Naguib Mahfouz - The Beginning and the End

His words and his smile made her ill at ease. The redness in her face increased, and she said rather sharply, “No! I don’t like flirtation!”

“But my love for you is genuine.”

“Oh! Don’t force me to hear what is unbearable to me!”

Smiling, he inquired, “Should I kill myself, then?”

She smiled inwardly, but no sign of that appeared on her face. “There is no need whatsoever to kill yourself,” she said. “I have told you everything.”

The last sentence brought him back to fear and perplexity. “I am just a young man of seventeen,” he said, after some hesitation, “and a pupil in the third year of secondary school. How, then, can I broach this subject?”

She turned her face away.

“Wait until you become a man!” she replied coldly.

“Bahia,” he said in astonishment mixed with resentment.

“There is no other way,” she answered quietly.

He was irritated and upset by the firmness of her attitude. But meanwhile, he felt his love overpowering him, obliterating his fears and worries. Surrendering, he said, “Have things your own way. I shall talk to those who have a say in the matter.”

She raised her eyes to him for a moment, then lowered them. For a while she seemed about to speak but she kept silent.

“I shall speak to Farid Effendi,” he said.

“You!”

“Yes.”

A silent objection appeared on her face.

“Is it necessary that my mother should do it?” he asked.

She hesitated briefly. Blushing, she said with difficulty, “I think so!”

He was upset by the frankness of her reply, which deepened his worry. He imagined his sad mother sitting with her head bent in the dark hall, unlighted to save expenses. He became agitated. “I shall talk to him,” he said in a low voice, “and convince him to approach my mother about it.”

The girl asked, surprised, “Why don’t you talk to her yourself?”

He was about to say “I can’t,” but then he closed his lips. He ignored her question.

“I am very much afraid that he might scoff at me,” he said, “or that he would keep you waiting until I finish all the long years of education which lie ahead of me.”

Impatiently and almost unconsciously, she replied, “He will approve waiting, as long as I consent to it.”

She bit her lips in shyness and pain. Very eagerly, he looked at her, and with a heart quaking with love, he stretched out his arms to reach her. But she withdrew, frowning to hide her emotion.

“No, no,” she said. “Have you forgotten what I told you?”

Hussein and Hassanein were sitting at the desk in the evening as usual. Hassanein, supporting his face with his hand, was absorbed in his thoughts. His looks, and the fact that he kept biting his fingernails from time to time, indicated that he was worried and tense. Hussein himself did not seem to be attracted much by the book that lay open before him. He could not help smiling, and his heart was swayed by different, alternating emotions. Annoyed by the silence, he said, “They have been negotiating for a long time.”

Fearfully, Hassanein became attentive. Then, sighing, he said, “An hour has passed. Even more. I wish I knew what is going on out there.”

“The order of things is now reversed,” Hussein replied sarcastically. “The ordinary procedure is for the young man to ask for the hand of his girl. But in your case the girl’s father comes to ask for the hand of the young man!”

Indignantly and irritably, Hassanein said, “As long as you are not involved, you have the right to mock me. I wish I knew what is being said in the sitting room. What is Mother saying?”

“Soon,” Hussein said calmly, “you’ll know everything.”

“Do you think she will turn down the petition of a man like Farid Effendi?”

“Who knows? What I am sure of is that we shall lose our heaven-sent monthly pay if she rejects it.”

Hassanein eyed him in perplexity. “How long will this painful waiting last?” he asked.

Having thoroughly thought the matter over, they returned to silence. They had discussed it intermittently over a long period of time, ever since Hassanein had told his brother about his conversation with Farid Effendi. To Hassanein’s surprise, the man had warmly welcomed his proposal. Farid Effendi promised to broach the subject to his mother and to remove whatever obstacles stood in the way. In explanation of the man’s attitude, Hussein slyly suggested that the good nature of Farid Effendi and his known attachment to their family were the cause. The two young men could do nothing but await the outcome of the present negotiations. As time went on, Hassanein’s worry increased. I shall know everything after a few minutes, he thought. Will Bahia be mine? Or shall I burn this newborn hope? This is the only means of having the girl. I want her and I can’t do without her. What is she thinking of right now? Isn’t she worried about our fate? There is no doubt that she loves me. For all the world, that is enough for me. Damn Hussein. He just keeps reading so calmly, and since he has no love or anxiety at the mercy of this meeting, he enjoys observing the battle with detachment. What a torture tyrannical passion is. Who says that it resides in the heart? Is it not more likely that it nestles in the mind? This is the secret of insanity.

He was awakened from his reverie by Hussein saying, “They are coming out.”

Hassanein pricked up his ears and overheard his mother exchanging compliments with Farid Effendi and his wife. They proceeded to the door, while Nefisa came to her brothers’ room and stood looking curiously at Hassanein.

Then she said, “Sometimes malice is hidden under apparently innocent silence! Do you really want to get married?!”

Hussein murmured, “This is the first drop of the oncoming shower.”

In instinctive self-defense, Hassanein moved from his chair to the bed in a remote corner of the room, close to the window, whose broken glass had been replaced with sheets of newspaper. Then they heard their mother approaching. Her features hard and stern, she walked heavily into the room. Searching for Hassanein, her eyes wandered until they rested on him at the farthest end of the room. She stared at him for some time, then proceeded to the chair he had left vacant and sat down, somewhat exhausted. An intense silence, which no one dared to interrupt, prevailed until she looked at Hussein and asked him calmly, “Don’t you know what Farid Effendi and his wife came to discuss with me?”

The question was totally unexpected, and Hussein was confused. Considering himself no more than a spectator to the whole business, he kept silent. “Answer!” she demanded.

Perplexed, he turned his eyes to Hassanein, seeking help. Regarding the movement as an answer, Samira proceeded to question him further.

“When did you know?”

Frightened, he answered, “The day before yesterday.”

“Why did you hide it from me?”

He took refuge in silence, cursing both his bad luck and his brother; the two had combined, despite his innocence, to get him into this mess. Then she sighed sorrowfully. “I am resigned to God’s will. The misery you have caused me surpasses my suffering at the hands of my dark fate.”

Nefisa, who detested this quarrelsome atmosphere, felt she had to fight its hold over them. However, she had no intention of encouraging her brother to persist in his desires. She was perhaps even angrier with him than her mother was. She even considered the whole matter a mean plot aimed at kidnapping her brother. But she still hoped to avoid useless friction, and so she said to her mother, “Don’t excite yourself. What’s done can’t be undone. Have mercy upon us and stop giving us all a headache.”