The Old Man's Stories E-Book

Yussuf Afifi

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 157

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

A perplexed young immigrant man suffered from the dispersion of his thoughts and inability to decide whether to leave the Scandivinavian society or stay and adapt to it. He hated solitude, darkness and the feeling of alienation, and had yet been able to find love. One day he met an old man who was also an immigrant, but with longer experience with the Scandinavians. The young man asked him for advice, and the old man answered him.

Leseprobe

It was an ordinary Saturday night in the middle of the coastal city of Gothenburg, Sweden. The summer season was not very hot; cold in the evening and even colder at night. I met an old man when I was about to enter my favourite nightclub that evening. I preferred this club to others because it gathered multiple types of people from different nationalities, especially women, and it was possible to get to know girls in the cabaret quickly. It was easier than other cabarets due to the size of the area and the proximity of the visitors, who were standing next to each other at the bar, or even on the dance floor, which facilitated the approach on the girls without embarrassment. It was better to find a girl next to you to talk and flirt with than to stay at a distance from her and start chatting and then get rejected. I had slept with one of the girls before I got dressed to leave for the club mentioned above. I had met that girl in the club about a month ago, and at the first meeting, we went to bed together before she even told me her name or I told her mine. It seemed that sleeping in a bed was her only priority. She was blonde and her eyes grey, leaning towards dark grey. I loved her beautiful face and the colour of her bright blond hair and her grey eyes. However, I did not find anything else to connect me to her or a way to love her since nothing was making me hold on to this relationship to her other than just sex. I was bored with this relationship and felt that it would not lead to a lasting relationship. I was waiting for her to leave and break up with me at any moment. So on that very evening, Saturday night, I decided that this would be our last intercourse. I did not intend to meet her in my bedroom that night, nor was I planning to be naked with her. She said goodbye and ended our relationship that evening, and she was aware that I was planning to stay up tonight and maybe meet a new girl. This seemed to worry her, so she tried to stop my sexual desire not to go out but to stay with her and stay up to stay with her, but her attempts failed as soon as I l got off her naked body left the bed. I had prepared myself to go out and stay up late, and I decided that she should stay in my house and wait for me there, or she could go to her house and wait for me there. She was desperate for me. I felt that it was the end, mainly because I had discussed it with her before, so she was not surprised by the matter. She seemed to understand my intention to separate, so she instead wanted to end the relationship herself. She said that if she wanted, she could sleep with another man tonight and added that I would never see her again. She said this out of despair and in a manner of venting her anger. She left me, and I never saw her again after that. After retiring, I was busy thinking about someone else; the older man.

He had occupied my mind since a few weeks back. I was confused about him, and I thought of this older man tonight too. I had gotten used to seeing him and had glimpsed him more than once. Every weekend he stood at a certain distance from the entrance of the nightclub. The distance to the access changed every Saturday. He was standing in earnest and sternness, and his eyes never left did not leave the perimeter of the entrance to the nightclub. He is an immigrant, like me, and his features are Middle Eastern, like mine. He may be an Arab, so I felt encouraged to talk to him. I arrived at the club, approached the entrance and stood waiting for my turn to enter. The old man had not appeared yet, so I deliberately delayed entering the club for him to appear and to stand there as he usually did. I let those standing behind me pass me in line and join so that I could wait for him and to see him. He showed up at the right moment. I saw him coming from a side street, heading towards the club at the usual distance. He stood there and started looking in the direction of the club. I immediately left my place and went to him. I walked towards him, and when I closed in on him, I noticed that the look in his eyes did not change, nor did he turn towards me. His gaze remained fixed on the club's entrance, but before I spoke to him, I noticed a look of remorse or heartbreak on his face, and the look in his eyes was sad as well. My passion became to discover the secret of why he was standing in front of the club, and why he so sadly looked at the entrance. I walked up and stood before him.

"Do you speak Arabic?" I asked him.

He quickly confidently answered me: "Do you speak Arabic?"

