Palace Walk tct-1

by Naguib Mahfouz

  Yasin continued: "I knocked on Father’s door until he woke up, so I could tell him. When he saw them himself he ordered that no one should leave the house and that the bolt on the door should not be opened. But what are they doing?… What can we do?… Isn't there a government in this country to protect us?"

  Fahmy told him, "I don't think they'll interfere with anyone except the demonstrators".

  "But how long are we going to remain captives in our houses?… These houses are full of women and children. How can they set up encampments here?"

  Fahmy muttered uneasily, "Nothing’s happening to us that isn't happening to everyone else. Let’s be patient and wait".

  Zaynab protested nervously, "All we hear or see anymore is something frightening or sad. God damn the bastards".

  At that point, Kamal opened his eyes. He looked with astonishment at all the people unexpectedly assembled in his room. He sat up in bed and looked inquisitively at his mother, who went to him and patted his large head with her cold hand. Then in a whisper she recited the opening prayer of the Qur'an, while her thoughts wandered off.

  The boy asked, "Why are you all here?"

  His mother wanted to break the news to him in the nicest way, and so she said gently, "You won't be going to school today".

  He asked with delight, "Because of the demonstrations?"

  Fahmy replied a bit sharply, "The English are blocking the road".

  Kamal felt he had discovered the secret that had brought them all together. He looked at their faces with dismay. Then he ran to the window and looked for a long time through the blind. When he returned, he remarked uneasily, "The rifles are in groups of four". He looked at Fahmy as though pleading for help. He stammered fearfully, "Will they kill us?"

  "They won't kill anyone. They've come to pursue the demonstrators".

  There was a short period of silence. Then the boy commented, as though to himself, "What handsome faces they have!"

  Fahmy asked him sarcastically, "Do you really like their looks?"

  Kamal replied innocently, "A lot. I imagined they'd look like devils".

  Fahmy said bitterly, "Who knows?… perhaps if you saw some devils you'd think they were handsome".

  The bolt on the door was not pulled back that day. None of the windows overlooking the street was opened, not even to freshen the air or let in sunlight. For the first time ever, al-Sayyid Ahmad conducted a conversation at the breakfast table. He said, in a voice that implied he knew what he was talking about, that the English were going to take strong measures to stop the demonstrations and that it was for this reason they had occupied the areas where most of the demonstrations had taken place. He said he had decided they would stay home all day until matters became clearer.

  Al-Sayyid Ahmad was able to speak with confidence and preserve his customary awesome appearance. Thus he prevented anyone from discerning the anxiety that had afflicted him since he had hopped out of bed in response to Yasin’s knocks.

  It was also the first time that Fahmy had dared question one of his father’s ideas. He remarked politely, "But, Father, the school may think I'm one of the strikers if I stay home".

  Al-Sayyid Ahmad naturally knew nothing of his son’s participation in the demonstrations. He replied, "Necessity has its own laws. Your brother as a civil servant is in more jeopardy than you are, but you both have a clear excuse".

  Fahmy was not courageous enough to ask his father a second time. He was afraid of angering him and found his father’s order forbidding him to leave the house an excuse that eased his conscience for not going into the streets occupied by soldiers thirsty for the blood of students.

  The breakfast group broke up. Al-Sayyid Ahmad retired to his room. The mother and Zaynab were soon busy with their daily chores. Since it was a sunny day with warm spring breezes, one of the last of March, the three brothers went up on the roof, where they sat under the arbor of hyacinth beans and jasmine. Kamal got interested in the chickens and settled down by their coop. He scattered grain for them and then chased them, delighted with their squawking. He picked up the eggs he found.

  His brothers began to discuss the thrilling news that was spreading by word of mouth. A revolution was raging in all areas of the Nile Valley from the extreme north to the extreme south. Fahmy recounted what he knew about the railroads and telegraph and telephone lines being cut, the outbreak of demonstrations in different provinces, the battles between the English and the revolutionaries, the massacres, the martyrs, the nationalist funerals with processions with tens of coffins at a time, and the capital city with its students, workers, and attorneys on strike, where transportation was limited to carts. He remarked heatedly, "Is this really a revolution? Let them kill as many as their savagery dictates. Death only invigorates us".

