A chair of Cloth| Sudanow Magazine

By: Prof. Ali Al-Mak

Translated by Abdulaziz Ali Omer

Khartoum, Dec.28 (Sudanow) you are accustomed to being different. You go to your office every morning. You are like an accurate clock in your obsessive precision. You arrive at eight whether in winter or summer. But you don't know the difference: the day time in office and the evening in the club. You have never altered that habit since you have been working in Al-Damar, El-Fasher and Kassala. There are always a merchant, colleagues, butcher, and barber, strict and non-strict manager. Actually, you have experienced most regions in your country. This is the capital: your home city. At last, you return after a long touring. You have worked there for a year or a apart of the year until the pension has overtaken you. You say that the pension has overtaken you as death overtakes people. Isn't pension like death? Does not it mean your service is over just as life is over? This is the first day in your final recess. From now, you will not wake up early to be in the office at eight. The cab has run so much that you have memorized every corner: the street the electric light posts, George café and the ever-changing film notices on the outer wall of cinema. Other things are as fixed as the White Nile Bridge. And when you ascend in a public vehicle, Ah! , how beautiful is a nap .The air is mild as it greets the breast of the river Nile and with refreshing cool breeze surrenders you to a sleep. You are old with no car that belongs to you. The blessing is in the house. What will you do now? “Bye, Sayyid Fadul. I swear that we have learned from you. We shall miss you so much" a colleague in the office says. You know that he is a liar. His future is pinned on your retirement. What a hypocrisy! Does he conceal his wicked smile, son of …? But pension is like death that overtakes all of you. Every dog his day. That is the only consolation you are also a liar. If you genuinely believe in his speech, you will never get angry and accept it with a wonderful spirit. Have you been loved by all? Do you recall your firmness, seriousness and an ever –insistent question" Why are you late? Have you been a sleep? There is a drawn –out Ahhh! . The morning breeze is fresh and delicious for sleep.-or the liquor was strong the previous night. Such remarks irritate the employees but they remain silent lest they be punished. You, your self are apprehensive of the director. Every master has his own master. You break into sweat that dries whenever he turns up or summons you. Ah! O Fadul. Does he really say “We shall miss you Sayyid Fadul" . This man is not accomplished as he has never worked with the cream of a nation from the English. But it does matter as long as the public service is on he brink of an entire collapse. Where are from those days of good predecessors. The lords of civil service are recent university boys. “Every time has its men" a youth at an age of your son always says. He is educated but what education: sleep in the university town, lentil, cooked beans, sitting in the cafe, lecture-hall and a university gem. Then, you see them climb up the rungs of professional ladder. The reign in which you were lords even before the English had passed. After the English went of the country, the university boys had come. You realize that the sun in the city of Omdurman is a searing fire after eight in the morning, by the sun the houses boil unbearably. So people resort to offices with fans and air-conditioning machines not for liking the job but to seek relaxation and the cool breeze. Perhaps for the first time, you are aware that staying in the house is death. You have to remain in the proximity of home or the mother of sons- Is not work a mercy? –This prolific woman is as fertile as the Nile Delta. . If there is no solution, it is better to sit in the shade on the road, you read morning newspaper and watch the pedestrians and cars running and running but for what? When you take the chair of cloth from the store to brush the dust of years evocative of your days in El-Fasher where the chair has been manufactured in prison with other five seats that are broken but it remains alone intact. Its maker –an inmate with a back so dried up and hunched but in painstaking devotion to give a relief to the backs of Khawajat and sons of the soil. They admire its red lines fabric and the lustrous paint of its white wood, the remarkable ability of that ex-convict, his art, and an art derived from both patience and repression. Yet, the cloth chair maker may have been a murderer and violator of honor.