The Beginning and the End by Naguib Mahfouz
Once more came the voice which Hassanein disliked: “How could he have ever thought of dying at this age? Your father was only fifty. In this country, lots of people marry at this age for the second or third time.” The man was silent for a while. Then he spoke again: “Don’t forget, Master Hassanein, that your father left Damietta with his grandmother for Cairo when he was your age. That’s why yours isn’t one of those Cairene families that have tombs for generations.”
“It’s true,” Hassanein retorted; “we don’t originally come from Cairo. But all ties with our relations in Damietta have been severed.”
Sadly, he remembered that his aunt was the only relative he knew. The obscure grave in the open would always remain a symbol of his family’s being shamefully lost in the big city. The presence of this uncle of his, occupying his bed, increased his annoyance, and to stop him from talking, Hassanein fell silent until sleep overcame them all.
The widow, her sister, and her daughter did not stir from their places in the hall. They never tired of talking about the departed loved one. Here, grief was deeper than in the other room. Its marks appeared on Samira’s thin oval face and burning eyes. With her short nose, pointed chin, and short slim body, she gave the impression of one who had given the best part of herself to her family. Of her old vitality nothing now remained except a firm look which bespoke patience and determination.
So deep was the change which had overtaken her with the years that it was hard to imagine how she might have looked in her youth. Nefisa, her daughter, however, who resembled her closely, was an adequate replica of what she once had been. Nefisa, too, had the same thin oval face, short, coarse nose and pointed chin. She was pale, and a little hunchbacked. She differed from her mother only in her height; she was as tall as her brother Hassanein. She was far from handsome, indeed almost ugly. It was her misfortune to resemble her mother, whereas the boys resembled their father. In grief she was completely undone, and she looked extremely ugly. Her mind was preoccupied with memories of her beloved father.
Her mother, despite her deep sorrow, was thinking of other things. She felt uneasy with her sister. She could not forget that her sister had often made her life miserable, and that she frequently enjoyed comparing their lives—declaring, in envy, that her sister had married a government employee, whereas her own husband was just a laborer working in a ginning factory; that her sister lived in Cairo, whereas she was doomed to the confinement of the country; that her sister’s sons were schoolboys, whereas her own sons were destined for laborers’ lives; that her sister’s larder was always full, whereas she had plenty in hers only at feast times. Maybe now, the widow thought, she won’t find any reason to envy me. But with her grief came resentfulness. More than anyone else, she was aware of the sad consequences of this catastrophe. Her husband was gone. She realized that she knew no one but this hopeless, useless sister. She had no relations or in-laws. The deceased had left nothing behind him. His entire salary had been consumed by the needs of the family. She did not even hope for a suitable pension. In the dead man’s wallet she had found only two pounds and seventy piasters, and that was all the money she had until matters could be straightened out.
Absentmindedly, she glanced in the direction of her sons’ room. True, two of them attended school and were exempted from fees; still, that was nothing. The third son was something of a tramp. She sighed deeply. Then she turned her eyes to Nefisa, agonizing over her condition; a girl of twenty-three, without beauty, money, or father. This was the family for whom she had now become responsible, without help from anyone. She was not the type of woman to resort to tears for relief. Her past life, now a happy bygone dream, had not always been easy, especially in the beginning when her husband had been a junior employee with a small salary. Life had taught her to struggle, but also to be patient and stoical. She was the main pillar of the home. Her attitude toward her children was probably more fatherly than motherly, while her husband possessed the tenderness and frailty of a mother. The sons themselves provided a living example of the contrast between the characters of their parents. Hassan was miserable evidence of his father’s laxity and tendency to spoil his children; while Hussein and Hassanein attested to their mother’s firmness and discipline in bringing them up. Certainly, she told herself, she would be strong as a widow, too. But at this hour of the night, she had nothing to live on but grief and worry.
SIX
Next evening no outsider remained in the house, and the family was left to itself. The furniture in the dead man’s room was piled in a corner, and the door was closed. The children gathered around their mother awaiting her comments. Samira knew that she must say something. What she had to say was clear enough to her, for she had thought about it for a long time. Perhaps nothing perplexed her more than her contradictory character with its outward firmness and strength, while her inner self held nothing but mercy and compassion for her poor afflicted family. Avoiding the waiting glances, she lowered her eyes. “Our calamity is great,” she said. “We have no one to resort to but God, who never forgets His creatures.”
She was unable to ask them: What are we to do?, for she would never get an answer to it from any of those around her, not even from her eldest son, Hassan. There was not a soul in the world to whom she could appeal for help and share her worries with. She felt the void engulfing her, but she wouldn’t surrender.
