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

by Naguib Mahfouz

  Yasin blushed and said in a faint voice, “I appreciate your sincere desire to improve my life. I'll do my part to try to reform without troubling anyone else.”

  His father yelled angrily, “A new promise as meaningless as those of the English! It's plain that you won't be satisfied till you end up in prison. Yes, the next time you scream for help it will be from behind bars. I keep telling you to divorce that woman and return home.”

  Yasin sighed loudly to make sure his father heard and responded, “She's pregnant, Father. I don't want to add another sin to my list of offenses.”

  “God preserve us!” al-Sayyid Ahmad exclaimed to himself. “Your new grandchild is being formed in Zanuba's belly. Could you possibly have imagined all the problems this young man had in store for you the moment you received him as an infant - on a day you thought one of the happiest of your life?”

  “Pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you're afraid of adding another sin to your list?” Then before his son could answer he exploded, “Why didn't your conscience trouble you when you were mistreating good women from fine families? By the truth of God's Book, you're a curse.”

  When Yasin left the store, his father looked after him with eyes filled with pity and scorn. He could not help taking some pride in the young man's appearance, inherited from him, but not in Yasin's character, inherited from the mother. He suddenly remembered how once he had almost fallen into this abyss, courtesy of the same Zanuba. But he also recalled restraining himself just in time. Had it really been self-restraint? He felt vexed and anxious. He cursed Yasin and then cursed Yasin again.

  111

  WHEN THE twentieth of December arrived, he sensed the day was unlike any other, at least for him. On this date he had entered the world and that fact was recorded on his birth certificate, so that no one would be able to fib about it. Clad in an overcoat, he was pacing back and forth in his room. Glancing at his desk, he saw his diary, which was open to a blank page with the date of his birth at the top. He was thinking about what to write for his birthday. He kept moving to stay warm in the biting cold. As He could see through the windowpane, the sky was concealed behind gloomy clouds. The intermittent rain made him pensive and dreamy.

  A birthday had to be celebrated, even if the birthday boy was the only one at the party. The old house had no tradition of commemorating birthdays. His mother herself did not know this was a day she should not forget. Of the births of her children all she retained were vague memories of the seasons when they had occurred and of the pain accompanying them. The most she could say of his birth was: “It was in winter and the delivery was difficult. My labor pains and screams lasted two days.”

  Formerly, when he had thought of his birth, hisheart had been filled with pity for his mother. When he had witnessed Na'ima's birth, these feelings had intensified, as hisheart pounded painfully with sympathy for Aisha. Today he thought of his birth in a new way, for his mind had drunk so avidly from the fountains of materialist philosophy that in two monthshe had grasped ideas mankind had taken a century to develop. He wondered about his delivery and whether part or all of its difficulty was attributable to neglect or ignorance. He asked this as though interrogating a suspect who stood before him. He thought about difficult deliveries, the damage they might cause the brain or nervous system, and the profound effect such injuries could have on the life, destiny, and happiness of the newborn. Might not his exaggerated interest in love be the result of shocks to the top or side of his large head in the hidden reaches of the womb nineteen years before? Why not consider his idealism - which had misled him for so long with ignorant fantasies and induced him to shed countless tears on torment's bloody altar - a sad consequence of the clumsiness of an ignorant midwife?

  He thought about the prenatal period, including the time before conception, the uncharted territory from which life sprang, the mechanical and chemical equation to which a living creature could be reduced, the scornful rejection this creature accorded his actual origin from the start as he claimed descent from the stars at which he gazed. Kamal had learned that his origin was not nearly so remote. It was something called sperm. Nineteen years and nine months before, he had been nothing but a drop of sperm ejected because of an innocent desire for pleasure, a pressing need for solace, a bout of excitement inspired by an intoxication extinguishing common sense, or even a feeling of obligation toward a wife who was confined to the house. To which of these did he owe his conception? Perhaps duty had caused him to come into the world, for he was haunted by a concern for doing his duty. He had not allowed himself certain pleasures until they presented themselves as a philosophy he ought to follow and a view he should adopt. Even then, he had engaged in a painful struggle with himself first. His approach to life was hardly one of carefree abandon.

