and more apt to blame her luck. Ultimately she made it the target
of her resentment and grumbling. Her luck had been too stingy to
make her beautiful. It had delayed her marriage until she was over
twenty and clouded her future with fears and anxiety.
Finally, like her mother, Khadija surrendered to the fates. Her fiery
side, inherited from her father, and the complex of characteristics
arising from her interaction with the environment were both unable
to deal with her fortune. She found peace of mind by relying on
Naguib Mahfou:
her tranquil side, which she had inherited from her mother. So she
yielded to her destiny. She resembled a commander who, unable to
achieve his objective, chooses a naturally fortified location for his
remaining forces to make a stand or asks for a truce or peace.
Khadija would express her grief when she performed her prayers
or was alone with God the Compassionate. Since childhood she had
imitated her mother's piety and observance of religious duties with
a persistence that showed an awakened spirituality. Aisha, on the
other hand, worshipped in isolated bouts of religious enthusiasm but
could not bear to keep it up for long. Khadija was often amazed
when she compared her fortune with that of her sister. Why did she
achieve such poor results with her religious devotion while Aisha
was richly rewarded for being slack.
"I perform my prayers regularly, but she can't do it for more than
two days in a row. I fast during the whole month of Ramadan, while
she fasts for a day or two and then just pretends. She slips secretly
into the pantry and fills her belly with nuts and dried fruit. When
the cannon is fired in the evening to mark the end of the daily fast,
she rushes to the table ahead of those who have been fasting."
Khadija would not even concede wholeheartedly that her sister
was more beautiful. Of course, she did not announce her opinion
to anyone and frequently chose to attack herself in order to prevent
others from being tempted to do so. But she would look at herself
in the mirror for long periods and tell herself, "No doubt Aisha is
beautiful, but she's skinny. Being plump is half of beauty. I'm plump.
The fullness of my face almost compensates for the size of my nose.
All I need is for my luck to improve." She had lost her self-confidence
during the recent crisis. Although in the past she had frequently
repeated to herself similar observations about beauty, plumpness, and
luck, now she made them to ward off her unnerving feeling of being
unsure of herself. In the same way, we resort at times to logic to
reassure ourselves about matters, like health or illness, happiness or
misery, and love or hate, that bear no relationship whatsoever to
logic.
In spite of her many chores as mother of the bride, Amina did
not forget Khadija. Her happiness for the bride reminded her of her
sorrow for her other daughter, just as the relief provided by an anesthetic
drug reminds us of the pain that will return eventually. Aisha's
wedding reawakened her old fears about Khadija. Searching for
reassurance without being too particular about the source, she sent
Umm Hanafi with one of Khadija's handkerchiefs to Shaykh Ra'uf
PALACE WALK
at al-Bab aloAkhdar for him to read her fortune. The woman returned
with good news. She related that the shaykh had told her, "You'll
be bringing me a kilo of sugar soon when my prediction comes true."
Although this was not the first augury of glad tidings for Khadija
the servant had brought, Amina hoped for the best. She welcomed
the news as a sedative to calm the anxiety that had been hounding
her.
"Isn't it time yet, bitch? I've melted away, Muslims. I've dissolved
like a bar of soap. Nothing's left but the suds. She knows this and
doesn't care to open the window. Go ahead, play the coquette, you
bitch. Didn't we agree on a date? But you're right to hold back...
one of your breasts could destroy Malta. The second would drive
Hindenburg out of his mind. You've got a treasure. May our Lord be
gracious to me. May our Lord be gracious to me and to every poor
rogue like me who can't sleep for thinking about swelling breasts,
plump buttocks, and eyes enhanced by kohl. Eyes come last, because
many a blind woman with a fleshy rump and full breasts is a thousand
times betterthan a skinny, fiat-chested woman with eyes decorated
with kohl. You're the performer's daughter and a neighbor of al
Tarbi'a Alley. The performer has taught you to flirt, and tl'ie alley
has supplied you with its secret beauty potions. If your breasts have
grown full and round, it's because so many lovers have fondled them.
