“Congratulations on the job,” Hussein heard them say to him. “We’ve come to bid you goodbye and wish you a safe journey. We’ll miss you a lot. It’s a pity that Salem has lost an incomparable teacher.”
Shy and reserved though she was, Bahia said to him gently, “You’ll return to us shortly, by God’s will.”
With both tongue and heart he thanked her for her gentleness.
A really beautiful girl, he thought, refined and decent. Hassanein is a splendid young man and he’ll be a splendid husband. Has he kissed those charming lips? He has long complained and grumbled about her modesty. How wonderfully rare is this girl! But I leave tomorrow. These people will turn into mere images and memories. They’ll get together often again as in the past, just as they are now. Yet they may remember me only a little, or perhaps not at all. But how shall I be? And where? In my loneliness, is there anything for me to do but remember them? The greater my misfortune, the stronger and more patient I become. And I’ll remain so forever!
FORTY-EIGHT
Hassanein’s face disappeared amidst a crowd of people and their farewells. The pyramid-shaped ceiling of the Cairo railway station receded until the inside appeared obscure. Everything was receding faster and faster. Hussein bade Cairo goodbye. He withdrew his head inside the carriage, and sitting in a proper posture, he closed his eyes to hide a tear that had long contended with his self-composure. Quickly he winked, to shake it from his eyelashes. To his left sat an Effendi reading his newspaper, while in front of him two villagers were conversing. Though the carriage was only half full, the noise of the passengers was louder than the rattle of the train’s wheels. His sadness had been tempered when he saw a tear in Hassanein’s eyes. Conversing together on the platform, the two brothers had maintained their composure, but tears gushed to Hussein’s eyes as the train started to move and he saw Hassanein waving to him. At home, Nefisa had wept so bitterly that her eyes became swollen. How pitifully and tenderly he recalled her ugly face! His mother, at whom he forced himself to smile, took him to her breast and kissed him on the cheeks. Perhaps she was doing this for the first time! At least he could not remember that she had ever kissed him before. By temperament, she was very firm with them. But this apparent firmness could not obliterate her deep tenderness. She believed farewell tears to be an ill omen, and preferred to keep her tears in check, but he realized that her convulsing lids foreshadowed the profuse tears that would soon gush from her eyes behind a closed door.
Perhaps she wept for a long time, he thought. Perhaps she is still weeping. At this thought he felt profoundly depressed. As he realized that he had never seen her weep before his father’s death, his depression became more intense. What a great woman she is! God has ordained that a mortal catastrophe would befall our family. Yet His Grace has also ordained this woman to be our mother. What might our fate have been without her? I wonder how she managed to feed and clothe us! How, too, could she have managed to control and direct us? How was it possible for her, under such cruel circumstances, to fulfill our family needs! This is a miracle that baffles the mind. But for my late father, she would even have made a different man of Hassan. I should speak of Hassan with more consideration. Without his help I would have lost my job. His money is all I have to live on until the end of the month! The bracelets! What a dreadful memory! Yet in order to live, I have to forget. One day I shall pay off the debt and draw the curtain on this most painful memory.
To flee from his thoughts, he looked out the window. He saw the vast fields extending to meet the horizon, green, blooming, and delightful, the tops of their growing plants swaying in a constant gentle breeze. Here and there peasants and bulls and grazing cattle appeared like dummies swallowed up in the vast fields. An autumnal sky above, white and pale, was receding here and there into lakes of pure blue. The train hurried by a crystal-clear brook, the melting rays of the sun on its surface turning its waters into dazzling mercury. As though swimming in space with the monotonous sound of the throbbing engine as an accompaniment, the telegraph wires moved regularly in endless waves. Looking again at the endless flat earth, mute, patient, and good, he thought again of his mother. Like the green earth, she was as patient, as generous, and as exhausted by time. Poor woman! Her shabby clothes made it impossible for her to visit respectable people! His eyes filled with tears, and the scene lost its charm. He prayed to God to give him the wherewithal to relieve his stoical mother and patient family. How curious that Egypt unmercifully devours its own offspring! he thought. Yet they say we are a contented people. Oh, God! This is the height of human misery! Nay, it is the height of human misery to be miserable and contented! This is death itself But for our poverty, I would have continued my education. There is no doubt about it. In our country fortune and respectable professions are hereditary in certain families. I am not spiteful, but sad; sad for myself and for millions of others like myself. I am not just an oppressed individual, but a representative of an oppressed people. This is what generates in me the spirit of resistance, filling me with a kind of consoling happiness for which I know no name. No. I am neither spiteful nor desperate. Even though I have missed the opportunity of higher education, Hassanein, my brother, will not. Perhaps Nefisa will find a suitable husband. Once the soul returns to our family, we will remember the dark days with pride.
Turning to his left, he saw that the Effendi, with a bored expression on his face, had folded his newspaper. As if he had been waiting for this casual turn of the head from Hussein, the Effendi, without any preliminaries, waved the folded newspaper and began to speak.
“But for the students, the leaders of this country would never have united. Who would ever have imagined that Sidki would agree to meet with Nahas? The Palace and the Wafdists at the same table!”
