The Palm House Read online

  First published in 2012 by

  The American University in Cairo Press

  113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt

  420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

  www.aucpress.com

  Copyright © 2006 by Tarek Eltayeb

  First published in Arabic in 2006 by Al-Hadara Publishing as Bayt al-nakhil

  Protected under the Berne Convention

  English translation copyright © 2012 by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Dar el Kutub No. 24414/11

  eISBN: 978 161 797 161 7

  Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Eltayeb, Tarek

  The Palm House / Tarek Eltayeb; translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.—Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2012 p. cm.

  eISBN: 978 161 797 161 7

  1. English fiction I. Title

  892.73

  1 2 3 4 5 6 16 15 14 13 12

  Designed by Adam el-Sehemy

  Printed in Egypt

  For Ursula, my Palm House in Vienna

  1

  Poor cities are more merciful to the poor and the destitute than wealthy ones. In poor cities, everyone is equally impoverished, and there are no contrasts to show the destitute just how far down life’s ladder they actually are. Wealthy cities, however, are excessive in their cruelty, for they allow the rich to flaunt the luxuries that others cannot afford. In these cities, you often hear sentences that begin with the words “we’ve got” or “you’ve got.” People like me, people who have so little warmth and so little joy in their lives, feel this cruelty, this great gap, even more intensely.

  Vienna seems to be the cruelest city in the world, at least to me. The loneliness here is a cold death to the soul, and the bitter cold is a slow death to the body. I can feel a crack in my body and my mind: it runs through my days and nights, my memory, and no measure of oblivion can set it right.

  I am here now in this lovely old city, this city that brutally kills the likes of me, the displaced, the marginalized. I never ask myself those naive questions any more, the ones so often repeated by the destitute: Why am I here? What am I doing in this city? Why don’t I go back? I’ve found myself asking the following instead: Is there a way out of this mess? Is there any way to cut my losses and leave the game? How can I survive this?

  I am here now. I am here in Vienna.

  It’s Saturday night. I’m up late reading a book on German grammar. I cannot sleep, despite the many light blankets and tattered covers on my bed, which somehow resembles a pharaoh’s sarcophagus. This long bare room of mine with its high walls and layers upon layers of wallpaper has always reminded me of an abandoned temple. I’ve added one last layer on top of all the others, something to lend a bit of warmth to the room and help ease my mind.

  I live on the top floor of an old building that was saved from the destruction of the Second World War, but not from that of time. Its windows were never repaired, not a single pane. This city’s residents do not like the upper floors of these old buildings for several reasons, the most obvious of which are the lack of elevators, the narrowness of their spiral staircases, their dark entryways, and the dank and bitter cold that prevails in them. This is where the unemployed and the impoverished make their homes, those who live off welfare or meager wages. Foreigners and poorer Austrians are the only ones living here—another reason most well-to-do Austrians prefer to keep away.

  No one piece of furniture in my apartment resembles another. It’s like I’m living in a flea market, or a junkyard. There’s an old brown wardrobe with one door that refuses to open and another that refuses to close. There’s a plastic chair that belongs in a cheap restaurant, and a metal chair that belongs in a hospital. There are two sofas: one with stripes like a zebra, and the other made of bright red leather, as if it were from a brothel. The uneven white plywood table from Ikea is riddled with cracks and cigarette burns, like a relic from a torture chamber, and the cheap linoleum floor covering has a deep burnt red color to it. I won’t talk about the kitchen or the cramped bedroom with the creaky bed. The apartment could almost pass for a nineteenth-century museum, were it not for the wallpaper I added, which takes me to a more pleasant place, a place I love.

  It’s the end of December, and the weather is as cold as can be. Last night, the heating oil I bought with my last shillings ran out. The apartment retained some warmth for most of Saturday, but by evening the temperature had dropped to just seven degrees. I cannot fall asleep. It’s as if I’m lying outside, my fingers and toes frozen to the sidewalk. There’s a crack in the bedroom window that’s wrecking me. Another crack, this one in the peephole of the apartment’s front door, has created a draft. I’ve tried to cover up the first crack with cardboard, but the wind prevails, and the cardboard tears apart and flaps against the window like a trapped bird. The cold wind and the irritating flapping ruin my night. I curse Frau Olga, the owner of the apartment. I wish she’d suffer through just one night in this awful museum of hers, this museum of ghosts.