We agreed on this date. I'm not dreaming. Open the window. Open
up, bitch. Open up. You're the most beautiful creature ever to arouse
my passion. Holding your lip between mine... sucking on your
nipple.... I'll wait until dawn. You'll find me very docile. If you
want me to be the rear end of a donkey cart that you rock back and
forth on, I'll do it. If you want me to be the ass pulling the cart, I'll
do that. What a mishap, Yasin! Your life is destroyed, you son of
Ahmad Abd aI-Jawad. How the Australians gloat at your fate. Woe
to me, expelled from the Ezbekiya entertainment district, a prisoner
in al-Gamaliya. It's all the fault of the war. Kaiser Wilhelm launched
it in Europe and I have become its victim here in al-Nahhasin. Open
the window, delight of your mother. Open up, my delight.... "
This was the way Yasin had begun talking to himself as he sat on
a bench in the coffee shop of al-Sayyid All. His eyes were gazing at
the house of the performer Zubayda through the small window overlooking
al-Ghuriya. The more anxious he became, the more he sank
into his dreams and musings, which soothed his anxiety but aroused
his desires, just as some sedatives deal with insomnia but tire the
heart. He had progressed a step forward in his courtship of the lute
PALACE WALK 2,45
player Zanuba. He had advanced from the preparatory stage--frequenting
the coffee shop of al-Sayyid All in the evening, watching
for her, walking behind her donkey cart, smiling, twisting his mustache,
and raising his eyebrows playfully--to the stage of negotiating
and getting down to business.
He had taken this step in al-Tarbi'a Alley, which was long and
narrow with a canvas roof. There were small stores clustered on
either side like the cells of a beehive. He was certainly not unfamiliar
with al-Tarbi'a, a bazaar frequented by women f all classes. They
thronged there to purchase something that was light to carry and had
much to offer. They were shopping for various types of perfume
useful in promoting delight and beauty. He headed for this market
whenever he had no other special destination. It was a favorite haunt
of his Friday mornings. Going from one end to the other, he would
walk along slowly, both because of the congestion and because he
wanted it that way. He pretended to examine the shops as though
wanting to select something. Actually, he was scrutinizing the faces,
visible when veils were momentarily lifted, and the outlines of bodies,
discernible where the ladies' wraps were drawn tight. He saw some
features in their entirety and Others only in part. He took in the
charming fragrances here and there as well as the voices that slipped
out from time to time or their whispering laughter. He usually kept
within the bounds of good manners because of the preponderance of
respectable women there. He was content to observe, compare, and
criticize. From what he saw he gathered extraordinary pictures with
which to decorate his mental museum. Nothing made him so happy
as to come upon a clearer complexion than he had ever seen before,
an unusual glance from an eye, a breast that was astonishingly round,
or buttocks unique in size or build. When he reviewed them later, he
would say, "The winner in today's competition for full breasts was
the lady standing in front of so-and-so's shop," or "Today's the day
of the rump surpassing size five," or "What a full bag, what a bag
... today's the day for splendid bags."
It was characteristic of him to devote all his attention to a woman's
body and neglect her personality. He also tended to concentrate on
individual parts of the body and ignore the way they fit together.
These investigations allowed him to keep his hopes alive, refreshing
them with possible opportunities he could set aside for today or tomorrow.
He seemed a man with no goal in the world that took precedence
over women. On rare occasions he succeeded in making a
good catch on these sexual excursions.
Naguib Matfou
Late one afternoon he was sitting beneath the small window in alSayyid
Ali's coffee shop when he saw the lute player leave the house
alone. Hq rose at once to follow her. She turned into al-Tarbi'a Alley,
and he turned too. When she stopped at a store, he stood beside her.
She had to wait while the proprietor of this perfume shop tended to
some other customers. So Yasin waited. She did not turn toward him.
From her attempt to pretend he was not there, he inferred she was
aware of his presence. She must also have guessed from the outset
that he was following her. He whispered into her ear, "Good evening."
She
continued to look straight ahead of her, but he noticed her
mouth move slightly in a smile of greeting or at least of recognition
for all the time he had spent following her, evening after evening.
He sighed with relief and victory, confident now that he would pluck
this fruit he had patiently pursued. Lust surged inside him, the way
a ravenously hungry man's mouth waters when his nose smells meat
being broiled for him.
