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

by Naguib Mahfouz

  “But I'm asking about your own feelings.”

  Abd al-Muni'm thought again while trying to keep from bumping into people. Finally he said, “I didn't love him. None of us did. So I wasn't sad. Yet I wasn't happy either. I followed the bier without feeling anything one way or the other about the man, but the thought of such a mighty person in a coffin affected me. A sight like that was bound to move me. God's sovereignty is universal. He is alive and eternal. I wish people would realize that. If the king had died before the political situation changed, great multitudes would have rejoiced. And you what are your feelings?”

  Smiling, Ahmad said, “I have no love for tyrants, no matter what the political situation.”

  “That's excellent. But what about the sight of death?”

  “I don't care for sick romanticism.”

  Abd al-Muni'm asked angrily, “Then were you pleased?”

  “I hope to live long enough to see the world cleansed of all tyrants, no matter what the title or description.”

  They were silent for a time, fatigue having gotten the best of them. Then Ahmad asked, “What happens next?”

  With the confident tone for which he was known, Abd al-Muni'm answered, “Faruq is just a boy. He's not as crafty or as vindictive as his father. If all goes well, with successful negotiations and a return of the Wafd to power, things will calm down and the era of c onspiracies will vanish. It seems that the future will be good.”

  “And the English?”

  “If the negotiations are successful, they will become our friends and, consequently, the alliance between the palace and the English against the Egyptian people will be terminated. Then the king will be forced to respect the constitution.”

  “The Wafd Party is better than the other ones.”

  “No doubt… but it hasn't governed long enough to demonstrate its abilities fully. Experience will soon reveal its true potential. I agree it's better than the others, but our ambitions don't stop there.”

  “Of course not! I believe that rule by the Wafd Party is a good starting point for much greater developments. That's all there is to it. But will we really reach an agreement with the English?”

  “If there isn't an agreement, then we'll return to a situation like that under Sidqy. Our nation has an inexhaustible supply of traitors. Their main task is always to discipline the Wafdists whenever we say no to the English. They are certainly watching for another opportunity, even if they're aligned with the nationalists at present. Sidqy, Muhammad Mahmud, and men like them are just waiting. That's the tragedy.”

  On reaching New Street they suddenly found themselves facing their grandfather, Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who washeading toward the Goldsmiths Bazaar. They went over and greeted him respectfully.

  He smiled and asked, “From where, to where?”

  Abd al-Muni'm answered, “We were watching the funeral of King Fuad.”

  The smile still on his lips, the man said, “Thank you for your thoughtful condolences.”

  After shaking hands, they went their separate ways. Ahmad watched for a moment as his grandfather walked off. Then he said, “Our grandfather's charming and elegant. His cologne has a pleasant fragrance.”

  “Mother recounts amazing tales about his tyranny.”

  “I don't think he's a tyrant. That's incredible.”

  Abd al-Muni'm laughed and said, “Even King Fuad himself by the end of his days seemed pleasant and charming”. They both laughed and proceeded on to Ahmad Abduh's coffeehouse.

  In the room opposite the fountain, Ahmad saw a shaykh with a long beard and penetrating eyes. He sat in the center of a group of young men, who watched him attentively. Ahmad stopped and told his brother, “Your friend Shaykh Ali al-Manufi…. ‘The earth casts out its burdens’ [Qur'an, 99:2]. So I must leave you here.”

  Abd al-Muni'm invited him: “Come sit with us. I'd love for you to get to know him and to hear him speak. Dispute with him as much as you want. Many of the fellows around him are students from the University.”

  Freeing his arm from his brother's, Ahmad said, “No, sir. I almost got into a fight with him once. I don't like fanatics. Goodbye.”

  Abd al-Muni'm stared at him critically and said sharply, “Goodbye. May our Lord guide you”. Then he joined the assembly presided over by Shaykh Ali al-Manufi, head of al-Husayn Primary School. The man stood up to greet him, and the young people sitting there also rose and embraced him. When the shaykh sat down, they all resumed their seats. Examining Abd al-Muni'm with piercing eyes, the shaykh commented, “We didn't see you yesterday.”

