Cairo Trilogy: Palace Of Desire Part 34

Yasin snapped his fingers and exclaimed, "I take refuge in G.o.d!"

"Is Zubayda really beautiful?"

Yasin whistled and wriggled his eyebrows.

"Surely it's unfair that our father gets to enjoy such a sumptuous treat while all we can find are skinny girls."

"Wait your turn. You're still a beginner."

"Hasn't your relations.h.i.+p with him changed since you discovered his secret?"

"Anything but that!"

There was a dreamy look in Kamal's eyes as he said, "If only he had bestowed some of his charm on us ."

"If only ."

"We couldn't be much worse off than we are."

"What's so bad about loving women and drinking?

"How can you reconcile his conduct with his deep faith?"

"Am I an atheist? Are you? Were those caliphs who indulged their carnal appet.i.tes pagans? G.o.d's merciful and forgiving."

Kamal asked himself, "What would my father say? I really wish I could discuss these issues with him. Any thing's possible, but I can't believe he's a hypocrite. No, he's not that. The only new dimension of his character revealed is love."

Kamal's final swallow left him in a jesting mood. He commented, "It's too bad he didn't go into acting."

Yasin laughed loudly and replied, "If he'd known the opportunities life offers actors to enjoy women and wine, he would have dedicated his life to this art."

"Is al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad really the b.u.t.t of this joke?" Kamal wondered. "But ishe any more exalted than Adam? And even so., you learned the truth of man's origin by accident. Chance occurrences have played a most significant role in your life. If I had not met Yasin by accident in the alley, the veil of ignorance would not have been lifted from my eyes. If Yasin, ignorant though he is, had not gotten me interested in reading, today I'd be in the Medical School, as my father hoped. If I'd enrolled in a different secondary school, like al-Sa'idiya, I wouldn't have met Aida. In that case, I would be a different person now. I'd see existence in some other fas.h.i.+on. People like to fault Darwin for his reliance on chance in the explanation of the mechanics of his system ."

Yasin observed sagely, "Time will teach you what you haven't learned yet". Of himself he said sarcastically, "It's taught me to get my enjoyment early in the evening, so I don't awaken my wife's doubts." Then he added, "She's the most forceful of my three wives. I imagine I'll never get rid of her."

Pointing toward the alley, Kamal asked with considerable interest, "What takes you there, now that you're on your third marriage?"

Yasin repeated a famous phrase from the song Kamal had first heard at Aisha's wedding: "Because because because " Then, smiling uneasily, he continued: "Zanuba told me once, 'You've never been married. You've always considered marriage a love affair. It's time for you to start taking it seriously.' Isn't it strange that a woman entertainer should say such things? But she seems more dedicated to married life than either of my two previous spouses. She's determined to remain my wife until I die. But I can't resist women. I fall in love quickly and get bored quickly. For this reason, I repair to alleys like this one to satisfy my desires immediately without any need to get involved in a long affair. If it weren't for boredom, I wouldn't look for women in Ma.s.sage Alley."

With ever-increasing interest, Kamal asked, "Aren't these women like any others?"

"Certainly not. A prost.i.tute's a woman without a heart. For her, love's a commodity."

His eyes sparkling with hope, Kamal asked, "What do you think distinguishes one woman from another?"

Yasm nodded hishead proudly because of the status conferred on him by Kamal's questions. With the confident tone of an expert, he responded, "A woman's place within the ranks of females is determined by her moral and emotional qualities, without consideration of family or cla.s.s. I think more highly of Zanuba, for example, than I did of Zaynab, because Zanuba's more emotional, more sincere, and more dedicated to our marriage. But in the end, you'll find they're all the same. Even if you had an affair with the Queen of Sheba herself, you'd inevitably find she became boring to look at and like a song you're tired of hearing."

The gleam in Kamal's eyes disappeared. Had Aida become boring to look at and an overly familiar song? "That's really hard to believe," he told himself. "But you are reality's victim. It's even hard to gloat at her misfortune. Learning that time could turn the beloved, whom the soul still misses, into an overly familiar sight and a tired song might drive a person crazy. In fact, if you had a choice, wouldn't you rather regret her loss than come to find her boring? Of course, at times I sigh for boredom because my desire's so strong, just as Yasin longs for desire because he's bored. Raise your head to the Lord of the heavens and ask Him for a happy solution."