  Sperm penetrated a living creature, found the ovum in the Fallopian tube, and fertilized it. Then they slid together into the womb, where they changed into a fetus, which developed flesh and bones. This creature then emerged into the light, causing pain it could not appreciate. It started crying even before its features could be seen clearly. The development of its instincts gave rise in time to so many beliefs and ideas that it was crammed with them. It fell in love and as a result claimed to partake of the divine. Then it was badly shaken, its beliefs were destroyed, and its thoughts were turned upside down. Itsheart was broken, and it was reduced to a humbler status than its initial one.

  In this manner nineteen years had passed… what a long period! Youth fled with the speed of lightning. What consolation was left, besides enjoying life hour by hour and even minute by minute until a crow's call heralded the end?

  The age of innocence was over. He had reached a stage of life in which he dated things by love: B.L. and A.L. Today he was conscious of many desires, but the identity of his beloved was unknown. The closest he could come to identifying his beloved was through attribution to it of some divine names, like truth, the joy of life, and the light of knowledge. It seemed his journey would be long. His lover appeared to have boarded the train of Auguste Comte and passed by the station of theology, where the password was “Yes, Mother”. This train was now traversing the realm of metaphysics, where the password was “Certainly not, Mother”. In the distance, visible through a telescope, was the mountain of reality on which was inscribed its password: “Open your eyes and be courageous.”

  He stopped in front of the desk and fixed his eyes on the diary, wondering whether to sit down and allow his pen to record whatever it chose for his birthday or to postpone that until his ideas had crystallized. Hearing the drone of falling rain, he glanced at the panes of the window overlooking Palace Walk. He noticed pearly drops clinging to the surface of the glass, which was misty from the humidity in the air. A pearl soon slid to the bottom, tracing on the surface a bright line with a curving path like a shooting star's.

  Kamal went to the window and looked up at the raindrops pouring from the heavy clouds. The heavens were united with the earth by these glittering threads. The minarets and domes of the district seemed oblivious to the rain, and the horizon behind them resembled a silver frame. The entire scene was washed with a white blended with the brown of teak, a combination suitable for exalted dreams. The cries of children rose from the street. Kamal glanced down and saw the earth streaming with water and mud. Carts were moving with difficulty, their wheels spattering everything in reach. The shops had withdrawn their outdoor displays, and pedestrians sought refuge in shops and coffeehouses or under balconies.

  This view of the sky struck a responsive chord in Kamal's mind. What could be more appropriate than drawing inspiration from it as he contemplated his situation at the beginning of another year of his life? Since Husayn Shaddad had left his homeland, Kamal no longer had a companion with whom he could discuss his spiritual secrets. He had to mull them over by himself if he felt a need for discussion. Since his soul mate had left him, Kamal had been forced to make his own soul his companion.


  He asked his spirit, “Do you believe in the existence of God?”

  When his spirit's turn came, it asked, “Why don't you jump from star to star and planet to planet as you do from one step to another on the stairs?”

  It also inquired about the chosen elite among the self-proclaimed descendants of the heavens who had elevated the earth to a central place in existence, making even the angels bow down to Adam's clay. Then their brother Copernicus had returned earth to the status originally granted it by existence as nothing more than the sun's small servant. He was followed by his brother Darwin, who exposed the secrets of man, this bogus prince, announcing for all to hear that man's true ancestor was the ape held captive in a cage in the zoo, where man invited his friends to gawk at it during holiday excursions.

  “In the beginning, the universe was one large nebula. Then stars spread out from this center as if spattered into space by the rotating wheel of a bicycle. Through the eternal interplay of gravitational fields, these stars gave birth to planets. The earth itself was flung out like a molten ball trailed by the moon, which teased the earth by frowning at it with one side of its face and smiling with the other. When the earth's fire cooled, its features assumed their permanent shape as mountains, plateaus, plains, and rock formations. Then life crept forth. Crawling on all fours, earth's son arrived, questioning anyone he encountered about high ideals.