We laughed together, even though this was the first second of our meeting despite the age difference. However, we felt a certain sense of relief, and after a while. He would soon be sixty, told me. I was twenty-five. Despite his old age, he was finely dressed, and when I looked closely at his features, I could see, despite the low light in the cabaret street, that the man still had a certain handsomeness that had not yet left him. He had begun to say goodbye to life while he still kept on to it. While I was of medium height and had a strong body, my face was more violent than handsome. Moreover, I was an average in the eyes of European girls, but to the oriental girls, who were supposed to be my countrywomen, I was not entirely fortunate. In addition, my average qualifications did not help me much here. They looked at me and evaluated me based on my status. The girls of the East were not satisfied with me unless they had a lower status than me. I had to mind my class in front of them as well, so I left and emigrated. I came here, to Scandinavia, trying my luck, but I found myself among those who are more beautiful than the girls of my country. I found myself surrounded by the beauties of the world! Even though they had everything in the universe, they did not look at me from the perspective of my status or class. Before I came here, I had only seen them on the pages and the covers of fashion magazines. I see them as I sit among them on buses or trains, I observe them passing me on the public roads, and I watch them in public parks and beaches in the summer, lying half-naked, highlighting their enchanting beauty. I saw them walking in their underwear and transparent pyjamas', as usual in the streets in the summer. This way of dressing, which was and still is, for our oriental and religious women, clothes are worn only in the bedroom and would also be specially reserved for the wedding night. We left our countries, or rather, we fled from the entire Middle Eastern region. This region had recently been exposed to many wars and non-stop fighting due to endless sectarian conflicts, in which poverty and unemployment spread to an unspeakable and unbearable extent and hatred of the citizens belonging to countries that were severely shaken. In succession, that hatred was transmitted between the immigrants and consequently, the phenomenon of an immigrant hating another immigrant was exposed. It seemed that when I moved here to Scandinavia, I saw that this hatred had carried with them to the different countries of immigration. So you find the phenomenon of an immigrant, who hates another immigrant, and where each immigrant is reminding the other of the tragedy and misfortune from which he fled, and sought refuge in Europe. Although they lived in luxury in the rich countries of the West, these feelings of hatred did not disappear nor evaporate. One immigrant could be harming another, and yet another immigrant could be plotting against another. At the time when prosperous Northern Europe began to be devoid of people, and vast lands could not find people to inhabit them, and people were disappearing little by little and here and there to live elsewhere, Europe began to tempt the immigrants to make them stay.

They brought the world's poor with different methods and pretences, all to get people. Like all the lost youth in those Middle Eastern countries, I managed to obtain the visa money in an under-the-buss kind of manner. I bought the visa from mediators who took advantage of the situation, as most of them had a particular relationship with foreign embassies and consulates. It came to the point that whoever bought a passport would quickly be brought back to get an entry visa and then immediately depart to Scandinavia and Sweden in particular. He was an office courier inside the foreign consulate, and he came to me with my passport while I was waiting for him at one of the cafés located in the Consulate Street. My stay in Gothenburg did not last more than three years. I missed the acclimatization to the mechanisms of life here, how to perform and behave to reconcile my new life with these people whom I never had in my whole life imagined meeting and socializing with. I had read about them in the course of history and that they were called Vikings. At that time, I did not know anything about them except that they were called Vikings in books. I did not even understand the meaning of that title. Later I came to understand what it meant? Old Norse was the language spoken by the Vikings and the language in which the Edda, the sagas, and most of our other primary sources for current knowledge on Norse mythology were written. The word Vikings came from the Scandinavians themselves. The Old Norse word "vik" (bay or creek) formed the root of "Viking" (pirate). The City of Gothenburg, where I lived, was named Göteborg in the city's charter of 1621 and simultaneously was given Gothenburg's German and English name. In English, the town got its Swedish name after the Göta älv, called Göta River, and the end of the term stems from the fort built along that river, hence the word "borg." Both the Swedish and the German/English names were in use before 1621, and had already been used for the previous City of Gothenburg, founded in 1604 that burned down in 1611. Furthermore, Gothenburg is one of a few Swedish cities with an official and widely used exonym. There is also one of the squares, famous for the statue of Gustav II Adolf that stands on Gustav Adolf's square in the centre of Gothenburg, pointing down from its elevated position. He supposedly said, "Here the city should lie", when he founded today's Gothenburg, which received its city privileges in 1621. Going back to the older man, I wanted to know the reason for him standing in front of the club, and why he continued to cast long looks at the entrance and even why he did so every Saturday night, so I suggested that we could sit down and talk. I was polite enough to make up for the age difference between us and persuade him to sit down with me. He thought that he should apologize for our meeting and that we should meet another day. He was polite and thoughtful since he feared that he would spoil my chances of meeting a girl that night. Saturday night was the night when most women and girls liked to hook up. I refused to leave him. I wanted the time of getting to know someone who had preceded me in exile and who knew a lot about it, and the fact that he seemed very familiar with the country to which I had moved was a great bonus. We agreed that we should go to a park near the nightclub. It was a small park in which the middle area was made from wood and plastic and designed for children. In the shape of anthropomorphic pets, the playground had a good, well-made wooden bench to sit on, was beautifully constructed. As a group of trees shading the place, we sat on one of the seats, and neither of us realized that this meeting would never be repeated. It was the moment of the beginning and the end of our acquaintance. I took advantage of his presence and initiative regarding my concerns to ask him questions, including my feelings about my exile. I thought that perhaps I would move to another European country, in which I could live and make a fresh start. Many things happened to me, most of which I did not feel comfortable with, some of which I was bored. Most of the problems regarded the communication between people here and the lack of real friendships between them. Our immigrants, especially from the eastern countries, are afraid of making friends with others here, and the terrible darkness of most of the seasons here, in addition to the cold and the frost, as well as the people's isolation from each other, does not help with the warmth of life. I said to him:

