Khan Al-Khalili by Naguib Mahfouz
42
When they got home, they found his parents and Kamal Khalil’s family all waiting for them. Sitt Tawhida and Nawal had come to pay a visit to the sick young man’s mother. When they heard that his elder brother had gone to the sanitorium to bring him home, they both stayed on until he arrived. When Rushdi finally appeared, everyone was completely shocked, and no one made any effort to hide their feelings. The young man seemed to have no idea of what was going on nor did he seem to realize that anyone else was there. They sat him down on his bed; his chest was heaving up and down and his eyes were closed. Everyone stared at him, unable to say a single word. Sitt Dawlat, his mother, turned pale and started trembling. She rushed over to his bed and sat behind him so he could lean back on her much-troubled breast. After a while Rushdi opened his eyes and looked round the room at the people gathered there. There was now a glint of awareness and recognition, and a hint of a smile appeared.
“Thank God!” he said in a husky voice that seemed to come from the depths of his chest, “thank God, I’m back in my own room!”
Everyone repeated a prayer of thanks, and Sitt Tawhida reiterated it.
“God willing, I’ll get better here,” he said with a smile. “Please don’t leave, dear lady!”
She kissed him on the shoulder. “I won’t, dear Rushdi, God willing!” she replied. “My heart can’t deceive me.”
His eyes met Nawal’s several times, and on each occasion he was greeted by a sweet smile that managed to combine in one all her prayers, hopes, and fears. Ahmad moved off to one side, never taking his eyes off his brother. Every time Rushdi’s eyes glazed over, Ahmad shuddered. “God Almighty,” he thought to himself, “show us your mercy!”
“It would be best,” said Rushdi’s father wisely, “for us to leave him so he can get his breath back and rest.”
Everyone went out except for his mother. The two visitors went home. For a while Ahmad stayed in his own room, but he could not stand it for long and went back to his brother’s. There he found Rushdi still pleased to be back and talking to his mother.
“I’m so happy to be home,” he was telling her in a soft, quavering voice. “The sanitorium was so awful; I didn’t eat anything and I didn’t get any sleep. I saw one patient bleed so much that he basically drowned in his own blood. They went past our room carrying another patient to the isolation wing where they put people who are close to death. It was a shame that my poor health had a negative effect on Anis Bishara, my roommate. I got the impression that my condition scared him, so he started crying. Now I feel much more relaxed.…”
He looked up at Ahmad. For a moment he said nothing, his chest still going up and down. “I’m so sorry, Ahmad,” he went on. “I’ve worn you out. Don’t hold my disobedience against me. From now on, I’m going to take care of myself, I promise. I’m not going to go against any advice you want to give me. If God grants me a cure, I’ll never play fast and loose with my life again.”
Ahmad had to grit his teeth to stop himself from bursting into tears.
“There’s no need to blame yourself, Rushdi,” he said with a smile. “Everything happens in accordance with God’s command. God willing, you’ll start getting better tomorrow. You’ll remember this entire ordeal the same way people remember nightmares after they’ve woken up!”
The young man was delighted with his brother’s words and gave him a smile. He asked him to bring over the table so it was close to his bed and to put his bottles of medicine on it. Ahmad did so, placing it within his brother’s reach and arranging the medicines: a box of calcium, a bottle of sleeping pills, and caromin.
Rushdi thanked him. “I’m going to need a nurse,” he said, “to give me a calcium injection every day.”
“I’ll get the pharmacist to send one,” Ahmad said, “and make the necessary arrangements with her. You should stop talking now so you don’t overexert yourself. May God take care of you and keep you safe!”
Rushdi took some sleeping medicine, and with that he managed to relax. He had been kept awake for so many nights that he actually managed to fall asleep, although he had several coughing fits that cruelly interrupted his slumber.
43
Now came the really dreadful days. Rushdi was wracked with pain. His poor broken-hearted mother did her best to prop him up. He almost never got any sleep. Even though he took sleeping medicine, he could only doze off for a short while just before dawn. All too often morning would arrive, and he would still be sitting up in bed, his entire frame wracked by coughing fits. He stopped eating, and, whenever he forced himself to try a few bites, he would vomit them up in a horrendous fit of coughing. By now the coughing was continuous and wracked his entire body. No sooner had one bout come to an end than the veins in his neck would bulge out and prepare to launch another one, leaving his eyes red and streaming. He would seem to be going rapidly downhill, so that any thought of a cure was out of the question, but then he would appear to cross that hurdle. It was not so much that he got better, but simply that, as time went by, he kept on resisting and putting up a brave front.
Then the violent coughing began to subside, and he started getting some regular sleep. He even managed to eat some food and was finally able to lie on his side. This seemed to augur well for his recovery, and yet March went by with him still incredibly weak and exhausted. He could not get out of bed and got thinner and thinner, so much so that he was reduced to mere skin and bone. His visitors were shocked when they saw his legs, his emaciated face, his drawn cheeks, and sunken eyes. He had a sallow look about him, and his head seemed larger than usual, so much so that his neck seemed on the point of snapping because of its heavy load. The expression in his eyes was grim, a reflection of his determination to keep going, but also of pain and resignation. The very sight of it made Ahmad ache with pain, and it wore him out. Every time he looked in on Rushdi, he could see that same unforgettable expression on his face; it all compelled Ahmad’s already overburdened heart to take on all the pain and suffering his brother was going through, leaving bleeding wounds deep inside him. Those looks in Rushdi’s eyes plunged him into new depths of pain, disease, and despair. Good God, how many times was his heart destined to be torn apart and his tear-ducts to pour forth?