  Yasin, shaking his head in wonder, observed, "I wouldn't have thought our people had this kind of fighting spirit".

  Fahmy seemed to have forgotten how close he had been to despair shortly before the outbreak of the revolution, when it took him by surprise with its convulsions and dazzled him with its light. He now asserted, "The nation’s filled with a spirit of eternal struggle flaming throughout its body stretched from Aswan to the Mediterranean Sea. The English only stirred it up. It’s blazing away now and will never die out".

  There was a smile on Yasin’s lips when he observed, "Even the women have organized a demonstration".

  Fahmy then recited verses from the poem by the Egyptian author Hafiz Ibrahim about the ladies' demonstration:

  Beautiful women marched in protest.

  I went to observe their rally.

  I found them proudly

  Brandishing the blackness of their garments.

  They looked like stars,

  Gleaming in a pitch-black night.

  They took to the streets;

  Sa'd’s home was their target.

  Yasin was touched. He laughed and said, "I'm the one who should have memorized that".

  Fahmy happened to think of something and asked sadly, "Do you suppose news of our revolution has reached Sa'd in exile? Has the grand old man learned that his sacrifice has not been in vain? Or do you think he’s overcome by despair in his exile?"

  57

  They stayed on the roof until shortly before noon. The two older brothers entertained themselves by observing the small British encampment. They saw that some of the soldiers had set up a field kitchen and were preparing food. Soldiers were scattered between the intersections of Qirmiz Alley and al-Nahhasin with Palace Walk in an area otherwise deserted. From time to time many would fall into line at a signal from a bugle. Then they would get their rifles and climb into one of the vehicles, which would carry them off toward Bayt al-Qadi. This suggested that demonstrations were underway in nearby neighborhoods. Fahmy watched them line up with a pounding heart and flaming imagination.

  When the two older brothers finally went downstairs to the study they left Kamal alone on the roof to amuse himself as he saw fit. Fahmy got his books to review what he had missed during the past days. Yasin selected Abu Tammam’s medieval collection of Arabic poetry, called "al-Hamasa", and Jurji Zaydan’s historical romance "The Maiden of Karbala" and went out to the sitting room. He was counting on these books to help pass the time, which accumulated as plentifully behind the walls of his prison as water behind a dam. Although novels, including detective stories, had the greatest hold over his affections, he was also fond of poetry. He did not like to exert himself too much when he learned a poem. He was content to understand the parts that were easy to grasp and to enjoy the music of the difficult sections. He rarely referred to the margin of the page packed with glosses. He might memorize a verse and recite it, even though he understood very little of its meaning. He might ascribe a meaning to it that bore almost no relationship to the real one or not even try to attribute a meaning to it. Nevertheless, certain images and expressions settled in his mind. He considered them a treasure to brag about and exploit determinedly when appropriate and even
more often when not. If he had a letter to write, he prepared for the assignment as though he were a novelist and crammed it full of any resounding expressions he could recall, inserting whatever remnants of the poetic heritage of the Arabs God allowed him to remember. Yasin was known among his acquaintances as eloquent, not because he really was but because the other men fell short of his attempts and were stunned by his unusual accumulation of knowledge.

  Until that time, he had never experienced such a long period of enforced idleness, deprived of all forms of activity and amusement for hour after hour. If he had possessed the patience for reading, that might have helped, but he was only accustomed to read when he was with other people and then only during the short periods preceding his departure for his evening’s entertainment. Even on those occasions, he saw nothing wrong with interrupting his reading to join in the coffee hour conversations or to read a little and then summon Kamal to narrate to him what he had read. He enjoyed the boy’s passionate response to storytelling, typical of children of that age. Consequently, neither the poetry nor the novel was able to brighten his solitude on such a day. He read some verses and then a few chapters of "The Maiden of Karbala". He choked on his boredom, drop after drop, while he cursed the English from the depths of his heart. He passed the time until lunch in a bad mood, feeling vexed and disgruntled.

