Naguib Mahfouz - The Beginning and the End

Hassan approached this matter with the confidence and pride of a man who really knows what is expected of him.

“You’re thoroughly acquainted with this district. On every corner there is a thug, a man who is up to no good, or a debauched drunkard. And who is the right person to deal with them? You. There is also the important traffic in narcotics, which requires skill, strength, and daring. And who’s the right person to deal with it? You again,” Ali Sabri said.

A broad smile appeared on Hassan’s face, and remained there for a long time. He felt proud, pleased, and enthusiastic. This was real life, pulsing under breathtaking perils in the obscure ghoraz, the hidden shelters of hashish addicts, where cudgels and overturned chairs fell on the heads of brawlers. Here gold dropped from the sky, and the way of a man was strewn with thorns, leading either to pleasure and glory or to danger and death. Here, in the twisting darb, where the balconies of neighboring houses were intimately close to each other, coquettish cries mixed with debauched screams, the smell of perfume with the odor of liquor, and the blows of combatants with the vomit of drunkards, here Hassan felt quite at home. Added to all this were singing, instrumental music, and just plain frolic. In such an atmosphere he could live indefinitely without growing bored, eating, drinking, earning money, taking hashish, singing. His face beamed with the light of hope. He cast a look around him. He heard the footsteps of newcomers dispelling the silence, and his ears were struck by the prolonged laughter characteristic of courtesans. He watched their swaying buttocks and the glaring, lascivious glances in their eyes. The doors of the houses opened, incense burned in the darb, chairs lined the coffeehouses, and lewd giggles and cackles were heard, marking the beginning of the morning’s activities.

“Thank you, Summer,” Hassanein said with feeling.

Not knowing what he meant, she asked shyly, “Why do you thank the summer?”

“Because it has made you take off your thick overcoat, and put on a dress that reveals your charm and beauty.”

Her face flushed. To hide the sparkling pleasure evoked by his compliments, she frowned. “Didn’t I ask you to stop it? You keep doing things that annoy me,” she said.

With a perplexed smile on his face, he listened to her. His eyes were devouring her plump body with pleasure. She was wearing a decent, almost prudish dress which revealed her arms, the lower parts of her legs, her delicate white neck, and the outlines of her soft, plump body. His eyes remained fixed on the round, minutely latticed parts of her dress above the chest, designed by the dressmaker to fit her blossoming bosom that seemed almost on the point of bursting out. As he imagined that he was softly stroking her breasts with his fingers, his body shook with a quiver of desire. He imagined that he was squeezing them, but their stiffness resisted him. Thirsty with desire, he swallowed. But he knew she would neither respond to him nor allow him to come too close to her body, and that she would persist in her adamant attitude of refusal. He had hoped that with the passage of time he would reach her, but he finally realized the futility of his hope.

“Bahia,” he said in dejection, “you speak with the cruelty of a person whose heart has never throbbed with love.”

A contradictory look appeared in her eyes. “I do not approve of the kind of love you want; you deliberately misunderstand me,” she said.

“But love is love, and you cannot possibly divide it up into different kinds.”

“No, no, no. I don’t agree with that at all,” she replied.

Defeated, he sighed, casting a look at the distant horizon. The sun had already disappeared, leaving behind it an expansive red halo, its remote purple fringes becoming lighter in the center, almost the color of rose juice, and gradually fading away at its edges until the red was finally superseded by a pure, deep blue interspersed with delicate clouds, as tender as soft sighs. His eyes returned to her face.

“I love you and I am your fiancé,” he said hopefully, “and I only want us to enjoy our love in all its purity and innocence.”

A confused look appeared in her eyes. For a while she seemed to be in pain. “I can’t,” she said. “And I don’t want that.”

His smile was without meaning.

“You thrust me into the lap of a strange loneliness,” he replied. “And I can’t bear it. I have a burning desire to press a kiss on your lips and embrace you to my heart. This is my right and the rightful privilege of our love.”

“No, no. You scare me.”

“Don’t you love me?”

“Don’t ask me about what you already know.”

“I wonder! Wouldn’t you really like me to put my lips on yours?”

“Surely,” she said, snorting, “you must enjoy making me angry.”

“And to have you lie on my breast, hear the pulses of my heart, while I tightly encircle your waist with my arms?”

Angrily, she shrank from him.

“If this is not love, then what is it?” he said with annoyance.

“Let our relationship remain as it has been up to now,” she murmured entreatingly.

“You mean we meet, talk, and burn with desire.”

“No. I only mean meet and talk.”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

“God forgive you.”

“Is your love so heartless?”

“God forgive you.”

He stamped the floor with indignation. Frowning and baffled, he walked back and forth in front of her. Signs of anxiety appeared on her face.

“I thought you had forgotten your upsetting demands and were satisfied with our life, gentle and amiable as it is,” she said. “I wonder what now makes you return to the same old fearsome persistence. Be a decent boy and stop all this nonsense. Real love knows no such frivolity.”

He shook his head, defeated, desperate and wondering. What did she know about real love?! What an enigma she was! Did she really love him? He could not doubt her love for him. But hers was a kind of love beyond his understanding. Rather, her character itself was beyond his understanding. What a calm, solemn girl she was, with her blue eyes, cold and serene, entirely devoid of mischief, frivolity, and warmth. How, he wondered, could anybody with such a fascinating body possess such calm and frigid eyes? The fire of love can be extinguished only by another fire similar to it, or even stronger. He felt he was wasting his days in hopeless monotony. It occurred to him frequently that it always perturbed her whenever he spoke to her about love, and that she recovered her self-assurance only when both of them were silent or when she spoke of her distant hopes, which she never tired of repeating. When she talked about these things, she forgot herself and transcended time and space; her eyes beamed delightfully and her limbs were animated with a fresh vivacity. At that moment he would love her with all his heart. But this was love tainted by anguish, sometimes even by anger and resentment. Then he would wonder why her heart failed to respond in the same way to the feeling of love itself. Why was she afraid of it? Why did she shrink from the mere mention or hint of this emotion? He wondered, too, how long this barrier would separate them! Rather angrily, he looked intently at her face for a long time.

“Shall I suffer this deprivation forever?” he asked.

In spite of herself, she smiled, and his anger increased in response.

“Not forever,” she said.

His heart quivered. He kept his eyes fixed on her.

“Till we marry,” he answered curtly.

She looked down. He could see only her closed eyelids and rosy cheeks. At that moment, he was overcome by a vindictive impulse, a desire to injure, if only by words.