He thought the best thing would be to pretend they had come
together. So he paid for her purchases of henna and tonic with the
good humor of a man who believes he will acquire an enjoyable and
entertaining right by rendering this small service. He did not mind
when she seemed inclined to purchase several more things once she
was sure he was paying. As they returned, he told her, with the haste
of a person who fears the end of the road is in sight, "Beautiful and
lovely lady, I have spent my whole life following after you, as you
have seen. Can't a lover aspire to be rewarded with at least a meeting?"
She
cast him a mischievous glance and asked sarcastically, "At least
a meeting?"
He was almost consumed by laughter, body and soul, the way he
usually was when intoxicated by joy, but he quickly shut his mouth
tight to keep from causing a commotion that would attract attention.
He answered her with a whisper, "A rendezvous and everything that
goes with it."
She observed critically, "Each of you asks for a rendezvous, as
though there were nothing to it, but it's an important matter that
does not take place for some people until after a proposal, negotiation,
recitation of the opening prayer of the Quran, a dowry, a trousseau,
and the arrival of a religious official to write the contract. Isn't
that so, sir... you, the gentleman who's as tall and broad as a
camel?"
PALACE WALK 24)"
He blushed in confusion and said, "No matter how harsh your
rebuke, coming from your lips it's like honey. Hasn't passion always
been like this, beautiful lady, since God created the earth and the
people on it?"
She raised her eyebrows until they were level with the top of the
cylinder connecting her veil to her scarf and resembled the spreading
wings of a bee. "My camel, how would I know about passion?" she
asked. "I'm just a musician. Do you suppose passion has things that
go with it too?"
Trying not to laugh, he replied, "They're the same things that go
along with a rendezvous."
"No more and no less?"
"No more and no less."
"Not one more than another?"
"Not more of one thing than another." "Perhaps that's what they call illicit sex."
"One and the same thing."
A laugh escaped from her. She said, "You've got a deal... wait
in the coffee shop of al-Sayyid All, where you've spent all these
evenings. When I open the window, come to the house."
He waited evening after evening after evening. One evening she
went in the cart with the troupe. Another evening she went in a
carriage with the chanteuse. Still another evening there was no sign
of life in the house. Here he was waiting. His head was worn out
from looking up at her window for so long. It was past midnight, the
shops were closed, the road was deserted, and al-Ghuriya was enveloped
in darkness. He found, as he often did, that the darkness and
emptiness of the street acted as a strange stimulus for the desire latent
in his body. He became more and more agitated.
Yet everything has an end, even waiting that seems endless. He
made out a rattling noise coming from the direction of the window,
which was lost in the darkness. This breathed a spirit of new hope
into his senses just as the drone of an airplane inspires a person lost
at the North Pole with hope that people are arriving to search for
him in the snow. Light could be seen coming from the opening of
the window. Then the musician's silhouette was visible at the center
of the opening.
He got up at once and left the coffee shop to cross the street to
the performer's house. He pushed against the door without knocking.
It swung open as though it had been left unlatched on purpose. He
made his way inside, where it was too dark for him to find the stair
Naguib Mahfou
case. He stayed put in order not to hump into something or trip. A
question that made him a little nervous leapt into his head. Did the
performer know that Zanuba had invited him? Did she allow the girl
to meet her lovers in this house? But he dismissed the thought disdainfully.
No obstacle was going to make him abandon this adventure.
In any case, there was no need to worry about the consequences
of a lover's being caught in a house that depended for its very existence
on lovers.
He cut short these reflections when he saw a pale light coming
from upstairs. Then he noticed it slowly advancing down the walls.
He could make out that he was an arm's length from the bottom step
of the staircase. It was not long before he saw Zanuba approaching
with a lamp in her hand. He went to her, drunk with desire. He pressed her forearm affectionately with gratitude and lust. She
laughed softly. Despite the softness of her laugh, it showed she was
not trying to be cautious. She asked mischievously, "Did you have
to wait long?"
He touched the hair at his temples and complained, "My hair
turned gray while I waited, may God forgive you." Then he whispered, "Is the lady here?"
She iestingly imitated his whisper: "Yes... she's alone with a
fantastic man."
"Won't she be angry if she learns I've come at this hour?"
