Morning and Evening Talk by Naguib Mahfouz
Nihad acclimatized to her new surroundings, adopted new mannerisms, and took on a new dialect. She bore the village mayor ten children, half of them boys, the other half girls. Whenever she visited Cairo as a stranger, eyes would gaze at her curiously, for she was the picture of a typical village mayor’s wife with her vast body and gold jewelry covering arms and neck. But she was the kind of stranger who provoked laughter.
Hanuma Hussein Qabil
THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF SAMIRA and Hussein Qabil, she was born and grew up in the house on Ibn Khaldun Street. Her beauty was like her mother’s and she was tall, slim, and intelligent, had firmly held morals and principles, and was very similar to her younger brother, Salim. She excelled at school and enrolled in the French language department of the faculty of arts. She was enthusiastic about the July Revolution as a movement for reform and morality but changed her mind when it sentenced Salim to jail and did not hesitate to criticize Hakim for supporting it. She graduated from college and went into radio, thanks to her good results on the one hand, and Hakim’s recommendation on the other. Sadriya’s son Aql wanted to marry her but she rejected him on account of her height and his shortness. “We would make a ridiculous sight walking down the street together,” she told her mother. She agreed to marry Nadir, for he had a good job, was good looking, and she thought highly of his morals. They lived their life together in an elegant apartment on Hasan Sabri Street in Zamalek and she gave birth to Samira, Radia, and Safa. When his deviation came to light, she raised a violent storm, which Nadir had not expected from his life partner. She told him frankly, “I refuse to go on living with a man who has clearly gone astray.” Samira hated the idea of divorce and tried to convince her that it was not her responsibility, that she must weigh up the consequences of her decision for her daughters. But she said to her mother, “He is diminished in my opinion and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
The dispute thus ended in divorce. Hanuma kept the daughters with her in the apartment in Zamalek and brought them up in her image without once regretting her harsh decision. The days went by and the time came for the girls to marry. However, rising costs and the problem of obtaining an apartment made marriage complicated. Nadir overcame all the difficulties by buying an apartment for each daughter and properly furnishing them. “He’s their father and he’s responsible for them,” Hanuma said to console herself.
But she could not ignore the bitter truth that, were it not for his unlawful money, it would have been hard for any of the daughters to settle in a marital home. She asked herself with deep regret, Isn’t it possible to lead a respectable life anymore?
Wahida Hamid Amr
THE FIRST CHILD OF HAMID AND SHAKIRA, she was born and grew up in the mansion on Khayrat Square and played through childhood in its vast lush garden. From childhood, it was clear she was intelligent, moderately pretty, and had a cheerful soul, which the winds of misfortune would destroy. From early life, melancholy permeated her heart amid the soured climate of her parents’ marriage. She absorbed her mother’s constant afflictions until an aversion to her father settled inside her. Her brother, Salih, offered no comfort with his bluntness and pursuit of people for their sins, as though he was their reckoner. Then came the split between her grandfather Mahmud and his brother, Ahmad, putting an end to her last remaining hope of a life with any optimism or happiness. She heard about her father’s relatives’ hostility toward her mother, their pointed comments, and the many tragedies that produced cracks in the branches of the family, until she subconsciously accepted that life was a stream of relentless sorrows, deviations, and agitations. Her only solace was in study, where she excelled. She enrolled at the faculty of medicine, like her aunt Nadira, and as soon as the opportunity to work in Saudi Arabia arose she emigrated. After years of absence, it came as a surprise to her mother to receive a letter informing her that she was marrying a Pakistani who worked at her hospital.
Warda Hamada al-Qinawi
She was the third child of Sadriya and Hamada. She was born and grew up in Khan Ga‘far but loved dearly the old house in Bayt al-Qadi. She was devoted to her grandmother Radia, and her grandmother reciprocated her love.
“Warda is your most beautiful daughter but her mind is her most distinguishing feature,” Radia would say to Sadriya.
She was engaged to a young cousin of her father before she had reached the legal age to marry but contracted malaria and was unable to fight it. She died, leaving a wound in her mother’s heart that never healed.
