They returned to their seats on the veranda, where the lamps had been lit. “Lady” Forster said at once, “Here's the piano. Won't someone play for us?”
A student entreated her, “Won't you please perform for us?” She rose with the graceful agility of youth, which was many years behind her, and sat down at the piano. Opening some sheet music, she started to play. None of them had any particular familiarity with Western music or a taste for it, but wishing to be polite and courteous, they listened attentively. From his love, Ahmad attempted to extract a magical power to unlock the obscure passages of the music. But he forgot all about the song when he glanced stealthily at the girl's face. Their eyes met once, and they exchanged a smile seen by many of the others.
In an intoxicated delight, he told himself, “Yes, if I don't seize my opportunity today, I may as well give up.”
When “Lady” Forster had finished, one of the students played an Eastern tune. Then they conversed for quite a long time. At about eight o'clock, the students said goodbye to their professor and set off. On this night, which seemed remarkably beautiful and compassionate, Ahmad lingered under the canopy of towering trees at a bend in the road until he saw her approach on her way home alone. Then he popped out in front of her.
She stopped in astonishment and asked, “Didn't you go off with the others?”
Exhaling as if to relieve his breast of its turmoil, he replied calmly, “I let the caravan go on ahead so I could meet you.”
“What do you suppose they'll think?”
He answered scornfully, “That's their problem.”
She walked slowly forward, and he kept pace with her. Then his long days of patience bore fruit as he said, “Before I leave you I want to ask if you will allow me to request your hand in marriage.”
Her beautiful head shot up in reaction to this surprise, but no sound escaped her, as if she could not think of anything to say. The street was empty and the streetlights were dim from the blue paint applied as a precaution for air raids. He asked her again, “Will you give me permission?”
In a faint voice with a hint of censure to it she said, “This is the way you talk, but what an approach. The fact is that you've stunned me.”
He laughed gently and then said, “I apologize for that, although I would have thought the long history of our friendship would have prevented my words from coming as a startling surprise.”
“You mean our friendship and our academic collaboration?”
He was not comfortable with her choice of words but said, “I mean my obvious affection that has taken the form of ‘friendship and academic collaboration,’ as you put it.”
In a jolly but shaky voice she inquired, “Your affection?”
With stubborn sincerity he replied, “I mean my love, my unconcealed love. Usually we do not announce it merely to proclaim it but to rejoice at hearing it proclaimed.”
To string him along until she could regain her composure, she said, “The whole thing comes as a surprise to me.”
“I'm sad to hear this.”
“Why? The truth is that I don't know what to say….”
Laughing, he responded, “Say, ‘You have my permission.’ Then leave the rest to me.”
“But, but… I don't know anything about… No offense, we really have been friends, yet you've never spoken of… I mean there has never been an occasion for you to tell me about yourself.”
“Don't you know me?”
“Of course I know you, but there are other things one has to know.”
“You mean the traditional things? Those questions are best suited to a heart that has never been a prisoner of love”. He felt annoyed but this only made him more obstinate. He continued: “Everything will become clear at the proper time.”
Regaining control of herself, she asked, “Isn't this the proper time?”
He smiled wanly and replied, “You're right. Are you referring to the future?”
“Naturally.”
This “naturally” exasperated him. He had hoped to hear a song and instead had been subjected to the drone of a lecture, but no matter what happened it was important for him to retain his self-confidence. The icy darling did not know how happy it would make him to make her happy.
“Once I graduate, I'll get a job”. Then after a few moments of silence he added, “And one day I'll have a substantial private income.”
She stammered in embarrassment, “That's not very specific.”
Trying to mask his pain with a calm exterior, he replied, “The salary will be in the normal range, and the income will be around ten pounds.”
Silence reigned. Perhaps she was weighing matters and thinking them over. This was the way a materialist would understand love. He had dreamt of a sweet intoxication but had not achieved anything close to that. It was amazing that in this country where people allowed emotion to guide their politics they approached love with the precision of accountants.
At last the delicate voice replied, “Let's leave aside the private income, for it's not nice to plan your life around the death of loved ones.”
“I wanted to let you know that my father is a man of property.”
With a burst of energy to make up for the vacillation preceding it, she said, “We need to be realistic.”
“I told you I'd find work. And you'll get a job too.”
She laughed in an odd way and replied, “Certainly not. I won't work. Unlike the other women students, I haven't enrolled in the University to obtain a government position.”
“There's nothing wrong in having a job.”
“Naturally. But my father… The fact is that we're all agreed on this. I won't work.”
As his emotions cooled down, he became pensive. He commented, “So be it. I'll work.”
In a voice that she seemed deliberately to be making more tender than usual she said, “Mr. Ahmad, let's postpone this discussion. Give me time to think it over.”
He laughed dispiritedly and responded, “We have looked at the question from every angle. Don't you really need more time to draft your rejection?”
She said bashfully, “I must talk to my father.”
