Smiling, he inquired, “Should I kill myself, then?”
She smiled inwardly, but no sign of that appeared on her face. “There is no need whatsoever to kill yourself,” she said. “I have told you everything.”
The last sentence brought him back to fear and perplexity. “I am just a young man of seventeen,” he said, after some hesitation, “and a pupil in the third year of secondary school. How, then, can I broach this subject?”
She turned her face away.
“Wait until you become a man!” she replied coldly.
“Bahia,” he said in astonishment mixed with resentment.
“There is no other way,” she answered quietly.
He was irritated and upset by the firmness of her attitude. But meanwhile, he felt his love overpowering him, obliterating his fears and worries. Surrendering, he said, “Have things your own way. I shall talk to those who have a say in the matter.”
She raised her eyes to him for a moment, then lowered them. For a while she seemed about to speak but she kept silent.
“I shall speak to Farid Effendi,” he said.
“You!”
“Yes.”
A silent objection appeared on her face.
“Is it necessary that my mother should do it?” he asked.
She hesitated briefly. Blushing, she said with difficulty, “I think so!”
He was upset by the frankness of her reply, which deepened his worry. He imagined his sad mother sitting with her head bent in the dark hall, unlighted to save expenses. He became agitated. “I shall talk to him,” he said in a low voice, “and convince him to approach my mother about it.”
The girl asked, surprised, “Why don’t you talk to her yourself?”
He was about to say “I can’t,” but then he closed his lips. He ignored her question.
“I am very much afraid that he might scoff at me,” he said, “or that he would keep you waiting until I finish all the long years of education which lie ahead of me.”
Impatiently and almost unconsciously, she replied, “He will approve waiting, as long as I consent to it.”
She bit her lips in shyness and pain. Very eagerly, he looked at her, and with a heart quaking with love, he stretched out his arms to reach her. But she withdrew, frowning to hide her emotion.
“No, no,” she said. “Have you forgotten what I told you?”
TWENTY-FIVE
Hussein and Hassanein were sitting at the desk in the evening as usual. Hassanein, supporting his face with his hand, was absorbed in his thoughts. His looks, and the fact that he kept biting his fingernails from time to time, indicated that he was worried and tense. Hussein himself did not seem to be attracted much by the book that lay open before him. He could not help smiling, and his heart was swayed by different, alternating emotions. Annoyed by the silence, he said, “They have been negotiating for a long time.”
Fearfully, Hassanein became attentive. Then, sighing, he said, “An hour has passed. Even more. I wish I knew what is going on out there.”
“The order of things is now reversed,” Hussein replied sarcastically. “The ordinary procedure is for the young man to ask for the hand of his girl. But in your case the girl’s father comes to ask for the hand of the young man!”
Indignantly and irritably, Hassanein said, “As long as you are not involved, you have the right to mock me. I wish I knew what is being said in the sitting room. What is Mother saying?”
“Soon,” Hussein said calmly, “you’ll know everything.”
“Do you think she will turn down the petition of a man like Farid Effendi?”
“Who knows? What I am sure of is that we shall lose our heaven-sent monthly pay if she rejects it.”
Hassanein eyed him in perplexity. “How long will this painful waiting last?” he asked.
Having thoroughly thought the matter over, they returned to silence. They had discussed it intermittently over a long period of time, ever since Hassanein had told his brother about his conversation with Farid Effendi. To Hassanein’s surprise, the man had warmly welcomed his proposal. Farid Effendi promised to broach the subject to his mother and to remove whatever obstacles stood in the way. In explanation of the man’s attitude, Hussein slyly suggested that the good nature of Farid Effendi and his known attachment to their family were the cause. The two young men could do nothing but await the outcome of the present negotiations. As time went on, Hassanein’s worry increased. I shall know everything after a few minutes, he thought. Will Bahia be mine? Or shall I burn this newborn hope? This is the only means of having the girl. I want her and I can’t do without her. What is she thinking of right now? Isn’t she worried about our fate? There is no doubt that she loves me. For all the world, that is enough for me. Damn Hussein. He just keeps reading so calmly, and since he has no love or anxiety at the mercy of this meeting, he enjoys observing the battle with detachment. What a torture tyrannical passion is. Who says that it resides in the heart? Is it not more likely that it nestles in the mind? This is the secret of insanity.
He was awakened from his reverie by Hussein saying, “They are coming out.”
Hassanein pricked up his ears and overheard his mother exchanging compliments with Farid Effendi and his wife. They proceeded to the door, while Nefisa came to her brothers’ room and stood looking curiously at Hassanein.
Then she said, “Sometimes malice is hidden under apparently innocent silence! Do you really want to get married?!”
Hussein murmured, “This is the first drop of the oncoming shower.”
In instinctive self-defense, Hassanein moved from his chair to the bed in a remote corner of the room, close to the window, whose broken glass had been replaced with sheets of newspaper. Then they heard their mother approaching. Her features hard and stern, she walked heavily into the room. Searching for Hassanein, her eyes wandered until they rested on him at the farthest end of the room. She stared at him for some time, then proceeded to the chair he had left vacant and sat down, somewhat exhausted. An intense silence, which no one dared to interrupt, prevailed until she looked at Hussein and asked him calmly, “Don’t you know what Farid Effendi and his wife came to discuss with me?”