"Haven't you ever been in love?"

"So what do you think I'm currently drowning in?"

"I mean genuine love, not pa.s.sing l.u.s.t."

Yasin finished his third drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, twisted his mustache, and then said, "Don't hold it against me if love's concentrated for me in certain locations, like the mouth, the hand, and so forth."

"Yasin's handsome," Kamal observed to himself. "She would never have made fun of hishead or nose. But his words make him seem truly pitiable. How can a man be a real man without love? But what's the use of it, since all it has brought you is pain?"

Gesturing for Kamal to empty his gla.s.s, Yasin continued: "Don't believe what they say about love in novels. Love's an emotion that lasts a few days or at best a few weeks."

"I've stopped believing in immortality, but is it possible to forget love?" Kamal asked himself. "I'm no longer the way I was. I'm escaping from love'sh.e.l.lish suffering. Life occasionally distracts me. But then I slip back. Once I directed my attention toward death. Today I look to life, although a hopeless one. It's amazing, that you rebel against the idea of forgetting her. You almost seem to be blaming yourself for something. Or are you afraid you'll discover the most exalted thing you ever reverenced was just a fantasy? Are you refusing to let oblivion carry off this splendid manifestation of life for fear you'll wake up to find yourself of no more significance than if you'd never been born? Don't you remember why you spread your hands out in prayer to ask G.o.d to rescue you from torment and grant you forgetfulness?"

"But true love exists. We read about its effects in the papers, not just in novels."

Yasin smiled sarcastically and said, "Afflicted though I am by the love of women, I won't admit that 'true' love exists. The tragedies we read about in newspapers are actually accounts of youthful inexperience. Have you heard of the ancient Arab poet called 'Layla's Fool' because love for her drove him crazy? There are probably others like him in your stories, but he, Majnun, never married Layla. Show me one person who went insane because he loved his wife too much. Alas! Husbands are rational men, very rational, even when it goes against the grain. But a wife's madness commences with her wedding day, because nothing less than devouring her husband will satisfy her. It seems to me that crazy people become lovers because they're crazy. Lovers don't go insane just because they're in love. You'll observe these lunatics talking about a woman as though she were an angel. A woman's nothing more than a woman. She's a tasty dish of which you quickly get your fill. Let those crazy lovers share a bed with her so they can see what she looks like when she wakes up or smell her sweat or other odors. After that are they going to talk about angels? A woman's charm is a matter of cosmetics and other seductive devices. Once you fall into her trap, you see her for the human being she really is. The secret forces holding marriages together aren't beauty or charm but children, the dowry's balance demanded in exchange for a divorce, and the support payments."

"It would only be fitting if he'd change his opinion on seeing Ai'da," Kamal told himself. "But you better rethink this question of love. You once considered it an angelic inspiration, but now you deny the existence of angels. So search for it within man's essence. Insert it into the list of theoretical and practical realities you wis ti to confront boldly. In this way you'll learn the secret of your tragedy and strip the veil away from Ai'da's hidden essence. You won't discover her to be an angel, but the door of enchantment will swing open for you. How wretched it makes me to think of things like pregnancy and its craving, A'ida as an overly familiar sight, and body odors."

With distress that Yasin did not notice, Kamal said, "Man's a filthy creature. Couldn't he have been created better and cleaner?"

Although not looking at anything in particular, Yasin reared hishead back and said with curious joy, "G.o.d G.o.d, my soul's so s.h.i.+mmering it's turning into a song. My limbs are turning into musical instruments. The world's sweet and full of creatures dear to my heart. The weather's delightful. Reality's a figment of our imaginations, and what's imaginary's real. Trouble is nothing but a legend. G.o.d, G.o.d, what a beautiful thing alcohol is, Kamal. May G.o.d grant it a long existence, perpetuate it for us, and grant us the health and strength to drink it to the end of our days. May G.o.d destroy the home of anyone who tampers with it or fabricates lies about it. Relish this beautiful intoxication. Reflect on it. Close your eyes. Does any other pleasure compare with this? G.o.d G.o.d G.o.d!"