“That goes without saying. But it should have been possible for us to reach an understanding first.”
“I need some time, even if it's not very long.”
“It's June now, and you'll be going off to your summer resort. We won't meet again until next October at school.”
She insisted, “I must have time to think about it and to consult my family.”
“You just don't want to commit yourself.”
Then she suddenly stopped walking and remarked with determined resolve, “Mr. Ahmad, you're trying to force me to speak. I hope you'll take my words the right way. I've thought about marriage frequently, not with regard to you but in general terms. I've concluded and my father agrees with me that my life won't be successful and that I won't be able to maintain my standard of living unless I have no less than fifty pounds a month.”
He swallowed this disappointment, which hurt more than he could ever have expected, even allowing for the worst possible outcome. He asked, “Does any working man, I mean one of an age to marry, make a salary that vast?” When she did not respond, he declared, “You want a rich husband!”
“I'm very sorry, but you have forced me to be blunt.”
He answered gruffly, “That's better, at any rate.”
“Sorry,” she murmured.
Although furious, he made a sincere effort to stay within the bounds of polite behavior. Feeling an overwhelming desire to be blunt with her, he asked, “Would you allow me to give you my frank opinion?”
She shot back, “Certainly not! I know many of your ideas. I hope that we can stay friends.”
In spite of his anger, he pitied her condition, an inevitable one for a life that had not been transformed by love. A lady who eloped with one of her servants acted naturally but by traditional standards was judged a deviant. In an imperfect society, a health
y man seems sick and the sick one healthy. He was angry, but his unhappiness was greater than his anger. At any rate she would guess what he thought of her, and there was some consolation in that. When she stretched out her hand to take leave of him, his hand took hers and kept hold of it until he had said, “You claimed you didn't enroll in the University to obtain a job. That's a lovely notion in and of itself. But how have you benefited from the University?”
She raised her chin inquisitively. In a slightly sarcastic tone he concluded, “Forgive my foolish behavior. Perhaps the problem is that you haven't fallen in love yet. Goodbye.”
He turned on hisheels and walked away rapidly.
145
ISMA'IL LATIF said, “Perhaps bringing my wife to Cairo to have the baby was a mistake. The air-raid siren goes off every night. In Tanta we know almost none of the terrors of this war.”
Kamal replied, “These are just symbolic raids. If they really wanted to harm us, no force would be able to stop them.”
This was the second meeting for Riyad Qaldas and Isma'il Latif after their introduction the year before. Riyad laughed and told Isma'il, “You're talking to a man who doesn't know what it means to be responsible for a spouse.”
Isma'il asked Riyad sarcastically, “And do you know what it's like?”
“I am a bachelor too, but at least I'm not a foe of matrimony.”
They were walking along Fuad I Street early one evening. The darkness was relieved only by the meager amount of light escaping from the doors of commercial establishments. Even so, the street was crowded with Egyptians and British soldiers from different parts of the Empire. There was the damp breath of autumn in the air, but people were still wearing summer clothes.
Riyad Qaldas saw some Indian soldiers and commented, “It's sad that a man should be transported such a long distance from his homeland to kill for someone else's sake.”
Isma'il Latif mused, “I wonder how these wretches can laugh.”
Kamal answered resentfully, “The same way we can in our bizarre world that reeks of liquor, drugs, and despair.”
Riyad Qaldas chuckled and observed, “You're going through a unique crisis. Your whole world is corning apart at the seams. It appears to consist of nothing but a vain grasping at the wind, a painful debate between life's secrets and the soul, ennui, and ill health. I pity you.”
Isma'il Latif advised Kamal with great directness, “Get married. I felt the same kind of ennui before I married.”
Riyad Qaldas exclaimed, “Tell him!”
As though to himself, Kamal remarked, “Marriage is the ultimate surrender in life's losing battle.”
“Isma'il was mistaken in thinking our situations comparable,” Kamal mused. “He's a well-behaved animal. But not so fast. … Perhaps you're just conceited, and what's there to be conceited about when you're resting on a dunghill of disappointment and failure? Isma'il knows nothing of the world of thought, only the happiness a man derives from his work, spouse, and children. But isn't happiness right to mock your disdain for it?”
Riyad commented, “If I eventually decide to write a novel, you'll be one of the main characters.”
Kamal turned toward him with boyish excitement and asked, “What will you make of me?”
“I don't know, but try not to get angry. Many of the readers who find themselves in my stories become irate.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps because each of us has an idea he has created of himself. When a writer strips us of that self-image, we object angrily.”
Kamal inquired anxiously, “Are you holding back some secret opinions about me?”
His friend immediately reassured him: “Certainly not. But a writer may begin with someone he knows and then forget all of that person's characteristics in creating a new specimen of humanity. The only relationship between the two may be that the first inspired the second. You seem to be an Easterner teetering uncertainly between East and West. He goes round and round until he's dizzy.”
