On the academic plane, I learned nothing whatsoever. I suppose the only thing I mastered at Roda National Primary School was the art of measuring time by watching the sunlight move down the classroom walls as I counted the seconds before the bell rang. If the teacher addressed a question to me, all it meant was that I would get so many smacks with a ruler on the back of my hand, and in the course of an entire academic year, all I memorized were a few short suras from the Qur’an that I used to hear my mother recite during her prayers. When it came time for the final exam, I earned a set of zeros that, if it had come in some context other than that scandalous report card, would have sufficed to make me a millionaire.
When my grandfather saw the report card he was furious.
“This is the result of your pampering,” he told my mother sharply. “You’ve spoiled him, Madame!”
Then, threatening to make the school principal pay the consequences, he went to meet him at the school. An hour later he returned, saying with satisfaction, “Well, sir, you’ve passed by force! And don’t you dare fail next year!”
I’d entertained the hope that in view of my failure, they might decide not to send me back to school again. So when my grandfather announced the glad tidings of this “success” of mine that he’d wrested by force from the powers that be, I felt disappointed. When the second year rolled around, it was no better than the first. In fact, my misery was intensified by a slip of the tongue that made the remainder of my days at the Roda National Primary School even more loathsome than the ones that had preceded them. One day I raised my hand to request the teacher’s permission to leave the classroom. However, instead of saying, “sir,” I called him, “Mama” by mistake!
The whole class roared with laughter. The teacher himself laughed, replying sarcastically, “Yes, mama’s boy?”
And with that, the class broke into loud guffaws all over again. Speechless and mortified, I sat there in a stupor while my eyes filled with tears. I didn’t have a single friend or companion among them, and in fact, it was during that time so long ago that I began suffering the inability to make friends. Not one of them had the least compassion for me. From that time onward they called me “Mama” until they even stopped calling me by my real name. Defeated and helpless, I avoided them, though a fury raged within me.
At the end of the year, I got another report card filled with zeroes, and this time my mother accused the school of negligence. My grandfather decided to enroll me in a public primary school, but because I’d graduated from a private school, the principal stipulated that I’d have to take an entrance examination. Shortly before the academic year was to start, my grandfather took me to the school, then waited for the results to be announced. In fact, there was nothing to wait for. My grandfather pleaded with the principal to accept me in spite of the test result, and the man wanted to oblige him in view of his advanced age and his eminent standing. Hence, he asked simply that I write my name, “Kamil Ru’ba.” However, I wrote Ru’ba incorrectly, so the man apologized, explaining that it wouldn’t be possible to accept me after all. My grandfather mocked me all the way home. Then, heaving a sigh of disgust, he said to my mother, “It’s no use sending him back to kindergarten. I’ll get him a tutor this year.”
I could hardly believe my ears. Trying to conceal my delight, I asked, “Will I stay home this year, then?”
Glowering at me with his green eyes, he said heatedly, “Yes. That ought to make your mother happy!”
7
For the first time in my life I had a fruitful year of study, sitting safely and placidly before my venerable teacher and being taught the principles of Arabic and arithmetic. Despite the fact that, as usual, the hours dragged on heavily and miserably, I was at last taking my first steps along the path of learning. In order to ensure that the teacher treated me well, I had my mother sit near the door to the teacher’s room so that I could summon her to the rescue if need be. And it’s no wonder that I felt as I did, since the memory of the two years I’d spent in Roda School — from the teachers’ blows to the pupils’ assaults — were still fresh in my mind. Up to that point, I had yet to comprehend the fact that education was an unavoidable duty that I’d spend a good part of my life fulfilling. Instead, I viewed it as a punishment that had been inflicted on me for some unknown reason, and I still held out the hope that some day my grandfather would relent and exempt me from it altogether.
As for my mother, she was no happier than I was. She was enduring torment of another, more brutal sort. She’d grown more dejected during those days, and the minute she found herself alone, she would break into bitter tears. Whenever she was with my grandfather, she would speak to him about the matter that was robbing her of sleep. In just a few months I would be nine years old, and once I reached that age, my father would have the right to reclaim me. In fact, he was certain to do so, just as he had my sister and brother before me. The same danger had loomed over us when I turned seven. However, my grandfather had written a letter to my paternal uncle, who was an influential farmer in Fayoum, asking him to intercede with my father and persuade him to leave me in my grandfather’s care until I was nine years old. By a miracle from heaven, the intercession yielded the hoped-for result. Now, however, I was approaching my ninth birthday, and I was sure to be wrested from my mother’s arms this time unless my father waived his right to take me back.
One day my mother began weeping in my grandfather’s presence. She said, “I lost Radiya and Medhat, and I haven’t set eyes on them for nine years now. Kamil is all I have left. He’s my only consolation in this life, and I don’t know what I’ll do if the man takes him away from me!”
My grandfather shook his gray head crossly, as this topic never failed to distress him.
“And what can I do about it?” he asked. “This is the ruling of Islamic law, and we have no choice in the matter. Besides, the man to whom you’re referring is his father, at least, and not some stranger.”
“His father!” she cried indignantly. “Do you call that monster a father? Poor Radiya and Medhat, living in the house that drunkard’s turned into a tavern! He doesn’t have a fatherly bone in his body. Kamil has grown up in my care and received my love and affection, and he doesn’t have any experience with perverse creatures like his father. If the man takes him, Kamil will perish there with him, and I’ll perish here alone!”
Choked with tears, she fell silent. After she’d caught her breath, she continued, “Baba, can you imagine Kamil being able to live away from his mother? It’s these two hands of mine that feed him, dress him, and put him to bed. He’s afraid of his own shadow. He’s scared out of his wits by the chirping of a cricket! How can Islamic law allow such a child to be taken out of his mother’s care?”
My grandfather knit his brow wearily, seemingly annoyed at her objection. However, his face wasn’t an accurate reflection of what he felt inside. There were many times when he would seem angry or displeased even though his heart was full of tender compassion. All he said at the time was, “That’s enough complaining and crying. If he’s meant to stay with us, he will, and if God wills for him to go to his father, there’s nothing we can do to resist His decree.”
This is what he said. However, what he did was something else altogether. One day, taking matters firmly in hand, he went to my father to negotiate with him over the matter of leaving me in his care. If the truth be told, my grandfather loved me deeply. He loved me because I was a companion to him in his old age, and because childhood has a way of stirring something deep in the heart of the elderly. He also loved me because he loved my mother, who had stayed by his side after her mother’s death, nurturing him with her affection, compassion, and tender, loving care. He went to my father and we stayed behind waiting, our hands on our hearts. Never as long as I live will I forget the agony my mother endured during that wait. Unable to sit still or concentrate on a thing, sometimes she would talk to me and sometimes she would talk to herself. At other times she would invite me to join her in making earnest entreaties to God, asking Him to crown my grandfather’s efforts with success. I observed her forlornly until, infected with her anxiety, I broke down and cried. We waited for a long time — or so it seemed to us — shrouded in a mantle of sorrow and worry, our eyes swimming with tears and our tongues uttering prayers of urgent supplication. Then at last we heard the ringing of carriage bells. We went rushing to the balcony and saw my grandfather crossing the courtyard with his usual heavy steps. Then we hurried back to open the door for him. He entered without saying a word, eyeing us with a look whose meaning we couldn’t divine.