YUSUF IDRIS

The Chair Carrier

Read the following statements and decide if they are true or false. Identify the correct answer choice.
All of Cairo was shocked at the sight of the chair carrier.
The narrator immediately associates the chair as a religious symbol.
The narrator describes the chair carrier as the "fifth leg."
The chair carrier was obviously superbly strong.
The narrator is shocked to discover that the chair carrier is an ancient Egyptian.
The chair carrier had been carrying the chair for a thousand years.
The chair carrier was waiting for the narrator to give him the order to put it down.
Ptah Ra was waiting for the chair carrier to arrive.
The chair carrier asks to see a token of authorization in order to take commands from the narrator.
The chair carrier is overwhelmingly relieved to finally put the chair down.

Writing Suggestions
1. Discuss the elements that constitute the burden of the chair and relate them to the present.
2. Although this story relates particularly to Egyptians and to the Arab world, each society carries with it
burdens from its past. Discuss what some of these might be in our own history.
3. Comment on the statement, "Anyone capable of carrying a chair of such dimensions and weight for a
single moment could equally have been carrying it for thousands of years."
4. Discuss the options the narrator presents to himself for freeing the man from his burden at the end of
the story and suggest the practicality or impracticality of each alternative.
　　You can believe it or not, but excuse me for saying that your opinion is of no concern at all to me.
It’s enough for me that I saw him, met him and observed the chair with my own eyes. Thus I considered
that I had been witness to a miracle. But even more miraculous – indeed more disastrous – was that
neither the man, the chair, nor the incident caused a single passer-by in Opera Square, in Gumhouritta
Street, or in Cairo – or maybe in the whole wide world – to come to a stop at that moment.
　　It was a vast chair. Looking at it you’d think it had come from some other world, or that it had been
constructed for some festival, such a colossal chair, as though it were an institution all on its own, its seat
immense and softly covered with leopard skin and silken cushions. Once you’d seen it your great dream
was to sit in it, be it just the once, just for a moment. A moving chair, it moved forward with stately gait
as though it were in some religious procession. You’d think it was moving of its own accord. In awe and
amazement you almost prostrated yourself before it in worship and offered up sacrifices to it.
　　Eventually, however, I made out, between the four massive legs that ended in glistening glided
hooves, a fifth leg. It was skinny and looked strange amidst all that bulk and splendour; it was, though, no
leg but a thin, gaunt human being upon whose body the sweat had formed runnels and rivulets and had
caused woods and groves of hair to sprout. Believe me, by all that’s holy, I’m neither lying nor
exaggerating, simply relating, be it ever so inadequately, what I saw. How was it that such a thin, frail
man was carrying a chair like this one, a chair that weighed at least a ton, and maybe several? That was
the proposition that was presented to one’s mind – it was like some conjuring trick. But you had only to
look longer and more closely to find that there was no deception, that the man really was carrying the
chair all on his own and moving along with it.
　　What was even more extraordinary and more weird, something that was truly alarming, was that
none of the passer-by in Opera Square, in Gumhouritta Street or maybe in the whole of Cairo, was at all
astonished or treated the matter as if it was anything untoward, but rather as something quite normal and
unremarkable, as if the chair were as light as a butterfly and was being carried around by a young lad. I
looked at the people and at the chair and at the man, thinking that I would spot the raising of an eyebrow,
or lips sucked back in alarm, or hear a cry of amazement, but there was absolutely no reaction.
　　I began to feel that the whole thing was too ghastly to contemplate any longer. At this very moment
the man with his burden was no more than a step or two away from me and I was able to see his good-
natured face, despite its many wrinkles. Even so it was impossible to determine his age. I then saw
something more about him: he was naked except for a stout waistband from which hung, in front and
behind, a covering made of sailcloth. Yet you would surely have to come to a stop, conscious that your
mind had, like an empty room, begun to set off echoes telling you that, dressed as he was, he was a
stranger not only to Cairo but to our whole era. You had the sensation of having seen his like in books
about history or archaeology. And so I was surprised by the smile he gave, the kind of meek smile a
beggar gives, and by a voice that mouthed words.
　　‘May God have mercy on your parents, my son. You wouldn’t have seen Uncle Ptah Ra’?’
　　Was he speaking hieroglyphics pronounced as Arabic, or Arabic pronounced as hieroglyphics? Could
the man be an ancient Egyptian? I rounded on him:
　　‘Listen here – don’t start telling me you’re an ancient Egyptian?’
　　‘And are there ancient and modern? I’m simply an Egyptian.’
　　‘And what’s this chair?’
　　‘It’s what I’m carrying. Why do you think I’m going around looking for Uncle Ptah Ra’? It’s so that
he may order me to put it down just as he ordered me to carry it. I’m done in.’
　　‘You’ve been carrying it for long?’
　　‘For a very long time, you can’t imagine.’
　　‘A year?’
　　‘What do you mean by a year, my son? Tell anyone who asks – a year and then a few thousand.’
　　‘Thousand what?’
　　‘Years.’
　　‘From the time of the Pyramid, for example?’
　　‘From before that. From the time of the Nile.’
　　‘What do you mean: from the time of the Nile?’
　　‘From the time when the Nile wasn’t called the Nile, and they moved the capital from the mountain
to the river bank, Uncle Ptah brought me along and said “Porter, take it up”. I took it up and ever sine I’ve
been wandering all over the place looking for him to tell me to put it down, but from that day to this I’ve
not found him.’
　　All ability or inclination to feel astonishment had completely ended for me. Anyone capable of
carrying a chair of such dimensions and weight for a single moment could equally have been carrying it
for thousands of years. There was no occasion for surprise of protest; all that was required was a question:
　　‘And suppose you don’t find Uncle Ptah Ra’, are you going to go on carrying it around?’
　　‘What else shall I do? I’m carrying it and it’s been deposited in trust with me. I was ordered to carry
it, so how can I put it down without being ordered to?’
　　‘So what? Seeing that it’s wearing you out and breaking your back, you should throw it down – you
should have done so ages ago.’
　　‘That’s how you look at things because you’re safely out of it; you’re not carrying it, so you don’t
care. I’m carrying it and it’s been deposited in trust with me, so I’m responsible for it.’
　　‘Until when, for God’s sake?’
　　‘Till the order comes from Ptah Ra’.’
　　‘He couldn’t be more dead.’
　　‘Then from his successor, his deputy, from one of his descendants, from anyone with a token of
authorization from him.’
　　‘All right then, I’m ordering you right now to put it down.’
　　‘Your order will be obeyed – and thank you for your kindness – but are you related to him?’
　　‘Unfortunately not.’
　　‘Do you have a token of authorization from him?
　　‘No, I don’t.’
　　‘Then allow me to be on my way.’
　　He had begun to move off, but I shouted out to him to stop, for I had noticed something that looked
like an announcement or sign fixed to the front of the chair. In actual fact it was a piece of gazelle-hide
with ancient writing of it, looking as though it was from the earliest copies of the Revealed Books. It was
with difficulty that I read:

