Season of Migration to the North Read Free Page B

important, that I am continuous and integral. No, I am not a
stone thrown into the water but seed sown in a field. I go to my grandfather
and he talks to me of life forty years ago, fifty years ago, even eighty; and
my feeling of security is strengthened. I loved my grandfather and it seems
that he was fond of me. Perhaps one of the reasons for my friendship with him
was that ever since I was small stories of the past used to intrigue me, and my
grandfather loved to reminisce. Whenever I went away I was afraid he would die
in my absence. When overcome by yearning for my family I would see him in my
dreams; I told him this and he laughed and said, ‘When I was a young man a
fortune-teller told me that if I were to pass the age when the Prophet died —
that’s to say sixty — I’d reach a hundred.’ We worked out his age, he and I,
and found he had about twelve more years to go.
    My grandfather was talking to me of a tyrant who had ruled
over the district in the days of the Turks. I do not know what it was that
brought Mustafa to mind but suddenly I remembered him and said to myself that
I’d ask my grandfather about him, for he was very knowledgeable about the
genealogy of everyone in the village and even of people scattered up and down
the river. But my grandfather shook his head and said that he knew nothing
about him except that he was from the vicinity of Khartoum and that about five
years ago he had come to the village and had bought some land. All of the
inheritors of this land had, with the exception of one woman, gone away. The
man had therefore tempted her with money and bought it from her. Then, four
years ago, Mahmoud had given him one of his daughters in marriage.
    ‘Which daughter?’ I asked my grandfather.
    ‘I think it was Hosna,’ he said. Then he shook his head and
said, ‘That tribe doesn’t mind to whom they marry their daughters.’ However, he
added, as though by way of apology that Mustafa during his whole stay in the
village had never done anything which could cause offence, that he regularly attended
the mosque for Friday prayers, and that he was ‘always ready to give of his labour
and his means in glad times and sad’ — this was the way in which my grandfather
expressed himself.
    Two days later I was on my own reading in the early
afternoon. My mother and sister were noisily chattering with some other women
in the farthest part of the house, my father was asleep, and my brothers had
gone out on some errand or other. I was therefore alone when I heard a faint
cough coming from outside the house and on getting up I found it was Mustafa
carrying a large water melon and a basketful of oranges. Perhaps he saw the
surprise on my face.
    ‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d
bring some of the first fruit from my field for you to try I’d also like to get
to know you. Noon is not the time for calling — forgive me.’
    His excessive politeness was not lost on me, for the people
of our village do not trouble themselves with expressions of courtesy — they
enter upon a subject at one fell swoop, visit you at noon or evening, and don’t trouble to apologize. I reciprocated his expressions of friendship, then
tea was brought.
    I scrutinized his face as he sat with bowed head. He was
without doubt a handsome man, his forehead broad and generous, his eyebrows set
well apart and forming crescent-moons above his eyes; his head with its thick greying
hair was in perfect proportion to his neck and shoulders, while his nose was
sharply-pointed but with hair sprouting from the nostrils. When he raised his
face during the conversation and I looked at his mouth and eyes, I was aware of
a strange combination of strength and weakness. His mouth was loose and his
sleepy eyes gave his face a look more of beauty than of handsomeness. Though he
spoke quietly his voice was clear and incisive. When his face was at rest it
gained in strength; when he laughed weakness predominated. On