She turned around, shrugging her shoulders in disdain. She started
up the stairs saying, "Is there a more appropriate hour for a lover
like you to come?"
"So she won't see anything wrong with our meeting in her house?"
With a dancing motion of her head, she replied, "Perhaps she
would think it very wrong if we didn't meet."
"Long live the lady!"
She resumed speaking, proudly this time, "I'm not just her lute
player. I'm her sister's daughter. She's not stingy with me You
can enter in peace."
When they reached the foyer upstairs they could hear some delightful
singing accompanied by lute and tambourine. Yasin listened
a little and then asked, "Are they alone or is it a party?"
She whispered in his ear, "Alone and a party both. The sultana's
lover is a good-humored man who loves music. He wouldn't bear for
even an hour of his soiree to pass without lute, tambourine, wine,
laughter... and you know what else."
PALACE WALK
She turned to open a door and entered, setting the lamp on a table
bracketed to the wail. She stood in front of the mirror to examine her
reflection carefully. Yasin forgot about Zubayda and her musical
lover. He riveted his greedy eyes on Zanuba's desirable body, which
he was seeing for the first time stripped of the wrap. He fixed his
eyes on her with force and concentration and moved them deliberately
and delightedly from top to bottom and from bottom to top.
Before he could act on any of the tens of wishes racing through his
breast, Zanuba remarked, as though continuing the same conversation,
"He's a man with no equal in his graciousness or sensitivity to
music. As for his generosity, we could talk about that from today till
tomorrow... that's what lovers should be like... otherwise..."
He did not miss the implications of her reference to the generosity
of the performer's lover. He had accepted from the start that his new
romance would cost him dearly, hut her reference to it seemed in
poor taste and offended him. Motivated by an instinct of self-defense,
he found himself forced to say, "Perhaps he's a rich man."
Responding to his maneuver, she said, "Wealth is one thing, generosity
is another. Many a wealthy man is stingy."
He inquired, not because he wanted to know but merely to avoid
silence, which he was afraid would seem to express disapproval,
"Who do you suppose this generous man is?"
Turning the knob to raise the wick on the lamp, she answered,
"He's from our district. You must have heard of him... al-Sayyid
Abroad Abd al-Jawad."
"Who!"
She turned toward him in astonishment to see what had frightened
him. She found him in a rigid pose with his eyes bulging out. She
asked him disapprovingly, "What's the matter with you?"
The name she had spoken had come upon him like a hammer
falling violently on top of his head. The question had escaped from
him unintentionally in a scream of alarm. For some moments he was
bewildered and oblivious to his surroundings. When he saw Zanuba's
face again and its expression of astonishment and disapproval, he was
afraid he would give himself away. He exerted his willpower to defend
himself. To conceal his alarm, he resorted to some playacting.
He clapped his hands together, as though he could not believe what
had been said about the man, because he thought he was so respectable.
He muttered incredulously, "AI-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad!
... With a store in al-Nahhasin?"
Naguib Mahfou
She gave him a bitterly critical look for alarming her for no reason.
She asked him scornfully, "Yes, him So what made you cry out
for help like a virgin being deflowered?"
He laughed in a perfunctory way. Praising God secretly that he
had not told her his full name the day they met, he replied with mock
astonishment, "Who would believe this of such a pious, respectable iTlan?'
She looked at him with skepticism before asking him sarcastically,
"Is this what really alarmed you?... Nothing but that? Did you think
he was a sinless saint?... What's wrong with his doing this? Can a
man attain perfection without having an affair?"
He said apologetically, "You're right... there's nothing in this
world worth being astonished at." He laughed nervously and continued:
"Imagine this dignified gentleman flirting with the sultana,
drinking wine and swaying to the music.... "
In her same sarcastic tone she said, as though to continue his statement,
"And playing the tambourine better than a professional like
Ayusha and telling one gem of a joke after another until everyone
with him is dying of laughter. It's not surprising, given all of this,
that in his store he's seen to be a fine example of sobriety and earnestness.
You should be serious about serious things and playful
when you play. There's an hour for your Lord and an hour for your
heart."
He plays the tambourine better than a professional like Ayusha.
... He tells iokes that make his companions die from laughter....