Lowering hishead to look at Kamal, he continued: "What did you say, my son? 'Man's a filthy creature'? Were you offended by my comments about women? I wasn't saying that to arouse disgust for them. The fact is that I love them. I love them with all their faults. But I wanted to demonstrate that the angelic woman does not exist. In fact, if she did, I doubt I'd love her. Like your father, I love full hips. An angel with a heavy bottom wouldn't be able to fly. Take care to understand me and don't misinterpret my words, by the life of our father, al-Sayyid Ahmad."

Kamal quickly grew as tipsy as his brother and said, "Once alcohol's circulating through the body, the world certainly seems adorable."

"G.o.d bless your mouth! Now even the usual refrain of beggars in the street sounds enchanting to the ear."

"And our sorrows seem to belong to other men."

"But their women seem our own."

"It all amounts to the same thing, my father's son."

"G.o.d, G.o.d, I don't want to sober up."

"One vile aspect of life is that we can't stay drunk as long as we'd like."

"Please understand that I don't see drunkenness as just an amus.e.m.e.nt but as the heavenly goal of life on a par with knowledge and our highest ideals."

"In that case I'm a great philosopher."

"You will be, when you believe what I've said; not before."

"May G.o.d grant you a long life, Father, for you've begotten philosophers just like you."

"Why should a man be miserable when all he needs is a drink and a woman, since there are plenty of bottles and women too?"

"Why?

Why?"

"I'll tell you the answer once I've drunk one more."

"No," Yasin said in a voice that betrayed a fleeting sobriety. Then he cautioned Kamal again, "Don't overdo it. I'm your drinking partner tonight, so I'm responsible for you. What time is it?" He took out his watch and exclaimed, "Twelve-thirty! Hero, we're in trouble. We're both late. You have our father to worry about, and I've got Zanuba. Let's go."

In no time at all they had left the bar and boarded a carriage that rushed off with them toward al-Ataba, circling the fence around the Ezbekiya Garden on a road buried in darkness. Every now and then they saw a pedestrian hurry or stagger by. Whenever the carriage pa.s.sed an intersection, the fresh breeze carried to them the sound of people singing. Above the buildings and the lofty trees of the Garden, vigilant stars glittered.

Yasin laughingly said, "Tonight I'll be able to swear quite confidently that I've done nothing reprehensible."

Kamal said rather anxiously, "I hope I get home before my father.'"

"Nothing's more wretched than fear. Long live the revolution!"

"Yes, long live the revolution!"

"Down with the tyrannical wife!"

"Down with the tyrannical father!"

108.

KAMAL KNOCKED gently on the door until it opened to reveal the shadowy figure of Umm Hanafi. When she recognized him, she whispered, "My master's on the stairs."

Before entering, he waited to be sure his father had reached the top floor, but then a voice called down the stairs sharply, "Who knocked?"

Kamal'sheart pounded. He felt obliged to step forward and reply, "Me, Papa."

By the light of the lamp that Kamal's mother was holding at the top of the stairs, his father's form was visible on the first-floor landing. Al-Sayyid Ahmad looked down over the railing and asked with astonishment, "Kamal? What's kept you outside the house till this hour?"

"The same thing that kept you," Kamal commented to himself.

He answered apprehensively, "I went to the theater to see a play that's required reading for us this year."

His father shouted angrily, "When did people start studying in theaters? Isn't it enough to read and memorize it? What disgusting nonsense! Why didn't you ask my permission?"

Kamal stopped a few steps below his father and replied apologetically, "I didn't expect it to end so late."

The man said angrily, "Find some other way to study and skip the foolish excuses". Grumbling to himself, he resumed his climb up the stairs. Some of these muttered complaints reached Kamal: "Studying in the theaters till all hours one a. m.

just children curses on your author and the author of the play."

Kamal ascended to the top story and went into the sitting room, where he took the lamp from a table. Entering his bedroom with a sullen face, he deposited the lamp on his desk and stood there, resting his hands on the desk, while he asked when his father had last insulted him. He could not remember precisely but was sure his years at the Teachers College had pa.s.sed without a comparable incident. For this reason the curses made a painful impact on him, even though they had not been directed at him. He turned away from his desk, removed his fez, and started to undress. Then he suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. He fled to the bathroom, where he vomited everything with bitter violence. When he returned to his room he felt exhausted and disgusted with himself, for the pain in his chest was less intense and profound than that in his spirit. He took off his clothes, extinguished the lamp, and stretched out on the bed, exhaling with nervous annoyance.

