The servant opened the door for him, the same servant who had received him the year before. At first she did not recognize him and looked up curiously, but the questioning look quickly left her face to be replaced by a flash of recognition that seemed to say, “Oh … you're the one she's waiting for”. Then she made way and pointed to a room on the right as he entered. She said, “Step this way, sir…. No one else is there.”
Her final phrase attracted his attention immediately, since it addressed one of his major concerns. He realized that his mother had removed this obstacle. He headed for her room, cleared his throat, and entered. His eyes met his mother's as she looked up from her bed, to his left. Her eyes, known for their clarity, were clouded, so that her gaze seemed faint, as though coming from far away. Despite the feebleness of her eyes and their apparent disinterest, occasioned by their fading strength, she fixed them on him with a look of recognition. The delicate smile of her lips betrayed her feelings of victory, relief, and gratitude. Since she was wrapped in a blanket up to her chin, only her face was visible, a face that was far more changed than her eyes. Once full and round, it now looked withered and elongated, pale instead of rosy. Her delicate skin revealed the outlines of her jaw and protruding cheekbones, giving the pitiable appearance of a face wasting away. He stopped in stunned disbelief, incredulous that any power in existence would dare play such a cruel joke. Hisheart was seized by alarm, as though he were staring at death itself. He was stripped of his manhood and seemed to have become a child again, searching everywhere for his father. Irresistible emotion drew him to the bed. He bent over her, murmuring in sorrowful tones, “Never mind…. How are you?”
He felt genuinely sympathetic. In the warmth of this emotion his chronic pains disappeared. Similarly, in rare cases the symptoms of a hopeless medical condition, like paralysis, may disappear because of a sudden, overwhelming onslaught of terror. He seemed to be rediscovering the mother of his childhood whom he had loved, before pain had hidden her from hisheart. Gazing at her faded face, he clung to this rejuvenated feeling which had also rejuvenated him, taking him back years before the pain, just as an exhausted invalid clings to a moment of lucidity he fears intuitively may be almost his last. Yasin clung to this sentiment with all the intensity of a man fully conscious of the strength of the forces threatening him. The very way he clung to this emotion revealed that those pains still existed deep inside him. He was aware of the sorrow awaiting him if he carelessly allowed this pure emotion to become spoiled by letting it mix with other feelings.
The woman extracted from the covers a gaunt, emaciated hand with dry skin washed with faded black and blue as though it had been mummified for thousands of years. Immensely touched, he took it in his own hands. At that moment he heard her weak, husky voice say, “As you can see, I've turned into a phantom.”
He murmured, “May our Lord bring His mercy to bear on you and make you all well again.”
Her head, which was covered with a white scarf, nodded prayerfully as if to say, “May our Lord hear you”. She gestured to him to sit down. When he sat on the bed, she started talking with renewed strength derived from his presence: “At first I felt strange shivers. I thought it was something that would go away, that it was caused by nerves. People advised me to make a pilgrimage to the shrines and to burn incense. So I went to the mosques of al-Husayn and his sister al-Sayyida Zaynab and burned various different types of incense Indian, Sudanese, and Arab but my condition only got worse. Sometimes I was overcome by a constant shaking that wouldn't leave me until I was almost dead. At times my body would feel as cold as ice. On other occasions, fire would go through my body until I screamed, it was so hot. Finally we decided, I and Mi…” She stopped herself from mentioning the man's name, realizing at the last moment the error she was about to commit. “Finally I sent for the doctor, but his treatment did not make me any better and may even have set me back some. Now there's no hope.”
Gently squeezing her hand, Yasin said, “Don't despair of God's mercy. His compassion is universal.”
Her pale lips smiled and she said, “It pleases me to hear that. It pleases me to hear it from you more than from anyone else. You're dearer to me than the world and all its inhabitants. You're right. God's mercy is universal. I've had bad luck for so long. I don't deny that I've slipped up and made mistakes. Only God is infallible.”
He noticed, uneasily, that her conversation was verging on confession. He was upset and alarmed that thingshe could not bear would be repeated in hishearing, even if only with reflective regret. He became tense and jumpy. He implored her, “Don't tire yourself out with talking.”
She raised her eyes with a smile and answered, “Your visit has given me back my spirit. I want to tell you that never in my life did I want to harm anyone. Like everyone else, I was seeking peace of mind, but my luck tripped me up. I didn't harm anyone, but many people have harmed me.”
Yasin felt that his prayer for the hour to pass peacefully would not be answered and that his pure emotion would suffer a crisis that would spoil it. In the same tone of entreaty he said, “Forget these people, both the good and the bad ones. Your health is more important now than anything else.”
She patted his hand, as if asking for his affection and tenderness. She whispered, “There are things I should have done. I haven't done all that I should have for God. I wish I could live longer to make up for some of the things I've neglected. But my heart has always been full of faith, with God as my witness.”
As though defending both her and himself, he remarked, “The heart's everything. It's more important to God than fasting and prayer.”
