Aisha was full of surprises. “Merciful God!” the woman burst out, overcome with astonishment. “Do you see him?”
“Of course I see him,” Aisha replied. “His office is next to mine.”
Taken unawares, Umm Abbas was capable of no further sarcasm or resistance against Aisha’s all-out offensive. She looked at the two of them, perplexed, then said slowly, “Girl, you are as pretty as can be, and that’s what worries me. I’ve lived my whole life as a paragon of honor—no one’s ever said a word about my house, and I won’t have that change after you come to live here. I’ll get a room ready for you in my own apartment—you’ll have nothing to do with the basement where your kinsman lives. Don’t go down the stairs that lead to it or go into his room. Understand? The eyes of the neighborhood here are open and they don’t miss a thing. If you consent, then you’re welcome here.”
Aisha didn’t dare tell her that she hadn’t known Mukhtar until today. She nodded her head compliantly, the color high in her cheeks.
“Now then,” said the woman, “get along with you, Mr. Mukhtar—good-bye. We’d like to prepare the girl’s room.”
In the morning, Aisha awoke in her little bed. She now had her own private room, her private life. She had slept well, and she felt safe, although her heart beat faster than usual. She heard children’s voices—they were playing hopscotch. She looked out her window onto the cramped neighborhood. She saw street vendors selling fava beans, bread, and tomatoes. There, too, were the women who were her neighbors, wringing the washing before hanging it out to dry. They stared at her, surprised and curious. They knew it was only a matter of time before they would find out all about her from Umm Abbas. When she went down, preparing to leave for work, she found Mukhtar waiting for her downstairs. He accompanied her on the walk to the paper. He was amazingly bold, imposing his presence at her side from the first day, in the sight of all and in broad daylight. The residents of the quarter all regarded him with awe—they realized that he was a person of distinction who would not stay long in these basement lodgings, but that his place was with the illustrious inhabitants of Helmiya al-Gadida. She walked along, feeling safe at his side. He didn’t beset her with questions about her past life or overstep the bounds of propriety with her. He maintained an air of gentle courtesy, awaiting the moment when she would trust him completely and open her heart to him.
The terrain between Sayyida Zaynab and Noubar Street came to be among the most beautiful in her eyes: narrow alleyways like lines in the palm of the hand, fountains offering fragrant rosewater, deranged men circling the Sayyida’s shrine with their censers, the ill and the crippled converging on the shrine from everywhere and clinging to the close-set iron bars surrounding it. Prayerful entreaties and requests for pardon emanated from atop the minaret of Sheikh Hanafi, and dhikrs were recited every Thursday.
Oh, Mother, thought Aisha, I wish you could be with me. I would introduce you to Mukhtar, and tell you about the plans taking shape within me, about the way my heart pounds when I see him waiting for me, this tremor that seizes my body whenever our hands accidentally touch. I’d like you to meet Umm Abbas, who can’t sleep now until she’s made sure I’ve come home, and who doesn’t have her breakfast until after I wake up. Al-Rakib’s soup was always hot; doves roosted gently upon the shacks belonging to traders in antiquarian books in the middle of the square; every Tuesday the peasant women arranged eggs and balls of butter in gleaming pyramids; and licorice sellers banged on their trays, crying, “Sweet licorice for sale!”
As the day approached on which the School of Fine Arts was to open its doors, Mukhtar’s agitation grew, especially when he heard an announcement by the French director of the school that there would be rigorous exams for every student—each would have to submit an original example of his work, expressive of his character. This dreadful project distracted Mukhtar from his attentions to Aisha. Little did he know that all the fibers of her being were fraying and breaking and struggling to reassemble themselves, especially as he began to distance himself from her a little. He didn’t abandon his morning routine with her, but he no longer awaited her on the way back. She would hear the sound of his hammer and chisel in the middle of the night, but none of the neighbors complained, nor did Umm Abbas object—it was Aisha who was shocked on the morning she went downstairs and did not find him waiting for her. The door to his room was locked and silent. She had heard his voice as he worked through the night—now he must be deeply asleep. She cast about and discovered that no one was paying any attention to her, so she descended the few steps and rapped on the door. She waited for him to rouse himself in haste and answer her knock, but still there was silence at the door. At a loss, she left the house, her head bowed. She wished she could disappear, so that no one would see her making her way alone, like someone walking naked and unprotected. The city was transformed into a nightmarish thing. She climbed the stairs to al-Liwa and immersed herself in her work. There were the Leader’s letters, which he would dispatch to the House of Commons in Britain, and an article he wished to send to the London Times, criticizing Lord Cromer’s policy on education. While busy with her translations, she saw al-Rafiy coming and going; the men in the pressroom chatted and exchanged pleasantries with her to which she replied distractedly, waiting and waiting for the workday to end.