In a few minuteshe heard the door open softly. Then his mother's voice reached him, asking sympathetically, "Asleep?"

Adopting a natural and contented tone to discourage her, so he could confront his ordeal alone, he said, "Yes ."

Her figure approached the bed and stopped near hishead. Then she said apologetically, "Don't let it worry you. I know your father better ttian anyone."

"Of course!

I understand."

As though expressing her own reservations, she said, "He knows how serious and upright you are. That's why he couldn't believe you'd stayed out this late."

Kamal was sufficiently enraged to ask, "If staying out late merits so mucti disapproval, why doeshe do it so persistently?"

The darkness prevented him from seeing the expression of astonished disapproval on her face, but her nasal laugh showed that she did not take his question seriously. She replied, "All men stay ou: at night. You'll be a man soon. But right now, you're a student."

He interrupted her as if he wanted to end the conversation: "I understand. Naturally. I didn't mean anything by what I said. Why did you bother to come? Go in peace."

She said tenderly, "I was afraid you were upset. I'll leave you now, but promise you'll sleep soundly and not worry about it. Recite the Qur'an sura about G.o.d's absolute and eternal nature until you fall asleep" (Sura 112).

He sensed her move away. Then he heard the door close as she said, "Good night". He exhaled deeply again and began to stroke his chest and belly as he stared into the darkness. Life had a bitter taste. What had become of the enchanting intoxication of alcohol? What was this stifling depression that had taken its place? It resembled nothing so much as the disappointment supplanting hisheavenly dreams of love. But if it had not been for his father, the enchantment would have lasted. Kamal feared the man's despotic power more than anything else. He dreaded and loved it at the same time. Why should that be? Al-Sayyid Ahmad was just a man. Except for the geniality other people attributed to him, there was nothing so special about him. Why did Kamal fear him and feel intimidated by this fear? It was all in Kamal'shead, like the other fantasies that had afflicted him. But what use was logic in combating emotions?

His hands had pounded on the gate of Abdin Palace during a great demonstration in which people had defiantly challenged the king: "Sa'd or revolution!" Then the king had backed down, but Sa'd Zaghlul had resigned from the cabinet. Faced by his father, though, Kamal was reduced to nothing. The meaning and significance of everything had changed: G.o.d, Adam, al-Husayn, love, Ai'da herself, immortality.

"Did you say 'immortality'? Yes as it applies to love and to Fahmy, that martyred brother who is annihilation's guest forever. Remember the experiment you attempted when you were twelve in hopes of discovering his unknown fate? What a sad memory! You grabbed a sparrow from its nest and strangled it. Covering it with a shroud, you dug a small grave in the courtyard near the old well and buried the victim. Days or weeks later you dug up the grave and took out the corpse. What did you see and smell? You went weeping to your mother to ask her what became of the dead all the dead and especially Fahmy. The only way she could silence you was by bursting into tearsherself. So what's left of Fahmy after seven years? What will remain of love? What else does the revered father have to show us?"

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could make out the shapes of the desk, the clothes rack, the chair, and the wardrobe. The silence itself receded enough to grant indistinct sounds a hearing. He was troubled by feverish insomnia as the taste of life seemed to grow increasingly bitter. He wondered whether Yasin was sound asleep. How had Zanuba received her husband? Had Husayn retired to his Parisian bed? On which side was Aida sleeping now? Was her belly round and swollen? What were they doing on the far side of the world where the sun was perched in the center of the sky? What of those luminous planets - were the creatures inhabiting them free of human misery? Could Kamal's faint moan be heard in that infinite orchestra of existence?

"Father! Let me tell you what's on my mind. I'm not angry about what I've learned of your character, because I like the newly discovered side better than the familiar one. I admire your charm, grace, impudence, rowdiness, and adventuresome spirit. That's your gentle side, the one all your acquaintances love. If it shows anything, it reveals your vitality and your enthusiasm for life and people. But I'd like to ask why you choose to show us this frightening and gruff mask? Don't appeal to the principles of child rearing, for you know less about that than anyone. The clearest proof is what you do and don't see of Yasin's conduct and mine. What have you done besides hurt and punish us with an ignorance your good intentions do nothing to excuse? Don't be upset, for I still love and admire you. I'll always feel that way, sincerely. But my soul can't help blaming you for all the pain you've inflicted on me. We've never known you as a friend the way outsiders do. We've known you as a tyrannical dictator, a petulant despot.

