Khan Al-Khalili

by Naguib Mahfouz

  As they approached the apartment building, Ahmad noticed his mother looking out of the window in his room. Grabbing his brother by the arm, he pointed up to her. Looking up, Rushdi saw his mother with a brown scarf tied around her head; she was fully made up just like a bride waiting for her groom. No sooner did their eyes meet than she was opening her arms to embrace him. It only took a few moments longer until she was actually giving him a warm embrace.

  17

  They all gathered around the table. By this time Rushdi’s father had appeared and the younger son had kissed his hand. They embarked upon their conversation with relish. Rushdi told them about Asyut and its people, about his feelings of loneliness, and longing for his family and home. The father spoke about air raids and the incendiary bombs dropped by planes. Rushdi’s mother talked about her neighbor, and about Boss Nunu and his four wives. Just then she noticed that Rushdi had not gained a single pound while he was away. Transferring her attention to the cookies, she let him know that he was about to taste cookies the like of which no one in Egypt had ever before savored.

  With that, she took him to his room. Once Rushdi was on his own, he could no longer control his temper; it was written all over his face. Ever since he had taken in the scene at the entrance to Khan al-Khalili, he had felt his heart sinking. When he entered the apartment, he was astonished at how tiny it was, and he knew for sure that he could never feel at home in this new place. What made him even angrier was that all his friends were still in al-Sakakini and neighboring suburbs. From now on, he would be spending the evening with them; then he would have to trek all the way back to this quarter, meandering his way in a drunken stupor along its narrow alleyways. Seething with anger, he told himself he would have to make his way back to their old house or another one nearby, however much it cost.

  He opened his suitcase and took everything out. Humming one of Abd al-Wahhab’s songs as was his habit, he started arranging his clothes in the wardrobe. After changing his clothes, he made his way to the bathroom at the opposite end of the long, narrow hallway from his own room. He took a cold bath to get rid of the dust and fatigue of the journey, then went back to his room looking and feeling a lot better. He closed the door behind him so that he could sing as loudly as he wanted, and opened the window. He applied Vaseline to his hair and combed it very carefully, then put on some of his favorite cologne, all of which made him feel much better. He was drawn to the window and looked outside so he could see what kind of view he had. He could see the alley below leading to the old part of Khan al-Khalili, but his view in the other direction was blocked by the next building. That aggravated him and made him feel as though he had come to some kind of prison. Where now was that window he used to have on Qamar Street in al-Sakakini looking out on the square where the observant eye could always manage to spot clusters of lovely Jewish girls?

  With a sad sigh he looked around. His gaze was attracted by a window opposite his own but slightly higher, on the side of the building facing his own. Both shutters were open, and he could see the face of a young girl, an exceptionally beautiful face adorned with a pair of eyes that sparkled with simplicity and grace. Their eyes met. Her look was one of disapproval, but his was that of a hunter who’d just spotted his prey. At this point, the way he was staring at her made her feel awkward, so she lowered her eyes and moved away. He gave a gentle smile, and his whole expression brightened at the thought of her pretty face and her flustered looks. He stayed where he was and kept his eyes riveted on the window. He expected her to come back; as far as he was concerned, it was only natural for her to want to take a second glance at the new neighbor who had stared at her so fixedly and shamelessly. He stood where he was, watching and waiting, his feelings a blend of desire, patience, and sheer stubbornness. Eventually the girl did poke her head out again, albeit cautiously. Their eyes met a second time, and the girl retreated yet again in apparent annoyance. He chuckled quietly to himself and left the window with a smirk of satisfaction. Sitting at his small desk chair, he muttered to himself that for the first time something nice had happened since he had entered this miserable quarter. Drumming his fingers on the desk, he thought for a moment. “She’s our neighbor, that’s clear enough,” he told himself. “Her room’s right opposite mine.”