“We have no relatives to depend on,” she went on. “Our dear one is dead, leaving us nothing except his pension, which will undoubtedly be far less than his salary, and that was hardly enough. Life seems to be grim, but God never forgets His creatures. Many families in the same circumstances as ours have been patient until God has led them by the hand to security.”
Nefisa’s voice was choked with tears. “No one dies of hunger in this world,” she said. “God will surely lead us by the hand. The only catastrophe for which we can never be comforted is his death. Oh, my dear father!”
But her tears had no great effect upon the boys, for their mother’s speech foreshadowed the graver things to come, upon which they were now concentrating. Their eyes were fixed on their mother. “We must never despair of God’s mercy,” she continued. “However, we must know exactly where we stand, or else we perish. We must also school ourselves to endure our lot with patience and dignity. God be with us.”
She felt there was nothing more she could say to them as a group. Now she must speak to each of her children about the things which concerned them individually. She found it wiser to start with the less serious problems, to pave the way for the more difficult ones. Glancing at Hussein and Hassanein, she tried to conceal her concern. “I cannot afford to give you pocket money anymore,” she said calmly. “Fortunately, this is usually spent on trivial things…”
Trivial things! Were membership in the football club, the movies, and novels trivial? Hussein heard this verdict in mute dejection. Trying to picture what life would be like without his pocket money, his mind rambled off; yet he uttered not a word. As for Hassanein, he appeared to be struck with a thunderbolt. Almost unconsciously, he raised an immediate objection: “All our pocket money! Not a millieme?”
Samira stared at him for a long time. “Not a single millieme,” she said firmly.
His objection troubled her. Yet she welcomed it since it gave her an opportunity to reaffirm what she had already said, and to make Hassan, whom she feared would be more troublesome than his two brothers, hear her words. Hassanein opened his lips and muttered something indistinctly. “We’ll be the only pupils in school who get no pocket money,” he said in a low voice.
“You imagine things,” his mother replied sharply. “The calamities of life are many, and plenty of other pupils lack money. If you search the pockets of all the pupils at school, you’ll find that most of them are penniless. Even supposing that you were the only ones who were poor, there would be nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, I am not responsible for what happened.”
Remembering that he was addressing his mo
The two brothers ate very little of their school lunch since they preferred to wait for dinner at home. The pupils who ate their fill of lunch at school were the subject of their mates’ ridicule.
“Why shouldn’t we eat at home as usual?” Hassanein asked gently.
“Who knows? Maybe, you won’t find the kind of food you like at home!” his mother replied sharply.
There was a shadow of a smile on Hassan’s lips as he listened in deep silence to all that was said. He tried to hide it under a frown, but Samira had already noticed it. She was determined to face him with the truth if he still needed it after that long preamble. She asked him sadly, “What about you, Hassan?”
He was her eldest, her firstborn and her first darling! Yet he was tangible evidence that motherly love may be influenced by factors which have nothing to do with instinct. Of course, this did not mean that she hated him; far from it. She merely dropped him from her accounts, and to her great distress, he no longer fulfilled her once rosy hopes. Now, he simply occupied an obscure corner of her heart, and whenever she recalled her love for him, it was tainted with deep sorrow and pitch-black memories. He had always been and still was the black sheep of the family. At first he was the victim of his father’s poverty and favoritism; he was sent to school later in years than other boys. Soon it had become evident that he revolted against school life. He ran away frequently from school; year after year he failed in his examinations; finally he left school when he was only in his junior year. His relations with his father, strained by rows and quarrels, finally degenerated into genuine enmity. Sometimes, his father would kick him out of the house, leaving him to roam the streets for days; he came back home after associating with delinquents and plunging deep into sin and addiction, though he was just in his teens. When his father despaired of reforming him, he sent him to work in a grocery. There he remained for a month, until, following a quarrel in which the grocery was almost wrecked, he was fired. He worked for an automobile manufacturer, and was fired again after another quarrel. He became indifferent to his father’s anger and his mother’s firmness; but he imposed himself upon them, accepting their indignation either lightly and playfully or quarrelsomely. He never left home, nor did he search seriously for a job. He seemed to have no consideration whatsoever for the future, persisting in his recklessness until he was suddenly confronted with his father’s death. He knew how serious the situation was, for he alone knew what his father’s salary was, and he made a calculation of his approximate pension. He quite understood what his mother meant when she asked, “What about you, Hassan?” Well, he thought, you say that God never forgets His creatures, and I am one of these creatures. Let’s see how He remembers us! Why did He take away our father? Why should He manifest His wisdom at the expense of victims like us?
Yet in his courteous, compassionate smile at his mother, there was a sense of responsibility. “I understand everything,” he said.
“What’s the use of mere understanding?” Samira replied irritably.
“Something has to be done.”
“This is what we often hear from you.” She was vexed.
“Everything is changed now.”
“Isn’t there any hope that you will change, too?”