"The saying 'An intelligent enemy's better than an ignorant friend' might well have been coined for you. For this reason, I hate ignorance more than any other evil in life. It spoils everything, even the sacred bond of fatherhood. A father with half your ignorance and half your love would be far better for your children. I vow ttiat if I'm ever a father I'll be more a friend to my children than a disciplinarian. All the same, I still love and admire you, even after the G.o.dlike qualities my enchanted eyes once a.s.sociated with you have faded away. Yes, your power lingers on only as a legend. You're not a superior court judge like Salim Bey, rich like Shaddad Bey, a leader like Sa'd Zaghlul, a crafty politician like Tharwat, or a n.o.bleman like Adli, but you're a beloved friend, and that suffices It's no small accomplishment. If you just wouldn't begrudge us your friends.h.i.+p.

"But you're not the only one whose image has changed. G.o.d Himself's no longer the G.o.d I used to wors.h.i.+p. I'm sifting His essential attributes to rid them of tyranny, despotism, dictators.h.i.+p, compulsion, and similar human traits. I don't know at what point I ought to limit my thought or whether it's right to limit it at all. In fact, my soul tells me I'll never stop and that debate, no matter how painful, is better than resignation and slumber. This may interest you less than learning that I've decided to limit your tyranny, which envelops me like this all-embracing darkness and torments me like this cursed sleeplessness. I won't drink alcohol again, because it has betrayed me, alas. If alcohol's a deceitful illusion too, then what's left for man? I tell you I've decided to limit your despotism not by defying you or rebelling, for you're too dear for that - but by fleeing. Yes, I'll surely leave your house as soon as I'm able to support myself. There's plenty of room in the districts of Cairo for all the victims of oppression.

"Do you know what other consequences there were to loving you despite your tyranny? I loved another tyrant who was unfair to me for a long time, both to my face and behind my back. She oppressed me without ever loving me. In spite of all that, I wors.h.i.+pped her from the depths of my heart and still do. You're as responsible for my love and torment as anyone else. I wonder if there's any truth to this idea. I'm not satisfied with it or overly enthusiastic about it. Whatever the reality of love may be, there's no doubt that it's attributable to causes more directly linked to the soul. Let's allow this to ride until we can study it later. In any case, Father, you're the one who made it easy for me to accept oppression through your continual tyranny.

"And you, Mother, don't stare at me with disapproval or ask me what I've done wrong when I've harmed no one. Ignorance is your crime, ignorance ignorance ignorance. My father's the manifestation of ignorant harshness and you of ignorant tenderness. As long as I live, I'll remain the victim of these two opposites. It's your ignorance, too, that filled my spirit with legends. You're my link to the Stone Age. How miserable I am now as I try to liberate myself from your influence. And I'll be just as miserable in the future when I free myself from my father.

"It would have been far better if you had spared me such exhausting effort. For this reason, I propose - with the darkness of this room as my witness that the family be abolished, for it's nothing but a pit in which brackish water collects, and that fatherhood and motherhood cease. Indeed, grant me a nation with no history and a life without a past. Let's look in the mirror now. What will we see? This enormous nose and huge head . You mercilessly gave me your nose, Father, without consulting me and thus treated me unjustly even before I was born. On your face it has an august majesty, but its shape and size look ludicrous on a narrow one like mine, where it stands out like an English soldier at a gathering of Sufi mystics. Even stranger than that's my head, because it's of a different type than either yours or my mother's. What distant grandfather bequeathed it to me? I'll continue to hold both of you responsible until I learn its true origin.

"Just before we go to sleep we ought to say, 'Farewell,' because we may never wake up. I love life, despite what it's done to me, just as I love you, Father. There are things about life worth loving, and its page is covered with question marks that evoke our wildest affection. But what's useful in life is to no avail in love. And what's most useful in love is still of little importance.

"I probably won't drink again. Say, 'Farewell, alcohol.' But not so fast! Remember the night you left Ayusha's house fully determined never to go near a woman again as long as you lived? Then afterwards you became her favorite customer. It seems to me that all mankind is moaning from hangovers and nausea. So pray they'll have a speedy recovery."