he had imagined about him. Fahmy was still hoping and praying he
would eventually learn that the entertainer had merely wanted to
meet his father for some reason or other connected with her contract
to perform at Aisha's wedding.
Then Khalil Shawkat came and laughingly told them that Jalila had
been "teasing" their father and had "treated him affectionately, like a
good friend."
With that, Yasin could no longer bear to keep his secret. The
intoxication of the wine encouraged him to reveal his information.
He waited until Khalil left. Then he leaned close to his brother's ear
and, trying not to laugh, told him, "I've kept some things from you
that I was uneasy about disclosing at the time. Now that you've seen
what you have and heard what you have, I'll tell you." He started
narrating to his brother what he had heard and seen in the home of
the performer Zubayda.
As Yasin told the story with all its details, Fahmy kept interrupting
him in bewilderment with, "Don't say that," or "Have you lost'your
senses?" and "How do you expect me to believe you?" Because of
Fahmy's strong faith and idealism, he was not prepared to understand,
let alone digest, his father's secret life, which was revealed to
him for the first time, especially since his father was one of the pillars
of Fahmy's creed and one of the buttresses of his idealism. There
may have been some similarity between his feelings when he was
first experiencing these revelations and those of a child, if imagination
is to be trusted, when he leaves the stability of the womb for the
chaos of the world. He could not have been more incredulous or
panic-stricken if he had been told that the mosque of Qala'un had
been turned upside down, with its minaret below the building and
the tomb on top, or that the Egyptian nationalist leader Muhammad
Farid had betrayed the cause of his mentor and predecessor Mustafa
Kamil and sold himself to the English.
"My father goes to Zubayda's house to drink, sing, and play the
tambourine My father allows Jalila to tease him and be affection
ate
with him My father gets drunk and commits adultery. How
could all this be true? Then he wouldn't be the father he knew at
home, a man of exemplary piety and resolve. Which was correct? I
can almost hear him now reciting, 'God is most great.... God is
most great.' So how is he at reciting songs? A life of deception and
hypocrisy?... But he's sincere. Sincere when he raises his head in
prayer. Sincere when he's angry. Is my father depraved or is licentiousness
a virtue?"
"Astonished?... I was too when Zanuba mentioned his name, but
I quickly got over it and I asked her what's wrong with it?... A sin?
Men are all like this or ought to be."
"This statement is entirely appropriate for Yasin. Yasin's one thing
and my father's something else. Yasin!... What about Yasin? How
can I repeat this now, when my father, my father himself doesn't
differ at all from Yasin except in having sunk lower.... But no, it's
not depravity.... There must be something I don't know.... My
father hasn't done anything wrong.... He can't do anything wrong.
He's above suspicion. In any case, he doesn't merit contempt."
"Still bewildered?"
"I can't imagine that anything you've said could have happened."
"Why?... Laugh and enjoy the world. He sings. So what's wrong about singing? He gets drunk, and believe me, drinking is even better
than eating. He has affairs and so did the Muslim caliphs. Read about
it in the ancient poems contained in Abu Tammam's anthology l'wan
al-Hamasa or see its marginal glosses. Our father isn't doing anything
sinful. Shout with me, 'Long live al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad!
Long live our father!' H1 leave you for a moment while I visit the
bottle 1 hid under a chair for just such an occasion."
On the return of the entertainer to her troupe, the news of her
meeting with al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad spread through the
women's quarters. It passed from mouth to mouth until it reached
the mother as well as Khadija and Aisha. Although his family was
hearing something like this about him for the first time, many of the
ladies whose husbands were friends of al-Sayyid Ahmad were hardly
2 7
Naguil, Ma,fou
surprised by the news and smilingly winked as if to say they knew
more than was being said. But none of them let herself be tempted
to plunge into the topic. To bring it up publicly in front of his daughters
would not have seemed appropriate to them. Courtesy dictated
remaining silent about it in the presence of Amina and her two
daughters. Widow Shawkat did jokingly tell Amina, "Watch out,
Madam Amina. It seems Jalila's eye has strayed to al-Sayyid Ahmad."
Amina smiled and pretended not to be concerned but blushed with
shame and confusion. For the first time she had tangible evidence for
the doubts she had entertained long ago. Although she had trained
herself to be patient and submissive about what happened to her, her
collision with this tangible evidence had cut her to the quick. She felt
a torment she had never experienced before. Her pride had also taken
a beating.