  He pictured her face and had to admit that she was pretty and graceful. He was feeling all the inward happiness of someone who has acquired something precious. Where love was concerned, he had limitless self-confidence, based on one success after another. It was all founded on tremendous patience, an iron will that never gave up, and an innate suavity much assisted by artifice. He was patient for sure, and yet he never stopped insisting, urging, chasing, day after day, month after month, year after year—if need be—until he had achieved his goal. Among his well-known maxims on the topic of love was, “Anyone responding to love’s call cannot afford to shackle his quest by being shy, worried, or scared. If you’re chasing a woman, forget about honor. If she rejects you, don’t get angry; if she swears at you, don’t be sad. Rejection and curses are merely fuel for love’s fire. If a woman slaps you on the right cheek, offer here the left one as well. You’ll be the master in the end!”

  There had once been an occasion when he took upon himself to chase after a determined young girl who was both well brought up and had a mind of her own. Things went on for quite a while with no sign of softening or change on her part. With that he simply spoke to her one day in a totally unaggressive way: “Listen,” he said, “I’m a disgusting, heartless, annoying rogue. Don’t even dream that you can send me away by throwing reproachful looks or rude words at me. That won’t help, nor will punching me or calling the police either. I’m going to force you to talk to me one way or another, whether it’s today, tomorrow, the day after, in a year’s time, or a century’s time. I really don’t care. But, since the ending is a foregone conclusion, then for heaven’s sake, make the process shorter!”

  That’s the way he was. Now once again he was wondering to himself what kind of young beauty this particular girl might be. Was she bold and adventurous, in need of taming by her lover? Or was she experienced and sophisticated, making it impossible to fool around with her? Or could she be naive and yet lively, something that would require a degree of patience in her lover? At this point he realized that Khan al-Khalili was becoming that much more tolerable thanks to this young girl and others like her. He raised his hands to the side of his head, “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” he said. “If love is the intention, then God Himself is the helper!”

  He was actually planning to fall in love. But he had no way of knowing the kind of blow he was about to aim at the happiness of his elder brother whom he both loved and revered.

  18

  Rushdi had not slept very much the previous night on the train, so he now simply surrendered himself to his bed and slept soundly. He did not wake up until four the next afternoon. As he sat on his bed yawning and gradually opening his eyes, he was aware that, for the first time in a year, he was actually waking up to the laughing light of Cairo. He remembered the order to relocate from Asyut, and that made him feel happy and relaxed. His room was shrouded in darkness, so he went over and opened the window. Instantly, he thought of the pretty girl and looked up at her window, but it was closed. He left his room and went out into the hall. His father was asleep, and his mother was preparing a fish for frying. For a while he stood by the kitchen door chatting to her, then he went to his brother’s room. He found Ahmad standing by the window. When he was aware that Rushdi had come in, he quickly looked away—although Rushdi had no idea quite how much that had cost him. He gave his younger brother a gentle smile, and they both sat down, Ahmad on the mattress and Rushdi on the chair.

  They started chatting, just the way you would expect with two affectionate brothers who had been separated for a while. Rushdi remembered the way his brother had always been fond of writing.

  “Haven’t you started writing things yet?” he asked.


  The question stung Ahmad a bit, but he didn’t dwell on it. “I’ve a head stuffed full of knowledge,” he replied, “but what should I select and what should I leave out? Truth to tell, if I really wanted to write, I could fill up an entire library! But what’s the point? Do the Egyptian people really deserve writing in the true sense of the word? Can they really digest such material? Or is it a question of one set of rabble reading another?”

  Rushdi was always prepared to accept whatever his brother said. “It’s a shame that your valuable ideas should go to waste.”

  Ahmad, too, believed in what he was saying, forgetting the arguments he had been having with Ahmad Rashid. “I’m ahead of my time,” he said, “so there’s no hope at all of my reaching some form of mutual understanding with these people. Everything in life has its faults, even absorbing oneself in research and knowledge.”

  “But, my dear brother, how can you be happy if all the effort you’ve made comes to nothing and has no impact on people?”

