Khan Al-Khalili (22 page)

“The time for deceit is long past,” he told himself in a muted, sad voice, as though addressing someone else. “There’s no escaping the bitter truth. You’re an unlucky man. In fact, that’s by no means all that’s involved. You’re actually someone set up by fate to be the target for arrows of frustration and failure. You’ve been assigned to a foul and devilish power, one that makes sure that every good opportunity or happy chance that comes your way is removed. You imagine that the only thing separating you from hope is a single word that needs to be said or a hand
to be extended. But no sooner do you extend your apron to catch the fruit off the tree than some bird of ill omen comes down, grabs it in its claws, and flies away with it. No sooner do you reach the top of a pyramid in your endeavors than the entire thing collapses and you find yourself in a deep pit. Your horizons glow with the flares of false hopes; your position on the earth is dark and gloomy. Does there exist in this world any other man who is beset by such stubborn ill fortune?

“As people go about their daily lives with smiling faces, they all have the benefits of good health, a nice family life, a satisfactory station in life, and enough money. But what about you? You don’t have a single one of them! Early on it was your father’s fall from grace that first broke your back, then your genuine affection for your younger brother shattered all your aspirations, and finally the entire boorish environment in which you were living crippled your undoubted intellectual gifts. What dreams remain in this rotten world of yours? By now youth is long gone. All it managed to produce was a beautiful memory seeking shade from the midday heat of time’s inexorable march. And now here comes middle age, poking you in the ribs as you relentlessly broach the ranks of the elderly. How on earth can you stand this foul existence? Any man can divorce his loyal wife if he finds out that she’s barren. So how can you stand a world that is not merely barren but that only brings you pain and grief? Why do you exist at all? Is there no end to this ongoing torture and stultifying boredom? Beyond all that, what use has your mind ever been to you? All that knowledge you have?

“In the name of all these pains put together,” he told
himself, “I hereby swear that I intend to close books forever and burn this pesky library. It’s a much better idea to become addicted to some drug that will dull the brain enough for an even more powerful stupor to take over. Life is one extended tragedy, and this world is merely a tedious drama. The amazing part of it all is that the actual plot is really disturbing and yet the actors are all clowns. The entire purpose is to make people feel sad—not because it is intrinsically distressing—but because it is supposed to be very serious. What it produces is the ultimate in farce. Since we find ourselves unable most of the time to laugh at our own failures, we end up in tears, and our tears only succeed in deceiving us about the truth. We imagine that the plot involves tragedy, whereas in fact it’s one gigantic farce.”

He paused for a moment, frowning and disconsolate, then stood up abruptly. “Very well then,” he muttered angrily, “to the dark cave it is, the cave of loneliness and desolation; the cold grave, the grave of despair and disillusion. The world, the low world that is, has kicked me enough, so now I in turn will kick it back from a loftier position. Eunuchs have no need of women. If I choose to deprive myself of all false hopes in that direction, then I can use despair to block out the world entirely. So then, to the cave of lonely desolation. From its darkness we can supply a curtain to shield our eyes against life’s never-ending perfidy!”

With that he turned toward the window—Nawal’s window—that was now firmly locked. “Closed forever,” he said angrily, “closed forever!”

H
e decided to make his way to the Zahra Café. While he usually went there on Friday mornings, he realized that the distress he was feeling provided him with an extra-powerful incentive to go; he really needed to find a way to console himself. He started putting on his new suit, remembering all the while how he had had it tailored and how much it had cost. With a sigh of exasperation he left the apartment.

As he descended the staircase, he recalled the first morning he had spent in the apartment building; how he had looked behind him and spotted Nawal’s eyes for the first time. How can anyone guard against predestined misery when it reveals itself in such bright hopes and vibrant colors? Even so, he was also aware that his current feelings of agony, persecution, and injustice were perversely pleasurable, albeit a somewhat obscure kind of pleasure whose features had not as yet made themselves clear.

As he plodded his way slowly toward the café, he could
not help thinking about the way an underage girl had managed to bring down so much sorrow and despair on an intelligent elder man like him. He found the entire thing too much to bear.

