The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz
“What a fine lady she is. She doesn't deserve such punishment. … And what a noble gentleman you are. Violence does not become you. It's the work of cursed Satan, may God humiliate him, but your excellence will prevail to spoil his scheme.”
At that point, he felt he could no longer remain silent, not even out of politeness to his guest. He muttered with deliberate brevity, “May our Lord remedy the situation.”
Encouraged by her success in getting him to talk, Umm Mar-yam said zealously, “How it hurts me for our fine neighbor to leave her home after a long life of seclusion and honor.”
“The streams will return to their banks, but there is a right time for everything.”
“You are like a brother to me. Indeed, you're dearer than a brother, I won't add a single word.”
A new element had entered the affair and did not escape his attentive mind. He registered it the way an observatory might record a distant earthquake, regardless of how faint it seemed. He imagined that when she said, “You are like a brother to me,” her voice had been tender and sweet. When she said, “Indeed, you're dearer than a brother,” her voice had revealed a warm affection that lent a pleasant fragrance to the embarrassed atmosphere. He was amazed and wondered about it. Perplexed, he could no longer bear to keep his eyes lowered. He raised them hesitantly. He stole a look at her face. Contrary to his expectations, he found her looking at him with her large black eyes. He was flustered and lowered his again quickly. He was partly surprised and partly embarrassed. To cover up his emotions, he continued the conversation: “Thank you for considering me your brother….”
He wondered whether she had been looking at him that way throughout their conversation or whether he had merely raised his eyes at a moment when she happened to glance at him. What could be said about her not lowering her eyes when their eyes met? He immediately scoffed at these ideas, telling himself that his infatuation with women and experience with them made him especially prone to think ill of them. No doubt the truth was as far removed as possible from what he imagined. She might be one of those women whose nature gushes with affection, so that people who do not know them think they are flirting when they are not. In order to confirm his opinion, since confirmation was needed, he looked up again. How appalled he was to see her still looking at him. He was a little more courageous this time and fixed his eyes on her for a moment. She kept gazing at him submissively but boldly. In total confusion he lowered his eyes. At that time he heard her soft voice say, “After this request I'll see whether I'm truly favored by you.”
Favored? If the word had not been spoken in this atmosphere filled with emotion and charged with doubt and confusion, it would have passed without leaving any trace. But now…? With considerable embarrassment he looked at her again. He discerned some hints in her eyes that tantalized his suspicions. Had his feeling been right? Was this possible at the very moment she was interceding for his wife? For a man as experienced with women as he was, that would be no surprise … a playful wife with a paralyzed husband. His consciousness was permeated by surges of delight that filled him with warmth and pride. When had this sentiment begun? Was it an old one that had simply been waiting for an opportunity? Had she not visited him at the store once without doing anything to excite his suspicions? Even so, the store was not a place where a woman like her would feel comfortable revealing a secret passion, as the performer Zubayda had, with no prior preparation for the announcement. Was it a sentiment born of the moment that had arisen along with the golden opportunity when she found herself alone with him? If that was true, then she was merely another Zubayda disguised in a lady's clothing.
Although he knew a lot about passionate women, it was not surprising that he had overlooked her. He was zealous to respect the honor of his neighbors in the most exemplary way. If she was flirting with him, how should he respond? Should he say, “You're more in favor with me than you can imagine”? It would be a pretty phrase, but she might see it as a welcoming response to her invitation. He certainly did not want that. He was completely opposed to it and not merely because he was still enthralled with Zubayda. He would not agree to a situation deviating from his principles, which called for total respect for the reputations of honorable people in general and of friends and neighbors in particular. In spite of all his amorous and sensual excesses, there was not a single blot on his page to embarrass him with a friend, neighbor, or virtuous person. It had always been his custom to fear God as much when he was amusing himself as when he was being serious. He had only allowed himself thingshe considered licit or within the bounds of minor offenses. This did not imply that he had been endowed with supernatural willpower shielding him from passion. What he did was revel in every passion allowed him and turn his eyes away from respectable women. Throughout his entire life he had never deliberately looked at the face of a woman from his district. He was known to have rejected a promising affair out of concern for the feelings of an acquaintance. A messenger had come one day to invite him to meet the sister ofthat man, a middle-aged widow, on a night he would name. Al-Sayyid Ahmad had received the invitation silently and shown the messenger out with his customary politeness. Then he had avoided the street where her house was for years afterward.
Umm Maryam was possibly the first person to test his principles face to face. Although he found her attractive, he refused to answer the temptations of passion. The voice of wisdom and sobriety won out, protecting his much-discussed reputation from a world of reproaches. His good reputation seemed to mean more to him than seizing a proffered pleasure. He consoled himself with the opportunities that arose from time to time for romances with no unpleasant consequences.
