“So what?”
“What about your son? Such a wonderful boy deserves to be looked after.”
It wasn’t my fault. My mother taught me what’s right, instilled the fundamental principles. Halima wanted to play at being respectable, to forget the way she used to live. But I won’t tolerate hypocrisy in my household.
“If you have trouble finding a suitable place sometimes,” I said to al-Hilaly, “you can use my house.” He gave me a searching look. “In the heart of Bab al-Shariya,” I assured him, “even the jinn wouldn’t suspect it!”
I was right. The old house took on new life: it was cleaned up from top to bottom and the largest room was transformed into a salon for the hell-raisers. Those aristocrats. Those playboys—al-Agrudy, Shalaby, Ismail, Tariq—and Tahiya the playgirl. I respected them. They did as they liked without hypocrisy. There was a storeroom for snacks, drinks, and drugs, and Halima really took to the trade. A total hypocrite. I despise hypocrisy. Her true nature came right to the fore: the expert mistress of a new establishment, pretty, sharp-witted, as open-minded as I was and even more so, quite adept at running a brothel. The sky rained down gold.
What made the boy look at us in disgust? Whose son are you anyway? Who’s your father? Who’s your mother? Who’s your grandmother? You’re a bastard, you are—offspring of a theatrical marriage! An idiot, taken in by hypocrisy.
“The boy’s sorrow is killing him,” Halima sighed.
“Let him die of grief, the way every idiot should.”
“He refuses to accept the situation.”
“I don’t like that word accept.”
“He deserves some sympathy.”
“He deserves to be throttled.”
As he grew to hate me, my love for him was likewise uprooted. “Understand your life! Live in the real world! It’s only the chosen few who have as good a life. Look at the neighbors! Don’t you hear about what’s going on around you? Don’t you understand? Who are you anyway?” His eyes gave off a queer look, as if he lived outside the walls of time. What did he want?
Listen, I’ll give you some advice: Your grandfather built this house. I don’t know anything about him. Your grandmother—a young widow no different from your mother—made it a lovers’ nest. Your father grew up in the bosom of reality. I’d really like to tell you everything. Should I be scared of you? If your grandmother hadn’t died suddenly she would have married the master sergeant and lost the house. After she died he wanted to lord it over me. I beat him up and he tried to get me drafted into the old regular army, but the house stayed mine. It was Umm Hany—my mother’s cousin and al-Hilaly’s pimp—who got me the job as prompter. I’d like to lay these facts before you someday so you’ll know what you came from, so you can trace your origins back to their roots without any sham reluctance. Be like your father, and love will unite us the way it used to when you were small. Don’t be misled by your mother’s hypocrisy. Someday you’ll find out everything. Should I be afraid of you, son?
—
Back at the shop I have to face Halima’s dreary questioning. What had Abbas told me? she wants to know.
“I didn’t see him. He left the flat with a suitcase, and no one knows where he went.”
She beats her thighs with her fists. “No one knows! Why didn’t he let us know?”
“He doesn’t think about us.”
“He’s the one who helped us start this shop.”
“He wants to forget us now. As far as he’s concerned, we belong to a past that’s best forgotten.”
“You don’t understand my son. You should’ve gone to see al-Hilaly!” Exasperation makes me speechless, and she goes on: “You’re not careful!”
“I’d like to bash your head in.”
“Have you gone back on opium?”
“Only government ministers can afford it these days!” I retort. “Al-Hilaly doesn’t know where he is either.”
“You visited him?”
“He has no idea where he is,” I repeat.
“My God! Did he move out of his flat?”
“No.”
“He’ll come back. Maybe there’s a woman involved.”
“That’s what a woman like you would think.”
“You don’t care about him at all!” she screams. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself!”
“I have been condemned to leave one prison for another.”
“I’m the one who’s living in a prison cell!”
The woman begins to sob, and that makes me even more exasperated. How could I ever have loved her? I wonder.