  The mother served them soup and roast chicken with rice, but there were no vegetables because of the blockade around the house. She ended the meal with cheese, olives, and whey, substituting molasses for the sweet. The only person with a decent appetite was Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad and the two older brothers were not much inclined to eat, since they had spent the day without any work or activity. This nourishment did assist them to escape from their boredom by helping to put them to sleep, especially the father and Yasin, who were able to fall asleep whenever and however they wanted.

  Yasin got up from his nap shortly before sunset and went downstairs to attend the coffee hour. The session was short, since the mother was not able to leave al-Sayyid Ahmad alone for long. She had to withdraw to return to his room. Yasin, Zaynab, Fahmy, and Kamal remained behind to chat with each other listlessly. Then Fahmy excused himself to go to the study. He asked Kamal to join him, leaving the couple alone.

  Yasin wondered to himself, "What can I do from now till midnight?" The question had troubled him for a long time, but today he felt depressed and humiliated, forcibly and tyrannically separated from the flow of time which was plunging ahead outside the house with its many pleasures. He was like a branch that turns into firewood when cut from the tree.

  Had it not been for the military blockade, he would have been in his beloved seat at the coffeehouse of Ahmad Abduh, sipping green tea and chatting with his acquaintances among its patrons. He would have been enjoying himself in its historic atmosphere. He was captivated by its antiquity, and his imagination was stirred by its subterranean chambers buried in the debris of history. Ahmad Abduh’s coffeehouse was the one he loved best. He would not forsake it, unless scorched by some desire, for as they say: "Desire’s a fire". It was desire that had attracted him in the past to the Egyptian Club, which was close to the woman who sold doum palm fruit. Desire had also been responsible for tempting him to move to al-Sayyid Ali’s coffeehouse in al-Ghuriya, situated across the street from the home of the lute player Zanuba. He would exchange coffeehouses according to the object of his desire. He would even exchange the patrons who had offered him their friendship. Beyond satisfying the desire itself, the coffeehouse and his friends there were meaningless. Where were the Egyptian Club and those friends? They had gone out of his life. If he ran into one of them, Yasin might pretend not to know him and avoid him. It was now the turn of Ahmad Abduh’s coffeehouse and its regulars. God only knew what coffeehouses and friends the future had in store for him.

  In any case, he did not spend too much of his evening at Ahmad Abduh's. He would soon slip over to Costaki’s grocery store, or, more exactly, to his secret bar to get a bottle of red wine, or "the usual," as he liked to call it. Where was "the usual" on this gloomy night? At the memory of Costaki’s bar, a shudder of desire passed through his body. Then a look of great weariness showed in his eyes. He seemed as fidgety as a prisoner. Staying home appeared to him to be prolonged suffering. The sharpness of the pain intensified when he entertained the images of bliss and memories of intoxication associated with the bar and the bottle. These dreams tormented him and doubled his anguish. They encouraged his ardent longing for wine’s music of the mind and the games it played with his head. Those made him warm and happy, overflowing with delight and joy. Before that evening he had never realized how incapable he was of patiently abstaining from alcohol for even a single day. He was not sad to discover how weak he was and how addicted. He did not blame himself for the overindulgence that had ended up making him miserable for such a trivial reason. He was as far as one could be from blaming himself or being annoyed. The only cause for his pain that he could remember was the blockade the English had set up around his house. He was consumed by thirst when the intoxicating watering hole was near at hand.

  He glanced at Zaynab. He found her examining his face with a look that seemed to say resentfully, "Why are you so inattentive? Why are you so glum? Doesn't my presence cheer you up at all?" Yasin felt her resentment in the fleeting moment their eyes met, but he did not respond to her sorrowful criticism. To the contrary, it annoyed and riled him. Yes, he disliked nothing so much as being forced to spend a whole evening with her, deprived of desire, pleasure, and the intoxication on which he relied to endure married life.