When she left al-Liwa, once more she failed to find him awaiting her at the bottom of the stairs, so again she made her way alone and wretched through the straitened quarters of Sayyida Zaynab. She heard the greetings of the vendors and the neighbors, but she was unsure whether or not they were mocking her. She approached the house; there was no one looking out of the windows, so she went down the three steps leading to the basement. She trembled, approaching the forbidden realm against which Umm Abbas had warned her, but she saw no alternative. She heard movement within: the sound of a hammer striking stone, and intermittent conversation, so she knew he was inside and that there was someone talking to him. She knocked angrily at the door. The tapping of the hammer stopped and she heard some commotion, then the sound of the bolt being drawn back. The door opened, but it wasn’t Mukhtar who appeared—it was a woman, no less—statuesque, voluptuous, her hair uncovered, loose and tumbled. She wore a robe open at the top, revealing the contours of her breasts; it gaped open as far down as her belly. On seeing Aisha the woman made an attempt to button up the robe, her mouth moving as if she were chewing on something. She stared indifferently at Aisha, who felt the blood rising to her head and the earth spinning beneath her feet.
“Who are you?” she cried.
Leaning against the door with her soft, bare arm, the woman said, “That’s the question we should be asking, you, love. You’re the one who knocked on the door, so first of all you tell me—who are you?”
Aisha was on the point of toppling over from shock, but she got hold of herself, although she was ready to burst into tears.
“I’m looking for Mukhtar,” she said.
“He’s busy just now.”
But before Aisha could faint, Mukhtar came out from within the apartment, holding a small chisel in his hand and covered in flecks of white dust. He stepped forward slowly, as if exhausted from lack of sleep, his hair rumpled as usual, bits of the white dust clinging to his little beard. He stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, and said simply, “Oh . . . Aisha. I forgot to escort you. I’ve been preoccupied—honestly.”
That was how it was, then. The towering woman moved aside slightly, leaning against the door, her prominent chest still interposing itself between Aisha and Mukhtar.
“So you two know each other,” she said. “Her body doesn’t look like it’s up to the job.”
Aisha shouted with all the fury she’d been holding in, “Who is this woman, Mukhtar?”
She was imploring him to say something to rescue her, take away this pain and confusion. Mukhtar raised the hammer and gestured vaguely toward the interior.
“Now then, love,” said the woman, “is th
ere anyone who doesn’t know me? I’m Nabawiyya al-Mustahiya. I’m well-known already, but they’ll repeat my name in times to come as well. Show him the statue you’ve made of me, Master Mukhtar.”
The woman made way for Aisha to enter as if daring her to cross the forbidden threshold. Aisha looked to Mukhtar for help, but he was distracted, striking the hammer against his palm. The woman regarded her with a mocking smile. Aisha took a breath and held it, then stepped into the room. The interior was dim, a faint glow emanating from a gas lamp which cast more shadows than light. All around it were small statues, most of them unfinished, and paintings were propped against the walls, as well as fragments of torn-up drawings and piles of rubble from clay and stone. A bed was tucked away in one corner, and there was a table laden with dirty dishes. Aisha looked at the woman, who pointed firmly at the center of the room. There stood a block of stone, too large for the space it occupied. From within it the body of a woman, in all its mature femininity, seemed about to burst forth, as if ready to rise from its inert state and spring to life, emerging from the silence of the stone. Despite the feelings of rage Aisha harbored, she sensed the life that emanated from the stone. The woman’s features were finished, and she strove to lift up her head, but locks of her hair were still embedded in the block; her shoulders were raised as if she were leaning upon her elbows but they were also obscured within the carved-out hollow of stone. The most striking part of the statue was the woman’s breasts. They were bare and fully formed, the nipples prominently erect—how could he have sculpted them like that? How could he feel such lust for her?
