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Season of Migration to the North
Tayeb Salih
(First published 1969)
The steamer swung round on itself so that its engines would not be working against the current. Everything happened as it always did: the raucous whistle and the small boats from the opposite shore, the sycamore trees and the bustle on the quay of the landing-stage. Except for one great difference: I stepped ashore and Mahjoub shook me by the hand, avoiding me with his eyes; this time he was the only one who had come to meet me. He was embarrassed, as though feeling guilty about something or as though he were putting the responsibility on to me.
Hardly had I shaken hands with him than I said, ‘How did you let this happen?’
‘What has happened has happened,’ said Mahjoub, fixing the saddle of the tall black donkey which belonged to my uncle Abdul Karim. ‘The two boys are well and are at my place.’
I had not thought of the boys during the whole of that ghastly journey. I had been thinking of her. Again I said to Mahjoub: ‘What happened?’
He was still avoiding looking at me. He remained silent, adjusting the sheepskin cover on the saddle and tightening the girth round his donkey’s belly. He pushed the saddle slightly forward, seized hold of the reins and jumped on. I remained standing, awaiting the reply that did not come; then I too mounted. Urging the donkey on, he said to me: ‘It’s as I told you in the cable. There’s no point in delving into the matter. In any case we weren’t expecting you.’
‘I wish I’d done as you advised and married her,’ I said to him, encouraging him to speak. All I succeeded in doing, though, was to drive him into a deeper silence. He was clearly angry, for he dug his heel sharply into his donkey, though it had done nothing to deserve such treatment. ‘Ever since I got your cable,’ I said to him, chasing after him but without quite catching him up, ‘I haven’t slept or eaten or spoken to a soul. Three days travelling from Khartoum by rail and steamer I’ve spent thinking and asking myself how it happened and I find no answer.’
‘You’ve never spent such a short time away from the village,’ he said kindly, as though feeling sorry for me.
‘No,’ I said to him. ‘Thirty-two days to be exact.’
‘Anything new in Khartoum?’ he said.
‘We were busy with a conference,’ I said to him. Interest showed on his face, for he liked to have news of Khartoum, especially news of scandals and stories of bribery and of the corruption of those in power.
‘What were they in conference about this time?’ he said with evident interest.
I was upset that he should have so quickly forgotten the matter in hand. ‘The Ministry of Education,’ I said to him wearily, wishing to cut it short, ‘organised a conference to which it invited delegates from twenty African countries to discuss ways of unifying educational methods throughout the whole continent – I was a member of the secretariat of the conference.’
‘Let them build the schools first,’ said Mahjoub, ‘and then discuss unifying education. How do these people’s minds work? They waste time in conferences and poppycock and here are our children having to travel several miles to school. Aren’t we human beings? Don’t we pay taxes? haven’t we any rights in this country? Everything’s in Khartoum. The whole of the country’s budget is spent in Khartoum. One single hospital in Merawi, and it takes us three days to get there. The women die in childbirth – there’s not a single qualified midwife in this place. And you, what are you doing in Khartoum? What’s the use in our having one of us in the government when you’re not doing anything?’
My donkey had passed him, so I pulled at the reins till he caught up with me. I chose to keep silent, although if it had been any other time I would have shouted at him – he and I had been like that since childhood, shouting at each other when angry, then making it up and forgetting. But now I was hungry and tired and my heart was heavy with grief. Had the circumstances of our meeting this time been better I would have roused him to laughter and to anger with stories about that conference. He will not believe the facts about the new rulers of Africa, smooth of face, lupine of mouth, their hands gleaming with rings of precious stones, exuding perfume from their cheeks, in white, blue, black and green suits of fine mohair and expensive silk rippling on their shoulders like the fur of Siamese cats, and with shoes that reflect the light from chandeliers and squeak as they tread on marble. Mahjoub will not believe that for nine days they studied every aspect of the progress of education in Africa in the independence hall built for the purpose and costing more than a millions pounds: an imposing edifice of stone, cement, marble and glass, constructed in the form of a complete circle and designed in London, its corridors of white marble brought from Italy and the windows made up of small pieces of coloured glass skilfully arranged in a framework of teak. The floor of the main hall was covered with fine Persian carpets, while the ceiling was in the form of a gilded dome; on all sides chandeliers hung down, each the size of a large camel. The platform on which the Ministers of Education in Africa took it in turns to stand for nine whole days was of red marble like that of Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides, its vast ebony surface smooth and shiny. On