Khan Al-Khalili (23 page)

It had all been a silly piece of emotionalism. How could that girl have possibly made him happy when he was so intelligent and learned while she was totally naive and uncultured? Truth to tell, his younger brother had just saved him from making a mistake that might have been the end of him. From now on, he needed to keep his eyes wide open and abandon forever any thought of getting married. How absurd to even think that he could ever find a suitable woman! Even so, she had betrayed him in a way that was both mean and reprehensible. Hadn’t she flirted with him? Hadn’t she been happy enough to have him as an admirer? How could she have changed her mind so unbelievably quickly? He asked himself whether God had ever created a more repulsive sight than a two-faced girl. Telling himself to “get over it and move on” was all very well, but what a paltry world it was where feelings could be turned upside down at the drop of a hat!

“God damn the world!” The loud voice interrupted his feverish ruminations, and he realized that Boss Nunu had just come back to his store from the Friday prayers. He was delighted to be distracted from all his woes in this abrupt fashion. Moving over to the window on the side that was still new to him, he looked out over the neighborhood that he had come to know and already found tedious. If only the family had never left al-Sakakini! Not only that, but he
also found himself secretly wishing that his younger brother had never come back to Cairo from Asyut. If he hadn’t come back, his peace of mind would not have been shattered so completely. But no sooner did the thought cross his mind than he felt a deep sense of pain. He dearly loved his brother; there was no doubting that. It would be impossible to fake the real affection he felt for his brother who was almost his son and foster child. What was really odd and wrong was that he loved him and hated him at the same time. Had Rushdi not come back to Cairo, Ahmad would now be engaged.

Before realizing it, his whole inner self started gushing sentimental about married life, completely ignoring all previous misgivings. The number two was sanctified, he decided. Pythagoras may have said that the number one was sanctified, but he was wrong—it was two. Humanity can lose itself in groups, but drowns in misery when left alone. A life companion can provide succor. Mutual revelation, profound love, shared companionship, delight of one heart in another, and infinite serenity, all of them are the deep delights that only happen between two people. Ahmad was utterly fed up with his own misery, exasperated by his loneliness, and resentful of the void in his life. Now his inner self was contradicting him, by expressing a great longing for love, sympathy, company, and affection. Where are those lips to give him a smile of affection? Where is the heart to share its beats with another? Where is the bosom from which to nurse some droplets of repose and to which to entrust his innermost thoughts?

His exasperation reached its peak. He went back and sat on the bed, shaking his head in anger. It was almost as if
he were trying to block out these sad feelings so that he could recover his anger and severity, not to mention his insane belief in the virtues of loneliness, arrogance, and contempt for human emotions. His jealous feelings might cool in the long run, and his emotions might flag as well, but, when it came to his sense of his own importance, it was an entirely different story. That was an ulcer that could not be lanced. How on earth could that be? Whenever it repaired itself, his blind conceit would remove the scab.

“That girl has got to realize,” he said between grinding teeth, “that from now on I have decided to give her up without so much as a second thought!”

O
n Saturday morning he woke up exhausted. He had not slept at all well, and he was now paying the price for the joyful interlude of love, however short it may have been. What was past was past. True enough, but, as long as the possibility of forgetting it all still lurked behind all his sorrowful memories, then consolation in some form or other was still something to be devoutly desired. Where was that lovely Jewish girl from al-Sakakini now with her ideal kind of love? By now time had done its work, drawing a veil of forgetfulness over the past and swallowing up all such memories. Still he clearly understood that from now on he needed to remain unaffected, or at least to make a show of doing so. He had to show Nawal that he was barely even aware of the fact that he had been jilted by a young girl.