  After her husband’s death, Frau Olga began collecting shabby furniture—either for free or at very low prices—to fix up and then resell. She soon discovered that she could afford to buy some old apartments in run-down buildings and take advantage of bank loans that were being given out for repairs and renovations. She filled the apartments with old furniture and then rented them out to foreigners, immigrants, and other low-income people such as myself.

  Frau Olga always comes by on the first day of every month to collect the rent without delay. It doesn’t matter to her if it’s a Saturday or a Sunday or even a national holiday: she still always comes running up the five flights of stairs so quickly that she can hardly breathe. She feigns politeness and good humor until she has the rent from me, then escapes as lightly as a bird. I know she’s worried about me complaining, and afraid that I might explode one day. I also know she’s making a lot of money from all the apartments she owns, and that it wouldn’t cost her much to repair these ruins. But she banks on my patience and my lack of alternatives. Each time she comes by, she promises to make all the necessary repairs. She even gets on the phone—though I’m not sure who she actually calls—to try to reassure me. But nothing is ever repaired, nothing at all. Every time I see her, I repeat my requests; and every time, she repeats her promises; to the point that these have become stock phrases to us, our own ritual way of saying hello and saying goodbye.

  For someone who has lived his whole life in the places where the sun is relentless, where you can still feel its presence even at night, this cold is the cruelest of tortures and the heaviest of burdens. My one comfort is Hakima, who is breathing calmly in my arms, and whose warmth makes up for this great lack. She always stretches herself out when she sleeps, resting her head beneath my chin and her body on my chest.

  I wake up early. That is to say: I’ve been awake all night. Hakima stretches her body, and I follow her lead. She yawns and seems to smile, so I do the same. I search for my slippers with the soles of my feet, and as they touch the ground the cold linoleum devours what’s left of my warmth. I get out of bed and head toward the communal bathroom outside in the hallway. Its upper glass window is broken, of course. As usual, the bathroom door is off-kilter, and I have to yank it upward to open it. It’s stiff from the cold, and grates and scrapes reluctantly against the ground, like a goat being dragged to the slaughter. I wipe off the plastic seat with some toilet paper and sit down. It feels like I’m sitting on a block of ice. Even the water in the toilet bowl i
s half frozen. My muscles are twitching from the cold. I hurry up and finish as quickly as possible, then head back to my apartment to wash my hands and face with freezing water. As usual, the water heater isn’t working: it splutters and sounds like it’s working, but the water passes through it unchanged. I make a cup of tea with milk, not realizing that the milk’s gone bad. I pour it out in the sink and make another one, drinking it plain this time. For a few moments, I can almost feel my body again. The tea courses through me, warming my lips, my mouth, my throat, and finally my stomach and even my hands. It’s an incredible feeling.

  Last night’s battle with the wind has made me hungry. There’s a last can of sardines in the refrigerator, and a solitary egg. I heat up some oil in a pan to fry the egg, but as I crack it I realize that it too has gone bad: its odor fills the air, throwing my stomach into turmoil. I rush out of the apartment with it, opening the door with my elbow and hoping to throw it into the toilet. But the bathroom door won’t budge, and the egg begins to seep through my fingers and onto the ground in long sticky strands. I try to hurry, but the egg falls onto the ground with a smack, and the stench rises up, like that of a sick dog emptying its bowels. Before I can make it back to my apartment to find something to wipe up this disgusting mess with, I run into my neighbor, Herr Novak, who is over seventy years old, on his way to our communal toilet. Wrapped in a thick robe, socks, and wool slippers, he stops in front of me, leaning on the wall and breathing heavily. He points his trembling hand at my face—at the face of the culprit—before lowering it to the crime itself, the remains of the damned egg, while repeating, “Pfui! Um Gottes Willen!”

