Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
The woman noticed his feet had come to a firm stop at the threshold and that he did not wish to cross it. It was as though he was reluctant to violate the privacy of someone else’s home. Anger seethed within her and she stared hard at him, her eyes red from sleeplessness and rage. However, she did not want to show her anger too soon and said, stifling her anger, “Do please come in!”
Kirsha wondered why she did not speak up if she really wanted to tell him something. At last he asked her roughly, “What do you want? Speak up now!”
What an impatient fellow he was! He spent the long nights outside their home without being bored and yet he could not bear conversation with her for a couple of minutes. Nevertheless, he was her husband in the sight of God, and of men, and the father of all her children. It was amazing that she could not, despite his bad treatment of her, hate him or despise him. He was her husband and her master, and she would spare no efforts to hold him and bring him back whenever the “sin” threatened to overtake him.
In fact, she was really proud of him, proud of his masculinity, of his position in the alley, and of the influence he had over his associates. If it were not for this one abominable shortcoming of his, she would not have a single complaint against him. Yet here he was answering the call of the devil and wishing that she would finish what she had to say so that he could go off at once to him. Her anger increased and she said sharply, “Come inside first…What are you doing standing there on the threshold like a stranger?”
Kirsha blew into the air with annoyance and disgust and crossed the threshold into the hall and asked in his husky voice, “What do you want?”
His wife, closing the door behind them, said, “Sit down for a little…What I have to say won’t take long.”
He looked at her suspiciously. What did the woman want to tell him? Was she going to try to stand in his way once again? He shouted at her, “Speak up, then! What are you wasting my time for?”
She asked sarcastically, “Are you in a hurry, then?”
“Don’t you know that I am?”
“What is it that makes you so impatient?”
His suspicions increased and his heart filled with anger as he asked himself why he put up with this woman. His feelings toward her were disturbed and conflicting. Sometimes he disliked her and sometimes he loved her. Dislike, however, was always uppermost when the “sin” appealed to his senses and always increased when the woman attempted to come down on him. Deep inside he wished his wife were just “sensible” and would leave him to his own affairs.
The strange thing was that he always considered himself in the right and was astonished at her attempts to stand in his way without justification. Was it not his right to do as he wished? And was it not her duty to obey and be satisfied as long as her needs were met and she was adequately provided for? She had become one of the necessities of his life, like sleep, hashish, and his home, for good or bad, and he never really considered dispensing with her. If he had wanted to, there would have been nothing to prevent him, but the fact was that she filled a need and looked after him well. In any case, he wanted her to be his wife. In spite of this and in the midst of his anger, he could not help asking himself why he put up with this woman. He shouted at her, “Don’t be stupid. Speak up or else let me go…”
“Can’t you think of a better way to address me than that?”
Kirsha flew into a rage. “Now I know you really have nothing to say to me. You had better go off to sleep like sensible women do…”
“If only you would go off to sleep like sensible men do!”
Kirsha slapped his hands together and shouted, “How can I go to sleep at this hour?”
“Why did God create night, then?”
Her husband, astonished and furious, exclaimed, “Since when have I gone to sleep at night? Am I ill, woman?”
She replied in a special tone of voice which she knew he would at once recognize and understand. “Turn in repentance to God, and pray that He accepts your repentance even though it comes so late!”
He realized what she meant and his doubts gave way before certainty. However, he pretended not to understand and, bursting with anger, said, “What sin is there in staying up talking for which a man should repent?”
His deliberate failure to understand merely increased her fury, and she shouted, “Repent about the nighttime and what goes on in it!”
Kirsha replied spitefully, “Do you want me to give up my whole life?”
She shouted back, now completely overcome with anger, “Your whole life?”
“That’s right. Hashish is my life.”
Her eyes flashed. “And the other hashish?”
He answered sarcastically, “I only burn one kind.”
“It’s me you burn! Why don’t you have your parties in your usual place on the roof anymore?”
“Why shouldn’t I have my parties where I please? On the roof, in the government buildings, in Gamaliya police station? What’s it to do with you?”
“Why have you changed the place where you hold your parties?”
Her husband threw up his head and shouted,
“May God bear witness! I have managed to stay out of government courts so far and I am now lucky enough to find my own home a permanent courthouse!” He lowered his head and continued: “It’s as though our house were under suspicion and there were investigators prowling around it all the time.”
She added bitterly, “Do you think that shameless youth is one of the investigators who have made you leave your home?”
Oh, so the insinuations were becoming declarations? His near-black face became even darker and he asked her, his voice showing his annoyance, “What youth is that?”
“The immoral one. The one you yourself serve with tea as if you were a waiter, like Sanker!”
“There’s nothing wrong in that. A café owner serves his customers just as the waiter does.”
She asked scornfully, her voice trembling with anger, “Why don’t you serve Uncle Kamil, then? Why do you only serve the immoral one?”