Aisha turned her face away, finding it difficult to catch her breath—she was in turmoil, beset by feelings of jealousy and wrath. Nabawiyya al-Mustahiya grew surer, more self-satisfied. The statue’s features corresponded closely to her own, but it had graced her with a kind of magnificence she could not match: Mukhtar had managed to draw this quality from within his own depths. Unable to endure his silence or his air of indifference, Aisha turned her back on him and left the room. She climbed the dark staircase, stumbling and falling. She knocked at the door of the flat upstairs, forgetting for a moment that she had the key and that Umm Abbas moved laboriously. She opened the door and burst inside, to find Umm Abbas seated in the middle of the salon and staring at her in alarm. Aisha flung herself weeping into her lap and told her what had happened—the feelings that had engulfed her, the woman she had found Mukhtar’s room, and the statue that burst from within the stone like some debauched creature.
The lady of the house began rocking her gently. “You’ve been led astray, child,” she said. “You’ve fallen madly in love with him, perhaps more than he has with you. You shouldn’t have made such a mistake.”
“What?” cried Aisha, distraught. “Doesn’t he care about me? Is there something between him and that woman?”
“Of course not,” said Umm Abbas. “I’ve known her since she was just a girl living in the neighborhood. She changed after that. Now she works at a house in the red-light district, God help the faithful. Mukhtar knows this, but I’m sure Mukhtar is not one of those men—he’s not that kind.”
“Then what is she doing with him in the basement?”
“She’s helping him. She stands before him and does as he tells her. He pays her a fee for this—he discussed the matter with me before he brought her here. That is all there is to it. Look at it from that angle, and don’t let yourself be consumed by jealousy.”
But she burned with it all night long. She was unable to sleep, thinking about the statue: that woman rising from within the stone as if emerging from Mukhtar’s embrace, sated and replete. She resembled Margaret, coming back from Rizq’s room with her hair unbound.
At last morning came. Aisha went downstairs, wobbly legged and unseeing. But there stood Mukhtar, waiting for her, utterly calm and clear-eyed. He walked beside her. She waited until they had emerged from the tortuous alleyways into the square, far from any ears that might eavesdrop on their conversation.
Then she demanded of him, “Have you slept with that woman?”
“Of course not,” he said simply.
“But she lay naked in front of you. I saw her body completely exposed. Obviously you must have done so!”
“If I were to do that with her it would ruin everything—I’d lose my creative drive. I put all the desire I feel into the hammer and chisel. If I had done otherwise the statue would have come out lifeless, with no energy. It pleases me that you sensed the energy radiating from it.”
He didn’t justify himself or attempt to ease her anguish, even though he could see from her eyes that she had not slept. All he did was offer her a cold explanation she only dimly understood.
“But,” cried Aisha, “she is a disreputable woman!”
“I know,” he said, “but that’s the kind of woman who is willing to model for me—me and my fellow-artists. If I had asked you to take off your clothes in front of me, would you have been willing?”
“Damn you!” she said. “You and Nabawiyya al-Mustahiya and the School of Fine Arts!”
But they walked on together all the way to al-Liwa, and he was waiting for her when it was time to go home. Nabawiyya did not set foot in the house after that; Mukhtar relied upon his memory to finish the statue.
By the day of the school’s opening, Mukhtar’s anxiety had reached a fever pitch. Aisha did not go to the paper, and Umm Abbas looked out of her window, as did the rest of the neighbors. A wagon drawn by two horses arrived and several porters went down into the basement, collected the statue, and brought it back up the stairs, Mukhtar following them and issuing cautionary instructions. Embarrassed that everyone should see the statue in such a state of nakedness, Aisha brought a white sheet and covered the sculpture, warning the porters by no means to raise the sheet. The porters rode beside the statue to keep it from tipping, while Mukhtar and Aisha walked through the streets adjacent to Gamamiz Lane. He was anxiously wringing his hands, while she tugged encouragingly on his arm.