This will to respect his obligations and act honorably with friends remained with him even in the realms of amusement and desire. He had never been accused of making a pass at the mistress of a companion or of looking lustfully at the sweetheart of a friend. He chose friendship over passion. He would say, “The affection of a friend endures. A girlfriend's passion is fleeting”. For this reason, he was content to select his lovers from unattached women or to wait until a woman had ended her previous relationship. Then he would seize his opportunity. At timeshe would even ask permission from her former companion before beginning to court her. Thushe was able to conduct his amorous adventures with a delight free of regret and a serenity unblemished by ill will. In other words, tie had successfully balanced the animal within him that was voracious for pleasure with the man in him that looked up to higher principles. He had succeeded in harmoniously joining these two sides of his personality in a compatible whole. Neither side dominated the other, and each was able to pursue its own special interests easily and comfortably. Just as he had reconciled the opposing forces of sensuality and ethics, he was also able to merge piety and debauchery successfully into a unity free of any hint of either sin or repression.
Yet his good faith was not inspired merely by loyalty to a code of ethics. It was based most of all on his innate desire to continue to be loved and enjoy a fine reputation. The success of his amorous forays made it easier for him to avoid love marred by betrayal or depravity. Moreover, he had never known a true form of love that could have pushed him into succumbing either to emotion, without regard to principles, or to a fierce emotional and moral crisis, in which he could not keep from being burned.
Umm Maryam represented nothing more to him than a delicious kind of food, which, if it threatened his digestion, he could easily turn down in favor of some of the other tasty but wholesome dishes that covered the table. Therefore, he answered her tenderly, “Your mediation is accepted, God willing. You will hear something that will please you shortly.”
The woman said as she rose, “May our Lord be generous to you, sir, your honor.”
She stretched out her soft hand. He took it, but lowered his eyes. He imagined that she squeezed his hand a little when they were saying goodbye. He began to wonder whether this was the way she usually shook hands or if she had deliberately squeezed it. He
36
“OUR AUNT, the widow of the late Mr. Shawkat, wishes to see you.”
Al-Sayyid Ahmad threw Khadija a fiery look and shouted at her., “Why?”
His angry voice and irritated looks proclaimed that he meant more than this “why” implied and that he would have liked to tell her., “I've barely gotten rid of the intermediary who came yesterday when you bring me a new one today. Who told you these tricks would work on me? How can you and your brothers dare to try to put something over on me?”
Khadija's face became pale. In a trembling voice she replied, “I don't know, by God.”
He nodded hishead as though to say, “Yes, you do know, and I know too. Your cunning will achieve nothing but the most disastrous consequences for you”. Resentfully he declared, “Let her com e in. I won't be able to drink my coffee with a calm mind after this. My room has turned into a court with judges and witnesses. That's the kind of rest I find at home. God's curse on all of you!”
Before he could finish speaking, Khadija had vanished like a mouse that hasheard the floor creak. Al-Sayyid Ahmad glowered angrily for a few moments. Then he remembered the sight of Khadija retreating so fearfully that her foot stumbled in its wooden clog and her head almost collided with the door. He smiled sympatb etically. His impulsive fury was wiped away and left him feeling affectionate. What children they were! They refused to forget their mother even for a single minute.
He directed his eyes toward the door and readied a beaming face to aeet the visitor, as though he had not just seconds earlier fumed with anger at the thought of her visit. When he got angry at home for the most trifling reason or for none at all, he was not bluffing, but this visitor, as the widow of the late Mr. Shawkat, had a special status and outranked all the women who called at the house from time to time. Her husband had been a special friend and the two families had been linked by a bond of affection since the days of their grandparents. The departed gentleman had been like a father to him. His widow continued to be a mother to him and, consequently, to his entire family. It was she who had arranged his engagement to Amina. She had helped bring his children into the world. In addition to all of these considerations, the Shawkat family were people it was a privilege to know. Not only were they of Turkish origin, but they had a high social standing and owned real estate in Cairo between al-Hamzawi and al-Surayn. If al-Sayyid Ahmad was in the middle ranks of the middle class, they were indisputably members of its top echelon. Perhaps it was the woman's maternal feelings toward him and his filial feelings for her that made him indignant and uncomfortable about her anticipated intercession.
She was a person who would mince no words when she spoke to him. She would not weary of appealing to his emotions. Moreover, he knew her to be scathingly frank. Her excuses for it were her age and her status. Yes, she was not one to …
He stopped brooding when he heard her footsteps. He rose to greet her: “Welcome. It's as though the Prophet himself were visiting us.”
The elderly lady approached him. She was hobbling along, leaning on her parasol. She looked up at him with a face that was fair and full of wrinkles. Her transparent white veil did little to conceal her features. She responded to his greeting with a smile that revealed her gold teeth. She shook his hand and sat down beside him casually. She said, “A person who lives a long time sees a lot. Even you, pride of mankind… and even in this house … things are happening that are unpleasant to discuss…. By the God of al-Husayn, you've grown senile. Your dotage has arrived unexpectedly.”