Who could this man be? His father?... AI-Sayyid Ahmad Abd
Jawad? That stern, tyrannical, terrifying, God-fearing, reserved man
who kills everyone around him with fright?
How could he believe what his ears had heard? How, how?...
There must be some confusion between two men with similar Wames.
There could be no relationship between his father and this tambourine-playing
lover. But Zanuba had agreed he owned a store in al
There was only one store in al-Nahhasin that bore this
Nahhasin.
name and it was his father's. Lord, was what he had heard true or
was he raving? He wanted dearly to learn the truth for himself, to
see it with his own eyes. That desire gained control of him. This
investigation appeared to him the most important thing in life. He
was unable to combat the desire. He smiled to the girl and shook his
head sagely as though to say, "What days we live in. Each more
amazing than the last." Then he asked her, as if motivated by nothing
PALACE WALK
but curiosity, "Isn't there some way I could see him without being
seen?"
She objected, "You're strange! What need is there to spy?"
He entreated her: "It's a sight worth seeing. Don't deprive me of
it."
She laughed contemptuously and commented, "You've got the
brains of a child in the body of a camel. Isn't that so, my camel? But
death to anyone who disappoints one of your requests.... Hide in
the foyer while I take them a dish of fruit. I'll leave the door open
till I come back."
She left the room and he trailed after her with a pounding heart.
He hid in a dark corner of the hall while the lute player continued
on her way to the kitchen. She soon returned with a dish of grapes.
She went to the door from which the singing came and knocked. She
waited a moment and then went in, leaving the door open. There he
saw a divan at the end of the room. Zubayda sat in the middle of it
cradling a lute. She accompanied herself as she sang, "O Muslims, O
People of God."
Sitting next to her was his father, not someone else. When he saw
him, his heart pounded harder. His father had removed his cloak and
rolled up his sleeves. He was shaking the tambourine and gazing at
the performer with a face brimming with joy and happiness. The door
was open only so long as Zanuba was in the room, one or two
minutes, but during that time he witnessed an amazing sight: a secret
life, a long story with many ramifications. He awoke like a person
emerging from a long, deep sleep to the convulsions of a violent
earthquake. In those two minutes he saw a whole life summed up by
one image, like a brief scene in a dream that brings together diverse
events that would take years in the real world. He saw his father the
way he truly was--his father, not some other man, but not as he was
accustomed to seeing him. Never before had he seen him without his
cloak, at a relaxed, spontaneous party. He had never seen him with
his black hair sticking up as though he had been running around
bareheaded. He had never seen his naked leg as it appeared at the
edge of the divan, sticking out from his gown, which had been pulled
up. He had never seen, by God, the tambourine in his hands as he
shook it with a dancing rhythm gracefully interspersed with taps on
the skin. Perhaps most amazing of all, he had never before seen his
face smile. It was glistening with such affection and goodwill that
Yasin was stunned, just as Kamal had been when he saw their father
o
Nagui Mfout
laughing in front of his store, the day he went to see him driven by
his desire to get his mother released.
Yasin saw all of this in two minutes. Once Zanuba had closed the
door and gone to her room he remained where he was, listening to
the singing and the jingling of the tambourine with a spinning head.
It was the same sound he had heard when he entered the building,
but how differently it affected his soul, what new images and ideas it
brought to his mind now.... When a child who has not started
school yet hears a school bell ring, he smiles, but once he is a pupil
it sounds like a warning of the many hardships ahead.
Zanuba rapped on the door of her room to summon him. He awoke
from his daze and went to her. He was trying to gain control of
himself so he would not appear disturbed or stunned when she saw
him. He entered with a broad smile on his face.
"Did you see something to make you forget yourself.."
He replied in a contented and relieved tone, "It was a rare sight,
and the singing was excellent."
"Would you like us to do what they're doing?"
"On our first night?... Certainly not I wouldn't want to mix
anything else with you, not even singing."
At first he had been forcing himself to talk so he would appear to
her, and to himself, to be calm and natural. He got caught up in what
he was saying and no longer needed to pretend. He found he had
returned to normal faster than he would have imagined. Similarly, a
person who pretends to cry at a funeral may end up weeping profusely.
Even so, Yasin was suddenly.struck with astonishment and
told himself, "What an amazing situation! It would never have occurred
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