A woman who wished to add a flattering comment appropriate for
the mother of the bride said, "Anyone with a face as beautiful as Mrs.
Amina's doesn't have to worry about her husband's eyes straying to
another woman."
Amina was deeply moved by the praise, and her vivacious smile
returned. In any case, it provided her some consolation for the silent
pain she was suffering. Yet when Jalila began a new song, filling
their ears with her voice, Amina suddenly became angry and felt for
a few seconds she was about to lose control of herself. She quickly
suppressed her anger with all the force of a woman who did not
acknowledge that she had a right to get angry. Meanwile Khadija and
Aisha received the news with astonishment and exchanged an anxious
glance. Their eyes were asking what it was all about. Their astonishment
was not coupled with panic like Fahmy's nor with pain like
their mother's. Perhaps they understood that for a woman like Jalila
to leave her troupe and take the trouble of going down to where their
father was sitting to greet him and talk to him was something to be
proud of. Khadija felt a natural desire to look at her mother's face.
She stole a glance at her. Although Mrs. Amina was smiling, her
daughter grasped right away the pain and uneasiness she was enduring,
which were robbing her of her peace of mind. Khadija felt upset
and became angry at the entertainer, Widow Shawkat, and the gathering
as a whole.
When it was time for the wedding procession, everyone forgot his
personal concerns. No matter how many weeks and months passed,
the picture of Aisha in her wedding gown would not leave their
minds.
PALACE WALK
27.3
Ai-Ghuriya was dark and quiet when the family left the bride's
new home to return to al-Nahhasin. AI-Sayyid Ahmad walked alone
in front followed a few meters back by Fahmy and Yasin. The latter
was exhausting himself by trying to act sober and walk straight, for
fear his giddiness would reveal he had drunk too much. At the rear
came Amina, Khadija, Kamal, and Umm Hanafi. Kamal had joined
the caravan against his will. If his father had not been there to lead
them, Kamal would have found some way to free himself from his
mother's hand and run back to where they had left Aisha. He was
looking behind him at Bah al-Mutawalli from one step to the next to
bid farewell sadly and regretfully to the last trace of the wedding,
that shining lamp a worker on a ladder was removing from its hook
over the entrance to Sugar Street. Kamal was heartbroken to see that
his family had relinquished the person he loved best after his mother.
He looked up at his mother and whispered, "When will Aisha come
back to us?"
She whispered, "Don't say that again. Pray for her to be happy.
She'll visit us frequently and we'll call on her a lot."
He whispered to her resentfully, "You've tricked me!"
She motioned toward al-Sayyid Ahmad up in front, who had almost
been swallowed up by the darkness. She pursed her lips to
whisper, "Hush."
But Kamal was preoecupied with recalling images of things he had
happened to see during the wedding. He thought them extraordinarily
odd, and they made him uneasy. He pulled his mother's hand his
way to separate her from Khadiia and Umm Hanafi. Then, pointing
back, he whispered to her, "Do you know what's going on there?"
"What do you mean?"
"I peeked through a hole in the door."
The mother felt distressed and alarmed, because she could guess
which door he meant, but refusing to trust her intuition, she asked,
"What door?"
"The door of the bride's room!"
The woman said with alarm, "It's disgraceful for a person to look
through holes in doors."
He immediately whispered back, "What I saw was even more disgraceful."
"Be
quiet."
"I saw Aisha and Mr. Khalil sitting on the chaise longue... and
he was..."
She hit him hard on his shoulder to niake him stop. She whispered
Naguib Mahfour
in his ear, "Don't say shameful things. If your father heard you, he'd
kill you."
He persisted and told her, as though revealing something to her
she could not possibly have imagined, "He was holding her chin in
his hand and kissing her."
She hit him again, harder than she ever had before. He realized
that he had certainly done something wrong without knowing it. He
fell silent and was afraid. When they were crossing the courtyard off
their house, straggling behind the other except for Umm Hanafi,
who had waited behind to bolt the door, lock it, and latch it, Kamal's
anxiety and curiosity overcame his silence and fear. He asked pleadingly,
"Why was he kissing her, Mother?"
She told him firmly, "If you start that again, I'll tell your father."
