sphinxes to get from Luxor to Karnak Temple and continued walking until reaching the Sacred Lake, which was certainly a sight to behold. Priests used to inhabit these temples and worship the giant scarab of stone located at the front. It used to be a place of pilgrimage for women seeking to conceive. Now, tourists circle it, in the hope that it may somehow bring them luck. The first time I went around it, I wished to become a tourist guide someday and be able to return to that place with a party of tourists eager to catch pearls of wisdom from my lips. Now that my dreams have come true, when I round it, I giggle inwardly like the girl I used to be back then and ask for love.

After our visit to the Luxor and Karnak Temples, me ...Read more →