Egyptian Arabic

Leo's first Thursday at a story club in a Zamalek library: the notice on the door in Standard Arabic, who he is and what brings him, Grandma's proverb that the one who lives long sees a lot, and the words every Egyptian tale opens with.

At the kitchen table in Heliopolis, Madame Nadia rehearses Leo in the tale of Goha, his son and the donkey: the scene with was and a participle, what happened in the bare past, and the end in one breath.

At the club, Leo tells Goha and the donkey in his own words before reading the page: a tale told in the present, as if it were happening now, a man passes and says to him, a woman passes and says to him, and the proverb that pleasing everyone is a goal never reached.

Karim's first camera test on the courtyard step of the old house: Leo tells the camera how it started, about eight years ago, a month or two that became a year, a wedding and a daughter, and a house some ninety years old.

Goha's nail at the club: Goha sells his house on one condition, a nail in the wall stays his, he visits it every day, and suddenly brings a sheep, and in the end the buyer runs off: the punchline words of a tale, and suddenly, and in the end, it turned out.

Salma is the guest at the club with the oldest Cinderella: a servant girl by the Nile, red slippers, a bird that drops one in the lap of the Pharaoh, who searches all Egypt for her; told with the hedges a tale needs, they say that, as the story goes, so they say.

Goha's pot at the club: Mr. Adel tells it and Leo tells it back with the little words of a Cairene storyteller, well then, so, isn't that so, goodness, let me tell you; a pot that can give birth can die, and greed lessens what was gathered.

Reading to Salma at home in Maadi, the Fisherman and the Genie: a poor fisherman casts his net, and while he is pulling finds a brass jar; a genie comes out, with the fisherman standing there; the fisherman tricks him back in and throws him in the sea.

The book at the club: the Announcer reads the first line of Clever Hassan in Standard Arabic, there was once a king who had three sons, and Leo says it the way Grandma would; the book's who against our little word, the book's not against ours, and the b- of the present.

Karim films at the club as Leo tells Clever Hassan and the ghoul: the cure is with the ghoul, the king's sons are afraid she'll eat them, Hassan is afraid of nothing, greet her or else she smells you, and the proverb that he who fears the ghoul, the ghoul appears to him.

In Grandma's kitchen Leo rolls his first vine leaves and learns two proverbs and the little word that opens them: the one who doesn't know says lentils, and the monkey in its mother's eye is a gazelle.

On the balcony with Grandma and the basil, Leo brings a client in a hurry, a quarrelsome neighbour and a budget, and gets three proverbs that command nobody and everyone: walk straight, stay away from trouble, stretch your legs as far as your blanket.

At Layla's bedtime in Maadi Leo tells the hare and the tortoise, and Salma makes him say whenever and when the way a Cairene tale does: whenever he sees her he laughs, when she had enough she said let's race, when he woke she was at the line.

At Friday lunch Uncle Mahmoud tells the wedding order that got away, forty dresses and a thousand metres of silk, Madame Nadia brings the numbers down, and Leo hears how a merchant stretches a story and plays it down: a hundred times told, not a metre added.

The lift has stopped again, so on the stairs Sayed tells Leo the day it stuck with the bride between two floors: the groom was about to climb in his suit, Sayed nearly called the mechanic, and the walls have ears.

Grandma shells beans and tells the tale behind the proverb the one with no elder should buy one: a village sends its old people to the mountain, a bad year comes with neither rain nor bread, and the hidden father says either you sow the sweepings or you starve.

At bedtime Leo tells Layla the lion and the hare, and Salma keeps him moving: the hare went slowly and came late, another lion stopped him on the road, they went up to a well and the lion jumped in; the one who digs a pit for his brother falls in it.

At a crowded Friday table Karim, Mona and Salma coax Leo into the story of his first taxi in Cairo, and the lesson is how Egyptians ask for a story softly: let Leo tell it, won't you tell us, go on, tell it, I wish Mona would tell one.

Karim films and Leo asks: Grandma tells how she came to the old house as a bride of seventeen, sat a year behind the wooden window before she knew the neighbours, left after the children grew, and how since that day the house has waited, until now.

At the Feast lunch Karim films Madame Nadia and Uncle Mahmoud telling how they met at the fabric shop: he said the blue silk was too expensive for a teacher, she asked whether he had the colour in cotton, and her father asked whether the shop sold cloth or excuses.

Abdo the carpenter, next door to the old house, on camera: the house was built before his grandfather's time, they say by a fabric merchant; the doors were made here; the window was kept thirty years; and the carpenter's own door is falling apart.

Mr. Fathi on camera at the restoration workshop: Leo on his first day looked like a lost tourist with three words, drew like an engineer and talked as if he were a child; his ceiling is better than Mr. Fathi's first; give the bread to its baker, and ask the one who has tried.

Karim films in Leo's studio while Salma brings lunch: can I go up the ladder, go up but don't touch the beam, don't you dare film me, don't worry, watch out for the cat, don't draw while you eat, and the piper dies with his finger still playing.

Editing night at Karim and Mona's flat, the cut on the laptop: nobody but a carpenter will watch three hours of doors, a story must have an ending, no ending but the house opening, it hasn't opened yet, then Grandma at the window and nothing but her, a dome from a grain, forty minutes and not a minute more.

The voice-over at Karim's: Leo reads the film's narration with the structure words of a told story, first, then, after that, in the end, the long and short of it; the film gets its title, Grandma's House; repetition teaches the donkey, and the donkey speaks good Arabic.

Layla's bedtime in Maadi, the short tale tonight: an ant goes down to drink, no sooner has she gone down than the water carries her off, the dove drops her a leaf, no sooner has the hunter raised his net than the ant bites him; do good and throw it in the sea.

Leo's own story at the Zamalek story club: a cat that used to sit on his drawings, you know what I did after that, tell us, I sat in her place and you know what I felt, fleas of course, warmth, and under the tile an old kitchen; the cat is the first restorer.

The screening of Grandma's House at the Zamalek library, and Leo's few words first: first I want to say two words, that's a first, thanks to everyone who opened his house, and especially to Grandma who isn't here, she watched it twice at home, I won't keep you long, lights off, better than the radio.

Doctor Hala after the screening, a writer on the old houses of Cairo: she liked the film and the window more, the window is Abdo's, I'd like to propose something if you don't mind, could you give a speech at the opening, if I gave a speech Grandma would correct me, one condition, the house goes in my book.

Grandma's table at the Mansours' after the film: she is old in it but the house is young; Leo tells the year as one tale, there was oh what there was, an American telling Goha, vine leaves, a lion in a well, a cat who found a kitchen, a film, and they lived in peace and plenty, the mulberry rhyme, ninety in the summer, and that's that.