"I want to leave this country. I am tired of the darkness and the snow and the coldness of the people."

The old man gave me a brief reply: "If you pass by this country and you know of it, make sure that you will not be able to live in another place."

I automatically replied: "Why? "

He answered with confidence: "It is the mystery and magic of these countries."

I told him that what he said was unclear and that I did not understand what he implied. I even asked for a further explanation. He said that as a new immigrant, one must understand the people with whom he has to live and that he must be conscious about their land and that he even has to live by their culture and customs. The older man explained that this does not mean that a person should be like them; instead, he must keep up with them or lose a lot. He turned to me and asked me a direct question:

"What do you want to know? I feel that you come to the clubs because you are interested in the women here."

I answered him that I did not wholly desire them. The relations were only superficial and purely sensual. I told him that I would like and want stability and to form a family, and to guarantee a life in peace, I must plan for marriage. He pointed out that as soon as we set foot in this country, we become preoccupied with sex. I explained to him that I found it difficult with blondes from this country. I told him that I didn't know if this was caused by misunderstanding or perhaps misconduct on my part in my behaviour towards them. The old man changed his position on the wooden seat.

After he straightened up again, I felt him again comfortably listening, so I told him of another thing that was worrying me; I intended to travel and bring a girl from my country of origin, from the East. I would marry her and live with her here. My mind would be calm and secure of my honour, especially since I do not feel comfortable with the idea or even with the whole step of marrying within my native country. So I was confused, especially since I suffered from the disregard of my countrywomen. A disregard originated from class outlook and their thoughts on wealth and poverty when choosing their life partner. I spoke to him about this, and I expressed my desire to tell him something.

“I was thinking of returning to my homeland to get married and bring a girl from my culture that knows my customs, to live with her and having peace of mind.”

Then he laughed sarcastically: “And who told you that if you did that and brought her here, you would be at peace?”

He was silent for a moment and then returned to the conversation, hinting that we should arrange things to occupy me to understand Scandinavian society, the composition of characters, and the peoples' human behaviour. He gave me a quick example of this by saying that when we meet women here, we must be careful not to extend our hand for a handshake since they only make a verbal salutation and a nod of the head and shoulder. The old man mentioned that to avoid the embarrassment of reaching out my hand and having it suspended in the air for a few seconds, ending up feeling ashamed and, after that, hating the other person. I was concerned about what was important to me. I didn't want to waste time talking about the whole Scandinavian society, and I hoped we would postpone this for another conversation. I asked for permission to talk about what worried me: my desire to leave this country or whether I should stay here. I was not sure what to do. And then the possibility of bringing a girl from my homeland, since I thought it would help me adapt to the coastal city. It worried me that many of our immigrants, who had lived here for years and years, had not yet adapted. According to my question, the old man arranged his information in several points and asked me to focus on each topic. Perhaps this would be useful and finally make me understand my place in this land, the land of the Vikings. The old man arranged the points that I asked him about and linked them to other things, such as information from his own experiences or the experiences of others he had heard. There was