( How many felons are set free to revel in a bliss) You may die but the chair of cloth remains. The dust spreads heavily with every stroke. When this chair was made, the price of hen was five piaster's and sheep fifty piasters. There were women and wine in the military barracks. In the rainy season, pools filled up with water and overflowed. In those days, you witnessed boys drinking tainted water from donkeys and horses troughs as water was scarce. You watched Altima who made the wine but drank most of it and ate the meat of a half sheep. Well did your woman when she rejected to stay in El-Fasher and your bed was empty a part from Suad El-Fazaniya. You were feared and awesome chief clerk. What a loss1. The fear and awe is replaced by an empathy, lament, mercy and obituary. You sit on the chair in the shade with out-stretched leg stare at the road and the people on the road. The shade strives against the sun. “Sayed Fadul, Good morning. What is wrong with you? – Nothing, nothing. You are not ill? – No. Then, on holiday? Yes. Do you think of travelling? No. It is nice that after a while it will rain and the weather will be temperate. Why your neighbor insists on such a talk. –or that is the custom of the market's people. May God curse them! Your neighbor goes on: And when your holiday will come to an end? This is the final leave. Ya salaam! You won't be back to work. What a loss! The face of your neighbor changes into a gloomy color after its purity, his features hardened, pouts and frowns. “You are still capable and healthy except intolerable cough bouts. You can work until you are a hundred years old. The dear neighbor leaves while you see his head shaking in sorrow. You have been something for them. Now, you are nothing. The cars speed past you. Where do people go? Do they all work? Are they couples and have children? Are they bored of life at home? You hail curses on that old woman who still erotically perfumes and enhances herself. The problem is she tempts in a long day, you weaken and collapse. The blare of cars gushes into the street, cars and crowd. For the first time you recognize that the old street is untouched by any hand to repair. It seems that things don’t change as they ought to be. Is this your first day? Or will the rest of your life pass in the same vein? What has remained of this life? You finish with the government that casts you to the road. You speak to yourself. Scenes recur, people pass to and fro and cars hit the brains. What is government work? Is not it a day's experience that recurs 30 or 40 years. And suddenly, the thread of your thought is broken. “Peace upon you" a voice is repeated. You rise opening your eyes entirely to reply " And peace be with you, O….? What do you want to call him? Do you know him? Who is this man? There are many pro-peace in greeting who greet you even if you are a sleep. They say “Al salaam Sunna" peace salutation is one of the traditions of the prophets. They stick to it and every passersby receives your greeting of peace contentedly and goes on his way O God! There is no power except in God. O People! There is no might save in God" You shout. A car loaded with soldiers crush a girl as she crosses the road. You stand up and the chair of cloth shakes as if it has relaxed after the lift of your weight from it. In twinkling or in time how do they congregate in such a unexpected rapidity? Has not the street been empty save from a few people who walk dispersed? Voices swim close to your ears the military vehicles speed up frequently. The driver is mistaken with no doubt. No, no, it is the girl's fault. She has not stopped to make sure of an emptiness of the road. But she is dead. How is killed with no reasonable cause. This is a good reason in this time. The soldiers begin to leap out of the vehicle with red caps, red without exception. From amid heads and shoulders you see the corpse of a girl thrown on the road side. Her shorts are green. She has been carrying book whose pages with drawings of animals and big colored letters scattered around her. A note book has inextricably stuck to one of the truck tyres . You look at her blood-stained face with the whiteness of her eyes. It is death. You know it how an innocent girl is killed while she goes to school? Thank God for retaining you alive for more than a half –century. Voices mix: -This is a diligent child who has died with no reasonable cause. This is good reason in this time. Bring her a cover. A doctor should examine her. But she is dead. Who are responsible then? The driver, brakes, red berets? Let us go before the police come. We will be accused of killing. The driver's hands freeze on the steering wheel with his face turned over it so as not to show it. The soldiers assemble to form a wall around the crowd of spectators. The shade is diminished after falling a prey to the sun with its ascent... There is nothing but you return home carrying the chair of cloth to lay carefully on the wall of room as if you intend to relieve it from an exhaustion. You lie on your bed. The day is silent after feeding on a girl's blood. After a while your wife will turn up. Which is the hell? Home or the street? Wait for the arrival of the second day in your new life.

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A chair of Cloth

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