  That comment pleased Ahmad a lot; in fact, it made him happy enough to compensate for having had to look away from the window a short while ago. “Who knows, Rushdi? Maybe one day I’ll be able to change my mind about people and respect them more.”

  They kept on talking until the cannon was fired to announce the breaking of the fast. With that, the family sat down to its final Ramadan meal. The traditional platters of fish were served, and they all ate and drank their fill. As soon as coffee had been served, Rushdi put on his coat and left the house without any further ado. He wanted to get to the Ghamra casino at the right time; in other words, he needed to get there before all his friends—who regularly gathered at the casino every evening to drink and play cards—took over the gaming table. For anyone who knew as much about such things as he did, there was wisdom in getting there early. It was not just a matter of getting a place at the gaming table, but the fact that once the players involved were engrossed in the game they would not bother to greet any late arrivals, even if they had been away for a full year! The best one could hope for was a terse greeting, while eyes would remain glued to the cards. If out of some reluctant sense of politeness they were forced to actually stop the game, it was no boon for the new arrival. Everyone would invoke all manner of mute curses under their breath. Furthermore, latecomers who interrupted the players in the middle of the game would be considered good luck for the winners and the opposite for the losers; as a result, one group of players would always be staring daggers at the new arrival.

  Some of his companions had suffered a string of really bad luck and had acquired bad reputations. One of them was a young lawyer whose friends believed him to be a jinx—as long as he was anywhere close to the people playing, they were bound to lose; none of them had any hope of winning. Gamblers are very superstitious and prone to rumor mongering, believing in omens and worshiping the notion of chance.

  As he got on the trolley to al-Azhar, his memory took him back to the days when he had first started indulging in gambling. It had been during his first year at the School of Commerce. He had been invited to join a game on the pretext that it was an innocent way to kill time. At the time they had bet milliemes—but with no thought of making a profit. After all, the millieme was such a small unit of currency, and the idea had been simply to lend a bit of excitement to the game and give the activity a serious aspect. Fairly soon, however, the amounts had gone up, until the entire contents of their pockets were involved. Gradually, their passion for the game became so overwhelming that it completely obliterated all thought of time, duty, and the future. After all, gambling is a fairly risky pastime; it’s a masochistic form of pleasure, a manic compulsion. You are playing with the unseen and jockeying with chance; pounding on the door of the unknown and crunching together the clashing instincts of fear, aggression, curiosity, recklessness, and greed. Beyond all that, it’s an echo of that feeling we all have, that aspect of our daily struggle, which derives from the energy and calculation we use in order to deal with life; the way we handle the powers of fate that control us, the requests we make of chance and the particular circumstances that envelop us, and the gains and losses we suffer as a consequence. How often had Rushdi devoutly wished that he would never have to leave the gaming table! What was remarkable about his behavior is that after an exhausting evening of playing he never once got up from the table without asking God’s forgiveness for his folly. And yet, no sooner did the appointed time approach on the next day than he was rushing off to the casino without bothering about anything else.

  Thus did this chronic disease grab hold of them all, turning people who were trying to kill time into victims. Rushdi became a hard-core gambler who worshipped chance and submitted to the dictates of omens. When he opened the window in the morning, he might say something like, “If I happen to meet two passersby, then I’ll have good luck; if only one, then today I’ll be a loser.” Or on his way to breakfast he might mutter to himself, “If there’s beans in ghee for breakfast, then today’ll be a winner; but if they’re in oil, then too bad!”

  All these thoughts were interrupted when he got off the trolley, and took the number 10 that would take him back to the quarter where they had lived before. His nostalgia began to make itself felt now. As al-Sakakini drew close, he began to feel a deep sense of pain and powerful emotion. Getting off the trolley he made his way to the casino. He spotted his friends in their usual place in the garden outside, or rather he saw their silhouettes, because by now it was completely dark. All of which made him realize that he had arrived at just the right time, before everyone went into the gaming hall. He made his way over with a broad smile on his face and placed himself in the middle of the group. They all recognized him and yelled in unison, “Rushdi Akif! Welcome back, Lionheart!”