  “Studying.”

  “Industry is an acceptable excuse. Why did your brother leave you to go off by himself?”

  Abd al-Muni'm smiled but did not reply. Shaykh Ali al-Manufi remarked, “Our Lord is the guide. Don't wonder about him. Our founder, Hasan al-Banna, encountered many skeptics who today are some of his sincerest disciples. When God wants to guide a people, Satan has no power over them. We are God's soldiers, spreading His light and combating His enemies. More than others, we have given our spirits to Him. Soldiers of God, how happy you are!”

  One of the congregation observed, “But the kingdom of Satan is large.”

  Shaykh Ali al-Manufi scolded, “Look at this fellow who's afraid of Satan's world when he's in God's presence…. What shall we say to him? We are with God, and God is with us. So what should we fear? What other soldiers on earth enjoy your power? What weapon is more effective than yours? The English, French, Germans, and Italians rely primarily on their material culture, but you rely on true belief. Belief can dent steel. Faith is stronger than any other force on earth. Fill your pure hearts with belief, and the world belongs to you.”

  Another young man commented, “We believe, but we're a weak nation.”

  The shaykh clenched his fist as he cried out, “If you feel weak, then your faith has decreased without your being aware of it. Faith creates power and induces it. Bombs are made by hands like yours. They are the fruit of power, not its cause. How did the Prophet conquer the whole Arabian peninsula? How did the Arabs conquer the entire world?”

  Abd al-Muni'm answered fervently, “Faith and belief.”

  Then someone else asked, “But how can the English be so powerful? They're not Believers.”

  The shaykh smiled and ran his fingers through his beard as he said, “Anyone strong believes in something. They believe in their nation and in ‘progress.’ But faith in God is superior to any other kind of belief. It's only fitting that people who believe in God should be stronger than those believing in the physical world. We Muslims have at our disposal a buried treasure. We must extract it. We need to revive Islam and to make it as good as new. We call ourselves Muslims, but we must prove it by our deeds. God blessed us with His Book, but we have ignored it. This has brought down humiliation upon us. So let us return to the Book. This is our rnotto: a return to the Qur'an. That was what our leader called for at the beginning in Isma'iliya, and from that time or his message has been sinking deep into people's spirits, winning over villages and hamlets, filling every heart.”

  “But wouldn't it be wise for us to stay out of politics?”

  “Our religion consists of a creed, a code of law, and a political system. God is far too merciful to have left the most troublesome aspects of human affairs devoid of any regulation or guidance from Him. Actually, that's the subject of our lesson for tonight….”

  The shaykh was ebullient. His approach was to affirm some truth, which they would then discuss, as disciples asked questions and he replied. Most of his remarks centered on quotations from the Qur'an and from the collections of hadith reports of the Prophet's words and deeds. He spoke as if preaching, indeed preaching to all the patrons of the coffeehouse.

  From his seat at the far end of the room, where he was drinking green tea, Ahmad could hear the shaykh. There was a sarcastic smile on the young man's lips, as he incredulously attempted to measure the gulf separating him from this zealous group. Angry and scornful
, he grew so irritated that he thought of asking the shaykh to lower his voice and to stop disturbing the other patrons. But he abandoned that idea as soon as he remembered his brother was one of the shaykh's disciples. Finally, he saw no alternative to leaving the coffeehouse, rose resentfully, and left.

  127

  ABD AL-MUNI'M returned to Sugar Street around eight. The fuiy of the weather had abated, making for a pleasant evening with some of the freshness of spring. The lesson was still ringing in hishead and heart, but he felt mentally and physically exhausted. As He crossed the courtyard in the darkness, heading for the stairway, the door of the first-floor apartment opened. By the light escaping from inside he saw a figure slip out, close the door, and precede him up the stairs. Hisheart pounded, and his blood pulsed through him like tiny insects inflamed by hot weather. Even in the shadowshe could see her waiting for him at the first landing. She glanced at him as lie stared up at her, not averting his gaze.