  “What is that smell?” he asks.

  “Eier kaputt!” I reply.

  He’s hard of hearing, so I’m forced to repeat these words several times in a loud voice, “Eier kaputt! Eier kaputt!”

  He shakes his head in displeasure and slowly returns to his apartment. I hear him say “Scheisse,” that oft-repeated word I know quite well, despite its not being in my German language book.

  I run back to my apartment and grab one of the many Krone newspapers—the most famous Austrian daily—that are stacked in a corner. I wipe up the mess with it and throw it into the toilet bowl. Then I flush the toilet several times until the paper completely disappears, and return to my kitchen.

  I’ve lost my appetite. The whole apartment smells like rotten eggs now, and I can’t get the stench off my hands. I open the can of sardines for Hakima, who quickly gobbles them up.

  I head for the closet and pull out one of the bottles of lotus perfume I bought from a souk in Omdurman. I daub a bit on my wrists and breathe it in deeply, which grants me a temporary reprieve from the stench. As I do this I stare at the wallpaper in front of me, and soon enough my mind is wandering through the souks of Omdurman, reliving the day I bought the perfume.

  I know I can’t spend my entire Sunday in this cold apartment, just as I can’t even begin to fall asleep on that sarcophagus that passes for a bed. I think about heading out for a walk, but the downcast weather and the first hints of snow scuttle that plan. And going to a café would kill two hours at most. I do have a few friends, but no phone with which to call them. We usually run into each other by chance, and only rarely actually plan our get-togethers.

  I feel sad today, but I’m not sure why. I feel as if I had a disturbing dream last night, one that’s still somehow clouding my mind. I try to remember, but it’s no use. However, a comforting thought raises my spirits a bit: I’ll catch the N Tram by my apartment and ride it all the way to the Prater Gardens, the last station. I have a monthly public transportation pass, so the trip won’t cost me anything. And I’m an expert on where the warmest tram seats are.

  Trembling from the cold in my apartment, I strip off my pajamas, and see my own breath steaming in front of me. I quickly put on my clothes: two undershirts, long underwear, socks, a shirt, two light pullovers (they’re all I have), my thick brown velvet trousers, my shoes, and finally the one overcoat that I own. Frau Martha gave me the coat after her husband, a fireman, died. She had offered me many of his clothes, but I only took this heavy overcoat and a pair of his thick gloves.

  I place Hakima against my chest inside this big coat, and wrap a scarf around her. Hakima can hardly be called a normal cat. She’s less stubborn than most cats, and is very calm and friendly. She often seems more like a small dog to me. And whenever I put her inside my coat, she sleeps there like a baby kangaroo. She comes with me everywhere: to cafés, outdoor markets, the supermarket, and so on. And she’s always with me on long days like this, when I ride the tram for hours to escape the cold.

  Before I head out, I grab the last bread roll—the kind they call Semmel here—and put it in my pocket, just in case my appetite comes back.

  I named my cat Hakima after my two younger sisters, Karima and Halima, whom I last saw years ago. I didn’t make it back in time to say goodbye to them before they died. They suffered so much, and I could do nothing to help them: neither delay their deaths nor ease their pain.

  My habit of always bringing Hakima with me caused me some trouble once, though she was not to blame for it. I was shopping in the Billa supermarket near my apartment. I had paid and returned the cart, and was heading toward the exit when two young men attacked me. One of them twisted my arm while the other violently pressed his knee into my back and yelled, “We’ve finally caught one of the rats!”

  Suddenly, I found myself kneeling on the ground in the middle of my scattered groceries, with no idea of what was happening. I simply tried to protect Hakima from the onslaught of these two men, who had found easy prey in me and were hoping to make heroes of themselves. I later learned that one of them was in charge of supermarket security, or something like that, and that the other one was in charge of stocking the shelves. The two idiots thought I was stealing a can of sardines or a chocolate bar or a piece of meat or some other precious Billa product, and that I was hiding it inside my coat. I tried to protect Hakima as best I could, skinning my knees and one of my elbows in the process. They twisted me onto my back, triumphantly revealing the bulge at my chest. Their search turned up nothing but a small cat, however. The two of them didn’t seem embarrassed in the least, and none of the people who had gathered around us said anything to them. They were there to enjoy the show, to watch what was happening to the strange thief in front of them. I could tell they felt sorry for Hakima when they saw her, but they couldn’t care less about me.

