The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street

by Naguib Mahfouz

  18

  WHEN HIS feet brought him to al-Gamaliya Street, he was so choked up he felt he would die. He had not been there for eleven years, eleven years that had passed without hisheart yearning for it once. Any memory of the area that had flashed into his mind had been surrounded by a depressing black halo and ornamented with the stuff from which nightmares are woven. The truth was that he had not simply left home but, when the opportunity arose, had fled. Angry and dejected, he had turned his back on it and avoided it completely. It was not a place he sought out or even cut across on the way to some other district.

  Yet it remained exactly the way it had been when he was growing up. Nothing had changed. The street was still so narrow a handcart would almost block it when passing by. The protruding balconies of the houses almost touched each other overhead. The small shops resembled the cells of a beehive, they were so close together and crowded with patrons, so noisy and humming. The street was unpaved, with gaping holes full of mud. The boys who swarmed along the sides of the street made footprints in the dirt with their bare feet. There was the same never-ending stream of pedestria n traffic. Uncle Hasan's snack shop and Uncle Sulayman's restaurant too remained just as he had known them. If it had not been for the bitterness of the past and his present suffering, a tender smile, which the child in him wished to display, might well have traced itself on his lips.

  The cul-de-sac known as the Palace of Desire or Qasr al-Shawq came into sight. Hisheart pounded so strongly it almost deafened his ears. At the corner on the right could be seen baskets of oranges and apples arranged on the ground in front of the fruit store. He bit his lip and lowered his eyes in shame. The past was stained with dishonoi and buried in the muck of disgrace, constantly emitting a lament of shame and pain. Even so, the past as a whole was not nearly so heavy a burden as this one store, which was a living symbol, enduring through time. Its owner, baskets, fruit, location, and memories seemed a combination of shameless boasting and painful defeat. Since the past was composed of events and memories, by its very nature it was apt to fade away and be forgotten. This store provided physical evidence to restore what had faded and fill in what he had forgotten. With each step he took toward the cul-de-sac he moved several steps away from the present, traveling back through time, in spite of himself.

  He could almost see a boy in the store looking up at the proprietor and saying, “Mama invites you to come tonight”. He saw him returning home with a bag of fruit, grinning happily. There he was, pointing the man out to his mother as they walked along the street. She was pulling him away by the arm, so he would not attract attention. He was sobbing with tears at the man's savage assault on his mother, which he re-created afresh with his current level of sophistication each time he thought about it, thus turning it into an ultimate manifestation of horror. These searing visions began to pursue him. He strove to flee from them, but no sooner would he escape from the clutches of one than he would be grabbed violently by another, stirring deep inside him a volcano of hatred and anger.

  He kept on walking toward his destination but in a miserable state. “How can I enter this dead-end street when that store's at the corner? … And the man… will he be in his usual spot? I won't look that way. What devilish force is tempting me to look? Will he recognize me if our eyes meet? If he seems to recognize me, I'll kill him. But how could he know me? Not him, not anyone in this neighborhood… eleven years. I left here a boy and return a bull… with two horns! Don't we have the power to exterminate the poisonous vermin that keep on stinging us?”

  He headed into the cul-de-sac, hurrying a little. He imagined people would be looking inquisitively at him and asking, “Where and when have we seen that face?” He went along the alley, which rose unevenly uphill, forcing himself to shake the suffocating dust from his face and head, if only temporarily. To make it easier to carry through with his resolve, he distanced himself from his surroundings, which he began to study. He told himself, “Don't be impatient with this tiresome street. When you were young you really enjoyed sliding down it on a board”. All the same, when he could see the wall of the house, he started wondering again, “Where am I going? To my mother!… How amazing! I don't believe it. What will I say to her? How will she receive me?… I wish….”

  He turned right, into a subsidiary cul-de-sac, and approached the first door on the left. Without the slightest doubt it was the old house. He crossed the street to it the way he did when he was young, without any hesitation or reflection, as though he had only left it the day before, but this time he stormed through the door with unaccustomed anguish. He climbed the stairs with slow, heavy steps. Despite his anxiety, he caught himself examining things carefully to compare them with what he remembered. He found th e stairway a little narrower. It was worn in some places and small chips had fallen from the edges of the treads where they protruded over the risers. His memories quickly obscured the present entirely. In this state he passed the two floors that were rented out and reached the top one. He stopped for a few moments to regain his strength, his chest heaving. Then he shook his shoulders disdainfully and knocked on the door. After a minute or so, it was opened, revealing a middle-aged servant. The mo ment she saw that he was a stranger, she hid behind the door and asked him politely what he wanted.

  Altho agh it was unreasonable to expect the servant to recognize him, he became agitated and resolutely made his way inside, heading for the parlor. He said in a commanding voice, “Tell your mistress Yasin'shere.”

  “What do you suppose the servant thinks of me?” He turned around and saw her hastening away inside, either because his imperious tone had cowed her or… He bit his lip and walked into the room. In his haste and fury he assumed unconsciously that it was the parlor, although in different circumstances his memory would have known every corner of the house without a guide. Then, dredging up memories, he would have made a tour from the bath, to which he was carried in tears, on to the enclosed balcony, where evening after evening he had watched wedding processions, through the spaces between the wooden spindles. Was the current furniture in the room the same as in the distant past?