  It was amazingly easy for young people to deceive their parents. This young girl had stepped out of her apartment on the pretext of visiting the neighbors. And she would visit them, but only after participating in a dangerous flirtation on the dark landing. He found that hishead was empty of ideas, for all the thoughtshe had been wrestling with had disappeared like a puff of smoke. He was transfixed by a single desire - to satisfy the craving that would not leave his nerves and limbs alone. His sincere faith seemed to have fled in anger or to have taken refuge deep inside him, where it snarled resentfully, although the sound of its complaints was drowned out by the hissing of lust's flames.

  Was she not his girl? Of course she was. The alcoves of the courtyard, the stairwell, and the corner of the roof overlooking Sugar Street could all testify to this. No doubt she had been watching for him to return so that she could meet him at just the right moment. She had taken all this trouble for his sake. He hurried on cautiously until he stood facing her on the landing. There was hardly any distance separating them. The fragrance of her hair tantalized him, and her breath tickled his neck.

  He gently caressed her shoulder as he whispered, “Let's go to the second landing. It's safer than here.”

  She made no reply but headed up the steps, and he cautiously followed behind. At the second landing, halfway between the two floors, she stopped, leaning her back against the wall, and he stood right in front of her. When he put his arms around her, she resisted for a second out of force of habit before warming to his embrace.

  “Darling___”

  “I was waiting for you at the window. Mother has been busy getting ready for the Shamm al-Nasim holiday.”

  “Best wishes for our spring festival. Now let me taste spring on your lips.”

  Their lips met in a long, famished kiss. Then she asked, “Where were you?”

  With wrenching suddennesshe remembered the lesson on politics in Islam. But he answered, “With some friends at the coffeehouse.”

  In a tone of protest she said, “The coffeehouse! When there's only a month before the examination?”

  “I know what I have to do to prepare for it. … But now I'll kiss you again to punish you for thinking ill of me.”

  “Your voice is too loud. Have you forgotten where we are?”

  “We're in our home, in our room. The landing is our room!”

  “This afternoon, when I was going to my aunt's, I glanced up in hopes of seeing you at the window, but your mother was looking down at the alley, and our eyes met. I trembled with fear.”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “I imagined that she knew I was looking for you and that she had discovered my secret.”

  “You mean ‘our secret.’ It's the same bond that links both of us together. Aren't we now a single entity?”

  Racked by unruly desire, he hugged her violently to his chest as if, in his desperate capitulation to lust, he was attempting to flee the faint voices of protest lodged deep inside him. Blazing fires seared him. He was seized by a force capable of dissolving the two of them into a single swirling vortex.

  The silence was broken by a sigh and then by heavy breathing. He finally became aware that he and she were separate beings and that the darkness sheltered two figures. Then he heard her ask shyly in a gentle whisper, “Shall we meet tomorrow?”

  With a resentment he did his best to conceal, he replied, “Yes… yes. You'll find out when….”

  “Tell me now.”

  As his annoyance grew increasingly hard to bear, he said, “I don't know when I'll have time tomorrow.”

  “Why not?”

  “Goodbye for now. I heard a sound.”

  “No! There wasn't any sound.”

  “Nobody should find us like this.”

  He patted her shoulder as if it were a dirty rag and freed himself from her arms with affected tenderness. Then he quickly climbed the stairs. His parents were in the sitting room listening to the radio. The door of the study was closed, but the light shining through its little window indicated that Ahmad was studying. Saying, “Good evening,” to his parents, he went to the bedroom to remove his clothes, bathe, and cleanse himself in the manner prescribed by Islam, before returning to his room to pray. Afterward he sat cross-legged on the prayer rug and lost himself in deep meditation. There was a sad look to his eyes, his breast was aflame with grief, and he felt like crying. He prayed that his Lord would come to his aid to help him combat temptation and to drive Satan away, that Satan he encountered in the shape of a girl who inspired a raging lust in him.