“Wisdom says that one should take care of new customers!”
“Anyone can talk glibly, but your conduct is disgraceful and immoral.”
He gestured toward her warningly with his hand and said, “Hold your tongue, you imbecile!”
“Everyone around here is grown up and acts intelligently…”
He ground his teeth, swore and cursed, but she took no notice of him and continued: “Everyone around is grown up and acts intelligently, but your brain seems to have got smaller the bigger you got!”
“You are raving, woman, raving by the life of the Prophet’s grandson Hussain! May God recompense him for his cruel murder!”
Quivering with emotion, she shouted hoarsely, “Men like you really deserve to be punished. You have brought disgrace on us again! Now we will have another nice scandal!”
“May God recompense him for his cruel murder! May God recompense him!”
Despair and anger got the better of her and she shouted out warningly, “Today only four walls can hear us. Do you want the whole world to hear, tomorrow?”
Kirsha raised his heavy eyebrows and demanded, “Are you threatening me?”
“I am and I am threatening your whole family! You know me!”
“It seems I’ll have to smash that silly head of yours!”
“Ha…ha…The hashish and your immoral living haven’t left an ounce of strength in your arms. You couldn’t even raise your hand! It’s come to an end, to an end, Kirsha!”
“It’s your fault things are where they are. Isn’t it always women who put men off women!”
“How sorry I am for a man who is past women altogether!”
“Why? I have fathered six daughters and one son…apart from abortions and miscarriages.”
Umm Hussain, quite beside herself with rage, shouted, “Aren’t you ashamed to mention your children? Doesn’t even thinking of them keep you from your filthy behavior?”
Kirsh
She shouted after him, “Has your patience run out? Are you longing for him because you had to wait? You’ll see the results of your filthy behavior, you pig!”
Kirsha slammed the door hard behind him and the noise shattered the silence of the night. His wife stood wringing her hands in anger and desperation. Her heart overflowed with a desire for revenge.
Abbas, the barber, gazed critically at his reflection in the mirror. Slowly a look of satisfaction came into his slightly protruding eyes. He had curled his hair nicely and carefully brushed away the dust from his suit.
He went outside his shop and stood waiting. It was his favorite time of day, early evening, and the sky was clear and deep blue. There was a slight warmth in the air, brought on by a whole day of drizzle. The surface of the alley, which was only bathed two or three times a year, was wet; some of the hollows in Sanadiqiya Street were still filled with thickly clouded clay-dust water.
Uncle Kamil was inside his little shop, asleep in his chair, and Abbas’ face glowed with a smile of pleasure. The love deep down within him stirred and he sang quietly to himself:
“Will you, my heart, after your long wait delight?
Will you soon win your love and in her delight?
Your wounds will mend though you can’t tell when.
Something will cure you, you’ll never know how.
I’ve learned the maxim from men of experience.
That the key to happiness, O misery, is patience.”
Uncle Kamil opened his eyes and yawned. Then he looked toward the young man, who laughed, standing in the door of the barber shop. He made his way across the road to him, poked him in the ribs, and said delightedly, “We are in love and the whole world must laugh with us.”
Uncle Kamil sighed and his high-pitched voice piped, “Congratulations, then, but please give me the shroud now before you sell it to get a dowry for your wife.”
Abbas laughed and strolled leisurely out of the alley. He wore his gray suit, which was also his only one. A year ago he had reversed its cloth and darned a few holes and, because he took care to clean and press it, it appeared fairly neat. He glowed with excitement and self-confidence and he was experiencing that feeling of deep tension which normally precedes the revelation of the hidden desires of the heart. His love was a mixture of gentle affection, sincere devotion, and hungry passion. He longed to feel the warmth of her body and experience the magical, mysterious intoxication of her eyes. Abbas had felt the joy of victory when he approached the girl on the street in Darasa and his fancy told him that her resistance was merely what all women pretend in answer to the call of desire.
His intoxication had lasted for days. Then it and his confidence had smoldered and died, and neither renewed themselves. Doubt stirred in him and he asked himself why he saw her resistance as proof of her love. Why shouldn’t it be genuine opposition? Was it because she had not been cruel or rude? But, then, could one expect any worse treatment from a lifelong neighbor?
Each morning he appeared in front of his shop ready to catch a glimpse of her if she should open the window to let the sun into her flat. Each evening he sat outside the café beneath her window, smoking a water pipe and glancing up time after time, hoping to see her lovely form moving behind the shutters of the closed window. He was not satisfied with this lonely vigil and had approached her a second time in Darasa. Again she had snubbed him. Again he had tried and failed.