The question was totally unexpected, and Hussein was confused. Considering himself no more than a spectator to the whole business, he kept silent. “Answer!” she demanded.
Perplexed, he turned his eyes to Hassanein, seeking help. Regarding the movement as an answer, Samira proceeded to question him further.
“When did you know?”
Frightened, he answered, “The day before yesterday.”
“Why did you hide it from me?”
He took refuge in silence, cursing both his bad luck and his brother; the two had combined, despite his innocence, to get him into this mess. Then she sighed sorrowfully. “I am resigned to God’s will. The misery you have caused me surpasses my suffering at the hands of my dark fate.”
Nefisa, who detested this quarrelsome atmosphere, felt she had to fight its hold over them. However, she had no intention of encouraging her brother to persist in his desires. She was perhaps even angrier with him than her mother was. She even considered the whole matter a mean plot aimed at kidnapping her brother. But she still hoped to avoid useless friction, and so she said to her mother, “Don’t excite yourself. What’s done can’t be undone. Have mercy upon us and stop giving us all a headache.”
Her mother scolded her sharply. “Shut up!” she said.
Then she turned to Hassanein and spoke to him contemptuously. “Perhaps you are eager to know the outcome of your underhanded planning.”
Sorrowfully, she shook her head. “One may well envy the heart you possess, for despite our catastrophe and misery, it can love, and in pursuit of its happiness it is indifferent to us all. I was actually amazed when Farid Effendi spoke to me about your great hopes and curious love. But in my turn I spoke to him about our struggle and misery. I spoke to him about our furniture, which we are selling piece by piece to
provide for our basic needs, and about the misery of your sister, who must work as a dressmaker, spending her days moving from one house to another. Then I told him frankly that none of my sons would marry until he helped his collapsing family to get back on its feet.”
The woman was silent. She fixed her eyes on the hopeless and depressed face of her son, who could not look his mother in the face. Then she added bitterly, “However, I have to congratulate you on your affection and human feelings!”
The woman departed from the room, leaving a heavy silence behind her. She was so furious and sad that she could hardly see her way. Nefisa was so disturbed that she forgot her deep anger. She spoke to Hassanein, feigning merriment.
“Mother didn’t tell you everything,” she said. “I assure you that, really, there is no reason for you to be so despondent. She couldn’t possibly ignore Farid Effendi’s friendship or his affection for us. Who could ever forget his help and magnanimity? Mother told him that she considered his approval of your proposal a great honor. But she did tell him about our condition, which he knows quite well, and requested him to wait until our stumbling family could get back on its feet. She asked him to be content for the time being with her verbal agreement to the engagement until it is officially announced, when you become a responsible man. She also told him that she would be delighted to have Bahia as her daughter-in-law. So there is absolutely no need for you to be sad.”
The girl looked at her brother’s face, which started to shine once more. A sudden indignation seized her, but she managed to conceal it and said, with a touch of sharpness in her voice, “Forgive Mother. She is poor and sad. Certainly, it consoles her to share her troubles. But if she finds that we…well, I don’t want to return to the subject. It’s enough for me to tell you that things will go the way you like.” Then she added laughingly, “Damn both you and your love.”
TWENTY-SIX
Soliman Gaber Soliman spoke. “Don’t have any doubts about it. We shall marry as I have told you. I make this promise before God.”
Nefisa listened to him attentively, her heart beating hard. There was no longer anything new in her taking his arm and walking by his side in one of the back streets of Shubra, where darkness prevailed and the passersby were few. Ugly and of mean appearance though he was, she always looked upon him as a wonderful beau because of his warm emotion and great interest in her. Thus she developed a profound, even mad love for him.
She believed that he was her first and last lover. Hope and despair made her cling to him passionately, and love him with her nerves and flesh and blood. Her turbulent instincts saw him as her savior from despair and frustration.
He was the first man to restore her self-confidence. He reassured her that she was a woman like other women. She was born anew each time he confessed his love for her; and in spite of the engulfing gloom of the world, she perceived its illuminating splendor. However, words of love were not enough for her. She was eager for something more that was no less important than love itself; or, perhaps, to her, the two were identical. She kept urging him until he promised to marry her. Encouraged by the enveloping darkness, she asked him, “So what do you intend to do?”
He answered without hesitation, “It would be natural for me to tell my father and then we would go together to your mother to ask for your hand.”
“I think so, too.”
He sighed audibly and said, “I wish it could be. But right now, it’s a remote hope.”
She became depressed. “Why?” she inquired anxiously.
“My father,” he said angrily, “damn him. He’s a foolish, obstinate old man. He wants me to marry the daughter of Amm Gobran el-Tuni, the grocer, whose shop is located on the corner of Shubra Street and Al Walid Street. I don’t need to tell you that I refused and will continue to refuse. But I can’t suggest to him at present that I have proposed to another girl. If I do, he will dismiss me.”
She felt her throat becoming dry. Looking at him with disdain, she inquired worriedly, “What is to be done, then?”