  His mind always said, “No,” but hisheart, “Yes”. The fearful struggle he experienced invariably ended with defeat and regret. Every day was a test and every test an experience of hell. When would this torment end? His entire spiritual effort was threatened with ruin, as though he were building castles in the sky. Sinking into the mud, he could not find any secure footing. He wished his remorse could bring back the past hour.

  128

  IN GHAMRA, Ahmad Ibrahim Shawkat finally found his way to the building of al-Insan al-Jadid (The New Man) magazine. Situated halfway between streetcar stops, the structure had two stories and a basement. From the wash hanging on the balcony, he realized at once that the top floor was an apartment. There was a sign with the magazine's name on the door downstairs. The basement was the printshop, for he could see its machines through the bars of the windows. He climbed the four steps and asked the first person he met a worker carrying proofs for Mr. Adli Karim, the magazine's editor. The pressman pointed to the end of an unfurnished hall and a closed door with a sign reading: “Editor in Chief”. Ahmad walked that way, thinking he might see a receptionist, but reached the door without finding one. After a moment'shesitation he knocked gently. Then he heard a voice inside say, “Come in”. Ahmad opened the door and entered. From the far end of the room, two wide eyes stared at him questioningly from beneath bushy white eyebrows.

  Closing the door behind him, he said apologetically, “Excuse me. One minute….”

  The man replied gently, “Yes___”

  Ahmad went up to the desk, which was stacked with books and papers, and greeted the gentleman, who rose to welcome him. When the editor sat down again, he invited Ahmad to have a seat. The young man felt relief and pride at being able to view the distinguished master from whose magazine and bookshe had gained so much enlightenment during the past three years. Ahmad gazed at the pale face, which seemed even whiter because of the man's white hair. Age had left its mark on this visage. The only remaining traces of youth were deep eyes that sparkled with a penetrating gleam. This was his master, or his “spiritual father,” as Ahmad called him. Now the young man was in the chamber of inspiration with its walls hidden behind bookshelves that stretched all the way to the ceiling.

  The editor said curiously, “You're welcome….”

  Ahmad answered suavely, “I've come to pay for my subscription”. Reassured by the favorable impression his words had made, he added, “And I'd like to find out what happened to the article I sent the m
agazine two weeks ago.”

  Mr. Adli Karim smiled as he inquired, “What is your name?”

  “Ahmad Ibrahim Shawkat.”

  The editor frowned as he tried to place the name and then said, “I remember you. You were the first subscriber to my magazine. Yes. And you brought three other ones. Isn't that so? I remember the name Shawkat. I think I sent you a letter of thanks on behalf of the magazine.”

  This pleasant memory made him feel even more at home, and Ahmad said, “The letter I received referred to me as 'the magazine's first friend.'”

  “That's true. The New Man is devoted to principle and needs committed friends if it is to compete with all the picture magazines and the journals controlled by special interests. You are a friend of the magazine and most welcome. But haven't you honored us with a visit before?”

  “Of course not. I only got my baccalaureate this month.”

  Adli Karim laughed and said, “You assume a person must have the baccalaureate to visit the magazine?”

  Ahmad smiled uneasily and replied, “Certainly not. I mean I was young.”

  The editor commented seriously, “It's not right for a reader of The New Man to judge a person by his age. In our country there are men over sixty who have youthful minds and young people in the spring of life with a mentality as antiquated as if they had lived a thousand years or more. This is the malady of the East”. Then he asked in a gentler tone, “Have you sent us other articles before?”

  “Three that were ignored and then this last article, which I was hoping you would print.”

  “What's it about? Forgive me, but I receive dozens of articles every day.”

  “Le Bon's theories of education and my comments on them.”

  “In any case, if you look for it in the adjoining room where the correspondence is handled, you'll discover its fate.”