Season of Migration to the North Read Online Free PDF Page B

the rooms. Then the two men came along and led me off
to another room, where they sat me down on a chair among other boys. At noon, when I returned to my mother, she asked me where I’d been and I told her what had
happened. For a moment she glanced at me curiously as though she wanted to hug
me to her, for I saw that her face had momentarily lit up, that her eyes were
bright and her lips had softened as though she wished to smile or to say
something. But she did not say anything. This was a turning-point in my life.
It was the first decision I had taken of my own free will.
    ‘I
don’t ask you to believe what I tell you. You are entitled to wonder and to
doubt — you’re free. These events happened a long time ago. They ate, as you’ll
now see, of no value. I mention them to you because they spring to mind,
because certain incidents recall certain other ones.
    ‘At any rate I devoted myself with the whole of my being to
that new life. Soon I discovered in my brain a wonderful ability to learn by
heart, to grasp and comprehend. On reading a book it would lodge itself solidly
in my brain. No sooner had I set my mind to a problem in arithmetic than its
intricacies opened up to me, melted away in my hands as though they were a
piece of salt I had placed in water. I learnt to write in two weeks, after
which I surged forward, nothing stopping me. My mind was like a sharp knife,
cutting with cold effectiveness. I paid no attention to the astonishment of the
teachers, the admiration or envy of my schoolmates. The teachers regarded me as
a prodigy and the pupils began seeking my friendship, but I was busy with this
wonderful machine with which I had been endowed. I was cold as a field of ice,
nothing in the world could shake me.
    ‘I covered the first stage in two years and in the
intermediate school I discovered other mysteries, amongst which was the English
language. My brain continued on, biting and cutting like the teeth of a plough.
Words and sentences formed themselves before me as though they were
mathematical equations; algebra and geometry as though they were verses of
poetry. I viewed the vast world in the geography lessons as though it were a
chess board. The intermediate was the furthest stage of education one could
reach in those days. After three years the headmaster — who was an Englishman —
said to me, "This country hasn’t got the scope for that brain of yours, so
take yourself  off. Go to Egypt or Lebanon or England. We have nothing further
to give you." I immediately said to him: “I want to go to Cairo.” He later
facilitated my departure and arranged a free place for me at a secondary school
in Cairo, with a scholarship from the government. This is a fact in my life:
the way chance has placed in my path people who gave me a helping hand at every
stage, people for whom I had no feelings of gratitude; I used to take their
help as though it were some duty they were performing for me.
    ‘When the headmaster informed me that everything had been
arranged for my departure to Cairo, I went to talk to my mother. Once again she
gave me that strange look. Her lips parted momentarily as though she wanted to
smile, then she shut them and her face reverted to its usual state: a thick
mask, or rather a series of masks. Then she disappeared for a while and brought
back her purse, which she placed in my hand.
    “Had your father lived,” she said to me, "he would not
have chosen for you differently from what you have chosen for yourself Do as
you wish, depart or stay it’s up to you. It’s your life and you’re free to do
with it as you will. In this purse is some money which will come in useful.”
That was our farewell: no tears, no kisses, no fuss. Two human beings had
walked along a part of the road together, then each had gone his way. This was
in fact the last thing she said to me, for I did not see her again. After long
years and numerous experiences, I remembered that moment and I wept. At the
time,