The ​Wedding of Zein 2 csillagozás

Is the ground in which it grows arable land? Do you not see that it is stony and appreciably higher than the river bank, like the pedestal of a statue, while the river twists and turns below it like a sacred snake, one of the ancient gods of the Egyptians?

The doum tree of Wad Hamid

And we, when we take ourselves back to childhood memories, to that dividing line beyond which you remember nothing, see in our minds a giant doum tree standing on a river bank; everything beyond it is as cryptic as talismans, like the boundary between day and night, like that fading light which is not the dawn but the light directly preceding the break of day.

The doum tree of Wad Hamid

‘But that is the time when we visit the tomb of Wad Hamid at the doum tree,’ answered the man; ‘when we take our women and children and make offerings. We do this every week.’ The official laughed. ‘Then change the day!’ he replied. Had the official told these men at that moment that every one of them was a bastard, that would not have angered them more than this remark of his. They rose up as one man, bore down upon him, and would certainly have killed him if I had not intervened and snatched him from their clutches. I then put him on a donkey and told him to make good his escape.

The doum tree of Wad Hamid

Other places begin by being small and then grow larger, but this village of ours came into being at one bound. Its population neither increases nor decreases, while its appearance remains unchanged. And ever since our village has existed, so has the doum tree of Wad Hamid; and just as no one remembers how it originated and grew, so no one remembers how the doum tree came to grow in a patch of rocky ground by the river, standing above it like a sentinel.

The doum tree of Wad Hamid

At first, as is well known, children meet life with screams. With Zein, however, it is recounted—and the authorities for this are his mother and the women who attended his birth—that no sooner did he come into this world than he burst out laughing. And so it was throughout his life.

The Wedding of Zein

They would go back to him because his voice was strong and clear when he preached, sweetly melodious when he recited the Koran, terrifyingly awesome when he said prayers over the dead, thoroughly knowledgeable of all aspects of life as he performed contracts of marriage. His eyes held a look of scorn and disdain, the impact of which made itself felt when a man had lost confidence in himself. He was like the large domed tomb in the middle of the cemetery.

The Wedding of Zein

The village was made up of clearly divided camps in relation to the Imam (they never called him by his name, for in their minds it was as though he were not a person but a institution).

The Wedding of Zein

Everyone in the village knows the story of Sa’eed’s marriage and how he lived with his wife for nearly a year without touching her, till the woman, despairing of him, was about to divorce him. When asked about the reason for his dilatoriness, Sa’eed would say: ‘There’s no reason to rush into the business.’ He had, however, in later years, had children, male and female, from her.

The Wedding of Zein

The Imam of the mosque was also affected by the extraordinary happenings witnessed by the village that year. He was, in the opinion of the village, an importunate man, a talker and a grumbler, and in their heart of hearts they used to despise him because they reckoned him to be practically the only one among them who had no definite work to do: no field to cultivate and no business to occupy him, but lived off teaching children for a set fee collected from every family— a fee grudgingly paid. In their minds he was connected with things they sometimes liked to forget: death, the after-life, prayers. In their minds there clung to his person something old and gloomy, like the strands of a spider’s web; when his name was mentioned they automatically recalled the death of someone dear to them or were put in mind of the dawn prayer in the depths of winter, the making of ablutions in cold water that brought cracks to one’s feet, the leaving of a warm bed for the blast of the frost and the walk to the mosque in the half-light of dawn.

The Wedding of Zein

A man with nothing to do always sits in judgment on others.

The Wedding of Zein