  He began to look at her stealthily and wonder in amazement, "Isn't she the same woman?… Isn't she the one who captured my heart on our wedding night?… Isn't she the one who drove me wild with passion for nights and weeks on end?… Why doesn't she stir me at all? What’s come over her? Why am I so restless, disgruntled, and bored, finding nothing in her beauty or culture to tempt me to postpone getting drunk?"

  As usual, he was inclined to find her deficient in areas where women like Zanuba excelled. They were clever at providing him special services, but Zaynab was the first woman who had attempted to live with him in a permanent relationship. He had not spent much time with the lute player or the doum fruit vendor. His attachment to them had not been great enough to prevent him from moving on when he felt like it. Many years later he would recall these anxious moments and his reflections on them. Then he would realize things from his own experience and from life in general that had not occurred to him at the time.

  He was awakened from his thoughts by her question: "I guess you're not happy about staying home?"

  He was not in a condition to deal with criticism. Her sarcastic question affected him like a careless blow to a sore. He shot back with painful candor: "Of course not".

  Although she had tried to avoid quarreling with him from the beginning, his tone hurt her badly. She replied sharply, "There’s no harm in that. Isn't it amazing how you can't bear to miss your carousing for even one night?"

  He said angrily, "Mention one thing that would make staying home bearable".

  She became enraged and said in a voice that showed she was on the verge of tears, "I'll leave. Perhaps then you'll like it better".

  She turned her back on him to flee. He followed her with a stony glare. "How stupid she is! She doesn't know that only divine decree keeps her in my house".

  Although the quarrel had relieved a little of his anger, he would have preferred for it not to have happened, if only because it served to increase his depressing boredom. If he had wanted to, he could have appeased her, but the listlessness of his mind had overwhelmed all his feelings.

  In a few minutes, a relative calm took possession of him. The cruel words he had thrown at her echoed in his ears. He acknowledged that they were harsh and uncalled for. He felt almost regretful, not because he had suddenly discovered some dregs of affection for her in the corners of his heart, but because of his desire to treat h
er politely, perhaps out of respect for her father or fear of his. He had not exceeded these bounds, even during the nerve-racking period of adjustment when with decisive firmness he had undertaken to make her accept his policies. He had apologized when he got too angry.

  Anger was nothing out of the ordinary for this family. The only time they attempted to control their tempers was when the father was present, monopolizing for himself all rights to anger. Their anger was like a bolt of lightning, quick to flare up and quick to die down. They would be left with various forms of regret and sorrow. Yasin was like this, but he was also obstinate. His regret did not motivate him to seek a reconciliation with his wife. He told himself, "She’s the one who made me angry… Couldn't she have spoken to me in a gentler tone?" He wanted her to be consistently patient, forbearing, and forgiving, so that he could shoot off in pursuit of his passions, confident about the home front.

  After she got angry and withdrew, he felt even more uncomfortable with his imprisonment. He left the room to go to the roof. He found the air pleasant there. The night was tranquil. It was dark everywhere but more profoundly so under the arbor of hyacinth beans and jasmine. On the other side of the roof, the dome of the sky was visible, studded with stars like pearls. He began to pace back and forth on the roof between the wall adjoining Maryam’s house and the end of the hyacinth bean garden with its view of the Qala'un mosque. He gave himself over to contemplation of various mental images.

  As he was walking slowly by the entrance to the arbor a rustling sound or perhaps a whisper caught his ear. He could hear someone breathing. Surprised, he stared into the darkness and called out, "Who’s there?"

  A voice he easily recognized replied in ringing tones, "Nur, master".

  He remembered immediately that Nur, his wife’s maid, retired at night to a wooden hut containing a few sticks of furniture, next to the chicken coop. He looked across the roof until he made out her figure standing a few feet away, like a condensed and solidified piece of night. He saw the whites of her eyes, as pure white as circles drawn in chalk on a jet-black form. He kept on pacing and said nothing more, but her features were automatically traced on his imagination. She was black, in her forties, and solidly built. She had thick limbs and a full chest. Her rear was plump. She had a gleaming face, sparkling eyes, and full lips. There was something powerful, coarse, and unusual about her, or he had thought of her that way since she had appeared in his house.