From Fatma Qandil’s ‘Empty Cages’

It’s publication day for Fatima Qandil’s raw, tenderly crafted novel Empty Cages, translated to English by Adam Talib. Yesterday, we had a conversation with author and translator; today, an excerpt from the novel, thanks to AUC Press.

19

I was standing in the kitchen watching Ramzi prepare the meal that I was so looking forward to when Dad came in, smiled, and stood beside me, patting me on the head as if I were a kitten.

Mama didn’t come home for the next five days, or perhaps longer, but no one explained to me the nature of the dangerous illness that caused her to stay away so long. No one made me eggs with basterma again after that first morning, but Ramzi did compliment me on my good behavior. My father had raised my allow- ance slightly because of the circumstances, so I used the money he gave me to buy ful midammis from the cart near our house, which catered primarily to construction workers. Normally, my mother handled all the household spending, which was probably why I was too embarrassed to ask for eggs with basterma again. I decided to stick to ful instead.

One morning, my father took me to Tante Sharifa’s house to visit my mother, who was lying on a narrow bed, looking gaunt. She hugged me, and I guess she must have been crying because it makes me cry now just recalling that moment.

My mother didn’t come back with us as I’d anticipated she would, and my father and I didn’t go straight home after we left either. He and I stopped at Abu Shanab, the juice bar in Triomphe Square that I used to love. I got to sit at a little metal table right out on the street and drink a big glass of sugar-cane juice one tiny sip of joy after another until the whole thing disappeared; my father drank beer from a bottle in silence.

20

Several days passed before my mother—unsteady on her feet and constantly dozing—returned home and visitors whom we rarely saw started turning up. Every few days, Mama’s sister would appear with other relatives in tow, including an elegantly dressed and imposing man whom my mother called “Uncle.” My mother and I would occasionally visit him at his very grand apartment in Korba, but the only thing that I can remember about it now is the massive covered balcony. It was big enough that they kept a bike out there, which the children, myself included, were allowed to ride.

From snippets of conversation about the importance of reconciling and all the back and forth that that precipitated, I gleaned a vague sense of what had happened, but eventually I heard the story from start to finish. I can’t recall exactly when, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t long after. My mother had gone to see her brother, who was entertaining guests at the time, and when she leaned over and whispered to him that she needed to borrow some money, his wife stood up and shouted at her in front of everyone. “Enough already! Leave him alone. He isn’t made of money. Shame on you!” The color drained from my mother’s face, and she bolted to the door. My uncle tried to catch up with her, but his wife fainted at the exact same time, supposedly, so he had to run back to her side, and my mother let herself out.

21

Things I’m certain of:

My mother wandered the streets.

She swallowed a load of sleeping pills in order to end her life.

As she wandered, unable to wrap her mind around the humiliation she’d faced, she was hit by a car.

The driver wasn’t going very fast, so she only suffered some bruises and scrapes. My father was summoned to the hospital, but she refused to go back home with him because she didn’t want us to see her like that. Rather, she didn’t want me to see her like that. She told him to take her to her best friend Sharifa’s house, where she could mend.

22

For years, they didn’t speak. Finally, as my mother was preparing to go on pilgrimage, she took the initiative. She came home one day, looking irritated, and told me that she’d gone to my uncle’s house, where his wife had greeted her warmly and hugged her. I was an adult by then—nearly thirty—so I wasn’t very pleased by my mother’s sudden forgiveness and received the news begrudgingly. Later, when my uncle paid us a visit at home, I received him begrudgingly as well. He’d aged, but he was still very stylish with his Kent cigarettes and gold Dupont lighter, and he boasted to us about his daughters, who were working at prestigious hotels. I’d dropped out of university and moved back home after my divorce, so he offered to help me get a job at one of the hotels. “But, Uncle, I’m a poet,” I said, declining the offer with pointed snobbery.

I knew he thought I was a loser and claiming to be a poet was not the way to persuade him otherwise. He gave me a paternal look, which I think was sincere, and asked, “What do you mean, you’re a poet, my dear? You have to get a real job so you can help your mother out at least.” My old dislike of him had returned with force, so I simply walked out of the room in silence.

After he left, I confronted my mother: “I never want to see that puffed-up jerk here again. Bragging about his chambermaid daughters!”

“He didn’t mean anything by it, love.”

“You can forgive him if you want. He’s your brother. But I’m never going to forgive him, and I’m never going to love him. I don’t want to see him here ever again.”

Fatma Qandil is an Egyptian author, poet, playwright, and translator. She is associate professor (emerita) in the Department of Arabic at Helwan University in Cairo and deputy editor-in-chief of Fusul, a magazine of literary criticism. She has published numerous collections of poetry, works of literary criticism, and translations into Arabic, and her nonfiction has been translated into many languages. Empty Cages is her first novel and first book to be available in English. She currently lives in Cairo, Egypt.

Adam Talib is associate professor in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo, co-editor of the journal Middle Eastern Literatures, and a scholar of classical Arabic poetry. His translation with Katharine Halls of Raja Alem’s The Dove’s Necklace was awarded the Sheikh Hamad Award. He is also the translator of Khairy Shalaby’s The Hashish Waiter (Hoopoe, 2018) and Mekkawi Said’s Cairo Swan Song (Hoopoe, 2019.)