The host added, "I'll carry away with me beautiful memories of our life at the Faculty of Arts and of this tranquil and lovely area of al-Ma'adi. I'll always remember you fondly, even your tomfoolery."
To be polite, Ahmad replied, "The memory of you will stay with us forever and will continue to develop as our intellects do."
"Thank you". Then, smiling, the professor told his wife, "Ahmad is an academic at heart, even though he has ideas of a kind that often cause trouble in this country."
One of Ahmad's fellow students explained, "That meanshe's a Communist."
The smiling hostess raised her eyebrows, and Mr. Forster commented in a tone that conveyed more than his words themselves, "I'm not the one who said that. Your comrade did". Then, standing up, he announced, "It's time for tea. We mustn't let the moment slip away from us. Later there will be an opportunity for conversation and entertainment."
The tea party was catered by Groppi's, a famous Cairo establishment, and its waiters stood nearby, ready to serve the guests. "Lady" Forster sat between the girls on one side, and the professor was at the center on the other. To explain the seating arrangement, he said, "We would have liked to mix you up more but decided to respect Eastern etiquette. Isn't that right?"
With out any hesitation, one o the male students answered, "This, unfortunately, is what we've noticed, sir."
A sei-vant poured tea and milk, and the feast began. Ahmad observed furtively that Alawiya Sabri was the most proficient of the girls in Western table manners and the most relaxed. She seemed accustomed to social life and as much at ease as if in her own home. Watching her eat pastries was even sweeter than eating them himself. She was his dear friend who reciprocated his friendship without encouraging him to cross its boundaries.
He told himself, "If I don't seize the opportunity that today offers, I may as well give up."
Mrs. Forster raised her voice to advise them, "I hope you won't let the thought of war rationing make you shy about eating the pastries."
A student commented, "It's a lucky break that the authorities haven't restricted tea yet."
Mr. Forster leaned over toward Ahmad, who was sitting to his left, and inquired, "How do you spend your holidays? I mean, what do you read?"
"A lot of economics and a little politics. I write some articles for magazines too."
"I'd advise you to go on for a master's degree when you finish this one."
After chewing what was in his mouth, Ahmad replied, "Perhaps later on, but I'll start out working as a journalist. That's been my plan for years."
"Excellent!"
His dear friend was conversing easily with Mrs. Forster. How quickly she had perfected her English! The roses and other blooms were as saturated with red and their other colors as his heart was with love. In a world that was truly free, love would blossom like a flower. Only in a Communist country could love be a totally natural emotion.
Mr. Forster said, "I'm sad I won't be able to continue my study of Arabic. I would like to read Majnun's poems in praise of Layla without having to rely on one of you."
"It's a pity that you won't be able to study it anymore."
"Unless circumstances permit, later on."
"You may find yourself obliged to learn German," Ahmad reflected. "Wouldn't it be amusing if London were the scene of demonstrations calling for the evacuation of foreign forces and you took part in them? The seductive charm of the English can be attributed to their manners, but that of my dear friend is unique.
The sun will soon set, and night will find us together in an isolated spot for the first time. If I don't seize this opportunity, I may as well give up."
He asked his professor, "What will you be doing once you return to London?"
"I've been invited to work in broadcasting."
"Then we won't be deprived of hearing your voice."
"A polite statement," Ahmad told himself, "is excusable at a party ornamented by my friend, but we only listen to the German broadcasts. Our people love the Germans, if only because they hate the English. Colonialism is the final stage of capitalism. The situation created by our professor's party merits some thought. Although we justify it in the spirit of intellectual inquiry, there is a conflict between our love for this professor and our loathing for his nationality. Hopefully the war will polish off both the Nazi movement and colonialism. Then I can concentrate entirely on love."
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 healthy 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 his heels 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 Ea
sterner 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.
Sugar Street tct-3 Page 20