She pressed his hand gratefully. Then she changed the direction of the conversation. She told him welcomingly, “You've finally returned to me. I didn't dare ask you to come till the illness brought me to the state you see. I felt I was saying goodbye to life, and I couldn't bear to leave it without seeing you. When I sent for you I was more afraid of your refusal than of death itself. But you've had mercy on your mother and come to bid her farewell. So accept my thanks and my prayers, which I hope God will heed.”
He was deeply touched but did not know how to express his feelings. Either because of his shyness or lack of practice, loving words felt awkward and clumsy in his mouth whenever he tried to address them to this woman, whom he had grown accustomed to spurning and treating roughly. He discovered he could most effectively and sensitively express himself with his hand. He gently pressed hers and mumbled, “May our Lord make your destiny a safe one.”
She kept referring back to the idea expressed in her previous statement, repeating the same words or finding other ways to put it. She paced her conversation by swallowing with noticeable difficulty or by falling silent for short periods while she caught her breath. For this reason, he repeatedly implored her to refrain from talking, but she would smile to cut him off and then continue her conversation. She stopped as her face showed she had just thought of something significant. She asked, “Have you gotten married?”
He raised his eyebrows in embarrassment and blushed, but she misinterpreted his reaction and hastened to apologize: “I'm not upset…. Of course, I would have liked to see your wife and children, but it's enough for me to know you're happy.”
He could not keep himself from responding tersely, “I'm not married anymore. I got divorced about a month ago.”
For the first time he noticed an interested look in her eyes. If they had still been able to sparkle they would have, but a dreamy light emanated from them as though coming through a thick curtain. She murmured, “You're divorced, son…. How sorry I am.”
He quickly replied, “Don't be sorry. I'm not sorry or sad”. He smiled and continued: “She left. Good riddance.”
But she asked sadly, “Who chose her for you … him or her?”
[n a manner that suggested he wished to close the door on this subject, he answered, “God chose her. Everything's fated and destined.”
“I know that, but who chose he
r for you? Was it your stepmother?”
“Oh no. My father chose her. There was nothing wrong with his choice. She was from a good family. It was just a question of fate and destiny, as I said.”
“Fate, destiny, and your father's choice,” she observed coldly. “That's what it was!”
After a short pause she asked, “Pregnant?”
“Yes….”
She sighed and commented: “May God make your father's life difficult.”
He deliberately allowed her remark to go unchallenged, as though it were a sore that might not itch anymore if he did not scratch it. They were both silent. The woman closed her eyes from fatigue but soon opened them and smiled at him. She asked him in a tender voice, with no edge of emotion to it, “Do you think you can forget the past?”
He lowered his eyes and shuddered, feeling an almost irresistible urge to flee. He implored her, “Don't go back over the past. Let it depart, never to return.”
Perhaps hisheart did not mean it, but his tongue had found the right thing to say. The statement may even have accurately expressed his feeling at the moment, when he was totally absorbed by the current situation. His phrase, “Let it depart, never to return,” may have sounded odd to his ears and heart, leaving anxiety in its wake, but he refused to ponder it. He fled from that subject and clung to his sincere emotion, which he had been determined not to relinquish from the beginning.
His mother asked again, “Do you love your mother the way you did in the happy days?”
Patting her hand, he replied, “I love her and pray for her safety.”
He soon found himself richly repaid for his anxiety and inner struggle by the look of peace and deep contentment that spread over her withered face. He felt her hand squeeze his, as though to tell him of the gratitude she felt. They exchanged a long, dreamy, calm, smiling look that radiated an ambiance of reassurance, affection, and sorrow throughout the room. She no longer seemed to want to talk or perhaps it was too much effort for her. Her eyelids slowly drooped until they closed. He looked at her questioningly but did not move. Then her lips opened a little and a delicate, recurrent snoring could be heard.
