Naguib Mahfouz - The Beginning and the End

Remembering the money he needed, he felt appalled. He wondered what would happen if Hassan was unable to help him. He felt as though cold fingers gripped his heart, ready to crush his hopes. Finally he found his way to Gandab alley. He walked up the filthy incline in search of house number seventeen. Reaching it, he saw a sweet potato seller close by, squatting on the earth in front of his cart. Pointing to the house, Hassanein asked the hawker, “Does Hassan Effendi Kamel live here?”

The man asked in his turn, “You mean Hassan the Head?”

“I mean Hassan Kamel Ali, the singer,” Hassanein said.

“This is the house of Hassan the Head, who works in Ali Sabri’s coffeehouse in Darb Tiab,” the man replied.

Shamefully lowering his head, Hassanein became terribly upset. When he heard the mention of Ali Sabri, he was sure that he was approaching his brother’s house. But he could not have imagined his brother working in such a darb, the name fulminating against his ears like a charge of explosives. Hassanein also wondered at the epithet “the Head” attached to his brother’s name and what it meant. Extremely reluctantly, he entered the house. The putrefying smell of the staircase filling his nostrils as he climbed the spiral stairs, he experienced a feeling that he was descending into a bottomless abyss. When he knocked on the door, a woman’s voice reached him, shouting vulgarly, “Who is it?” As the door opened, he saw a short, plump, dark-complexioned woman whose features exhibited an insolent sort of beauty. Casting a piercing look at him, she inquired, “What do you want?”

Hassanein was so confused that he answered in a low voice, “Hassan Kamel.”

“Who are you?”

“His brother.”

The woman smiled. Standing aside, she asked, “Are you Master Hussein?”

“No. Hassanein,” he muttered with amazement.

Embarrassed and awe-stricken, he entered. Who was the woman and how did she know their names? Was Hassan married? He felt a shudder passing down his spine. Was it possible for his brother to marry such a woman? And for his mother to be her mother-in-law? He desperately wished her to be a mere mistress. The woman walked up to a door at the end of the corridor and knocked on it. When it opened after a while, Hassan appeared on the threshold. As though sensing his presence, Hassan’s eyes were riveted on his brother, and he exclaimed with astonishment and delight, “Hassanein!”

With welcome and solicitude Hassan hurried toward his brother and shook hands with him. Before either opened his mouth, a number of men stealthily streamed out of the room in succession, casually glancing at Hassanein. Before departing some of them said to Hassan, “This afternoon, by God’s will, we’ll leave for Suez, and you’ll catch up with us tomorrow.”

Then they left the flat. All wore gallabiyas, and their strange features drew one’s attention. Almost all their faces were disfigured. Hassanein grew anxious.

Who are these men? he wondered. The members of the band? Impossible! Their features reminded him of the gangsters who appeared on the cinema screen. An appalling idea dawned on him; his brother’s flat was the lair of some outlaws. Casting a suspicious glance at Hassan, he saw that he was wearing a loose, lined garment. Hassan appeared vigorous and in good health, but there were two scars, as of two piercing stabs, above his left eyelid and on the left side of his neck. Good God! His brother, too, bore the marks of injuries received in criminal activities! Now perhaps it was possible to understand the real causes that kept his brother away from the family. Nodding to the room at the corridor’s end, Hassan said to the woman, “Put the room in order and collect the things that are scattered about.”

Taking Hassanein’s arm, he went toward the bedroom. They entered. Closing the door behind them, Hassan seated his brother beside him on the sofa.

“How are you?” he inquired. “How is Mother? How is Nefisa? What’s Hussein doing?”

Absently, Hassanein told him the family news, adding whatever he knew about Hussein. Then, gently reproachful, he said, “You’ve stopped coming to see us as if we were strangers to you, which distresses my mother a great deal.”

Shaking his head sadly, Hassan said, “I’m up to my ears in my life. But I’m reassured now that Hussein’s secured a job.”

Affected by the changes he saw in his brother’s appearance, Hassanein wondered whether he was still attached to his family. Instinctively, he started to ingratiate himself with his brother before discussing the reason for his visit. Anxiously, he inquired about the scars. “What is this, brother?”

“Traces of fights,” Hassan said, laughing. “My life was never free from fights. As a matter of fact, fighting has become one of my main duties in my new life.”

Hassanein wanted to ask him about this new life. But again, instinctively, he avoided the subject. Life, which drove him to this forbidden house, had also driven Hassan to take up fighting as a means of making a living. How horribly humiliating their life had been! When we were playful children, who would have ever dreamt that such would be our fate? he thought. Hassan was a clever child. My father loved him more than any other living soul. Then my father changed, and it seemed as if he were Hassan’s enemy. But anyhow, nobody would have imagined that Hassan would end up in such a house as this. No doubt Hussein had realized the truth on his visit to this place last September. I wonder whether Mother knows everything!

He could not possibly summon up the courage to pose this question frankly to his brother. Instead, he inquired cunningly, “What’s the connection between singing and fighting?”

Hassan burst out laughing. “To many people, they’re the same thing,” he answered.

At that moment, the voice of the woman reached them. “I’m going out. Do you want anything?”

“Goodbye,” he responded curtly.

Unable to contain his curiosity, Hassanein asked anxiously, “Have you married, brother?”

“No.”

Hassanein’s face exhibited obvious relief.

“Does this please you?” Hassan inquired.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I prefer that you choose your wife from our milieu,” the young man said.

Hassan frowned in disapproval. “She’s much better than many ladies; she loves me devotedly and gives me whatever money I ask her for,” he said.

He was on the point of making a slip of the tongue, adding, “And from her own money I gave Hussein the funds he needed.” But out of mercy for his brother he stopped. In spite of the changes that had occurred in his character, Hassan’s sympathetic feelings toward his brother remained the same. Not even his resentment against him would change them. When he saw remorse and anxiety appear in the young man’s eyes, he said tenderly, “A wife’s devotion to her husband is, in one sense or another, utilitarian. But this woman’s devotion is pure and untainted. Life will teach you so many things which you now know nothing about.”

Shaking his head, Hassanein pretended to be convinced. Ingratiatingly, he gave his brother a tender smile. Remembering what he had nearly forgotten, he addressed Hassan warmly, believing this would impart congeniality to the almost strained atmosphere. Laughing, he asked his brother, “When I was inquiring about your house, I learned that they call you the Head. What does this mean?”

Hassan gave a loud laugh that restored his brother’s reassurance.

“They call me that because of this,” Hassan said, pointing to his head. “Somehow, I sweat to earn my living.” Stretching out his hand, he butted it with his head. Then, casting a meaningful look at his brother, he laughed. “Or rather, I earned it by the blood of my forehead. We all have to sweat in order to live. But different organs sweat in different people.”