On one occasion Ahmad went into Rushdi’s room and discovered that he had sat up in bed and put his legs down on the floor. His mother was not there, and Ahmad was scared that this maneuver might indicate that Rushdi was going to do something that could harm him.
“Wouldn’t it be better to stay in bed?” he asked.
Rushdi looked very hurt, but then his expression changed to one of frustration. “Listen, brother,” he said somewhat exasperated, “can’t you see that time keeps going by, and I’m stuck here in bed, not moving at all. I stay in bed all day and half the night until that soporific we call sleep takes over. Good God! How restricted my life has become! I’m bored sick of staying in bed.”
Ahmad had no idea what to say. Rushdi’s obvious exasperation made him feel particularly miserable. “Be patient, Rushdi,” he said gently. “That’s the only way you’re going to get better.”
They all had to live with it; that was all there was to it. Rushdi dealt with the oppressive march of time by reading newspapers and magazines. He used to talk to his mother as well—she would hardly ever leave his room—and to his father and brother too. In spite of all the pain and tedium he still managed to avoid the kind of despair that had led him to write the letter that he had sent his brother from the sanitorium. He was still hoping to live his life and be cured of this dreadful illness. However, the pain that had etched such a profoundly melancholy expression onto his countenance had by now made him fully aware of the reality that lies behind the suffering subsumed within the essence of this worldly existence. He did indeed feel pangs of agony as the cold breaths of death hovered over him. Life’s span would probably prefer that everyone become familiar with those chilling sensations, and yet it only manages to reveal their reality to the aged and
What was amazing was that, in spite of all the pain and frustration, Rushdi did not forget about matters of the heart. The disease could not erase thoughts of love. It may not have pulsed through his veins in the way it had once done, and yet it could still make his heart race. So many happy memories were associated with his love, memories that shone a bright light into his heart, which created its own pulsating rhythm in his ear. His heart was stimulated like a flower inspired by the breath of spring—gleaming smiles, the desert road, honey-colored eyes, they all flashed before his eyes, while his ears could hear the sounds of pacts and pledges of love. But what would happen now? What was the unknowable future hiding? Would he ever recover his former youth, energy, hope, and love? Would he ever again be able to strut about with a supercilious elegance, the way he had before? To laugh out loud without provoking a violent coughing fit? To have tunes and melodies running through his head? To have his friends spot him and yell, “Here comes the Lionheart!” To take Nawal’s arm in his and walk with her up the mountain road, the two of them shrouded from view by the clouds? Was there any hope left of buying the engagement ring and getting married?
Nawal would come to visit him with her mother, and the two of them would exchange fleeting glances full of a passion whose ardor only they could feel. O God, why could they not be left alone, if only for a moment? How he longed to hear a loving word from her, one to dampen the burning heat of his feverish heart!
March came and went, and with April came a change. Nawal no longer came to visit him, and a whole week went by without a visit from her. By the middle of the month she still had not come; only her father came. April came to an end with neither of them seeing the other. He was visited by his friends from the Zahra Café and their families, his friends from al-Sakakini, and many relatives and former neighbors. The house was always full of visitors, but never Nawal. She had suddenly vanished from his life, as though she had never been a tangible reality and a devout hope in his life. He was quite sure that his parents and brother shared his pain and disappointment, but they did not say anything about it so as not to upset him even more. His self-respect made it impossible for him to ask his parents why Nawal had stopped coming to visit him.
Was it that they had found out what his illness really was and assumed that the situation was hopeless? Was it a fear of contagion that made them keep her away? Had he now become an evil to be avoided after being a beloved suitor for so long? Had love gone back on its word? He started mulling over his grief in silence until he could stand it no longer. One day, when Ahmad was the only one in his room, he broached the subject.
“Do you see how she’s stopped coming?” he said.
Ahmad realized full well to whom he was referring and feigned indifference. “Don’t think about such things,” he replied. “You’re fighting for your health, so don’t deliberately weaken your own resistance.”
“The worst thing in life,” Rushdi went on as though he had not even heard what his brother had said, “is for a friend to shun you for no good reason, or for the only reason to be that bad health has kept him away.”
“Don’t bother about it and don’t give in to such dark thoughts!”
“I won’t be bothering about it any more,” Rushdi muttered sadly, “but such perfidy is evil!”
Ahmad shuddered to himself as he recalled that he himself had used exactly the same phrase earlier on. “Just remember,” he said, concealing his own emotions, “our hearts are with you. We still love you and will never treat you badly.”
Rushdi smiled. “I can’t remember when I learned these lines of poetry:
Why is it I see people shunning me,
Only stealing glances in my direction?
