The Quarter
Page 6
‘Praise be to the One who is all-knowing!’ the Sheikh replied in his effeminate voice, acquired through his brotherly relationship with a female demon.
‘Who killed Umaira al-Ayiq?’ the Head of the Quarter asked, using a hard stare to penetrate to his very depths.
‘O ye who believe, do not ask about things that, if they were clear to you, would annoy you. God knows, and you do not.’
‘But who murdered Umaira al-Ayiq?’ the Head of the Quarter asked emphatically.
‘Whoever’s on your mind,’ was the Sheikh’s sad reply.
The Head of the Quarter clasped his cane even harder but said nothing. He stood up to leave.
‘I’ll spare you,’ said Sheikh Qaf, ‘by not asking what you plan to do.’
The Head of the Quarter still said nothing. He shook the Sheikh’s hand in silence and moved towards the door.
‘I raise a lengthy prayer to God,’ the Sheikh said with uncharacteristic fervour, ‘that I’ll see you again.’
TAWHIDA
The White House is situated two houses before the cellar, to the right as you approach from the main square. The name was adopted because of the skin colour of the people who lived there.
Tawhida, you were the crown jewel in the white house. All praise to the One who created and formed you in the loveliest guise! Your beauty was peerless, although the vestiges of it that live in my imagination are far more vivid than the ones in my actual memory. For the most part, we only knew the members of the white house family from afar, but Tawhida was a God-bestowed exception because she joined our family through marriage. We came to know her intimately and to experience many of her virtues. Even though I was still very young, I was intoxicated by her rosy complexion, her black hair, and the sweet tone of her voice, which we all tried happily to imitate. At first we treated her with cautious respect, but soon the gates were opened. A growing familiarity dispensed with the blush of bashful cheeks. In fact, she had a genuine simplicity, she was pleasant, kind and happy. None of us has ever forgotten that a car would arrive at a fixed time every morning to take her to the European school. At the time, everyone in the quarter said that she had been Europeanised, something that was new, exciting, and provocative – indeed something to boast about. Now, however, she was living with us, speaking both French and Italian and wearing the latest fashions. She could repeat the ideas of Descartes and recite Baudelaire’s poetry, play a piano piece by Beethoven from memory. But none of that made us envious, because she was so breathtakingly beautiful, always happy and always ready to tell us funny jokes. In addition to all that, she had shown us her other charming aspects: the lovely girl was also very fond of the voices of Munira, Abd al-Hayy, and Sayyid Darwish. She could play the Moonlight Sonata, but could also sing ‘She has risen, and how lovely is her light!’ She could memorise selections from the poetry of Shawqi and Hafiz, but even more impressively, she was very conscientious about praying and fasting during Ramadan and made a point of listening to famous reciters like Ali Mahmud and Nada. What was even more astonishing was that she gave Umm Ruqayya her hand.
‘Tell me what the days keep concealed from us,’ she asked.
No Beethoven, Descartes or Baudelaire could rob her heart of the legacy of her earlier years spent in the quarter. She still believed in incense and fortunetellers, and, no doubt, in the existence of demons in the old fort above the cellar in our quarter.
The passage of time separated the different branches of our family tree, and we all went to the place that suited us. She went to Zamalek, then spent a period abroad, but came back. She became a mother, then a grandmother, but I did not see her for a long time. I did, however, retain fond memories of her as a young girl, when happiness, beauty and magic all came together in her.
I was sitting on the sidewalk by the Hotel Arnaud, staring over the corniche at the Mediterranean in the distance. A car stopped directly in front of me, and I spotted an old woman sitting beside the driver and waving at me. I did not recognise her. She had a face that might be an icon to old age: gaunt, pale, thin, and wrinkled. She was wearing dark glasses.
‘Don’t you recognise me?’ she asked when she saw how shocked and surprised I looked.
When I heard that sweet voice again, the past came rushing back like a perfume bottle smashing to the ground.
I stumbled my way over as fast as I could, feeling both abashed and nostalgic. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and I plunged into the remotest of memories.
‘If you didn’t recognise me,’ she said with a laugh, ‘it’s not my fault!’
