Morning and Evening Talk

Начало книги

Morning and Evening Talk is made up of a series of character sketches in Arabic alphabetical order according to the first name of the title character. The complete alphabet is as below, with the name of each letter transliterated in English.

Ahmad Muhammad Ibrahim

THE SKY WAS A CLEAR BLUE, the shadows of walnut trees slumbered on the ground, and the surface of the old square shone in the sunlight and clamored with endless noise from the surrounding alleys. Bare feet, ornamental slippers, pantofles, and the hooves of horses, donkeys, and mules trampled over Bayt al-Qadi Square, where the new police station met the old courthouse. Ahmad emerged into this vast playground and quickly forgot the house he came from, his parents’ house in Watawit. He was four years old when he was brought to his maternal grandfather’s house on Bayt al-Qadi Square to relieve the loneliness of his uncle Qasim, who was a year and a half older than him. With the other sons and daughters married, the house was empty; no one was left except the father, Amr Effendi, the mother, Radia, and their youngest child, Qasim. Qasim only knew his sisters, Sadriya, Matariya, Samira, and Habiba, and brothers, Amer and Hamid, as fleeting guests of his parents and would visit them in the same manner he would visit the branches of the family living on Khayrat Square and in Suq al-Zalat and East Abbasiya. At his sister Matariya’s house in Watawit he liked her son Ahmad best. Ahmad had an older brother called Shazli and a baby sister, Amana, but Ahmad was by far his favorite. Matariya loved Qasim like a son so let Ahmad go and live with his grandparents and relieve Qasim’s loneliness in the big empty house.

Читать дальше →