Free The Penguin's Song by Hassan Daoud, Translated by Marilyn Booth Page B

stopped going on those long walks of his through the new neighborhoods. The small makeshift shops erected hastily in building entryways or beneath staircases had become real shops now, even if they had only tiny storefronts or were set far back from the street. During his final walks through those neighborhoods and among those shops, my father began to view them as if, together with the structures surrounding and towering over them, they had filled in all the emptiness. They had not left the tiniest morsel of empty space for anyone.
    Like ants, they start again from where you set them down, my father would say before declaring that when he went out again he would not go any farther than was necessary to buy meat and vegetables for the household. In our daily life we no longer needed anything more than that, as long as we didn’t break anything that would require going out for a repair. He no longer went beyond the shops that started up just as he turned off onto the street at the top of the sand track. It was a matter of three or four shops among which he hovered as he collected the few things that we truly needed. He would return quickly, so that he could rapidly pull them out of the bags, one after another, as if revealing to my mother gifts she had not expected. His mission would not be truly complete until he had counted the items he had set down, announcing each one by name and finally asking himself whether he had forgotten anything. Only then was his errand finished: or his journey, for he would let out the deep groan of a person whose energy has been completely spent, and would begin looking around to see what he should do first to relieve his tired body in the restfulness of home.
    It would be my task now to go out, scrutinizing the shops and the signs above them as soon as my feet met the tar of the street. Despite my knowing that no other course of action would be of any use, I contemplated the idea of an interval between my decision to go out and actually going out. A short time I could convince myself I needed in order to get ready for the streets I would walk, to learn something about them before actually heading down into them. A time of rest before going out, or a time of waiting; it was nothing more, since I already knew (sitting and waiting there at home) that nothing would help guide me to the right thoroughfares or the small streets I needed. Yes, an interval of rest and of waiting; in any case, I could train my body or prepare it for walking along among all the others walking the streets—walking that my body had experienced before, movement that my body had known, long ago.

XI
    FROM THE WINDOW OF MY room, and from the kitchen window and also the balcony if I choose to go out there, I can see her when she comes out to join the two of them where they’ve decided to sit down. They will not be far away, probably because they got tired of walking across the sand. Their feet will have sunk into it deep enough so that each time they tried to take a step that foot would feel trapped. Or perhaps they didn’t go far because they wanted to stay within reach of any voices that might call out from their homes in the building. As nearby as they were, though, it looked as if they had prepared themselves for a lengthy excursion. My mother had spread out a blanket over the sand. The other woman had carried out an enormous umbrella that she anchored in the ground. Then they sat down, resting from the walk to their chosen spot and exposing their faces to the breeze gently batting at them—the very same puffs of air that would have reached them on the balcony of either apartment.
    And from either balcony they could have enjoyed the very same view they now sat facing. They had even chosen to turn their faces—together—to that vista rather than sit down facing each other so that whichever one was talking could see the other. It seemed that the preferred object of their stares was not the old city