When he went to the bathroom, he noticed that his brother’s door was ajar. He could see him getting dressed, which was amazing in itself because his brother always got up later than he himself did. He also noticed his brother
looking up at the window opposite. That gave him a jolt, as though someone had stuck a needle into him. He let the cold water flow over his head for some time as a way of calming his shattered nerves. Back in his room he put on his suit, then went to the table to drink his cup of morning coffee, smoke a cigarette, and eat something light. He had decided to greet his younger brother in a perfectly normal way, not least because he was anxious to keep his real feelings hidden. Rushdi came in wearing a suit and fez, and gave him his usual smile.

“Good morning!” he said.

“Good morning to you too!”

Ahmad was surprised to see his brother wearing a fez, since he would usually appear for breakfast bareheaded. “Why the hurry to put on the fez?” he asked.

“I’m going to eat breakfast elsewhere,” his brother replied, still smiling. “I’ve some urgent business to attend to.”

“What can be that urgent?”

“I have to finish some things for work.”

Rushdi bade him farewell, as he did to his mother who was making breakfast, then, with his graceful appearance and his radiant smile, he left. Not for a single second did Ahmad believe this story about “urgent business.” He was pretty sure that Rushdi had got up so unusually early and rushed out of the house because he was going to meet Nawal somewhere on her way to school. That at least is what his gloomy heart told him was going to happen. Had the two of them really made such an arrangement? He recalled angrily how, for the duration of their relationship—such as it was—he had procrastinated and had been unable
to make up his mind what to do. However, where his brash younger brother was concerned, it was just the blink of an eye between by his boldness as he was by the way he had managed to strut his youthful appearance and slender figure in front of him just a couple of minutes earlier. However, mixed in with the admiration he felt was a strong dose of self-contempt and defiance, with a bit of malice and anger thrown in as well. It was as though he were swimming in the eternity of the Creator but all the while lamenting the ephemerality of the created world itself.

After a while he put on his own fez and left the apartment. He decided to walk along al-Azhar Street as a way of calming his nerves. He kept to the sidewalk on the left-hand side and walked fast.

“Just forget about the root causes of this profound sorrow you’re feeling,” he muttered to himself sagely. “There’s no need to keep it all stored in your consciousness. Simply heave it into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. If reading has not as yet guided you to wisdom, then learn a lesson from someone like Boss Nunu who’s happy.”

At which point Ahmad visualized Boss Nunu, with all his good health and merriment. Why, he asked himself with a deep sigh, was he trying to bear the burden of so much misery, like the bull that, as legend has it, carried the globe on its horn? How could he possibly be so abjectly incapable of finding any kind of happiness in life? Why didn’t he go looking for people who are always laughing and consult them about the best ways to laugh and be happy? There was no point in going through life feeling this miserable and woebegone. Somehow he had to find a way to bring a little bit of joy into his broken heart.

He kept repeating these thoughts to himself until he reached Queen Farida Square. He got on a trolley that was packed, so he had to stand squashed between all the other standing passengers. He was naturally averse to crowds, so once again his anger mounted; it had only had the briefest of respites in any case. A strange and terrifying idea occurred to him: how would it be if the world could be devoid of human beings. He was not sure whether the idea came to him because he was on a packed trolley or whether there might be other reasons. It was not the first time, or so he imagined, that he had thought to himself how nice it might be if Cairo could be emptied as the result of a bombing raid. But then he felt ashamed to be contemplating such apocalyptic thoughts of terrible destruction, all because he had been adversely affected by a truly lovely young girl. Even so, he repeated to himself in disgust, “Isn’t betrayal as vile as destruction?”

R
ushdi Akif left the apartment unusually early without eating any breakfast; but, in any case, he was quite used to changing his habits and eating breakfast late. When he reached the New Road, he spotted the girl just in front of him; she was walking toward al-Darrasa on the way to the desert road leading to Abbasiya. He slowed down a bit so that there was a greater distance between them, then followed her. She was already aware that he would be following her—he had signaled as much to her via the window. That seemed to please her, although she managed for the most part to conceal most of her emotions behind a veil of coquetry and bashfulness. At times, however, her real feelings emerged in the form of a smile or attempts at suppressing a smile; and that was enough for him. In fact, Rushdi had very little time at his disposal, but, where he was concerned, time was like gold and diamonds. Ever since their first encounter on the roof—in fact, ever since he had first set eyes on her—he had been watching her
closely, then following and flirting with her. This pursuit had involved a use of all his natural gifts—his youth, handsome appearance, sense of fun, and patience; so much so that she had come to regard him as a fixed part of the window.