Yasin was quite intoxicated when he retired to the bedroom. Since
Kamal had fallen sound asleep the moment his head touched the
pillow, Yasin was alone with Fahmy. Free at last from parental supervision,
he felt in the mood for a noisy row as a release from the
nervous strain he had been under all evening, especially on the way
home when he had struggled to control himself and act right. Since
the room was too cramped for rowdiness, he felt like relieving his
tensions by talking. He looked at Fahmy, who was getting undressed,
and said sarcastically, "Compared with our brilliant father, we're failures.
He's truly some man."
Although this statement revived Fahmy's pain and anxiety, he was
content to answer with a bitter smile, "You've been blessed too.
What an excellent son!"
"Are you sad our father's one of the great skirt chasers?"
"I wish there had been no change in the ideal picture I've had in
my soul."
Rubbing his hands merrily, Yasin said, "The real picture is even
more splendid and delightful. He's more than a father. He's the ultimate.
Oh, if you had only seen him grasping the tambourine, with a
glass shining in front of him. Bravo... bravo, al-Sayyid Ahmad!"
Fahmy asked uneasily, "What about his prudence and piety?"
Yasin frowned in order to concentrate on the question, but he
found it easier to merge opposites than to reconcile them. Motivated
by nothing but admiration, he replied, "There's absolutely no problem
there at all. Your cowardly intellect's just creating the problem
from nothing. My father's prudent, a Muslim, and loves women. It's
as simple and dear as one plus one equals two. Perhaps I'm the one
who most.resembles him, because I'm a Muslim believer and love
women, although |'m not too prudent. You yourself are a believer,
prudent, and love women, but you base your acts on faith and prudence
while shying away from the third alternative: women." He
laughed. "It's the third that lasts."
Yasin's final statement was only remotely linked to his admiration
for his father that had started him rattling on and was only superfi
Naguib Mahfou
cially in defense of him. It was really an expression of a burning
feeling Yasin's intoxication had aroused. Once the guardians he respected
were out of the way, he experienced a raging lust incited by
an imagination charged with alcohol. His body felt a mad craving for
love, and his willpower was unable to bridle it or coax it away. But
where could he find what he wanted? Did he have enough time?
Zanuba?... What was keeping him from her? It wasn't far. It
wouldn't take long to make love with her. Then he could come home
and sleep deeply and calmly. He was delighted by these visions and
seemed not to have a brain to make him think twice. He was in a
rush to bring them to pass with no further delay. He quickly told his
brother, "It's hot. I'm going up to the roof to enjoy the moist night
air."
He left the room for the outer hall and groped his way down the
steps in total darkness, being extremely careful not to make a sound.
How could he get in touch with Zanuba at this hour of the night?
Should he knock on the door? Who would open it? What could he
say when the person asked him what he wanted? What if no one
woke up to answer the door? What if the night watchman, with his
knack for arriving at the wrong time, should catch him? These
thoughts floated on the surface of his brain like bubbles and then
were carried off by the swift current of the wine. They did not seem
obstacles with consequences to be taken seriously. They were little
iokes to make him smile during this lonely adventure. His imagination
flew past them to Zanuba's room overlooking the intersection of
al-Ghuriya and al-Sanadiqiya streets.
He pictured her in a diaphanous white nightgown that curved obediently
around her breasts and buttocks, with the bottom pulled up
to reveal rosy legs with gold bangles. He went wild and would have
leapt down the steps had it not been so dark. In the courtyard it was
brighter because of the faint light from the stars. After the total darkness
of the stairway it appeared almost light. When he had taken two
steps toward the outer door at the end of the courtyard, he noticed a
feeble glow, which came from a lamp sitting on a meat block in front
of the oven room. He looked at it in surprise until he spotted nearby
a body flung down on the ground, illuminated by its light. He recognized
Umm Hanafi, who had evidently chosen to sleep out in the
open to escape the stifling atmosphere of the oven room. He started
to continue on his way, but something made him stop. He turned his
head once more toward the sleeping woman no more than a few
meters away, whom he could see with unexpected clarity from where
I'ALACE WALK
he stood. He saw her stretched out on her back. Her right leg was
bent, creating a pyramid in the air with the edge of her dress, which
clung to her knee. At the same time, the bare skin of a section of her
left thigh near the knee was revealed. The opening that was formed
where her dress stretched between her raised knee and the other leg,
extended on the ground, was drowned in darkness.