the walls were oil paintings, and facing the main entrance was a vast map of Africa fashioned in coloured mosaic, each country a different colour. How can I say to Mahjoub that the Minister who said in his verbose address, received with a storm of clapping: ‘No contradiction must occur between what the student learns at school and between the reality of the life of the people. Everyone who is educated today wants to sit at a comfortable desk under a fan and live in an air-conditioned house surrounded by a garden, coming and going in an American car as wide as the street. If we do not tear out this disease by the roots we shall have with us a bourgeoisie that is in no way connected with the reality of our life, which is more dangerous to the future of Africa than the imperialism itself’: how can I say to Mahjoub that this very man escapes during the summer months from Africa to his villa on Lake Lucerne and that his wife does her shopping at Harrods in London, from where the articles are flown to her in a private plane, and that the members of this delegation themselves openly say that he is corrupt and takes bribes, that he has acquired whole estates, has set up businesses and amassed properties, has created a vast fortune from the sweat dripping from the brows of wretched, half-naked people in the jungle? Such people are concerned only with their stomachs and their sensual pleasure. There is no justice or moderation in the world. Mustafa Sa’eed said: ‘But I seek not glory, for the likes of me do not seek glory.’ Had he returned in the natural way of things he would have joined up with this pack of wolves, They all resemble him: handsome faces and faces made so by comfortable living. One of those Ministers said in the closing party of the conference that Mustafa had been his teacher. The first thing he did when they introduced me to him was to exclaim: ‘You remind me of a dear friend with whom I was on very close terms in London – Dr Mustafa Sa’eed. He used to be my teacher. In 1928 he was President of the Society for the Struggle for African Freedom of which I was a committee member. What a man he was! He’s one of the greatest Africans I’ve known. He had wide contacts. heavens, that man – women fell for him like flies. He used to say "I’ll liberate Africa with my penis", and he laughed so widely you could see the back of his throat.’ I wanted to put some questions to him but he disappeared in the throng of Presidents and Ministers. Mustafa no longer concerns me, for Mahjoub’s telegram has changed everything, bringing me worries of my own. When I first read Mrs Robinson’s reply to my letter I had a feeling of immense joy. I read it in the train a second time and tried, though in vain, to banish my thoughts from the spot that had become the pivot round which they revolved.
The donkeys continued to toss up the stones with their hooves. ‘Why so silent, as though you’ve lost your tongue? Why don’t you say something?’ said Mahjoub.
‘Civil servants like me can’t change anything,’ I said to him.
‘If our masters say "Do so-and-so", we do it. You’re the head of the National Democratic Socialist Party here. It’s the party in power, so why not pour out your anger on them?’
Mahjoub said apologetically, ‘If it hadn’t been for this…this calamity…on the day it happened we were preparing to travel in a delegation to ask for the building of a large hospital, also for an intermediate boys’ school, a primary school for girls, an agricultural school and…’ Suddenly he broke off and retired into his angry silence.
I glanced at the river on our left gleaming with menace and reverberating with mysterious sound. Then, in front of us, there came into view the ten domes in the middle of the cemetery, and the recollection it called forth cut into my heart.
‘We buried them without any fuss, first thing in the morning,’ said Mahjoub. ‘We told the women not to mourn. We held no funeral ceremony and informed no one – the police would only have come along and there would have been all the scandal of an investigation.’
‘Why the police?’ I asked in alarm.
He looked at me for a while then fell silent. A long time later he said: ‘A week or ten days after you went away her father said he had given Wad Rayyes a promise – and they married her off to him. Her father swore at her and beat her; he told her she’d marry him whether she liked it or not. I didn’t attend the marriage ceremony; no one was there except his friends: Bakri, your grandfather, and Bint Mahzoub. For myself, I tried to deflect Wad Rayyes from his purpose, but like someone obsessed he insisted. I talked to her father, who said he wouldn’t be made a laughing-stock by people saying his daughter wouldn’t listen to him. After the marriage I told Wad Rayyes to go about things with tact. For two weeks they remained together without exchanging a word. She was – he was in an indescribable state, like a madman. He complained to all and sundry, saying how could there be in his house a woman he’d married according to the laws of God and His Prophet and how could there not be between them the normal relationship of man and wife. We used to tell him to have patience, then…’
The two donkeys suddenly brayed at the same time and I almost fell out of the saddle. For two whole days I went on asking people about it, but no one would tell me. They all avoided looking at me as though they were accomplices in some dire crime.