  All he remembered of the old furnishings was a long mirror set on a gilded basin with openings in the cover, from which sprouted artificial roses of various colors. There were candelabra attached to the edges of the mirror. Dangling from their necks were crystal crescents, which he had frequently enjoyed playing with while he looked through them at the room, which would shimmer in strange disguises. He could remember their fascination even when he could not see them. There was no reason to wonder, for today's furnishings were different and not merely because they were newer. The decor of a frequently married woman was subject to change and renovation, in the same way that his mother had traded in his father, the coal dealer, and the master sergeant. Yasin felt tense and anxious. He perceived that he had not only knocked on the door of his former home but had scraped the scab off an inflamed sore and plunged into its pus.

  He did not have long to wait, perhaps even less time than he imagined. He soon heard quick footsteps approaching and a person talking to herself. The voice was loud, but Yasin could not make out the words. Then he sensed she was there, although his back was turned to the doorway. Her shoulder jarred against the second door, which was still closed. He heard her call out breathlessly, “Yasin! My son!… How can I believe my eyes? … My Lord…. You've become a man….”

  Blood rushed to his beefy face. He turned toward her anxiously, not knowing how to address her or how their meeting would turn out, but the woman spared him from having to form any plan. She rushed to him and put her arms around him. She embraced him nervously and intensely. She began kissing his chest, the highest part of his tall body her lips could reach. Then she was sobbing and her eyes were bathed in tears. She buried her face against his breast, forgetting herself for a while until she could catch her breath. All that time he had not moved or spoken a word. He felt deeply and painfully the unbearable awkwardness of his rigidity, yet no in
dication of life, of any life at all, was revealed by him. He remained motionless and dumb. He was profoundly touched, although at first it was not clear to him what kind of emotion it was. Despite the warmth of his reception he experienced no desire to throw himself into her arms or kissher. He was unable to pluck out the sad memories lodged inside him like a chronic disease afflicting him since childhood.

  Although he was resolved and determined to clear the past from the stage of the present and retain control of his mind and his wits, the discarded past threw dark shadows on the surface of hisheart, like a fly brushed away from the mouth which has left behind infectious germs. He perceived at that terrifying moment, more than he had throughout his past life, the sad truth that had clouded hisheart for a long time: he no longer felt anything for his mother. The woman raised her head, as though beseeching him to bring his face close to hers. He was not able to refuse and leaned over. She kissed him on the cheeks and forehead. As they embraced, their eyes met, and he kissed her forehead, moved by his frustration at being so ill at ease and embarrassed, not by any other sentiment.

  Then he heard her murmur, “She told me Yasin washere. I said, ‘Yasin! Who could that be? But who else could he be? I only have one Yasin, the person who deprived himself of my house and deprived me of him. So what has happened? How come he's accepted my invitation after such a long time?’ I ran here like a madwoman, not believing my ears. Here you are. You, not someone else, praise to God. You left me a boy and have returned a man. I have been dying to see you and you didn't even know I was alive.”

  She took him by the arm and led him to the sofa. He accompanied her, asking himself when this tumultuous wave of affectionate welcome would roll by so he could see the way clear to achieve his objective. He began to look at her stealthily, with a curiosity mixed with astonishment and anxiety. She seemed not to have changed except that her body had filled out. She still retained her beautiful figure. Her fair, round face and black eyes accentuated with kohl were just as beautiful as ever. He was not comfortable with the makeup he observed on her face and neck. He seemed to have been expecting that the years would have changed her dedication to taking care of herself and her passion for personal adornment even when she was all alone.

  They sat side by side while she gazed affectionately at his face for a time and then measured hisheight and girth with admiring eyes. Ina trembling voice she said, “Oh, my Lord. I can hardly believe my eyes. I'm in a dream. This is Yasin! A whole lifetime has gone up in smoke. How often I invited you and begged you. I sent you messenger after messenger. What can I say?… Let me ask you why you were so hardhearted to me. How could you turn away from my loving pleas? How could you turn a deaf ear to the cry of my grieying heart? How? … How? How could you forget you had a mother secluded here?”

  Her final sentence caught his attention. He found it so strange that it invited both his sarcasm and his lamentation. It might well have slipped out because of her bewildered emotional state. Yes, there had been something, things, to remind him morning and evening that he had a mother, but what kind ofthing or things?

  He looked up anxiously without speaking, and their eyes met for a moment. The woman jumped in, longingly, to ask: “Why don't you speak?”

  Yasin overcame his uncertainty with an audible sigh. Then he replied, as though finding no alternative, “I thought about you a lot, but my pain was unbearable.”

  Before he could complete what he was going to say, the light sparkling in her eyes faded, and a cloud of disappointment and list-lessness, driven by a wind from the depths of the sad past, settled over her pupils. She could not stand to look him in the eye any longer. She glanced down and said in a mournful voice, “I thought you were over the sorrows of the past. God knows they weren't worth the anger you displayed, keeping you away from me for eleven years.”