“Good grief!” he scoffed at himself, “how can it have happened? A little girl just out of nappies doing this to me? How could she possibly pull me up to the very heights of delight, only to dump me into the depths of hell? Why behave sensibly if infectious desires could toy with us in this despicable fashion? Shouldn’t we expect—I ask Your forgiveness, O God!—to be created better than that? If the entire world has turned itself into a gloomy wasteland simply because some insanitary microbe or other has gone berserk or run out of hope, wouldn’t it be better simply to piss on the world and everything in it?”

At this point he reached the café, which ended this conversation with himself. He found that his friends had already arrived, except, that is, for Sulayman Bey Ata who was still in his village. Boss Nunu was with them; on Fridays he always closed his store from ten in the morning until after prayer time. As usual, Abbas Shifa sat beside Boss Zifta, not far removed from the circle of friends. The men started chattering, while the radio broadcasted some recorded music. Kamal Khalil decided to include the new arrival in their conversation.

“So what’s Professor Ahmad’s opinion of singing?” he asked. “Which style does he prefer, the old or the new?”

Damn it! As the age-old proverb puts it: “Woe to the person with troubles from the one who is without!” But after all, hadn’t he come to the café specifically to take his mind off things by listening to their normal drivel? Yes
indeed, he had. Okay then, he should dive in and be grateful. In fact, he adored singing (would his mother have given birth to anyone who didn’t love singing?), but he preferred the old style; he had never developed a liking for the more modern stuff, not only out of habit but because of his early upbringing. He had listened to the songs of female vocalists and records made by singers like Munira, Abd al-Hayy, and al-Manyalawi.

Just then he stole a glance at his old foe, Ahmad Rashid, who seemed to be concealing his thoughts on the matter behind his dark glasses.

“The old style of singing,” Ahmad told them all, “is the only one that can arouse the emotion and effortlessly ensnare our hearts.”

Boss Zifta shouted “God is most great!” enthusiastically while Boss Nunu clapped his hands three times.

“But what about Umm Kulthum and Abd al-Wahhab?” asked Sayyid Arif.

Ahmad Akif sneaked another quick glance at his foe. “To the extent that they repeat aspects of the old style, they’re both terrific, but beyond that they’re nothing.”

“Umm Kulthum’s wonderful,” said Sayyid Arif, “even when she’s singing ‘The Tender Radish!’ ”

“There’s no arguing about her beautiful voice,” replied Ahmad Akif, “but we’re talking about the artistic aspect of singing.”

Kamal Khalil chimed in at this point. “Professor Ahmad Rashid loves the new style of singing. Not only that, but he likes Western music too!”

It was obvious that the young lawyer was not in the mood to argue. “My views on singing are not those of an
expert,” he responded lackadaisically. “I don’t really bother with it that much.”

Boss Nunu was determined to have his point of view heard. “Listen, folks,” he said in his usual gruff tone, “the Prophet Muhammad’s people are still in good shape. The English have been with us now for over half a century, but tell me, for heaven’s sake, have you ever heard anyone English who could sing ‘O Night, O Eyes’? The truth of the matter is that anyone who prefers Western music is just the same as someone who likes eating pork!”

As a rule Boss Zifta was preoccupied with his work and had little to say, but this time the subject interested him. “Okay,” he chimed in, with a lisp that suggested that he had lost at least a couple of his teeth, “here’s the scoop. The very best singing you’ll ever hear is Si Abduh with ‘O Night,’ Ali Mahmud doing the dawn call-to-prayer, and Umm Kulthum with ‘When Love.’ Everything else is just a pile of straw mixed with dust!”

Ahmad Akif was anxious not to leave the subject of modern music without injecting a bit of philosophizing. “People who admire modern singing and European music,” he said, “fall into the category of the ruled being influenced by their rulers, as Ibn Khaldun pointed out.”

Ahmad Rashid still remained silent in spite of the way Ahmad Akif had attacked his position. That brought an end to the conversation about singing. Without any particular connection, talk now shifted to the topic of Sulayman Ata Bey. Kamal Khalil observed that he had stayed in his village longer than usual.

“So God has given us two merciful weeks of respite from his shameless behavior!” commented Sayyid Arif.

“It won’t be long,” said Abbas Shifa disapprovingly, “before he gets married again.”