She rattled on, giving her tongue free rein to say whatever it pleased without allowing al-Sayyid Ahmad an opportunity to interrupt or comment. She told him how she had come to visit and had discovered his wife was absent. “I thought at first that she was out visiting someone. So I pounded my chest in astonishment. I exclaimed, 'What's become of the world?'…How could her husband have permitted her to leave the house? Doeshe think so little of the decrees of God, of human law, and of the edicts of the Ottoman Empire?” She had quickly learned the whole truth. “I regained my senses and said, 'Praise to God, the world's just fine. This truly is al-Sayyid Ahmad. This is the least one could expect from him.'”
Then she abandoned her mocking tone and began to scold him for his harshness. She was outspoken in her laments for his wife, whom she considered the last woman to deserve punishment. Whenever he attempted to interrupt she would yell at him, “Hush. Not a word. Save your sweet talk that you make so flowery. It won't fool me. I want you to do the right thing, not say something eloquent”. She told him frankly that he was excessively conservative in his treatment of his family. It was abnormal. [t would be a good thing if he would act in a kindlier, more indulgent way.
Al-Sayyid Ahmad listened to her for a long time. When she allowed him to speak, only after she was exhausted from talking, he explained his point of view to her. Her passionate defense of his wife and his respect for her did not prevent him from asserting to her that his treatment of his family was based on principleshe would not abandon. He did promise at the end, as he had promised Umm Maryam earlier, that everything would turn out for the best. He thought the time had come for the meeting to conclude.
Before he knew what was happening she said, “The absence of Mrs. Amina was an unpleasant surprise to me, since I needed to see her for an extremely important reason. Because of my health it's not an easy matter for me to go out. Now I don't know whether it would be better for me to tell you what I was going to tell her or to wait till she returns.”
Al-Sayyid Ahmad replied with a smile, “We are all ready to serve you.”
“I would have liked her to be the first to hear, even though you leavre her no voice in the matter. Since this opportunity has escaped me, I'll console myself by preparing a happy reason for her return.”
The gentleman was baffled by her statement. He wondered as he stared at her, “What's behind all this?”
Stabbing the carpet with the point of her parasol, she said, “ won't keep you in suspense. I have chosen Aisha to be my son Khalil's wife.”
He was astounded. He was taken by surprise and by something totally unexpected. He felt uneasy and even alarmed for reasons that were hardly secret. He perceived immediately that he would have to drop his long-standing resolve that the younger daughter should not marry before the elder. He could not ignore this precious request announced by a person who was well acquainted with his resolution. She had obviously rejected it in advance and would refuse to be ruled by his judgment.
“Why are you silent as though you hadn't heard me?”
Al-Sayyid Ahmad smiled in confusion and embarrassment. Then, in order to say something pleasant while pondering the issue in all its aspects, he replied, “This is an enormous honor for us.”
The lady shot him a look that seemed to say, “Don't use your honeyed phrases on me”. She said combatively, “I don't need to be made fun of with empty words. Nothing will satisfy me but total acceptance. Khalil entrusted me with the task of finding a wife for him. I told him, ‘I've the best bride you could hope for.’ He was pleased by my choice. He had no reservations about becoming your son-in-law…. Has the time come that you meet a request like this, from me, with silence and evasion? My God, my God.”
How long would he be tormented by this difficult problem, which he could not resolve without inflicting a rude shock on one of his daughters? He looked at her as though trying to beg her sympathy for his situation. He mumbled, “The matter's not the way you imagine. Your request is my command, but…”
“A pox on ‘but.’ Don't tell me you've decided not to let the younger marry until the elder has. Who are you to decree this or that? Leave God's work to God. He's the most compassionate one of all. If you want, I can give you tens of examples of younger sisters who married be
He asked himself, “If Khadija's such an extraordinary young woman, why don't you choose her?” He thought about putting her on the spot the way she had him, but he was afraid she would toss him an answer that would insult, however innocently, Khadija and thus him as well. In a voice that was very serious and earnest he said, “It's just that I feel sorry for Khadija.”
She replied sharply as though she was the one making the concession, “Every day things like this happen without upsetting anyone. God dislikes it if His servant is stubborn and proud. Accept my request and trust in God. Don't reject my hand. I haven't made this offer to anyone before you.”
The gentleman cloaked his feelings with a smile and said, “This is an enormous honor, as I told you a moment ago. … If you would just be patient with me for a short time while I pull myself together and straighten things out, you will find that my opinion corresponds to your wishes, God willing.”
She said, in the tone of a person wishing to terminate a conversation, “I won't waste any more of your time than I have. The longer this give-and-take is drawn out, the more I think you're not really accepting my request. A woman like me wants you to say yes at once and not beat around the bush when she asks for something. I'll only add one word to what I've said: Khalil is as much y;)ur child as mine and the same holds true for Aisha.”