  He was amazed and infuriated by her criticism. He found it so reprehensible that it felt like salt poured on his angry wound. He was upset and would have exploded had it not been for the goal of his visit. Did the woman really mean what she said? Did her deeds really seem so insignificant to her? Or did she think he did not know what had happened? Although he controlled his nerves by exerting his will, he replied, “Are you saying my anger was unmerited? What took place merited the utmost anger and even more.”

  She let her back collapse against the sofa cushion. She cast him a look combining censure with an appeal for affection. She asked, “What's wrong with a woman remarrying after she gets divorced?”

  He felt the fires of anger flaming through his veins, but the only apparent effect was the closing and tightening of his lips. She still made it seem so simple when she talked, as though she was convinced of the certainty of her innocence. She asked what was wrong with a woman getting married after she had been divorced. Fine, there was nothing wrong with some woman remarrying after her divorce, but if that woman was his mother, then it was a different story, a very different story. And to which marriage was she referring? There had been a marriage and a divorce, a marriage and a divorce, and then a marriage and a divorce. And there was something even more bitter and calamitous: that fruitmonger…. Did she remember him? Should he slap her in the face with those memories? Should he tell her frankly that he was no longer as ignorant as she thought? The intensity of his memories forced him to abandon his moderation this time. With great resentment he said, “Marriage and divorce, marriage and divorce, these are disgraceful affairs that should not have seemed right to you. How often they have shredded my heart, mercilessly.”

  She folded her arms across her chest in despondent surrender and remarked with mournful tenderness, “It's bad luck and nothing else. I've been unlucky, that's all there is to it.”

  He cut her off short, contracting his facial muscles and making his neck swell out, saying, as though the wordshe uttered were repulsive and revolted him, “Don't try to justify your actions. That only hurts me more. It's best if we pull down the curtain on our pains and hide them, since we're unable to wipe them out of existence.”

  She reluctantly took refuge in silence. Her heart was apprehensive that stormy memories would spoil the happy reunion and the hopes it had inspired in her. She began to observe him anxiously, as though trying to guess what he was concealing in his chest. When she could not stand his silence any longer she said plaintively, “Don't keep on tormenting me. You're my only child.”

  These words had a strange effect on him as though revealing to him for the first time that he truly was her son and that she was the only mother he had. All the same, it served him as a new incentive for outrage and anxiety. How many men! He turned his face away to conceal from her the traces of revulsion and anger sketched on its surface. He closed his eyes to flee from memories of vile sights.

  At that moment he heard her say gently and imploringly, “Let me believe that my present happiness is a reality and not an illusion and that you came to me having rid your heart forever of all the sorrows of the past.”

  He gave her a long, hard look that revealed the serious nature of his thoughts, but there was nothing then that could have deterred him from trying to achieve his objective or even postponed it for a while. In a voice indicating that the wordshe spoke were far less important than what they implied, he remarked, “This depends on you. If you wish, you will have everything you want.”

  An anxious look could be seen in the woman's eyes, revealing the reawakened fear she was suffering. She replied, “I desire your love from the depths of my heart. How often have I yearned and striven for it, only to have you reject me mercilessly.”

  He was distracted from her affectionate words by the thought disturbing his mind. He continued: “What you crave is within your grasp. It is in your hands alone, if you take wisdom for your guide.”

  The woman asked with alarm, “What do you mean?”

  Her feigned ignorance infuriated him and he said, “The import of my words is plain. You should refrain from doing something which, if the information reaching me is cor
rect, would be a fatal blow for me.”

  She opened her eyes wide and then frowned with unconcealed despair. She muttered unwittingly, “What do you mean?”

  Assuming that she was playing dumb on purpose he responded with rage, “I mean that you should annul the plan to remarry. Don't even consider doing something like this again. I'm not a child anymore. My patience won't stand for any further insults.”

  She bowed her head with unmistakable sorrow. She kept it down for some time, as though asleep. Then she raised her head slowly. The grief visible in her expression was too profound to measure. In a feeble voice, as though addressing herself, she said, “So you came because ofthat!”

  Without considering what he was saying, he replied, “Yes!”

  His answer could just as well have been a burst of gunfire, for everything around him changed and was transformed suddenly. The atmosphere became gloomy. Later, when he was alone, he went back over that conversation. He was comfortable with everything he had said until this final answer. He pondered over it, not knowing whether he had made a mistake or said the right thing.

  His mother murmured as she looked around her, “How I wish my ears were deceiving me.”

  He realized only too late that he had gone too fast. He was angry with himself, furious, and poured his wrath on everything but himself. In an attempt to conceal his error at the expense of an even greater one, without stopping to think, he burst out: “You do just what you want without thinking about the consequences. I've always been the victim who has been hurt for no fault of his own. I would have thought that life would have taught you some lessons. So imagine my surprise when someone tells me you're planning to get married again. What a scandal, and it keeps recurring every few years, without any end in sight.”

  Her despair was so intense that she listened to him with apparent disinterest. Then she said sorrowfully, “You're a victim and I'm a victim. Each of us becomes a victim when your father and that woman who has taken you under her wing start whispering to you.”