　　O chair carrier,

　　You have carried enough
　　And the time has come for you to be carried in a chair.
　　This great chair,
　　The like of which has not been made,
　　Is for you alone.
　　Carry it
　　And take it to your home.
　　Put it in the place of honour
　　And seat yourself upon it your whole life long.
　　And when you die
　　It shall belong to your sons.

　　‘This, Mr Chair Carrier, is the order of Ptah Ra’, an order that is precise and was issued at the same
moment in which he ordered you to carry the chair. It is sealed with his signature and cartouche.’
　　All this I told him with great joy, a joy that exploded as from someone who had been almost stifled.
Evers since I had seen the chair and known the story I had felt as though it were I who was carrying it and
had done so for thousands of years; it was as though it were my back that was being broken, and as
though the joy that now came to me were my own joy at being released at long last.
　　The man listened to me with head lowered, without a tremor of emotion: just waited with head
lowered for me to finish, and no sooner had I done so than he raised his head. I had been expecting a joy
similar to my own, even an expression of delight, but I found no reaction.
　　‘The order’s written right there above your head – written ages ago.’
　　‘But I don’t know how to read.’
　　‘But I’ve just read it out to you.’
　　‘I’ll believe it only if there’s a token of authorization. Have you such a token?’
　　When I made no reply he muttered angrily as he turned away:
　　‘All I get from you people is obstruction. Man, it’s a heavy load and the day’s scarcely long enough
for making just the one round.’
　　I stood watching him. The chair had started to move at its slow, steady pace, making one think that it
moved by itself. Once again the man had become its thin fifth leg, capable on its own of setting it in
motion.
I stood watching him as he moved away, panting and groaning and with the sweat pouring off him.
I stood there at a loss, asking myself whether I shouldn’t catch him up and kill him and thus give
vent to my exasperation.
Should I rush toward and topple the chair forcibly from his shoulders and make him take a rest? Or
should I content myself with the sensation of enraged irritation I had for him? Or should I calm down and
feel sorry for him?
Or should I blame myself for not knowing what the token of authorization was?