“They’ll surely admit you to the school,” she said. “It’s a magnificent statue.”
She hated it, though, and she meant to demolish it if she ever got the chance. The whitewashed wall of the school appeared, and a sign bearing the words School of Fine Arts had been raised on high above the gate. A group of students stood by the door, each one carrying the project he was to present: shrouded paintings, rolls of paper, plaster statues, pieces formed out of metal, wooden carvings, figures made up of interlocking glass pieces, and works of hammered brass, but Mukhtar’s stone statue was the largest and most impressive of them.
As he prepared to go inside, Aisha said to him, “I’ll stay here and wait for you.”
So he went inside, the porters behind him carrying the statue. She wished the statue were of her, wished he had asked her to do this thing, for she would have done anything for his sake, to help him fulfill his dream of crossing this whitewashed barrier. She leaned against the wall facing the door, and watched the other students as they passed through it carrying their objects. The forecourt emptied—only she remained, waiting, all alone. She pictured Mukhtar standing before the admissions board. He would be nervous, and would not speak well; the statue, though, would speak better than he could. But did Nabawiyya al-Mustahiya’s body have to be the means to his success? At this point, she had no option but to pray to God for his success. She closed her eyes, then heard a voice calling out to her.
“I can see you’re finally happy with the statue and its creator!”
Aisha knew the voice immediately, although its owner had covered her face with a flimsy veil, and tried to conceal her outrageous body inside a black abaya. So ended Aisha’s moments of serenity; now she was once more overcome by rage.
“What have you come here for?” she demanded of the woman.
“Have you forgotten that I’m the subject of the statue, love?” said Nabawiyya al-Mustahiya. “I’m a partner in this young man’s future—they’ll accept him solely on the ba
sis of his good taste in choosing a model to pose for his statue.”
It was no use quarreling with her—Aisha would be the loser. She glared at her with repressed fury as she leaned against the wall beside her. Was this woman so close to Mukhtar, then? Should she believe Mukhtar when he said he had never gone near her body, or had there been something deeper than that between them? She wanted to know, and there was no way to find out except to continue the conversation with her.
“Why are you wearing these clothes and covering your face?” she asked.
“Because I’m bashful, my dear,” she said. “I’m famous for that—some customers prefer me for my shyness, although this is not what I would choose.”
She paused a moment and looked searchingly at Aisha. “I assume,” she continued, “that by now you know quite a lot about me?”
She put the question innocently. Aisha found within herself the courage to ask, “This house where you work . . . does Mukhtar go there?”
“Of course he does, dearie, but not for the reason you’ve got into your head. He came once to look for someone who could help him with his project. I accepted—even though he’s got very little money—because, love, I like art. Mukhtar isn’t the type to be one of our customers. The ones who visit the house regularly are the English and the successful merchants. What would a penniless student like Mukhtar do with us?”
Much to Aisha’s surprise, their conversation continued. Her alarm subsided, and she found herself listening to some of the particulars Nabawiyya had to relate—at first in disbelief, and then in astonishment, which gave way to enjoyment. Nabawiyya talked about the world at that strange house in the red-light district and how she had come to be employed at such a trade. When Mukhtar emerged, he found the two of them talking congenially together. He was happy, because his statue had met with the unanimous approval of the judges, and the head teacher, Laplagne, had not been able to believe that Mukhtar had sculpted the statue on his own. This professor had come from France expressly to teach the art of sculpture, and it had surprised him to find a talent like Mukhtar’s flourishing this way in the absence of any prior instruction. He took him into a room off to the side, set before him a slab filled with chunks of clay, and told Mukhtar to mold it, in his presence, into whatever shape occurred to him. At that moment, Mukhtar caught sight of a picture hanging on the wall of the room—it was Venus de Milo, the most famous statue in the Louvre: a naked woman with arms broken off. At once he imagined her stepping in front of him in all her radiant nakedness, and he began to sculpt the clay in her image. Once more the professor stroked his beard, awestruck, and agreed then and there to admit him to the school.
A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore Page 24