“He speaks of East and West,” Kamal thought. “But how could he know about A'ida? It may well be that misery has many faces.”
Isma'il Latif said as bluntly as before, “All your life, you've made problems for yourself. In my opinion, books are the source of your misfortunes. Why don't you try living a normal life?”
They reached the corner of Imad al-Din Street and, on turning down it, almost ran into a large group of British nationals. Isma'il Latif said, “To hell with them! Why do they look so optimistic? Do you suppose they actually believe their own propaganda?”
“It seems to me,” Kamal observed, “that the outcome of the war has already been determined. It will be over by next spring.”
Riyad Qaldas said resentfully, “The Nazi movement is reactionary and inhumane. The world's suffering will increase dramatically under their iron rule.”
Isma'il replied, “Be that as it may, what's important is to see the English subjugated in the same manner that they subjugated so many of the weaker areas of the world.”
Kamal commented, “The Germans are no better than the English.”
Riyad Qaldas said, “We have learned to live with the English, and British imperialism is well into its dotage. It is tempered, perhaps, by some humane principles. With the Germans tomorrow, we'll have to deal with a youthful, greedy, conceited, wealthy, and bellicose imperialism. What will we do then?”
Kamal laughed in a way that suggested a change of mood and suggested, “Let's have a couple of drinks and dream of a united world ruled by a single just government.”
“We'll definitely need more than two drinks for that.”
They found themselves in front of a new bar they had never seen before. It was probably one of those infernal establishments that spring up overnight during a war. Glancing inside, Kamal noticed the proprietor was a woman with a fair complexion and a voluptuous Eastern body. Then his feet froze to the pavement. He was unable to move, and his companions had to stop to see what he was looking at.
“Maryam!” Kamal whispered to himself. “It's Maryam, no one but Maryam. Maryam, Yasin's second wife. Maryam, the lifelong neighbor. Here, in this bar, after a long disappearance. Maryam, who was thought to have gone to join her late mother….”
“Do you want to go in here? Let's do. There are only four soldiers inside.”
He hesitated, but his courage was not adequate for the occasion. When he had recovered from his astonishment, he said, “Absolutely not.”
He cast a parting glance at the Maryam who reminded him now of her mother toward the end of that woman's life, and they proceeded on their way. When had he last seen her? It had not been for at least thirteen or fourteen years. She was a landmark of his past, and he would never forget her. His past, his history, and his essence they were all a single entity. She had received him in the apartment in Palace of Desire Alley one last time before Yasin divorced her. He could still remember how she had complained about his brother's deviant behavior and reversion to a life of shameless wantonness. On that occasion he had not foreseen the consequences this complaint would have, for it had landed her in thishellish tavern. She had once been the darling daughter of Mr. Muhammad Ridwan and Kamal's friend, as well as a source of inspiration for boyish dreams. His old house had then appeared to be a setting that overflowed with tranquillity and delight. Maryam and Aisha had been roses, but time is an indefatigable enemy of flowers. He could easily have bumped into her at one of these brothels, just as he had first encountered Madam Jalila. If that had happened, he would have found himself in an indescribable quandary. Maryam, who had begun her flirtations with the English, had ended up with them.
“Do you know this woman?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She's one of those women… Perhaps she's forgotten me.”
“Oh, the bars are full of them: old whores, rebellious servants, every kind of woman.”
“Yes….”
“Why didn't you go in? She might have welcomed us
warmly for your sake.”
“She's no longer young, and we have better places.”
He had grown old without noticing it. He was halfway into his fourth decade. He seemed to have squandered his share of happiness. When he compared his current misery to that of the past, he did not know which was worse. But what importance did life have, since he was fed up with living? Death truly was the most pleasurable part of life. But what was this sound?
“Air raid!”
“Where shall we go?”
“To the shelter at the Rex Cafe.”
Since there was no place to sit in the shelter, they remained standing in the crowd of Egyptian gentlemen, foreigners, women, and children. People were speaking a number of different languages and dialects. Outside men from the civil defense forces shouted, “Turn off your lights!” Riyad's face looked pale. He hated the ringing sound of the anti-aircraft guns.
Kamal teased him, “You may not get a chance to play with my character in your novel.”
Laughing nervously as he gestured toward the other people, Riyad answered, “There's a representative sample of humanity in this shelter.”
Kamal observed sarcastically, “If only they would band together in good times the way they do when they're frightened….”
Isma'il cried out nervously, “Right now my wife must be groping her way down the stairs in the dark. I'm thinking seriously of returning to Tanta tomorrow.”
“If we live that long.”
“The people of London are really to be pitied.”
“But they're the source of all the trouble.”
Riyad Qaldas's face grew even paler, but he tried to hide his discomfort by asking Kamal, “I once heard you inquire the way to death's station, so that you could disembark from life's boring train. Will it really seem so trivial to you now if a bomb blasts us to bits?”
The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street Page 133