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
Stockholm 1988
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To begin with I would like to thank the Swedish Academy and its Nobel committee for taking notice of my long and perseverant endeavours, and I would like you to accept my talk with tolerance. For it comes in a language unknown to many of you. But it is the real winner of the prize. It is, therefore, meant that its melodies should float for the first time into your oasis of culture and civilisation. I have great hopes that this will not be the last time either, and that literary writers of my nation will have the pleasure to sit with full merit amongst your international writers who have spread the fragrance of joy and wisdom in this grief-ridden world of ours.
I was told by a foreign correspondent in Cairo that the moment my name was mentioned in connection with the prize silence fell and many wondered who I was. Permit me, then, to present myself in as objective a manner as is humanly possible. I am the son of two civilisations that at a certain age in history have formed a happy marriage. The first of these, seven thousand years old, is the Pharaonic civilisation; the second, one thousand four hundred years old, is the Islamic one. I am perhaps in no need to introduce to any of you either of the two, you being the elite, the learned ones. But there is no harm, in our present situation of acquaintance and communion, in a mere reminder.
As for Pharaonic civilisation I will not talk of the conquests and the building of empires. This has become a worn out pride the mention of which modern conscience, thank God, feels uneasy about. Nor will I talk about how it was guided for the first time to the existence of God and its ushering in the dawn of human conscience. This is a long history and there is not one of you who is not acquainted with the prophet-king Akhenaton. I will not even speak of this civilisation’s achievements in art and literature and its renowned miracles: the Pyramids and the Sphinx and Karnak. For he who has not had the chance to see these monuments has read about them and pondered over their forms.
Let me, then, introduce Pharaonic civilisation with what seems like a story since my personal circumstances have ordained that I become a storyteller. Hear, then, this recorded historical incident: old papyri relate that Pharaoh had learned of the existence of a sinful relation between some women of the harem and men of his court. It was expected that he should finish them off in accordance with the spirit of his time. But he, instead, called to his presence the choice men of law and asked them to investigate what he had come to learn. He told them that he wanted the truth so that he could pass his sentence with justice.
This conduct, in my opinion, is greater than founding an empire or building the pyramids. It is more telling of the superiority of that civilisation than any riches or splendour. Gone now is that civilisation – a mere story of the past. One day the great Pyramid will disappear too. But truth and justice will remain for as long as mankind has a ruminative mind and a living conscience.
As for Islamic civilisation, I will not talk about its call for the establishment of a union between all mankind under the guardianship of the creator, based on freedom, equality and forgiveness. Nor will I talk about the greatness of its prophet. For among your thinkers there are those who regard him the greatest man in history. I will not talk of its conquests, which have planted thousands of minarets calling for worship, devoutness and good throughout great expanses of land from the environs of India and China to the bo
undaries of France. Nor will I talk of the fraternity between religions and races that has been achieved in its embrace in a spirit of tolerance unknown to mankind neither before nor since.
I will, instead, introduce that civilisation in a moving dramatic situation summarising one of its most conspicuous traits: in one victorious battle against Byzantium, it gave back its prisoners of war in return for a number of books of the ancient Greek heritage in philosophy, medicine and mathematics. This is a testimony of value for the human spirit in its demand for knowledge, even though the demander was a believer in God and the demanded a fruit of a pagan civilisation.
It was my fate, ladies and gentlemen, to be born in the lap of these two civilisations, and to absorb their milk, to feed on their literature and art. Then I drank the nectar of your rich and fascinating culture. From the inspiration of all this – as well as my own anxieties – words bedewed from me. These words had the fortune to merit the appreciation of your revered Academy which has crowned my endeavour with the great Nobel Prize. Thanks be to it in my name and in the name of those great departed builders who have founded the two civilisations.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You may be wondering: This man coming from the third world, how did he find the peace of mind to write stories? You are perfectly right. I come from a world labouring under the burden of debts whose paying back exposes it to starvation or very close to it. Some of its people perish in Asia from floods, others do so in Africa from famine. In South Africa, millions have been undone with rejection and with deprivation of all human rights in the age of human rights, as though they were not counted among humans. In the West Bank and Gaza there are people who are lost in spite of the fact that they are living on their own land; land of their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers. They have risen to demand the first right secured by primitive man; namely, that they should have their proper place recognised by others as their own. They were paid back for their brave and noble move – men, women, youths and children alike – by the breaking of bones, killing with bullets, destroying of houses and torture in prisons and camps. Surrounding them are 150 million Arabs following what is happening in anger and grief. This threatens the area with a disaster if it is not saved by the wisdom of those desirous of a just and comprehensive peace.