—
The red cafeteria. Walls and ceiling painted deep red, tablecloths and a thick carpet of the same color. I sat down at the barman’s counter on a high leather stool, next to a young woman I hadn’t noticed at first. Amm Ahmad Burgal, the barman, brought me the usual fava beans and a sandwich with a cup of tea and inevitably I glanced sideways, to be instantly dazzled by a young creature of extraordinary beauty. It struck me that she must be an employee of the theater, like myself, since the public wouldn’t show up at the theater until well after eight o’clock. I heard Amm Ahmad ask her, “Any news about a flat, Miss Halima?”
“Searching for gold is easier,” she replied, in a voice that oozed honey.
“Are you looking for a flat?” I butted in, bewitched.
She nodded, took a sip of tea, and Amm Ahmad introduced us. “Mr. Karam Younis, the company’s prompter. Miss Halima al-Kabsh, the new cashier.”
“Getting married?” I said with my usual brashness.
Amm Ahmad answered for her. “She’s living with an aunt in a cramped little apartment and dreams of having a small place of her own. But there are the problems of rent and key money.”
“I have a house,” I piped up at once.
She turned to me, interested for the first time. “Really?”
“A large house. It’s old, but it has two floors.”
“Is each floor an apartment?”
“No. It isn’t divided into flats.”
Amm Ahmad asked me if she could have a floor to herself.
“Of course she could.” She asked if that wouldn’t inconvenience the family. “I live there alone,” I replied, at which she raised her eyebrows and turned away, prompting me to explain, in defense of my good intentions: “You and your family would find yourselves quite safe there.”
She made no comment, but Amm Ahmad asked me, “What’s the rent?”
“No one’s ever taken it before. I’m not at all greedy.”
“Shall I bring you a tenant?” he inquired solicitously.
“Oh no, I don’t want that. It’s the family house and it has its memories. I just wanted to help out the young lady, since we both work here in the theater.”
Amm Ahmad laughed. “Give us a chance to think about it.”
The young woman went out, leaving me charged with pangs of desire.
There she is now, sitting bent over in her chair with her arm folded, disgust and anger in her eyes, her forehead knitted in a scowl like a curse. Wouldn’t it be better to live alone than share a life of wrangling? Where is the old enchantment—the sparkle, the foaming intoxication? Where in this world has its mummified corpse been interred?
Whenever I saw her in the red cafeteria I’d say to myself, “This girl grabs me like hunger.” I’d imagine her and her high spirits in the old house, the way it would be rejuvenated, warmed. I fantasized about her curing me of deep-seated ills.
Amm Ahmad Burgal kept encouraging me in private. “Halima is a relative of mine,” he said one day, “on my mother’s side. She’s educated and she’s clever. I’m the one who got her her job here with al-Hilaly Bey.”
“She’s a wonderful girl,” I responded, encouraging him to go on.
“Her aunt’s a good woman. She herself is a very virtuous girl.”
“There’s no question about that.”
His smile was so promising that it ignited my feelings, which were already prett
y volatile; and I let myself surrender to the enticements of my own imagination, allowed myself to be lulled into daydreams, overpowering visions of sweet sensation, unbearably sustained. One day I finally said to him, “Amm Ahmad, I sincerely want…”
The rest of my unfinished sentence he understood. “Good for you!” he mumbled, full of glee.
“I have no income except my salary, but I own the house, and that’s not something to be sneered at these days.”
“Having a roof over your head is more important than keeping up appearances.” And a little later that same week he was able to meet me with the words “Congratulations, Karam!”
During the days that followed, I floated on the tenderness of a tranquil engagement, wrapped in a veil whose silk translucence was woven from gossamer dreams and only the most dulcet of realities. The leather shaving kit she gave me made me so pleased that I felt like a child. Sirhan al-Hilaly raised my salary by two pounds and congratulated me on entering a new life. The theater people gave a party for us in the cafeteria and saw us off with flowers and sweets.