Yazid al-Misri
HE ARRIVED IN CAIRO a few days before the French invasion. He came from a family of druggists in Alexandria, which was wiped out by an epidemic, every man and woman in it, leaving only himself. He detested the city, made up his mind to leave, and wended his way to Cairo. He had with him a little money and a rare quality in those days, namely the reading and writing skills he had learned at a religious institute before he was torn away to help his father at the drug store. He was lost in Cairo at first, then found lodgings in a house in al-Ghuriya and a job as a treasurer for a paper supplier. He was young and had a robust body, dark brown skin, and distinct features. He wore a gallabiya, cloak, and turban and, because of his piety and loneliness, his soul craved marriage. He noticed Farga al-Sayyad selling fish on the road and was attracted to her. With the help of his neighbor Ata al-Murakibi, he married her. She gave birth to many children, of whom Aziz and Dawud survived, and he lived to witness the birth of his grandchildren: Rashwana, Amr, and Surur. Sidi Nagm al-Din visited him in a dream and instructed him to build his grave near his tomb. He complied with the order, constructing an enclosure where he was buried and which, to this day, welcomes his deceased descendants from all over Cairo.
Glossary
1919 Revolution A series of demonstrations and uprisings across Egypt between March and April 1919 protesting the British Occupation, sparked by the arrest and exile of Sa‘d Zaghloul and other Wafdists seeking Egyptian independence.
Adli Yakan Pasha (1846–1933) Prime minister of Egypt in the 1920s. Leader of the Liberal Party and political rival of Sa‘d Zaghloul.
Anwar Sadat (1918–81) Third president of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981 by fundamentalists, following the Camp David Accords and peace agreement with Israel.
bey Title for Egyptian and Turkish dignitaries, ranked below pasha.
dervish Sufi or mystical figure, popularly regarded as a source of wisdom and enlightenment, often consulted for solutions to problems and cures.
effendi Title of respect or courtesy, generally applied to members of the learned professions and government officials.
Free Officers Movement Underground revolutionary group of young army officers founded by Gamal Abdel Nasser, which conducted the military coup of 1952.
gallabiya Simple-cut full-length garment, commonly worn by Egyptian peasants.
Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–70) First Egyptian president, from 1956 to 1970. Charismatic leader and champion of Arab socialism and pan-Arabism.
hanem Title of respect for women of the aristocracy, similar to “lady.”
infitah Open-door policy. The opening up of the Egyptian market to private investment under Sadat in the 1970s, ending the public sector’s hold on Egypt’s economy.
Ismail Sidqi (1875–1950) Prime Minister of Egypt from 1930 to 1933, unpopular for abolishing the 1923 Constitution.
July Revolution Military coup executed by the Free Officers Movement on July 23, 1952, which led to the abolishment of the Egyptian monarchy and declared Egypt a republic.
June 5 The first day of the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel launched a preemptive attack on Egypt with devastating consequences for the Egyptian air force and Arab morale generally.
mashrabiya Wooden oriel or projecting oriel window with a wooden latticework enclosure.
May 15 (1971) Sadat arrests a number of important men from the Nasser era and charges them with plotting a coup against the government.
Misr al-Fatah Yo
Muhammad Farid (1868–1919) President of the Egyptian National Party from 1908 to 1919 after Mustafa Kamil, strong advocate of education and reform.
Muhammad Mahmud (1877–1941) Twice prime minister of Egypt: in the 1920s under the British Mandate and in the 1930s after independence.
Mustafa al-Nahhas (1879–1965) Leader of the Wafd Party from 1927 to 1952 and prime minister of Egypt a number of times from the 1920s to the 1950s.
Mustafa Kamil (1874–1908) Journalist and Egyptian nationalist. Founder of the nationalist newspaper al-Liwa’ in 1900 and the Egyptian National Party (Watani Party) in 1907.
narghile Shisha; hookah. Water pipe with glass base over which tobacco is burned on coals and smoked through a pipe. Popular in cafés in Egypt.
Occupation, the (1882–1952) The British Occupation of Egypt that began under Khedive Tawfiq. Egypt was granted independence in 1922, but Britain retained control of communications and defense until the 1952 revolution.
October 6 The date in 1973 on which Egyptian and Syrian troops crossed the ceasefire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967. The first day of the Yom Kippur War.
pasha An honorary title awarded to Egyptians of high rank in the service of the Ottomans.
Sa‘d Zaghloul (1859–1927) Leader of the Wafd party and nationalist movement of 1918–19. Key figure in the journey toward Egypt’s independence. He was briefly prime minister in 1924.
September 1981 The month of Anwar Sadat’s violent crackdown on Islamists and other opponents of his government, including journalists and intellectuals.
Setback, the Al-Naksa. The devastating defeat of Arab forces by the Israeli army in the Six-Day War of June 1967.
sidi Form of address used for men, equivalent to “mister.”