  “I won't hide my impatience with legends. In the immense raging wave, I discovered a three-sided rock, which from now on I'll call the rock of knowledge, philosophy, and idealism. Don't say that philosophy, like religion, has a mythical character. It rests on solid, scientific foundations and advances systematically toward its objectives. Art is an elevated form of entertainment and enhances life, but my aspirations stretch beyond art. What I want is to draw inspiration only from the truth. Compared with truth, art seems an effeminate pursuit. To attain my goal, you'll find I'm prepared to sacrifice everything except life itself. My qualifications for this important role include a large head, an enormous nose, disappointment in love, and expectations of ill health. Be careful not to mock youthful dreams, for that's a symptom of senility. People affected by this disease term their sarcasm Wisdom.' There's nothing to prevent a sensible person from admiring Sa'd Zaghlul as much as, Copernicus, the chemist Ostwald, or the physicist Mach; for an effort to link Egypt with the advance of human progress is noble and humane. Patriotism's a virtue, if it's not tainted by xenophobia. Of course, hating England is a form of self-defense. That kind of nationalism is nothing more than a local manifestation of a concern for human rights.

  “You ask if I believe in love. My response is that love is still in my heart. I must acknowledge this truth of human nature. Although the roots of love were tangled up with those of religion and of other legends, the collapse of the sacred temples did not shake die pillars of love or diminish its importance. Its status remained unchanged even when its ceremonial niche was invaded by study and analysis. Examination of its biological, psychological, and sociological components has not harmed it. None of these investigations can make the heart pound any less fiercely when a special memory or image comes to mind.”

  “Do you still believe in love's immortality?”

  “Immortality's just a myth. Presumably love will be forgotten, like everything else in the world.”

  “A year has passed since A'ida's wedding; why do you still hesitate to pronounce her name?”

  “I've made some progress on the path to forgetfulness. I've traversed stretches of insanity, stupor, intense pain, and then less frequent discomfort. Now a whole day may pass without my thinking of her, except when I wake up or go to bed, and then once or twice during the day. When I remember her, that affects me in different ways. A mild longing is revived, a sorrow flees by like a cloud, or a regret stings but doesn't burn me. At times my soul will suddenly erupt like a volcano, as the earth turns under my feet. In any case, I've come to believe that I'll continue my life, even without A'ida.”

  “What do you rely on in your search for forge tfulness?”

  “I depend on the study and analysis of love, as previously mentioned, and on minimizing my individual pains through speculations that embrace all of existence so that by comparison man's world seems a trivial speck. I also refresh my soul with alcohol and sex. I seek consolation with philosophers who specialize in it like Spinoza, who thinks that time is unreal, that passions linked to an event in the past or future make no sense, and that we're capable of overcoming them, if we can form a clear and distinct idea of them.”

  “Did it make you happy to discover love can be forgotten?”

  “It did, because that promised me release from captivity, but the experience also saddened me by introducing me to death prematurely. In no matter what context, I'll despise bondage and love absolute freedom as long as I live.”

  “It's a happy person who has never thought of suicide or longed for death. It's a happy person who has the torch of enthusiasm blazing in hisheart. A person's immortal when working or preparing seriously for work. A person's truly alive when he responds to Umar al-Khayyam's invitation to take up a book, a drink, and a sweetheart. A soul full of fervent hopes forgets or is oblivious to marriage in the same way that a glass full of whiskey has no room for soda water. What more can you want if your infatuation with drink continues happily and your encounters with women are not blocked by disgust or aversion. If you long occasionally for purity and asceticism, that could be a holdover from your previous piety.”