What’s on the woman’s mind? Her veined hand toys absentmindedly with a heap of popcorn. She hasn’t a cheerful thought in her head. We’re condemned to venting our mutual irritation on each other alone. We live in a prison cell. Only the light streaming down on the rubbish strewn along this ancient street makes it look a little different, as gusts of wind pick up the lighter bits, blowing them here and there to be kicked about by the feet of countless boys. What’s on the woman’s mind?
On our wedding night, with a cock crowing on a neighboring rooftop, she made the revelation that dragged us both to the edge of a bottomless pit, down which everything seemed to plunge but history itself. My first bewilderment turned to a numbness so deep that except for hearing the sound of her choking sobs, I almost thought I’d died. The sobs said everything. “I’ll never forgive myself,” she whimpered. Really? “I should have…” What for? There’s no need to say any more. “But I loved you,” she murmured a second time.
I’d found out her secret. But she hadn’t yet found out mine. How could she know that her man had likewise come to her with something of a past? Or even understand how wild I’d been? I’d had a nasty surprise, but her deception didn’t bother me, and even my surprise, once the numbness wore off, seemed silly. “The past doesn’t matter to me,” I declared heroically.
She bent her head, in what looked like grateful humility.
“I hate the past,” she said. “I’m becoming a new person.”
“That’s good,” I said magisterially. Any desire to learn more I put aside. I was neither angry nor glad. I loved her. I entered into my new life with all my heart.
Hours go by, and we don’t exchange a word. We’re like two peanuts in a shell. Every customer complains about the rise in prices, the overflowing sewers, the exhausting queues at the government food stores, and we exchange condolences. Sometimes they look at the woman and ask, “What makes you so silent, Umm Abbas?”
What have I got left to look forward to? She, at least, expects Abbas to return.
I began my married life with genuine ardor. Halima announced the news of her approaching motherhood, and I was annoyed at first, but it was only a passing feeling. When Abbas was a child I loved him passionately.
Then things began to change. It was Tariq Ramadan who came up to me one day and said, “Hamlet’s a tough role. Why don’t you dissolve this in a cup of tea?” That was the beginning of a mad course. The man who cared about nothing was taken in. As time passed, the springs of life dried up and finally all joy was throttled in the grip of a crisis.
“Is this what you want? To blow you earnings on poison and leave me to face life on my own?” Halima’s voice was now as disgusting to me as the stench of backed-up sewers. We’d become like two bare trees. Hunger was knocking at the old house’s door.
I was relieved to be able to say to her one day, “The end is in sight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’ll fix up the east room upstairs as a place for entertainment.”
“What?”
“They’ll come every night. We won’t have to worry about being poor anymore.”
She gave me a look that boded ill, so I said, “Al-Hilaly, al-Agrudy, Shalaby, Ismail. You know. But we have to organize something that will keep them coming.”
“That’s a dangerous game.”
“But it’s a very shrewd one. The profits will be incredible.”
“Isn’t it enough for us that Tariq and Tahiya are staying here? We’re sinking to the lowest depths.”
“We are rising to new heights. You and your son can both shut up.”
“My son’s an angel. He’s the one I’m worried about.”
“Just let him try defying his father, damn him. You’re ruining him with your silly ideas.”
She gave in, but with resentment. She’d forgotten her wedding night. It’s strange: people always yearn to be free of government regulations, but they’re delighted to load shackles on themselves.
Here she is returning from her mission. Except for her services in the house, I’d have wished she’d never come back. There’s disappointment in her face and I don’t ask her any questions, ignoring her until finally she sighs, “His apartment is still locked up.” I’m glad to have a customer. It’s an excuse to avoid her. When he’s gone, she hisses at me, “Do something.”
My mind isn’t with her: it’s busy pondering how the government could throw us into prison for doing what it practices itself quite openly. Don’t they operate gambling houses? Don’t they promote brothels for their guests? I’m full of admiration for them. It isn’t operations like that that drive me to rebel. It’s the hypocritical injustice.