“A man of my type will never get lost in this life,” he retorted. “I can manage and hack my way through. There are lots of opportunities, and I have countless weapons in my hands. Listen, Mother, all I ask of you is shelter and some morsels of bread.”
That had always been his method! He started as though he were yielding, and ended by making fresh demands. A shelter and some morsels of bread! What else was there? She eyed him resentfully. “This is no time for joking,” she said.
“But who’s joking?” he asked.
“We need someone to feed us; how, then, can we afford your food? Why do you force me to be blunt with you?”
“It’s only for a while, till things get better,” he said with a faint smile. “You won’t find me a burden. Or would you like to kick me out? I shall do my best to earn my living. But suppose it takes me several days to find a job, would it make you happy to see me die of hunger? Anyway, I’ll share your loaf until I find a job.”
She sighed in despair. She was encountering a real problem and did not know what to do about it. The worst that she dreaded was that he would persist in a life of idleness, laziness, and wandering, especially once the effect of his father’s death upon his feelings diminished.
“I hope you’ll earnestly and sincerely look for a job,” she said beseechingly.
He said, quite sincerely, “I promise you. I swear it on my father’s grave.”
His oath reawakened their sorrow and his mention of their father’s grave moved them deeply. Nefisa burst into tears and Hassanein’s heart sank, while Hussein eyed Hassan with a puzzled look of reproof. Their mother kept silent, feeling her deep wound. But even then she did not forget that she had not finished what she wanted to say. She kept turning her red and swollen eyes toward her children.
“Nefisa is good at sewing,” she said. “Out of friendship and courtesy, she often makes dresses for our neighbors. I see no harm in her asking for some compensation.”
“That’s a good idea,” cried Hassan enthusiastically.
But Hassanein, his face white with anger, cried, “A dressmaker?”
“Why not? There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” answered Hassan.
Hassanein retorted sharply, “No, my sister will never be a dressmaker. I refuse to be a brother to a dressmaker.”
Samira frowned and shouted angrily, “You’re just a bull that eats and sleeps, and you know nothing about life! Your foolish mind will never understand how bad our situation is.”
He opened his mouth to object.
“Shut up!” she shouted. He snorted and did not utter another word.
Seeing that she had done with his objection, Samira turned to Hussein. Their eyes met for a moment; then he lowered his and murmured reluctantly, “If it can’t be helped, let God’s will be done…”
Samira was deeply moved. She said, “As Hassan has said, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t like to see any of you humiliated; but there are things that cannot be helped. I can do nothing about it.”
There was a painful silence. Hussein was more like his mother than the rest of her children. He had her patience, sagacity, and loyalty to the family. He was greatly pained by the plans for his sister. Yet he felt it was stupid to object to the dictates of necessity. In his suffering he began to think that in these two days he had learned more than he had in the rest of his life. Nefisa remained helplessly silent. It wasn’t the first time that she heard that proposal, for her mother had already convinced her that it was inevitable. For her, dressmaking was an entertaining hobby. She had only to accustom herself to receive fees for it. Now her feeling of worthlessness doubled the grief she felt from her father’s death. It was no use.
Interrupting the silence, Hassan said in a tone of regret, “It’s a real pity that my late father forbade Nefisa to continue her school education. Imagine how things would be now if our sister had become a teacher.”
When they stared at him curiously, he understood that he had blundered. He hadn’t realized that what he said sounded like a joke. Would it not have been better if he had himself understood the value of education and continued his schooling? Frowning irritably, he said, “Education is good for those helpless ones like her.”
SEVEN
The next morning, Hassan, the eldest son, accompanied Samira to the Ministry of Education. When it became known at the Ministry that she was the widow of Kamel Effendi Ali, many of his colleagues offered to put themselves at her service. She asked for whate
“We’ve nothing to live on except this pension,” said Hassan in an attempt to explain his mother’s concern. But no sooner did he utter these words than he regretted them, for they sounded strange coming from a man as tall and strong as himself. The official, however, paid no attention to these remarks.
“Madam,” he said, “I promise you that we will not waste a single moment. But we can do nothing about the formalities of the Ministry of Finance.”
What use were those nice words! But what would she gain by grumbling and complaining? Worried and despairing, they left the Ministry.
“How,” she cried, “can we face life during these months, and afterward how can we live on five pounds a month?”
The young man lowered his eyes in gloom and consternation. Desperate though she was, a gleam of hope appeared before her fatigued eyes. “I’ll visit Ahmad Bey Yousri,” she said. “He is a great, influential inspector. Besides, he was a good friend of your father’s.”
“Right,” said Hassan hopefully. “A word from him can speed up the government formalities.”
She looked at him earnestly. “Don’t waste your time with me,” she said. “Perhaps now you realize our real situation. Go and find a job for yourself.”