Yes, how did the man coming from the Third World find the peace of mind to write stories? Fortunately, art is generous and sympathetic. In the same way that it dwells with the happy ones it does not desert the wretched. It offers both alike the convenient means for expressing what swells up in their bosom.
In this decisive moment in the history of civilisation it is inconceivable and unacceptable that the moans of mankind should die out in the void. There is no doubt that mankind has at last come of age, and our era carries the expectations of entente between the superpowers. The human mind now assumes the task of eliminating all causes of destruction and annihilation. And just as scientists exert themselves to cleanse the environment of industrial pollution, intellectuals ought to exert themselves to cleanse humanity of moral pollution. It is both our right and duty to demand of the big leaders in the countries of civilisation as well as their economists to affect a real leap that would place them into the focus of the age.
In the olden times every leader worked for the good of his own nation alone. The others were considered adversaries or subjects of exploitation. There was no regard to any value but that of superiority and personal glory. For the sake of this, many morals, ideals and values were wasted; many unethical means were justified; many uncounted souls were made to perish. Lies, deceit, treachery, cruelty reigned as the signs of sagacity and the proof of greatness. Today, this view needs to be changed from its very source. Today, the greatness of a civilised leader ought to be measured by the universality of his vision and his sense of responsibility towards all humankind. The developed world and the Third World are but one family. Each human being bears responsibility towards it by the degree of what he has obtained of knowledge, wisdom, and civilisation. I would not be exceeding the limits of my duty if I told them in the name of the Third World: Be not spectators to our miseries. You have to play therein a noble role befitting your status. From your position of superiority you are responsible for any misdirection of animal, or plant, to say nothing of man, in any of the four corners of the world. We have had enough of words. Now is the time for action. It is time to end the age of brigands and usurers. We are in the age of leaders responsible for the whole globe. Save the enslaved in the African south! Save the famished in Africa! Save the Palestinians from the bullets and the torture! Nay, save the Israelis from profaning their great spiritual heritage! Save the ones in debt from the rigid laws of economy! Draw their attention to the fact that their responsibility to mankind should precede their commitment to the laws of a science that time has perhaps overtaken.
I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, I feel I may have somewhat troubled your calm. But what do you expect from one coming from the Third World? Is not every vessel coloured by what it contains? Besides, where can the moans of mankind find a place to resound if not in your oasis of civilisation planted by its great founder for the service of science, literature and sublime human values? And as he did one day by consecrating his riches to the service of good, in the hope of obtaining forgiveness, we, children of the Third World, demand of the able ones, the civilised ones, to follow his example, to imbibe his conduct, to meditate upon his vision.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In spite of all what goes on around us I am committed to optimism until the end. I do not say with Kant that good will be victorious in the other world. Good is achieving victory every day. It may even be that evil is weaker than we imagine. In front of us is an indelible proof: were it not for the fact that victory is always on the side of good, hordes of wandering humans would not have been able in the face of beasts and insects, natural disasters, fear and egotism, to grow and multiply. They would not have been able to form nations, to excel in creativeness and invention, to conquer outer space, and to declare human rights. The truth of the matter is that evil is a loud and boisterous debaucherer, and that man remembers what hurts more than what pleases. Our great poet Abul-‘Alaa’ Al-Ma’ari was right when he said:
A grief at the hour of death
Is more than a hundred-fold
Joy at the hour of birth.
I finally reiterate my thanks and ask your forgiveness.
Read at the Swedish Academy by Mohamed Salmawy
SELECTED HANDWRITTEN STORIES
A selection of the stories in Naguib Mahfouz’s original handwriting.
Your Lot in Life
The Arrow
The Whisper of the Stars
The Storm
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