People never pay attention to the sufferer;
They are only interested in the healthy.”
Ahmad frowned. “Are you trying to kill me with grief?” he asked.
“Good heavens, no!” Rushdi replied. “I love you even more than the idea of getting better!”
Ahmad went back to his own room. “Dear God,” he asked sadly, “how can she have cut him off when he is her victim?”
44
What had actually happened is that Kamal Khalil had been concerned about the exact nature of Rushdi’s illness. He soon shared his doubts with his wife. In order to put an end to any lingering doubts, he went to visit a friend of his in Bank Misr and inquired about Rushdi’s illness. The man told him the truth, which made Kamal Khalil very sad because he sincerely liked Rushdi and regarded him as the best possible husband for his daughter. The news hit Sitt Tawhida with all the force of a lightning bolt, and all her hopes for Nawal’s happiness vanished into thin air. Husband and wife sat down together.
“What do you think?” he asked with a frown.
His wife preferred to say nothing rather than reveal the painful truth.
“I don’t think Rushdi is going to recover from this terrible disease,” he said.
“God be kind to him!” she replied, clearly upset.
“And even if he does survive, he certainly won’t be fit for married life.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think that we have to protect my daughter’s health. She’s still young. Going into his room the way she has now done several times is exposing her to severe risks. She has to be told the truth so she won’t continue to live on fantasies or be exposed to contagion from a disease that few people ever recover from.”
“The whole thing is in God’s hands,” she replied, her tone one of sorrow and resignation.
They called Nawal in. She arrived, completely unaware of what they were about to tell her. She was looking downcast, a sign of how miserable she was feeling. Her father asked her to sit down on a chair opposite him.
“Nawal,” he said in a grave tone, “I called you here to tell you a very important secret. I’ve always known you to be an intelligent girl, and I expect you always to behave properly. You have to know that our neighbor, Rushdi, is much, much sicker than people are saying.…”
The girl’s face went very pale. Her father’s serious tone had gone straight to her heart, and she was suddenly terrified.
“What illness is it, Daddy?” she asked.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that Rushdi is stricken with tuberculosis. As you know, it’s a dreadful disease. God’s mercy is wide; however, everyone has an obligation to take care of themselves and not to do anything rash, whatever the reason may be. Let’s all pray that our friend recovers and remember the words of God Almighty in the Qur’an: ‘Do not cast yourself into perdition by your own hands.’ ”
Tuberculosis! God in heaven! What was her father telling her? Had her beloved Rushdi now turned into something she had to shun? Had this dreaded disease really lodged itself in his warm heart? Were all their hopes dashed and their dreams shattered? She looked back and forth between her two parents, utterly bereft. Her mother realized the agonies her daughter was going through, but had to keep the knowledge to herself in the presence of her husband.
“God knows well how sad and sorry we all are,” her mother said, “and He alone can heal our wounds. But your father’s right, Nawal. You’re still very young, and that means that you’re an easy target for this disease. So let’s do what is right for both you and us, and pray to God that Rushdi may recover. God hears and answers.…”
Nawal’s father observed her expression from beneath his bushy eyebrows, trying to read what he could see and what she was hiding. “Now you surely understand, Nawal,” he said, “why we had to call you in to talk about this. I’m sure you respect my views on the matter. I’m your father, and I’m more concerned about you than you yourself are. That’s why I’m telling you that from today you cannot visit our dear sick neighbor any more. There’s no reason to feel guilty about that; no intelligent, fair person can possibly hold it against you. Whatever the case may be, I don’t care what other people say or whether or not the
Nawal did not have the courage to say what was really going through her mind. The respect she had for her father was such that she could not argue with his point of view. She said nothing, and he had to prod her into saying something.
“I’ll do as you say, Daddy,” she replied softly.
That was all he wanted to hear. He was afraid that if they kept on talking she might reveal her true feelings, so with a sense of relief he stood up. “That’s exactly what I expected of you,” he said and then left the room.
No sooner had he gone than Nawal looked straight at her mother.
“How can this be, Mother?” she asked.
“It’s unavoidable, Nawal,” her mother replied sadly.
“How can I not visit him?” she sobbed. “How can I stay away? When someone is afraid for herself, is that a good enough reason to desert friends in their time of trial? What’s the point of having friendship or decency in this world of ours?”
She could not go on, but burst into tears. Her mother almost did the same, but she realized that, if she weakened now, she was putting her daughter at risk.
“There’s no point in anyone catching a fatal disease for the sake of a friend who won’t be any use to you if you get sick yourself. Your father wants to make sure that you stay young and healthy, and in that he’s absolutely right.”
“Okay, Mother. I’m willing to let myself be deluded by such horrible talk, but it’ll never do me any good. This illness is not the only evil thing in this world. Faithlessness is much worse. What will Rushdi think of me? Not only that, but how am I going to defend myself in front of him and everyone else?”
“You’ll tell them that your father strictly forbade you to visit him. Your father can deal with the problems, and you have to do what he says. No one can argue with a father’s right to control his daughter’s behavior.”