“Go and see al-Hilaly again,” the woman says in a louder voice.
“Go yourself!” I say sarcastically. “You know him better than I do.”
“God have mercy on your mother!” she says, stung to fury.
“At least she wasn’t a hypocrite like you.”
Then she sighs, “You don’t love your son. You never loved him.”
“I don’t like hypocrites. But then, again, I don’t deny he helped us.”
She turns her back on me, muttering, “Where are you, Abbas?”
Where’s Sirhan al-Hilaly? He’d gone out and hadn’t come back. He was hardly likely to have gone to sleep in the bathroom. Meanwhile the gambling was still going on, and I was raking my percentage of the winnings after every round. Wasn’t it time for Halima to serve drinks? Where was she? “Where’s our producer?” I asked.
Everyone was busy with his cards and no one answered me. Was Tariq giving me a funny look? Halima should bring the drinks. “Halima!”
No answer. I couldn’t leave my place or I’d be robbed. “Halima!” I shouted at the top of my voice. A little while later she appeared.
“Where were you?”
“I fell asleep.”
“Make some drinks. And take my place until I come back.”
I left the card room. Downstairs I found Abbas. “What woke you up at this hour?” I asked him.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Have you seen Sirhan al-Hilaly?”
“He left the house.”
“When?”
“A while ago. I don’t know exactly when.”
“Did your mother see him?”
“I don’t know.”
Why had he left? Why was the boy looking at me so quietly, with such despair in his eyes? I smelled something fishy. I may be many things, but I’m not a sucker. When there was nothing left in the house but cigarette butts and empty glasses, I gave the woman a long accusing look and then confronted her: “What went on behind my back?” Staring back disdainfully, she ignored my question altogether. “Did Abbas see?” She still didn’t answer, and her silence irritated me all the more. “He’s the one,” I said, “who gave you the job. Everything has its price, that’s what concerns me.” She stamped h
er feet with fury. “As for you, though,” I went on, “you aren’t worth being jealous over.”
“You’re the lowest kind of vermin,” she snarled, marching off to her room.
I guffawed. “Except for one little worm!”
She’s returned from another outing. I hope you suffer more and go even crazier. Standing facing me in the shop, she says, “Fuad Shalaby is quite sure.”
“Did you see him?”
“In the actors’ coffeehouse.”
“How does he know?”
“He said it’s just an author’s whim and that he’ll show up at the right time with a new play in hand.”
“A few words of comfort to a poor, infantile madwoman.”
She dragged her chair into the farthest corner of the shop and sat there talking to herself. “If God had only willed it! He could have given me better luck. But He threw me into the arms of a junkie.”
“That’s what happens to a man when he marries a whore.”
“God have mercy on your mother! When Abbas comes back I’m going to live with him.”
“I hope he returns, then, for my sake.”
“Who’d ever imagine you’re his father?”
“Any boy who’s killed his wife and thrown his own parents in jail is my son and I’m proud of him!”
“He’s an angel. And he’s the product of my upbringing.”
I wish she’d talk herself into a straitjacket.
The karate chop that detective gave me on the neck. The punch that made my nose bleed. The raid was like an earthquake. It flattened everything, even Sirhan al-Hilaly: he was so frightened he just stood there blinking. And the savings we’d sold our souls for—confiscated. My God, it was awful!
What the devil was going on out in the hall?
I left my room to find Tariq and Abbas fighting, and Halima screaming.
“What’s this nonsense?” I roared.
“It’s ludicrous!” Tariq shouted. “Mama’s boy is going to marry Tahiya!”
Everything seemed ludicrous, alien, incompatible with the euphoria beginning to rise from the drug I’d just taken.
“What kind of lunacy is this?” Halima shouted. “She’s ten years older than you!”
Tariq spat out threats so vehemently that saliva was sprayed in every direction.