  The rain kept pouring down. Thunder roared, and there was a gleam of lightning. The street was deserted and all its cries silenced. Wishing to look at the courtyard, he left the bedroom and went to the window of the sitting room. Gazing out the peephole, he saw that water was washing away the loose dirt on the surface, eroding it, and then rushing off toward the old well. Water was also flowing out of the well on the other side and flooding a depression between the oven room and the storeroom. In that declivity, where a residue of wheat, barley, and fenugreek seed, accidentally dropped by Umm Hanafi, had collected, a growth like green silk brocade would sprout. For some days it would thrive, until trampled by their feet. In his childhood, that area had served as the setting for his maneuvers and his dreams. That wellspring of memories still supplied hisheart with a yearning and a delight shaded by sorrow like a diaphanous cloud veiling the face of the moon.

  Turning away from the window to go back to his room, he became aware of the presence of other people in the sitting room. They were the last remnants of the old coffee hour. His mother sat on the sofa with her legs tucked beneath her and her arms spread over the brazier. She had no one to keep her company save Umm Hanafi, who sat cross-legged on a sheepskin opposite her mistress. He thought of the gathering in its brightest days and of the beautiful memories it had left behind. The brazier was the only survivor not to have undergone changes the viewer wished to reject.

  112

  AHMAD ABD AL-JAWAD walked slowly along the bank of the Nile on his way to Muhammad Iffat's houseboat. The night was calm, the sky clear, the stars twinkling, and the weather cool. When he reached the gangplank and started across it, he glanced from force of habit at the distant houseboat he had once called Zanuba's. A year had passed since those painful events, and all that was left of them in hisheart was resentful embarrassment. One other consequence had been his boycott of parties comparable to his previous ban following Fahmy's death. He had avoided them scrupulously for a year, before becoming exasperated. After a change of heart, he was now seeking out the forbidden bacchanal.

  The next moment he was joining the beloved gathering and seeing his three male friends and the two women. The men he had seen as recently as the previous night, but he had not set eyes on the women for about a year and a half or, to be precise, not since the night Zanuba had been introduced to his life. The party had yet to begin, for the liquor bottles were full and decorum was still being observed. Jalila, who occupied the main sofa, was toying with her gold brac
elets as if wanting to make them jingle. Zubayda, who stood beneath the hanging lamp, was examining her appearance in a small mirror she held in her hand. Her back was to the table crowded with whiskey bottles and plates of appetizers.

  Bareheaded, the three men, who had removed their cloaks, were scattered around the room. Ahmad Abd al-Jawad shook hands with them and then warmly clasped the hands of the women.

  Jalila greeted him, “Welcome, dear brother.”

  Zubayda cast him a censorious smile as she said, “Welcome to a person who would deserve nothing but goodbye from us, except for common courtesy.”

  The man removed his cloak and fez and looked around for a vacant place. Zubayda had taken a seat next to Jalila. He hesitated a little before going to their sofa and sitting there. His vacillation did not escape the eyes of Ali Abd al-Rahim, who said, “You almost seem a novice at this.”

  Jalila tried to encourage al-Sayyid Ahmad by telling Ali Abd al-Rahim, “Leave him alone. There's never been any reserve between us.”

  Zubayda was quick to laugh and say scornfully, “I'm the one with the most right to say that. Isn't he my in-law?”

  Al-Sayyid Ahmad understood her allusion and wondered anxiously how much she knew of the whole affair. But he replied tenderly, “It's my honor, sultana.”

  Gazing at him suspiciously, Zubayda asked, “Are you really pleased with what's happened?”

  He answered suavely, “Only because you're her aunt.”

  Wav] ng her hand in disapproval, she said, “My heart will never forgive her.”

  Before al-Sayyid Ahmad could ask why, Ali Abd al-Rahim, who was rubbing his hands together, yelled, “Save the conversation till we've filled our heads”. After rising and going to the table, he opened a bottle and poured drinks, which he presented to them, one at a time, with a solicitude that revealed his customary satisfaction with tending bar. Then he waited until everyone was ready before saying, “To the health of our lovers, our brothers, and music. May we never lack these three things.”