Tripartite Aggression, the The Suez Crisis of 1956. Britain, France, and Israel launched a military attack on Egypt following the nationalization of the Suez Canal.
Umma Party Political party that advocated a gradual winning of independence through cooperation with Britain. Founded in 1907.
Urabi Revolution (1879–82) Important uprising against the Khedive and European influence in Egypt led by Colonel Ahmad Urabi.
Wafd Party The party of Sa‘d Zaghloul and main Egyptian nationalist party in the first half of the twentieth century.
War of Attrition, the (1967–70) The state of war and hostility between Egypt and Israel from 1967 to 1970.
Watani Party Egyptian National Party, founded by Mustafa Kamil in 1907.
Translator’s Note
MORNING AND EVENING TALK WAS WRITTEN in Naguib Mahfouz’s last and most experimental phase of writing, at a time when he was particularly concerned with exploring new ways of expressing favorite themes—time, fate, politics, morality, the sources of evil, change—and taking the Arabic novel into new areas, like magical realism, folktale, and, on this occasion, biography. Morning and Evening Talk was also written when Mahfouz was an old man approaching his eightieth birthday and in a reflective mood. He had lived through some of the most exciting events in Egypt’s modern history—the 1919 Revolution and struggle for independence, two world wars, the Free Officers Revolution in 1952, the Suez crisis, the Six-Day War, the October War of 1973 (the Yom Kippur War), the assassination of President Sadat—and it was only natural that in old age he should look back and wonder whether it had all been worth it. But the story of modern Egypt really began in 1798 when Napoleon’s troops landed in Alexandria, so Mahfouz makes this the starting point of Morning and Evening Talk. The story begins at the turn of the nineteenth century—before the Urabi Revolution, Muhammad Ali’s reforms, and the encounter with British and French colonialism transformed the face of Egyptian society and set it on the road to modernity—and ends sometime in the 1980s. As such the book represents an attempt by the author to come to terms with the events of the last two centuries.
Morning and Evening Talk is made up of sixty-seven character sketches from three Egyptian families—those of Yazid al-Misri, Ata al-Murakibi, and Shaykh al-Qalyubi—arranged alphabetically according to the name of the title character. The lexicographical arrangement of the text evokes the great Arab biographical dictionaries of the classical period, which record the lives of rulers, nobles, scholars, poets, and other important figures. However, Mahfouz peoples his novel with everyday Egyptians, reminding us of something the medieval Arab biographers apparently overlooked: that history is the sum total of people’s lives; that the story of a nation is the story of its citizens as much as its leaders and remarkable men. The idea of Morning and Evening Talk is to bring together many individual narratives to tell the larger story of modern Egypt, almost like a jigsaw puzzle that the reader must piece together in order to understand events in their chronological context and logical sequence. The unusual structure of the novel also has another important purpose. The reader of Morning and Evening Talk finds symptoms of social breakdown everywhere in the text: as time goes by the father loses his authority, family ties grow weaker, and the family tree is increasingly dispersed across the city of Cairo and beyond. The narrative fragmentation of Morning and Evening Talk is thus an embodiment of the erosion of traditional Arab society, and the family nucleus in particular.
The novel opens with a tragic event, the death of a child, that in many ways sets the scene for what is to come. Morning and Evening Talk is a tale of endings and cruel twists of fate: children die before their parents; husbands perish, leaving families to struggle on meager means; and characters see their fortunes reversed overnight as their party or patron falls out of favor, or when war and other events over which they have no control appear out of nowhere. Yet the book is not without hope, for the corollary of sudden downfall is swift ascent—the July Revolution may be bad news for Halim, Hamid, and Hasan, but for Abduh, Mahir, and Hakim, it brings promotion and fortune, even if such things tend to be transitory in Mahfouz’s world. Moreover, the eccentric person of Radia, and the friendship and humor that punctuate the narrative, are evidence enough that the indomitable spirit of Egypt lives on in the modern era, unscathed by all the change and upheaval.
Like many of Mahfouz’s novels, Morning and Evening Talk is also a search. It is a journey through the homes, cafés, offices, and other haunts of the everyday Egyptian, watching and listening carefully in order to assess whether Egypt is better off now than it was back in 1798. It would be disingenuous to suggest there is a simple answer to such a question, and Mahfouz is certainly too wise to imply one. Instead he paints a vivid picture of Egypt over several generations and leaves readers to make up their own minds.
I would like to thank Feras Hamza, Philip Stewart, and Sabry Hafez for their invaluable help.
Christina Phillips
Naguib Mahfouz, Morning and Evening Talk