Written by yet another instructor of English literature, Dina Abdel-Salam's debut novel displays a familiar storyline, one which fits snugly into the framework of Egyptian feminist writing which burgeoned over the last thirty years. It is a female Bildungsroman which explores the theme of self-identity through the matriarchal line and recalls such names as Sahar Al-Mogui, Miral Al-Tahawy and Somaya Ramadan. The novel opens with an equally familiar literary convention: inside an envelope, a sheaf of papers carries within its folds a life story. Written in eloquent Arabic, it is the intimate memoir of a dying woman, written over a three-year period, and a final gift to her only daughter, herself on the threshold of her own existential journey. The published novel makes a brave attempt to simulate a handwritten manuscript — with all the expected deletions and corrections. The thin size of the volume is itself a reflection of its content, since the narrative is not only built on words but also on silence, on gaps that are either left unfilled, or if filled out at all, only very precariously. The central figure is a young woman who comes into her own in a spacious and lavish apartment on Rue Fouad, in the heart of the cosmopolitan Alexandria of the mid-twentieth century. The home of three women—a grandmother, a granddaughter and an incumbent nanny—the apartment is oozing with history. Verging on the Gothic, the apartment itself is at the center of the narrative. It is dark, gloomy and evocative of a musty and mysterious past. At times, it seems more of an art gallery, full of the grandmother's artwork, as well as antique clocks and bronze statues. In some of the best written sections of the novel, the statues seem animated, gathering on their surface the dust and fissures of time. In equal measure, the clocks take on a life of their own, ticking away in this poignant narrative about life and death and the passage of time. Especially memorable is the clock mender who regularly comes in to tend the clocks, which come in all shapes and colours: grandfather clocks, wall clocks and mantel clocks. The man and his rituals are treated with reverence. And why not, if he himself —with heavy step, deep cough, thick eyeglasses and a gold pocket watch of his own —is a character who seems to have stepped out of the corridors of time? Conscious of the organic link between the Hours and Lives, he regards his work and mission as nothing short of the divine. Both the clocks and statues are the eerie and silent witnesses especially of the more disquieting incidents. The grandmother, with the name of I'tedal Hanim, represents the recognisable values of the upper middle class of times gone by. Carrying her Ottoman heritage on her sleeve, she is classy, proud and taciturn. She keeps a home where she brings up her orphaned granddaughter, obstinately refusing to disclose the facts about “the horrendous accident.” The grandmother and her opulent ways are counterbalanced by the nanny, as recognisably Egyptian, in film and literature, as a stereotype ever was. Unflagging in her loyalty to the family, she is always a source of unconditional love and compassion, even to the wayward. She is at once cook, cleaner, nanny and housekeeper, silently adjusting to the vicissitudes of life. More importantly, Dada Sekina is the source of the more modest aspects of Egyptian life, and her contributions include culinary pleasures, coffee rituals, and time-honoured convictions, superstitions and platitudes. As such claustrophobic existences go, the visitors to the house are few, yet this self-enclosed dwelling-place is a palimpsest of Egyptian influences: Pharaonic, Coptic, Islamic as well as European, an all-embracing and tolerant Egypt, one which, unfortunately, is fast disappearing. As a matter of course, the outside world is slowly brought in via the budding granddaughter. With the prosaic name of Manal Naguib, she may have been a candidate for a more mundane existence than her grandmother's. Alas, that was not to be. Her turbulent life represents an unquenchable thirst for self-gratification. Despite the initial profusion of harmless childhood anecdotes, Manal sends the narrative on a roller-coaster of forbidden desires and passions, with a number of failed relationships thrown in for good measure. Ultimately, this sparsely populated novel is about intense loneliness and the pathos of the insular existence of people. Relationships between characters are more of accidental encounters than real human ties. Invariably, reconciliation is always beyond reach. At times, the few characters seem to be receiving backstage directions from luminous mentors: Shakespeare, Emily Bronte, Raphael and Pablo Neruda. For the more intellectual writer, the novel certainly provides an added bonus in the way of a literary and artistic landscape. There are metaphors aplenty in this cryptic narrative. At the center is the art of painting: with the continuous reference to crimson and red, the symbolic admixture of colors, the bold strokes and the even more subtle shades, shadows and shading. This slim déjà vu novel about the malaise of modern life has power. Not only does it maintain suspense, it is very clever when it comes to creating atmosphere. The cobwebs and dust in the dark and unaired spaces have a haunting quality that lingers long after the act of reading. Nass Hajarahu Abtaluhu (A Text Abandoned by its Heroes), Dina Abdel-Salam, Alexandria: Bait Al Yasamine, 2012.