“But what a bride!” Sayyid Arif continued regretfully. “I tell you, by God, I’ve never seen a woman more beautiful than Yusuf Bahla’s daughter!”

“Isn’t your friend aware,” Ahmad Akif asked, “that no one would want him for a husband if it weren’t for his money?”

“No doubt about it,” said Abbas Shifa. “Youth, beauty, morals, they’re all missing!”

Needless to say, that particular description was not to Ahmad Akif’s liking at all. In more than one aspect, he felt, it described him as well: youth, beauty, and morals, all lacking, to which he could add in his own case, no money either. For a moment he fell back into the fit of utter depression that the conversation had thus far managed to dispel. Worried that the mood might take over again, he plunged into the argument once again.

“What is it,” he asked, “that makes Ata Bey give in to these hankerings?”

Now Ahmad Rashid looked directly at him. “What’s so surprising about that?” he asked with uncharacteristic modesty. “Along with youth and beauty isn’t money one of the primary motivations that endear a man to a woman? In fact, money may be the one that endures longer than the others!”

But he soon put his sarcasm to one side and adopted a more serious tone. “Look,” he said, “An old man of Ata Bey’s age isn’t interested in the kind of love that gets young people so worked up. Whenever he manages to acquire a precious bride, he is actually gratifying both his dwindling
libido and, far more important, his more dominant possessive instinct.”

“Youth gets transferred by contact,” commented Abbas Shifa. “From his new bride our old friend expects to regain some of the sparkle of youth. With things the way they are, it’s not out of the question that our friend the Bey will change fairly soon from an ape to a donkey!”

“So, are we to understand,” Boss Zifta asked, “that he’s descended from apes?”

Naturally enough Boss Nunu was not entirely happy about the way they were poking fun at old people. “What counts when you’re old,” he commented, “is how healthy you are, not how old. My father got married when he was sixty, and had children. Just look at Sayyid Arif for example (and here he let out a guffaw), what’s his youth done to him?”

Everyone laughed, including Akif.

“Don’t be so quick to laugh, Boss Nunu!” Sayyid Arif was forced to respond. “Pretty soon things are going to change. I’ve heard about some brand new pills. You’ll see!”

That was as far as Ahmad could go in keeping up with their chatter. He felt like a swimmer whose strength is flagging and whose resistance is growing weaker by the minute. He had no idea how he managed to change the subject to war news nor how it came about that Sayyid Arif started counting off the German victories in Russia, proudly rattling off the way Vyazma, Bryansk, Orel, Odessa, and Kharkov had all fallen and the Crimea had been overrun. At that point Boss Nunu stood up to leave and perform the Friday prayer. Ahmad got up too, excused himself, and left to go home.

When he got there, he stood in the hallway for a while wondering whether Rushdi was still in his room. He walked along the hallway and stood by the door of his brother’s room. He could smell cigarette smoke wafting its way through the gaps in the door, so he turned round and went back to his own room. For the first time ever, Rushdi was spending his weekly day off (or rather their weekly day off) at home! More likely than not, he would not be going out either, and she too would be staying close by the window. God knows how many times they had already exchanged waves and smiled at each other, and how many hopes had arisen.

Taking off his suit, he put on a gallabiya and skullcap, then sat down on the settee next to the bookshelf. He was feeling utterly miserable, and yet there was no jealousy, or, at least, nothing that showed. He managed to convince himself that whatever went on in the other part of the apartment was simply child’s play and of no interest to him. Was this just a temporary feeling on his part? How could he know? Even so, he felt badly done by. How could it all have happened so quickly, he asked himself. Was the emotion that he had convinced himself was real love truly this superficial?

He let his feelings calm down a bit, then went to the bookshelf and took down Imam al-Ghazali’s book,
Goals of the Philosophers
. Now, here was something far more deserving of his attention, one of those treasures about which Ahmad Rashid knew absolutely nothing. He opened the book up to the chapter on theology and tried reading the preface to the division of the sciences. Before long he realized that he was devoting so much energy to
concentrating on what he was doing that it was impossible to enjoy the actual process of reading. He closed the book and put it back on the shelf. He decided that his mind had used up a good deal of energy that day on the process of forgetting—no matter what kind of effort was involved—so he could afford to give it a day’s rest.