The House of Jasmine Read Online Free

than a piece of paper that, for any reason, may become useless. Holy Yahya has secured a house for himself, and al-Fakahani has received a thousand pounds! I could not retreat. If you had been as naive as I was, you wouldn’t have retreated either. Besides, there is a kind of happiness that can suddenly swell up inside a person and make him very shortsighted indeed.
    During the next four months, Holy Yahya visited us frequently, and I also went to see the apartment building and became less worried about my prospects.
    â€œWhy doesn’t your mother sit with us?” Holy Yahya asked me on one of his visits. I couldn’t find an answer. She hadn’t been talking to me much. Every time a chick died, she brought it for me to see. If I was outside, she would wait for me to get home and see it, and I would hold it by its soft legs and throw it as far as I could out of the windows over the jam-packed rooftops.
    â€œHer spirits will rise when you move to the new apartment,” Holy Yahya said.
    On my next visit to ‘Abdu al-Fakahani, he said, “Mr. Shagara, I still have your thousand pounds if you want them back. The construction costs have gone up, and I need another two hundred pounds.”
    â€œ. . . ”
    â€œMr. Shagara, you are an employee in the big shipyard, and you can apply for a loan.”
    I left him, and didn’t stop at the café. I had bought a kilo of oranges from him. I gave them to a beggar on my way home. It was only six o’clock when I got home, and my mother was already asleep. I heard the chickens clucking and thought of giving them some food. I had never done that before. Why do I dislike this peaceful house? What had gotten into me that I wanted to change something that has always been the way it is?
    Lying on my bed, I felt weary, but I found myself thinking about my old Arabic teacher at the Ras al-Tin High School. He had a sad face and calm features. He always said that life was too short to be spent in sadness and worry. If you feel that way, all you had to do was get a sheet of paper and write a letter to whomever you had offended, or had offended you. Write to ask for forgiveness or to explain that you are hurt. You won’t even need to mail this letter because you will feel better already, and will tear it up. My teacher said that this was his only successful method of getting rid of his worries and sadness. He disappeared suddenly from our school, and no one knew where he went, but many of the teachers became sulky and quiet after his disappearance.
    In my utterly miserable state, I thought of writing a letter to my illiterate mother, who slept in the next room, asking for her forgiveness. I got out a sheet of paper, placed it on top of a newspaper, and laid it on my knee. I wrote:
    Dear Mr. President, champion of the crossing and the victory: Please accept my sincerest greetings.
    We would like to inform Your Excellency that the workers of the Marine Vessels Shipyard have shown an enthusiastic desire to travel to Cairo to join you in the Labor Day celebrations. However, the Chairman of the Board objected, saying that this will slow down production. What production could be so important as to prevent us from expressing our love and support to Your Excellency?
    Sincerely yours,
A faithful worker in the shipyard
    #
    At sunrise on the first of May, I was standing in front of two big buses at Masr Station. I felt the cool breeze on my face while I watched the rows of Peugeot taxis, their drivers smoking in silence. Usta Zinhum, who was on his third trip with me, was sleeping on the steering wheel, and so was Usta ‘Abbas, who was on his second trip with me. The big broken station clock showed twelve o’clock, and there was little movement in the place. The station square had a large garden whose benches were occupied by sleepers covered in rags. I was smoking nervously, thinking about the week before and how I’d been overcome by hysterical