So it was that he set out once more, filled with hope, confidence, and his burning infatuation. He saw Hamida approaching with her companions and he turned to one side to let them pass. Slowly he followed them. He noticed that the girls looked at him with mischievous curiosity, and this pleased and flattered him. Abbas pursued them until the last girl had turned off at the end of the street. Then he quickened his step until he was within an arm’s length of her. He smiled at her with a mixture of formal politeness and apprehension and muttered his prepared greeting, “Good evening, Hamida…”
She had anticipated this encounter, but was plagued with doubts; she neither liked nor disliked him. Perhaps it was because he was the only young man in the alley suitable for her that she refrained from ignoring him or dealing with him with decisive cruelty. Hamida decided to excuse his crossing her path once again and satisfy herself with a mild rebuke, for if she had wanted to deal him a stunning blow she could have done so.
In spite of her limited experience in life, she was aware of the great gulf between this humble young man and her own greedy ambitions, which could ignite her natural aggressiveness and turn it into uncontrollable savagery and violence. She would be wildly happy if she saw a look of defiance or self-confidence in anyone’s eyes, but this look of simple humility in Abbas’ eyes left her emotionless. She felt neither attraction nor aversion toward him. But he was the only suitable young man in the alley. Had it not been for her belief in marriage as her natural destiny she would not have hesitated to reject him cruelly. For these reasons she was pleased to encourage him so that she might eventually discover what he was really like and what he wanted. She hoped by this method to solve her own disturbing indecision.
Abbas was afraid she might remain silent until they came to the end of the street and so he muttered imploringly, “Good evening…”
Her handsome bronze-colored face showed the trace of a smile and she slowed her walk, sighed in feigned annoyance, and asked, “What do you want?”
He saw her faint smile and took no notice of her apparent annoyance. He replied hopefully, “Let’s turn off into Azhar Street. It’s quieter there and it’s beginning to get dark.”
She turned toward Azhar Street without a word. And he followed her, almost giddy with joy. The memory of his words, “It’s quieter there and it’s beginning to get dark,” lingered in her mind and she realized that she dreaded the idea of anyone seeing them. The corner of her mouth twisted in a cruel smile. Morals were no part of her rebellious nature. She had grown up in an atmosphere almost entirely outside their shelter and without the restriction that they impose. Her own capricious nature and the fact that her mother was rarely home had only increased her indifference to them. She had always followed her own primitive nature, fighting and quarreling with no concern for anything, least of all questions of morality.
Abbas now caught up with her and walked at her side. His voice expressed delight. “That was very nice of you!”
Almost angrily, she replied, “What do you want from me?”
The young man, doing his best to control his excitement, answered, “Patience is a virtue, Hamida. Be kind to me. Don’t be cruel.”
She turned her head toward him, keeping it covered with a corner of her cloak, and said unkindly, “Will you say what you want at once.”
“Patience is a virtue…I want…I want everything that’s good…”
“You don’t really have anything to say,” she grumbled, “and we are still walking, getting farther off our route. I can’t be late getting back.”
He was sorry they were wasting time and said regretfully, “We’ll start back soon. Don’t be afraid and don’t worry. We’ll think of some excuse you can tell your mother. You think a lot about a few minutes, whereas I think about the whole of life, about our life together. This is what I’m concerned about. Don’t you believe me? It’s the thing I think and worry about most of all, by the life of Hussain who blessed this fine quarter.”
He was talking simply and sincerely and she found a new interest and pleasure in listening to him, even though he did not manage to stir her frigid heart. She tried to forget her painful indecision and gave him all her attention. She did not, however, know what to say and so just took refuge in silence. The young man was gaining confidence and he began to speak with emotion. “Don’t grudge me a few moments or repeat your strange question. You ask me what I want, Hamida. Don’t you really know what I want to say? Why do I come up to y
The girl frowned and muttered as though not aware what she was saying, “You have disgraced me…”
These words horrified him and he exclaimed, “There will be no disgrace in our life and I wish you only well. This mosque of Hussain bears witness to what I say and what my intentions are. I love you. I have loved you for a long time. I love you more than your mother loves you. I swear this to you by my belief in Hussain, in the grandfather of Hussain, and in the Lord of Hussain…”
Hamida delighted in these words and her feelings of pride and vanity diminished her usual inclination toward violence and domination. She was experiencing the truth that strong words of love always please the ears, although they do not always appeal to the heart. They release the pent-up emotions.
However, her mind leaped uncontrollably from the present into the future and she asked herself what her life would be like under his protection, if his hopes were fulfilled. He was poor and what he earned was just enough to live on. He would take her from the second floor of Mrs. Saniya Afify’s house to the ground floor of Radwan Hussainy’s. The most she could expect from her mother would be a secondhand bed, a sofa, and a few copper pots and pans. She would only have sweeping, cooking, washing, and feeding children to look forward to. No doubt she could hope for no more than a patched dress to wear.
She shuddered as though she had seen some terrifying sight. Her inordinate desire for clothes stirred within her, as did her fierce dislike of children, for which the alley women reproached her. All these emotions affected her as well as her painful state of indecision. Now she wondered if she had been right or wrong in agreeing to walk with him.