He sat up straight and scrutinized her face. Then he closed his eyes for a bit while he conjured up the image of her other face with which she had looked at him the year before. He felt depressed, and the fear that had dogged him on his way over returned. Would he ever be permitted to see this face again? With what emotions would he encounter her if he returned? He did not know. He did not want to try to picture what lay in the world of the unknown, the future. He wanted his mind to stop and to follow events, not to try to anticipate them. He was afflicted by fear and anxiety. It was strange … he had wanted to flee when he was listening to her talk,so much that he had thought he would be relieved if she fell asleep, but now that he was alone he felt afraid. He did not know why. He wished she would wake up from her nap and start talking again. How long should he wait?… Suppose she stayed sound asleep until morning? He could not spend that much time at the mercy of fear and anxiety. He had to set a limit to his pains…. The next day or the day after that congratulations or condolences would be in order. Congratulations or condolences? … Which would he prefer? The uncertainty had to end. “Whether it's congratulations,” he thought, “or condolences, I mustn't anticipate events. The most that can be said is that if we are fated to part now, we've parted friends. It will be a good ending to a bad life. But if God prolongs her life…”
While his mind wandered, his glance roamed about, until his eyes fell on the mirror of the wardrobe that stood opposite him. He could see reflected in it the bed with his mother's body stretched out under the blanket and he saw himself, almost blocking from view the upper half of his mother except for her hand, which she had removed from the covers when she welcomed him. He gazed at it affectionately and placed it under the covers, which he arranged carefully around her neck. Then he looked back at the mirror.] t occurred to him that this mirror might reflect the image of an empty bed by the next day. Her life, in fact anyone's life, was no more permanent than these visions in the mirror. He felt even more afraid and whispered to himself, “I've got to limit my pains…. I've got to go”. Leaving the mirror, his eyes moved around until they fell upon a table with a water pipe on it. The flexible i:ube was wound around the neck of the pipe like a snake. He looked at it with astonishment and disbelief, at once replaced by a ragLng feeling of disgust and anger. That man!… No doubt he was ttie owner of this pipe. He imagined the man sitting cross-legged on the sofa between the bed and the table, slumped over the pipe, inhaling and exhaling with pleasure as Yasin's mother fanned its coals for him. Oh … where washe? Somewhere in the house or outside? … Had the man seen him from some concealed spot? He could not bear to stay any longer with the water pipe. He cast a final look at his mother and found her fast asleep. He gently got up and went to the door. Seeing the servant in the outer hall, he told her, “Your mistress has fallen asleep. I'll return tomorrow morning.”
At the door of the apartment he turned to say once more, “Tomorrow morning”. He seemed to want to warn the man about the time so he could keep out of sight.
He headed straight for Costaki's bar. He drank as usual, but it did not cheer him up. He was unable to dispel the fear and anxiety from hisheart. Although dreams of his mother's fortune and the comfort it would provide him did not leave his mind, he was unable to erase from his memory the image of sickness and ideas of annihilation.
When he got home at midnight he found his stepmother waiting for him on the first floor. He looked at her in surprise. Then with hisheart pounding he asked, “My mother?”
Amina hid her face and said in a soft voice, “A messenger from Palace of Desire Alley came an hour before you returned. Have a long life, son.”
64
KAMAL'S ASSOCIATION with the British developed into a mutual friendship. Citing Yasin's misadventure in the mosque of al-Husayn, the family attempted to persuade the boy to sever his relations with these friends, but he protested that he was young, too young to be accused of spying. To keep them from stopping him, he went directly to the encampment when he got back from school, leaving his book bag with Umm Hanafi. There was no way to prevent him except by force, which they did not think appropriate, especially since he was having such a good time in the camp, directly under their eyes, and was welcomed and treated generously wherever he went. Even Fahmy showed forbearance and amused himself by watching Kamal move among the soldiers like a “monkey playing in the jungle.”
“Tell al-Sayyid Ahmad,” Umm Hanafi suggested once when complaining that the soldiers were fresh with her because of the accursed friendship and that some of them had mimicked the way she walked. For that reason, they deserved “to have their heads cut off” No one took her suggestion seriously, not merely out of consideration for the boy but to spare themselves too, fearing an investigation would reveal that they had concealed this friendship for a long time. They let the boy and his concerns alone. They may also have hoped that the reciprocal good feelings between the boy and the soldiers would protect the rest of them from interference or injury they might otherwise expect from the soldiers when members of the family came and went.
The happiest times of Kamal's day were those inside the encampment. Not all the soldiers were his friends in the ordinary sense of the word, but they all knew him. He would shake hands with his special friends, pressing their hands warmly, but limit himself to a salute for the others. When his arrival coincided with the sentiy duty of one of his friends, the boy ran up to him cheerfully and happily, putting out his hand, only to be shocked to find that the soldier remained curiously and disturbingly rigid,as though snubbing Kamal or as though he had turned into a statue. The boy only realized this was not the case when the others burst out laughing.
It was not unusual for the alarm siren to sound suddenly when he was with his friends. They would rush to their tents, returning shortly in their uniforms and helmets and carrying their rifle
s. A truck would be brought out from behind the cistern building. The soldiers would quickly jump into it, until it was packed full. He would realize from the scene in front of him that a demonstration had broken out somewhere and that the soldiers were going to break it up. Fighting would certainly flare up between them and the demonstrators. The only thing that concerned him at these times was to keep sight of his friends until he saw them packed into the truck. He would gaze at them, as though bidding them farewell. When they headed off for al-Nahhasin, he would spread out his hands to pray for their safety and to recite the opening sura of the Qur'an.
He only spent half an hour each afternoon at the camp. That was the longest he could absent himself from home when he got back from school. During that half hour, all his senses were on the alert every minute. He prowled around the tents and trucks, which he inspected piece by piece. Standing in front of the pyramids of rifles, he examined them in detail, especially the barrel muzzles where death lurked. He was not permitted to get too close to them and suffered terribly because he wanted to play with them or at least touch them.
The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street Page 54