  He was delighted to hear his nickname, one that they had given him because of the reckless way he used to gamble. They all embraced each other warmly. Like him, they were all in their mid-thirties. Some of them had gone to school with him, while others had grown up with him in al-Sakakini. But, where crazy and anti-social behavior and flagrantly reckless decisions were concerned, they were all of one stripe.

  “So that’s the way things are, is it?” one of them said. “We were inseparable day and night, and now you only show up at feast time?”

  Rushdi took his seat. “From now on,” he replied with a laugh, “you’re going to be seeing me every day, or, to be more precise, every night!”

  “How can that be?” one of the others asked.

  “I’ve been transferred back to Cairo,” he replied.

  “You’re not going back to Asyut ever again?”

  “No!”

  “May God so will it!”

  “How did you manage to survive a whole year without playing cards?” another friend asked. “We’ve certainly missed seeing your cash!”

  “Oh, there are gaming tables in Asyut as well,” Rushdi replied. “As for the rest, the feeling is reciprocal.”

  They started talking about Asyut, until Rushdi asked, “How do you plan to spend the time tonight?”

  “The way we’ve spent all the others. We’re going into the gaming hall pretty soon.”

  “That’s fine. But what about two or three glasses of cognac?”

  “How about four or five?”

  “Or six or seven?”

  At this point someone else made a different suggestion. “Look,” he said, “tomorrow’s the Eid. Let’s postpone getting plastered until tomorrow.”

  “Never postpone today’s work until tomorrow!”

  “What’s the sex life in Asyut like?” someone else asked him.

  “Don’t even ask. Involuntary celibacy!”

  “Here it’s almost as bad as in the provinces now. The allied armies are devouring meat, fruit, and women as well.”

  “At long last,” another friend commented, “Jewish girls have discovered the virtues of knowing English.”

  “You can easily spot them, all decked out in si
lk. If you block their path, they stare daggers at you and tell you in a genuine Scottish accent to please behave like a gentleman!”

  “My dear Rushdi, all the servant women have broken their contracts and gone to work in the cabarets.”

  “This war’s provided a wonderful occasion for them to discover their hidden artistic talents.”

  Rushdi seemed perplexed. “So what’s to be done then?” he asked with a smile “Are we supposed to start thinking about getting married?”

  “If this war goes on and things get worse and worse, you and I are going to be the only bachelors around!”

  “Friends, you’re not being entirely fair to either the Jewish girls or the servants. The truth of the situation is that they’ve been alarmed by the lack of any involvement in the war on our part. That’s why they’ve decided to use their own honor as a way of participating in the Allies’ cause.”

  “Women now have become more expensive than fertilizer!”

  “Even harder to get than coal.”

  “What if the war were to come to an end tomorrow? What are all those women going to do?”

  “They’ll become even cheaper than a Japanese woman!”

  “And love-making will take place in groups. Any young man will be able to find three women in a single night: one for kissing, one for chatting, and a third for fondling, and so on.”

  “Unless the government intervenes, of course, in order to maintain the normal prices!”

  Rushdi’s laugh was that of someone who had been deprived of their company for a whole year. They all continued drinking and chatting until nine o’clock, at which point they got up to go into their beloved gaming hall.

  That night Rushdi made a lot of money, at least by their reckoning: his total winnings before midnight were three pounds, added to which was the sum of thirty piasters as midnight itself approached—that being the agreed time to close the session. They then all got up from the table. Rushdi had seemed absolutely delighted during the game itself, being someone whose emotions are clearly visible on their face. He had started singing quietly as though humming a serenade and only stopped when one of his companions who was losing badly yelled at him, “For heaven’s sake, stop singing. You’re getting on my nerves!”