From the outset he had had no doubts concerning his eventual triumph, nor for that matter had she. If that were not the case, then why did she keep appearing at the window as though on cue, submitting to his eager looks and responding so willingly to his smiles and gestures? If he had any lingering doubts on the matter, then the last smile she had given him had removed them completely and put an end to such concerns. However, she was not prepared simply to surrender without some pause for thought; she was a bit scared about the direction her heart was leading her. The image of the elder brother—Ahmad—kept coming back to her, and that made her feel rather ashamed and awkward. But then the fresh new face that had come into her life had made her all too aware of the faults in the elder brother. Why did Ahmad always look so scared, she wondered. Why did he behave like a mouse, scurrying back to its hole as soon as it hears the slightest noise? Why was he always so stiff and formal, never moving or doing anything? Actually, she was just as shy as he was, and that was why she needed someone brash and forward to appear on the scene and tackle her shyness straight on. He would never have been able to answer her needs, or perhaps she had only come to realize that when someone else had appeared who could really respond to them. And then there was the palpable difference between a young man full of vigor and someone already middle-aged and gradually wilting; handsome
on the one hand, and tense and inscrutable on the other, the difference between a joyful happiness and a lonely misery. The truth is that she had fallen for Ahmad because he was a man and he was around, but it was Rushdi who had managed to find a place in her heart and stir her emotions. For that reason she had rewarded his patience with a radiant smile, a gesture that was to mark the beginning of a whole new story.

They both went up the road toward al-Darrasa, then turned off on the desert road. She was in front and he followed behind. It was a crisp, damp morning, a little chilly. A gentle breeze was blowing, bringing with it intimations of November, which mourns for the flower blossoms of lovers. The sky was full of bright clouds. Sometimes they were clustered together, but then they would break up and turn into frozen lakes that refracted the early morning rays of the sun from the horizon. The way their fringes sparkled in the sunlight was eye-catching. It was a scene to soothe the human heart, and yet there were two hearts that were completely lost in each other.

After the turn-off he quickened his pace and caught up with her. The girl could hear the sound of his footsteps as he drew closer, but did not look round. Even so, his steady approach did have its effect: she started blushing and, without even realizing it, her lovely, clear eyes formed themselves into a smile. Finally he was walking alongside her and almost touching her.

“Good morning,” he said gently.

She tilted her head in his direction and glanced hesitantly at him. “Good morning,” she replied in a soft voice.

As usual she was carrying her school bag under her arm.

“Would you let me carry that bag for you?” he asked with a smile.

“Oh no,” she replied. “There’s no need for that. It looks big, but it’s not heavy. It’s no problem for me to carry it myself.”

“But, for two lovely delicate hands like yours,” he said, “it must be a bit heavy!”

“No, it’s not,” she replied. “I can handle it quite well. Please don’t spoil me!”

That made him laugh. “But surely it’s wrong for me to have my hands empty while you’re carrying that big bag.”

She began to feel a bit flustered, but she decided to humor him. “What’s wrong about it?” she asked. “I carry it myself every morning and evening.”

“You’re obviously scared I’m going to steal it.”

“Oh, if only you really could! It contains all my nasty homework. Arithmetic is not even the worst.”

That made him laugh again. “God curse the knowledge that gives you grief!”

She gave him an encouraging smile. “Are you really cursing knowledge just for my sake,” she asked, “or does the hatred go back a while?”

“No, it’s entirely for your sake,” he replied, “although I have to admit that there’s a certain amount of enmity from the past as well. What are your favorite subjects?”