Although Yasin's feeling of being pressed for time and in a rush
to get what he wanted had not diminished, he kept looking at the
supine body, apparently unable to tear his eyes away. He was unwittingly
drawn into observing it with an interest evident in the alertness
of his bloodshot eyes and the way his full lips spread open. As
he examined the fleshy form, which occupied as much space as a
plump female water buffalo, the alertness of his eyes turned into
unnerving desire. They came to rest on the dark opening between
the raised leg and the extended one. There was a change of course
for the current raging through his veins, and its momentum directed
him toward the oven room. He seemed to have discovered for the
first time the woman with whom he had rubbed shoulders for years.
Umm Hanafi had not been favored with a single attribute of
beauty. Her gloomy face made her look older than her forty years.
Even her treasure of flesh and fat, because it lacked proportion or
harmony, seemed a bloated swelling. Perhaps also because she was
hidden away in the oven room so much of the time and because he
had lived with her since he was a boy, he had never paid any attention
to her.
Yasin was in such turmoil that he was unable to reason clearly.
He was blinded by lust. What kind of lust was it? A lust kindled by
a woman simply because she was a woman, not because of any of
her qualities or associations. It was a lust that loved beauty but would
not turn away from ugliness. In these crises, everything was equivalent.
He was like a dog that eagerly devours whatever scraps it finds.
At this juncture, Yasin's first choice for an escapade--Zanuha--
seemed surrounded by obstacles with unknown consequences. He no
longer considered going to her at this hour of the night, knocking on
the door, thinking of something to say when the door was opened,
and avoiding the night watchman to be laughing matters. They were
real impediments and enough to cause him to shy away from her.
With his mouth hanging open, he advanced gently and cautiously.
He was oblivious to everything except the mountain of flesh spread
at his feet. To his greedy eyes this body appeared to be preparing
itself to receive him. He hesitated before her legs. Then, almost un
7g
Naguib Mahfou
conscious of what he was doing, little by little he leaned down over
her, driven by urgent internal and external stimuli. Before he knew
it, he was sprawled out on top of her. He had perhaps not intended
to go this far all at once. Perhaps he had intended to indulge in some
of the foreplay that ought to precede the final violent motions, but
the body on top of which he was sprawled began to heave with
terror, and a resounding scream escaped, before his hand could stifle
it. The pervasive silence was shattered and his brain was dealt a blow
that brought him back to his senses. He put his hand over her mouth
as he whispered anxiously and fearfully in her ear, "It's me. Yasin.
It's Yasin, Umm Hanafi. Don't be afraid."
He kept repeating these words until he was certain she understood
who he was. Then he removed his hand, but the woman, who had
never stopped resisting, was finally able to push him off. She sat up
straight, panting from her exertion and emotion, and asked him in a
voice that was loud enough to alarm him, "What do you want, Mr.
Yasin?"
Whispering, he entreated her, "Don't raise your voice like that. I
told you not to be afraid. There's absolutely nothing to be afraid of."
Although she lowered her voice a little, she asked sternly, "What
brings you?"
He began to caress her hand affectionately and sighed with anxious
relief, since he saw in the lowering of her voice an encouraging sign.
He asked, "Why are you angry? I didn't mean to hurt you." Then
he said amiably, "Come into the oven room."
In a troubled but decisive manner, she replied, "Certainly not, sir.
Go to your room. Go. God's curse on Satan.... "
Umm Hanafi was not able to weigh her words carefully. They
escaped from her in reaction to the situation. Perhaps they did not
express her wishes so much as her surprise at a proposition that had
not been preceded by any hint but had pounced on her while she
slept like a predatory kite swooping down on a chicken. She rejected
the young man and scolded him without taking time to think whether
she wanted to.
He took her words the wrong way and was filled with resentment.
Ideas raged through his head. "What's to be done with this bitch? I
can't retreat after revealing my intentions and going far enough to
cause a scandal. [ must get what I want even if I have to resort to
force."