Hussein welcomed the conversation with relief. “That is true, sir,” he said.
“Who could ever have believed the British would recognize Egypt as an independent, sovereign state and agree to abandon their four reservations. Do you really think the capitulations will be abolished?”
“I do.”
“Nahas will remain in office forever,” the man said jubilantly. “The time for coups is over now. Are you a Wafdist?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so, from the good-natured expression on your face. A true patriot must be a Wafdist. Apart from the advantages of coalition, the Liberal Constitutionalists are Englishmen wearing tarbushes.”
“True, indeed.”
“Are you traveling to Alexandria?”
“No, just to Tanta.”
“May the mercy of the saintly Sidi Badawi be upon us! I’ve spent some years in Tanta.”
Hussein looked interested. “I’m a new employee. Could you direct me to a modest hotel?” he asked.
The man rubbed his chin with his hand as he tried to remember.
“Go to the Britannia Hotel on Al Amir Farouk Street, owned by Michel Kustandi,” he said. “There you can have a room for one pound fifty a month.”
Then they conversed for a long time, comparing life in hotels and flats.
FORTY-NINE
His room at the hotel was small, containing a single bed, a wardrobe, a wooden chair, and a peg. There was only one window, overlooking a narrow back alley and facing the wall of an old house that shut out the sun. The room’s atmosphere betrayed a latent humidity. Other rooms in the hotel overlooked Al Amir Farouk Street, but since the price was exorbitant, he had chosen to live in this modest room.
It’s only right that I should live at the same standard as my family in Nasr Allah alley, he thought, with old houses on both sides.
In his new lodging, the first thing he did was open the window. Driven by curiosity, he looked out. He saw a mean blind alley with old houses on both sides. He wondered at the vast difference between this and the street from which it branched off. Glancing at the wall of the house which shut out the open air, he felt annoyed. He was certain that his life, lonely as it was, would be devoid of entertainment,
too. Turning from the window to the mirror in the wardrobe, he saw a bizarre reflection of his image. His face appeared long and his features distorted in the mirror’s pale flyspecked surface. Laughing, he said to his own image, “With God’s mercy and grace, I’m handsomer than you are.”
He proceeded to take off his clothes and put on his gallabiya. Then he put his few clothes in order inside the wardrobe, which, small as it was, still looked nearly empty. In fact, he owned only one suit, two gallabiyas, and two pairs of flannels and pants. These were not only old but also darned and patched. For reassurance, he thrust his hand into the jacket pocket, taking out a packet of pound notes. After counting them, he returned the money to its place with painful memories.
He squatted on the bed, not knowing how to spend the rest of the day. With no one to talk to and nothing to do, he became totally absorbed in his thoughts and dreams. He felt lonely and surprised, realizing that he would suffer bitterly from the boredom of ample leisure time. He loved reading, but even if he were able to buy whatever books he liked, he would still find leisure time oppressive. He was not accustomed to heavy silence. In his mute loneliness he felt like a lost, trivial person for whom nobody cared or had the slightest consideration.
Where is Hassanein’s sharp, hysterical voice, always bursting out laughing or complaining? he thought. Where is Nefisa’s thin one, and her daily satirical comments on neighbors and events?
He refused to surrender to his feelings, and decided to work out his budget and calculate his expenses. His salary was only seven pounds. In his precarious circumstances, this sum would not have been inadequate. He would spend one pound and fifty piasters on the room, and not more than two pounds, under any circumstances, on his daily meals of beans for breakfast, a plateful of vegetables with meat, a plateful of rice and a loaf of bread for dinner, and Tahania sweets or cheese for supper. In emergencies, he could even forgo his supper, as he and his family often did during the past two years. Whatever his circumstances, he would never allow his stomach to give him trouble or play havoc with his budget. He should rise above such mundane matters. Now, immune from Hassanein’s opposition, he could resolve this question. This austerity was not only tolerable but more satisfying than gluttony. He would also give two pounds to his mother. He was well aware that this was far too little and wished he could give her double the sum. But he could not help it, for after deducting the taxes due, only one pound and fifty piasters would remain of his salary to meet incidental and clothing expenses. Bewildered, he thought of saving up even a tiny sum. To him, life was unbearable without economizing, no matter how little. Reared by a mother such as his, he could not possibly conceive of living without economizing. In fact, in political terms, his mother’s position was analogous to that of Germany in relation to the other countries, in her ability to turn even garbage into grist for her mill. She would patch trousers; then despairing of patching them any more, she would turn them. Despairing again of turning, she would cut them up and use one part of the cloth as a skullcap and the rest as a cleaning cloth. Any remaining cloth was thrown away only when it was reduced to frayed tatters. And so he felt the need to economize. The cruelty of life, assaulting his family mercilessly, made these thoughts a sort of creed. At this stage of his thinking, he became prey to the same poverty-generated fears that had hounded his family. Since occasions for extra expenses were innumerable, they always dreaded that they might exceed the limits of their income if one of them fell ill, or the school authorities asked them to pay fees for one reason or another, or if Nefisa should stop earning money for a period of time; the list of potential disasters was endless. In these ruminations, he experienced a gnawing pain, as he remembered his mother’s dry face with its bulging veins, an incarnation of patience and sorrow. Miserable and ugly though it was, hers was of all faces the dearest to his heart. Curiously enough, now that he was conscious of his ability to relieve his mother’s burden, he felt a breeze blowing upon him. As of tomorrow he would be a government employee. Sooner or later Hassanein, too, would become an employee of higher rank. All his life he would say with pride that he had been content with an intermediate certificate to help his brother obtain a higher one. Would Hassanein remember this sacrifice? Hassanein seemed to be self-engrossed, though undoubtedly intelligent and industrious. But he…! Away from home, Hussein felt he should not be critical of his brother. How great was his longing to see Hassanein! And how much greater was his longing to engage in argument with him.
