Naguib Mahfouz - The Beginning and the End

Her mother scolded her sharply. “Shut up!” she said.

Then she turned to Hassanein and spoke to him contemptuously. “Perhaps you are eager to know the outcome of your underhanded planning.”

Sorrowfully, she shook her head. “One may well envy the heart you possess, for despite our catastrophe and misery, it can love, and in pursuit of its happiness it is indifferent to us all. I was actually amazed when Farid Effendi spoke to me about your great hopes and curious love. But in my turn I spoke to him about our struggle and misery. I spoke to him about our furniture, which we are selling piece by piece to provide for our basic needs, and about the misery of your sister, who must work as a dressmaker, spending her days moving from one house to another. Then I told him frankly that none of my sons would marry until he helped his collapsing family to get back on its feet.”

The woman was silent. She fixed her eyes on the hopeless and depressed face of her son, who could not look his mother in the face. Then she added bitterly, “However, I have to congratulate you on your affection and human feelings!”

The woman departed from the room, leaving a heavy silence behind her. She was so furious and sad that she could hardly see her way. Nefisa was so disturbed that she forgot her deep anger. She spoke to Hassanein, feigning merriment.

“Mother didn’t tell you everything,” she said. “I assure you that, really, there is no reason for you to be so despondent. She couldn’t possibly ignore Farid Effendi’s friendship or his affection for us. Who could ever forget his help and magnanimity? Mother told him that she considered his approval of your proposal a great honor. But she did tell him about our condition, which he knows quite well, and requested him to wait until our stumbling family could get back on its feet. She asked him to be content for the time being with her verbal agreement to the engagement until it is officially announced, when you become a responsible man. She also told him that she would be delighted to have Bahia as her daughter-in-law. So there is absolutely no need for you to be sad.”

The girl looked at her brother’s face, which started to shine once more. A sudden indignation seized her, but she managed to conceal it and said, with a touch of sharpness in her voice, “Forgive Mother. She is poor and sad. Certainly, it consoles her to share her troubles. But if she finds that we…well, I don’t want to return to the subject. It’s enough for me to tell you that things will go the way you like.” Then she added laughingly, “Damn both you and your love.”

Soliman Gaber Soliman spoke. “Don’t have any doubts about it. We shall marry as I have told you. I make this promise before God.”

Nefisa listened to him attentively, her heart beating hard. There was no longer anything new in her taking his arm and walking by his side in one of the back streets of Shubra, where darkness prevailed and the passersby were few. Ugly and of mean appearance though he was, she always looked upon him as a wonderful beau because of his warm emotion and great interest in her. Thus she developed a profound, even mad love for him.

She believed that he was her first and last lover. Hope and despair made her cling to him passionately, and love him with her nerves and flesh and blood. Her turbulent instincts saw him as her savior from despair and frustration.

He was the first man to restore her self-confidence. He reassured her that she was a woman like other women. She was born anew each time he confessed his love for her; and in spite of the engulfing gloom of the world, she perceived its illuminating splendor. However, words of love were not enough for her. She was eager for something more that was no less important than love itself; or, perhaps, to her, the two were identical. She kept urging him until he promised to marry her. Encouraged by the enveloping darkness, she asked him, “So what do you intend to do?”

He answered without hesitation, “It would be natural for me to tell my father and then we would go together to your mother to ask for your hand.”

“I think so, too.”

He sighed audibly and said, “I wish it could be. But right now, it’s a remote hope.”

She became depressed. “Why?” she inquired anxiously.

“My father,” he said angrily, “damn him. He’s a foolish, obstinate old man. He wants me to marry the daughter of Amm Gobran el-Tuni, the grocer, whose shop is located on the corner of Shubra Street and Al Walid Street. I don’t need to tell you that I refused and will continue to refuse. But I can’t suggest to him at present that I have proposed to another girl. If I do, he will dismiss me.”

She felt her throat becoming dry. Looking at him with disdain, she inquired worriedly, “What is to be done, then?”

“We have to be very patient. No force in the whole world could deflect me from my goal. But we must be on our guard lest he become aware of our relationship.”

“Till when must we remain patient?”

He hesitated, perplexed. “Until he dies,” he murmured.

“Until he dies!” she exclaimed with anxiety. “Suppose we die before him?”

Confused, he gave a dry laugh. “Leave this matter to me and to time,” he said. “We are not completely helpless.”

His words struck her as equivocal and most ungratifying. I can’t tell him that I am afraid that in the interval of waiting someone else may step in and propose to marry me, she thought. This would be a good tactic for a girl of wealth and beauty. But as for me, who will ask for my hand in such hard times as these, when men are avoiding marriage? I have degraded myself by accepting the worst, but the worst does not accept me. He is just a son of a grocer! Even the suit on his body appears odd and ill-fitting. She felt an oppressive hand pressing her neck. Her fear made her cling to him more and more. At that moment, he was worth all the world to her. It was not clear to her how she could marry him, even if he removed the obstacles standing in their way. Her mother could not possibly offer her anything by way of help. Besides, her family could not do without the few piasters she earned. But she desired him; desired him from the depths of her soul, at whatever cost.

Her face grew grim, and she opened her mouth to speak. Suddenly, she saw someone coming along the road, and the blood congealed in her veins. She uttered a terrified groan and was about to take to her heels. But she stopped when she distinguished the face of the newcomer as he passed under the light of a lamppost. Her terror disappeared, and she gave a sigh of relief. Wondering, Soliman inquired, “What is wrong with you?”

She answered breathlessly, “I thought it was my brother Hassan.”

The young man seized this opportunity to express a long-cherished desire. “We shall always be subject to fear,” he said to her, “as long as we roam about in the streets. Listen to me. Why don’t we go to my home and stay for a while, where no one could see us?”

“Your home!” she exclaimed in astonishment.

“Yes. My father spends Friday evening with the Sheikh of the Al Shazliah sect, and he remains there until midnight. My mother is also away in Zagazig on a visit to my sister, who is expecting a baby. So there is no one at home.”

Astounded by his suggestion, she said with a palpitating heart, “How can I possibly go home with you? Are you mad?”

“We need a safe place,” he entreated her. “My home is safe, and my invitation to you is innocent. I want to be safely alone with you so we can discuss our troubles quietly, far away from fears and watchful eyes.”

As he spoke, she listened with a frown on her face. In spite of herself, fearfully and anxiously she was forming a mental picture of his empty home. To no avail, she tried to use anger to obliterate this mental picture; but it persisted in her mind’s eye. She said sharply, “No, not at your home!”