Zakaria Tamer

Youssef glued his forehead to the pane of the window overlooking the street. The night outside was a cold black rose; a little snow floated slowly down through the faintly glowing void.

Youssef's mother put a tea-kettle on the stove, while his father sat in silence, lines of sadness etched into his wrinkled face. His eyes flickered in secret disgust, while his hands lay listlessly on his knees like two tired old friends.

It irritated Youssef to have the cat rub itself up against his legs; he kicked it in exasperation. The cat cringed away in pain and crouched near the stove, closed its eyes in defeat and began to dream - of a high-walled garden, carpeted with a layer of wingless birds, from which it would select a nice fat one, to be stared at, greedily, till the bird shrunk away in terror crying brokenly:

“I'm a poor little bird.”

“I'm hungry.”

“I'll sing for you.”

“I'm hungry.”

And it would spring ferociously at the bird, getting its sharp little teeth into its tender throat, tearing at it till the blood ran crimson and warm.

Youssef pressed his forehead to the damp glass as he brought to mind his runaway sister's face..a quiet girl, always smilingand thought, “I'll kill her when I find her. I'll slash her head off!”

“Aren't you tired of standing?” his father asked.

Youssef remained still, and gave no answer; his mother broke in hastily to say, “I forgot to tell you what I saw last night: I saw her!”

Youssef whirled round in surprise and as his eyes lit on his mother's face, realized immediately that she had seen, once again, the viper that lived hidden in the earthen walls of the old house. In his mind's eye, he saw the viper: black, smooth, slithery, writhing its way silently across the courtyard in the light of last night's moon.

“How lovely she was. Like a queen,” said his mother, and Youssef felt that the viper was indeed a magnificent queen whose slaves had all died, leaving her to reign alone in a waste land.

An old anger rose in his breast as he turned to his father and said, “She'll harm us. We ought to get rid of her.”

A secret pleasure shone briefly in his father's eyes as he answered, “She'll only hurt those who hurt her.. She's lived in the house since before I was born, and never harmed anyone”.

Youssef was certain that the viper knew of his hate, and was only waiting for an opportunity to slither towards him and destroy him. He had often asked his father to move to a new house, one that was built of cement and steel and stone; a vision of white walls, pure as poems and suffused with eternal sunlight would come before him, but his father would refuse, obstinately: “I was born here, and I'll die here.”

He watched his father's face in exasperation. The old man coughed, and went on to say, ironically, “Find her if you can, and kill her,” and Youssef thought to himself, “I'll find her… she won't get away from me,” as he stared angrily at the empty seat near the window. His sister used to sit there of an evening, laughing, chatting; playing with her cat... where was she now?

He felt like smoking. The cigarettes were in his pocket, but as he dared not smoke in his father's presence, he turned to the door. His father forestalled him by asking, “Where are you going ?”

“I'm tired. I'm off to bed.”

“Poor chap, how you must exhaust yourself. Do you break stones all day? How can you be tired if you do nothing? Does it tire you to yawn? Tell me, can't you find a job?”

“He's ill,” protested his mother, “Look at him. See how pale and sickly he is.”

Youssef felt that the moment he feared had come.

“You're the one I blame,” his father cried out irascibly, “You're the one who's spoiled the children… the boy just eats and sleeps, and the girl runs away from home, and my wife gossips with the neighbours, while I, I work like a donkey.”

“Don't shout so. The neighbours will hear you,” pleaded his wife.

“I'll shout as I please.” And his head drooped as he wondered sadly, “Oh God, what have I done to be shamed at the end of my days ?”

“Didn't I tell you to tell the police that she's disappeared ?” said his wife.

“You shouldn't have left her alone. If you hadn't left the house and gone to the neighbours', she couldn't have get away. Why didn't you take her with you ?”

“Well, poor thing, she was so tired after having cleaned out the house. . “

“Poor thing! The poor thing deserves to have her throat slit. What are we going to say to her kith and kin when they call and don't find her in the house ? Do you want us to say her mother was at the neigh¬bours' so the girl packed her things and cleared out and we don't know where she's gone ?”

He turned to Youssef. “I want you to look for her,” he said in a peremptory tone, “Find her at all costs and slit the bitch's throat”.

There came into Youssef's mind the image of sheep being slaughtered on the butcher's doorstep on feast days when he was a child, and he remembered the sheep's terrified bleating as it squirmed unavailingly under the butcher's weight; and the butcher's big-bladed knife, slicing into the sheep's throat, and the blood welling out of the deep red gash.

Excerpt from: Snow at Night, by Zakaria Tamer. Arabic Short Stories, 1945-1965. Edited by Mahmoud Manzalaoui. The American University in Cairo Press, 1985. pp 269-271.