The whistle of a train shattered the prevailing silence and interrupted his thoughts. His heart quivered. The hotel was not far from the railroad station, so every now and then the bustle of the trains was bound to remind him of Cairo and its people. Memories of the last farewells returned to him, and his aching heart overflowed with an intense yearning to see his family. A cloud of loneliness and melancholy darkened his heart.
Perhaps this is the price I have to pay for my first day of separation. However, gradually I shall get accustomed to it, he consoled himself. He was at a loss as to what to do. Should he spend most of the day in this room, or should he go out and have a look around this new town? The idea of writing a letter to his brother rescued him from these conflicting thoughts. He began writing, describing his journey, the hotel, Kustandi its owner, his room, and his longing for the family. He sent his regards to his mother and Nefisa. Then he paused, wondering whether it was good form to send his regards to Bahia, too. Here he felt uncertain. Should he mention her by name or refer to her as his brother’s fiancée, or should he be content to send his general greetings to Farid Effendi’s family. Finally, after much hesitation, he chose the latter course.
FIFTY
He left his room early in the morning. But he found Al Khawaga, the foreigner, Michel Kustandi, sitting at his old desk at the bottom of the staircase. The hotel owner asked him if he kept anything valuable in his room. Hussein smilingly said, “I keep my valuables in my pocket.” Then he hurried out into the street and went to a restaurant that served beans, which he had discovered the day before at the farthest end of town. As he ate his breakfast, his attention was particularly drawn by a salad of roasted peas, the likes of which did not exist in Cairo.
He continued to walk around town until nine o’clock, when he went to the secondary school to introduce himself to the chief clerk and begin his official assignment. The sight of the school filled him with agitation, and recent memories returned to him as if in a dream.
Once Hussein had introduced himself at the gate, the porter accompanied him to the chief clerk’s office, asking him to wait until the official arrived. Sitting in a chair close to the desk, Hussein looked through the open door at the school playground, enveloped in heavy silence. In a week the scholastic year would start, and the school would be teeming with life. He remembered how only a few months earlier he had been spending his happiest hours at school in a similar playground, and how the sight of any of the school employees had filled his heart with awe. Now he had become one of these employees. Yet he did not surrender to conceit. As a schoolboy, he might have dreamt of becoming a counselor or a minister, but appointed to the government service, he would not be more than an eighth-grade employee. Before long, his ears were struck by a rough cough and a deep clearing of the throat, followed by a vehement expectoration. Immediately he saw a short man with a delicate body, round-faced and bleary-eyed, his bald head shining as he swept hurriedly into the room. Seizing his tarbush with one hand, he used the other to dry his bald head with a handkerchief. No sooner did he see the young man than he shouted at him, “How, in the name of God, the Benevolent and Merciful, did you get here? Did you spend last night in my room? Are you a new pupil?”
Hussein stood up, embarrassed. “Sir, I’m the new clerk, Hussein Kamel Ali,” he said.
The man burst out laughing. But soon the cough and the throat clearing returned. His mouth filled again with spittle. Looking around in perplexity, he rushed out of the room and was absent for half a minute, then returne
d, his condition improved.
“Damn this cold,” he said apologetically. “I catch cold at the beginning of every season of the year. Thus you find me always torn between the seasons of the year and the seasons of the school. Excuse me, Hussein Effendi. I should have greeted you first. Peace be upon thee.”
Smiling, Hussein extended his hand, greeting him more warmly. Sitting at his desk, the man asked him to have a seat. Hussein complied.
“My name is Hassan Hassan Hassan,” the chief clerk began. “It is the custom in our family for the father to call his elder son by his own name. Haven’t you heard of the Hassan family in Beheira province? You haven’t? It doesn’t matter. These curs of pupils call me Hassan cubed—see? Hassan3!”
Hussein laughed heartily. The man stared at him critically with bleary eyes.
“Why are you laughing?” he said. “Haven’t you got rid of your schoolboy mentality? By the way, I should like to tell you something about myself. Though I’m a very nervous man, I’m very good-hearted. Many a time, without meaning any harm and being fully respectful, I curse people, no matter how high their position may be. Please understand me and don’t forget I’m as old as your father!”
Hussein was very confused.
“By God’s will, nothing will happen between us to make you angry.”