He thought quickly about the best way to overcome any resistance
she might display, but before he could reach a decision he heard an
PALACE WALK
2"9
unexpected sound, perhaps footsteps, coming from the door of the
stairway. He jumped to his feet, totally overcome by panic. He swallowed
his lust the way a thief swallows a stolen diamond when
caught unawares in his hideout. He turned toward the door anxiously
aod saw his father crossing the threshold, holding his arm out with
a lamp. Yasin stayed nailed to the spot, pale with fear, resigned,
stunned, and desperate. He realized at once that Umm Hanafi's
scream had not been in vain. The rear window of his father's room
had served as an observatory. But what use was hindsight? He had
fallen into a snare set by divine decree and destiny.
Trembling with rage, al-Sayyid Abroad began to examine Yasin's
face grimly and silently, dragging out the silence. Without taking his
pitiless eyes off Yasin, he pointed with his hand to the door, ordering
him inside. Although at that moment disappearing would have been
dearer to Yasin than even life itself, he was paralyzed by fear and
confusion. The father was outraged, and his scowl showed he was
about to explode. His eyes seemed to shoot off sparks as they reflected
the light of the lamp, which trembled as the hand holding it
shook. He rebuked him loudly, "Go upstairs, you criminal. You son
of a bitch."
Yasin became even more paralyzed. Then al-Sayyid Ahmad fell
upon him. He grabbed Yasin's right arm roughly and yanked him
toward the door. Yasin yielded to this extraordinary force and almost
fell on his face. Regaining his balance, he turned around in terror. He
fled for his life, leaping up the stairs, heedless of the darkness.
Besides his father and Umm Hanafi, two other people knew about
Yasin's scandal, Mrs. Amina and Fahmy. They had heard Umm Hanail's
scream and watched from their windows what transpired between
the young man and his father. They were able to guess what
had happened without too much thought.
AI-Sayyid Abroad mentioned his son's blunder to his wife and
asked her in some detail about Umm Hanafi's morals. Amina defended
her servant's character and integrity, reminding him that had
it not been for the woman's scream, no one would have been the
wiser. The man spent an hour cursing and swearing. He cursed Yasin
and cursed himself for fathering children who would destroy his
peace of mind with their evil passions. His anger boiled over, and he
damned his house and all the people in it.
Amina remained silent, as she did later, when she pretended to
know nothing about it. Fahmy also feigned ignorance of the subject.
He pretended to be sound asleep when his brother returned to the
room, out of breath after forfeiting the battle. Fahmy never gave any
indication that he knew about it. He respected his older brother and
would have hated for him to realize hd was aware of the shameful
depravity to which Yasin had stooped. Fahmy's respect for Yasin was
not shattered by this discovery of his reckless antics, by his own
superiority to Yasin in education and culture, or even by Yasin's
nonchalance about whether his brothers respected him. Yasin would
joke with them and let them tease him as though they were his
equals. Fahmy still respected him. Perhaps his desire to continue respecting
him could be attributed to Fahmy's own manners, seriousness,
and sense of dignity, which made him seem older than he was.
Khadija did not fail to observe the morning after the incident that
Yasin was not eating with his father. She asked incredulously why.
He claimed he had suffered indigestion at the wedding. The girl, by
nature acutely suspicious, felt there must be some reason other than
indigestion. She asked her mother about it, but did not receive a
convincing answer.
When Kamal returned from the dining room, he also asked. He
PALACE WALK
was not motivated by curiosity or regret but by the hope of good
news of a prolonged period during which the field would be empty
of a dangerous competitor for food like Yasin.
The matter might have been forgotten had Yasin not left the house
in the evening without participating in the customary coffee hour.
Although he apologized to Fahmy and their mother and claimed he
was tied up with an appointment, Khadija said bluntly, "There's
something going on. I'm no fool I'll cut my arm off if Yasin
hasn't changed."
The mother was forced to announce that al-Sayyid Ahmad was
angry at Yasin for some unknown reason, and the coffee hour was
devoted to their conjectures about the cause. Amina and Fahmy
guessed along with the others, in order to conceal the truth.
Yasin avoided eating with his father until he was summoned one
morning to meet him before breakfast. The invitation did not come
as a surprise and yet it alarmed him. He had expected it from day to
day. He was certain his father would not feel them had been an
adequate response to his offense. His father would return to the subject
by one avenue or another. Yasin expected to be treated in a
manner inappropriate for a gainfully employed person like himself.
At times he thought of leaving the house temporarily or for good. For his father, especially the father he had learned about in Zubayda's
house, to make such a catastrophe out of his blunder was not nice. It
was also not right for Yasin to expose himself to treatment incompatible
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