“We have to be very patient. No force in the whole world could deflect me from my goal. But we must be on our guard lest he become aware of our relationship.”
“Till when must we remain patient?”
He hesitated, perplexed. “Until he dies,” he murmured.
“Until he dies!” she exclaimed with anxiety. “Suppose we die before him?”
Confused, he gave a dry laugh. “Leave this matter to me and to time,” he said. “We are not completely helpless.”
His words struck her as equivocal and most ungratifying. I can’t tell him that I am afraid that in the interval of waiting someone else may step in and propose to marry me, she thought. This would be a good tactic for a girl of wealth and beauty. But as for me, who will ask for my hand in such hard times as these, when men are avoiding marriage? I have degraded myself by accepting the worst, but the worst does not accept me. He is just a son of a grocer! Even the suit on his body appears odd and ill-fitting. She felt an oppressive hand pressing her neck. Her fear made her cling to him more and more. At that moment, he was worth all the world to her. It was not clear to her how she could marry him, even if he removed the obstacles standing in their way. Her mother could not possibly offer her anything by way of help. Besides, her family could not do without the few piasters she earned. But she desired him; desired him from the depths of her soul, at whatever cost.
Her face grew grim, and she opened her mouth to speak. Suddenly, she saw someone coming along the road, and the blood congealed in her veins. She uttered a terrified groan and was about to take to her heels. But she stopped when she distinguished the face of the newcomer as he passed under the light of a lamppost. Her terror disappeared, and she gave a sigh of relief. Wondering, Soliman inquired, “What is wrong with you?”
She answered breathlessly, “I thought it was my brother Hassan.”
The young man seized this opportunity to express a long-cherished desire. “We shall always be subject to fear,” he said to her, “as long as we roam about in the streets. Listen to me. Why don’t we go to my home and stay for a while, where no one could see us?”
“Your home!” she exclaimed in astonishment.
“Yes. My father spends Friday evening with the Sheikh of the Al Shazliah sect, and he remains there until midnight. My mother is also away in Zagazig on a visit to my sister, who is expecting a baby. So there is no one at home.”
Astounded by his suggestion, she said with a palpitating heart, “How can I possibly go home with you? Are you mad?”
“We need a safe place,” he entreated her. “My home is safe, and my invitation to you is innocent. I want to be safely alone with you so we can discuss our troubles quietly, far away from fears and watchful eyes.”
As he spoke, she listened with a frown on her face. In spite of herself, fearfully and anxiously she was forming a mental picture of his empty home. To no avail, she tried to use anger to obliterate this mental picture; but it persisted in her mind’s eye. She said sharply, “No, not at your home!”
Pressing the palm of her hand, he said beseechingly, “Why not? I thought you would welcome my invitation. I want to be alone with you so that I can talk to you about my love for you, my hopes and plans. There is nothing wrong with what I am asking you to do, and nobody will ever know about us.”
She obstinately shook her head, and her heart kept throbbing violently. She wished to be left alone, to have time to think this matter over. She felt a desire to escape, but she remained motionless. She walked on by his side, with the palm of her hand in his. She tried in vain to banish the picture of the presumably empty house from her imagination. Then she felt her insides turning upside down, as if she was sinking into a bottomless abyss. Overcome by more worry and confusion, she said, her tension obvious in her voice, “Not at your home.”
His quivering hand pressed hers.
“Yes, in my home,” he said. “Think it over a little. What are you afraid of? I love you and you
love me. We want to talk in a safe place, away from watchful eyes, about our love and our future. It is a rare opportunity to have the whole house to ourselves and we should not miss it. I’m surprised at your hesitation!”
She also wondered why she was hesitant, but for different reasons. Had she really wanted to refuse his invitation categorically, she would have done so quite easily and clearly. But it seemed to her that she was persisting in her hesitant refusal so as not to frighten him away. Probably she was afraid and shy, but she could not ignore the radical transformation that had occurred inside her. She was overcome by confusion, anxiety, and tension. She said feebly, “It’s better to continue walking.”
Temptingly, he pulled her to him, saying, “You never can tell. Your brother Hassan might appear at any moment.”
She found herself responding to his fears and surrendering to him, saying, “I’m afraid of what would happen if he did.”
Sighing with relief, he exhaled a fiery breath. “Let’s go home.”
She resisted his hand feebly. “No, I won’t go.”
“Just for a few minutes. Our alley is dark and nobody will see us.” He walked on, and she followed him with heavy steps, saying, “No.”
Her heart was throbbing so violently that her ribs seemed to crack.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Opening the door with a key, he whispered, “Please, come in.”
“Let’s go back,” she entreated him.
He pushed her gently inside.
“You must honor our home.”
He entered behind her and closed the door. She found herself enveloped in pitch-darkness. She raised her face toward the ceiling, waiting for him to turn on the light. She felt his hand touching her shoulder, and a quiver passed down her spine.
“Turn on the light,” she whispered in fear.
“The light in the hall is out of order,” he answered apologetically.
“Then light another lamp to get rid of the dark.”
Encircling her waist with one arm, he pushed her, saying, “I know the way to my room.”