  A woman with glasses and lovely hair almost the color of henna picked up my groceries for me and put them back in the torn bag, all the while cursing the two ‘heroes’ under her breath. She petted Hakima, who had become quite worked up by all of this, and reached into her own bag and held out a can for me. “Here’s some food for your cat,” she said.

  I thanked her and stood up sorely while the two men tried to help me. I wouldn’t let them touch me, and yelled, “I’ll never come shopping here again! I’ll never buy anything from this Billa! Scheisse!”

  I berated myself later for not having thanked the kind woman properly. I felt so abused at the time that I completely forgot about it. Back at my apartment, I recalled the smile she gave me, and the enraged look she leveled at the two men on my behalf. My poise returned to me as I thought of this, and I reconciled myself a bit to the people of this city. I had to laugh at my own stupidity when I looked at the can of cat food the woman had given me for Hakima: I’d been buying these cans for months because they were so cheap and I liked the picture of the cat on them, but I hadn’t realized they were cat food, . . . I had thought I was sharing my food with Hakima, but in truth she was sharing hers with me!

  I walk outside to find the street covered in a white shroud of snow, which is still coming down like flour from the sky. The tram approaches, and I run to the Radetzkyplatz stop and jump in just before the door closes. The conductor sitting in the back ignores all the passengers that have just gotten on, except for me. He stares at me silently, and I
can tell he wants to check my ticket. I make my way over to him and angrily wave my transit pass in front of his face. He thanks me with exaggerated courtesy.

  I know exactly which seat the tram’s heating unit is under, but it’s occupied at the moment, so I take a different one not too far from it. It frees up after three stops, and I quickly switch seats. The Vienna public transportation system is the only refuge I have from my greatest enemy, the cold. It’s the one warm place I know where I won’t be forced to order another drink if I stay too long, which usually happens at the cafés. I’ve tried everything to escape the cold: cinemas and cafés and even train stations. And I’ve tried every type of transportation too: trams, buses, trains, and the subway. The trams are the best of all of these, and I quickly discovered that a monthly pass buys the most heat for the least money. Yet I’ve become tired of this routine, tired of all these oppressive faces that stare at me in obvious disapproval, as if I were from another planet. I don’t know why these people always show me their worst features. Their morose faces instantly light up if there’s a single dog in the tram, a sight that practically turns them into children: they start talking to the animal and smiling at it and petting it, and sometimes they even let it lick their hands. Yet as soon as these people—the very same people who have just shown the animal all of this kindness and affection—sit up in their seats again, the stern features return to their faces, faces that seem revolted by the world and so many of its people.

  The heat almost puts me to sleep on the tram, that heat I had been denied the previous night. It feels as if thorns are pricking my hands and feet, and even flowing through my blood. It burns at first, but then it stops, and a delicious torpor follows the pain. Warmth has become something of a rarity to me, a great chance to feel alive again. It always intoxicates me, and Hakima too: she stretches out across my chest, feeling warm and safe.

  A woman with a kind and smiling face gets on the tram and sits down near me. Her fragrance brings back memories. It’s as if I’ve met her before. I try to examine her face, but she’s sitting directly behind me. So I close my eyes instead and try to recall the features of that scent as I slowly fall asleep. Now I know where it’s from, where I first encountered it: it’s the scent of my mother’s hair from my childhood. My eyes still closed, I draw nearer to the source. That warm fragrance always made me feel safe. Whenever I drank it in as a child, clinging fiercely to my mother, I’d fall asleep. I know where I am right now, but I push the thought aside. I don’t want to wake up. Instead, I set off with that fragrance, off into a dream.