Naguib Mahfouz - Morning and Evening Talk

“I have complete faith in my daughter’s morals,” said Rashwana.

Mahmud Bey had a sense of humor despite his boorish manner: “Raya and Sakina’s mother probably once said the same about them.” He left exasperated.

Dananir was delighted with her father’s decision. The baccalaureate would put her on almost the same footing as Abd al-Azim Dawud’s daughters, Fahima and Iffat. She would be way ahead of the daughters of her two uncles, Amr and Surur, and could hope for a suitable groom afterward. Rashwana took her to visit the family’s roots and branches. She found the tree was heavy with fruit — Amer, Hamid, Labib, Hasan, Ghassan, and Halim. She was as pretty as any of the girls in the family, in her mind at least. But as she was coming to the end of school, something happened which she became convinced was the greatest tragedy that could befall a person: her father fell down paralyzed in the shop. He was carried home to lie helplessly in bed until the end. His business was liquidated under the supervision of Amr, Surur, and Mahmud Bey, and he received five hundred Egyptian pounds, all that was left, to pay for his medical treatment and sustain his family. Dananir realized there was nothing to look forward to but to finish her education and find a job. The Teacher Training College for Women was the only option and, at the time, female teachers could not marry if they wanted to continue working. This course of action was confirmed after Sadiq Barakat’s death. Mahmud Bey saw things differently, however. “Let Dananir marry. I’ll be your sponsor, Rashwana,” he said. Rashwana was inclined to give her consent, but Dananir — driven by pride — refused and determined to choose her own destiny. Her decision did not make her happy; she had given up the dream of marriage she had entertained since she was a young girl. She was the most miserable person on earth, but at least she had chosen the misery herself.

“You have sacrificed yourself for my sake,” Rashwana said.

“No, I’ve chosen what makes me happy,” she replied firmly.

She became a teacher and spinster forever, finding comfort in her professional skills and immoderate eating. She went through life asking: Where did my bad luck come from? The eyes of many young male relatives and strangers gazed at her hungrily, as though wondering: Does this young woman who is forbidden marriage dream of romance? Her female cousins were all settled in their marital homes, even the ugly and masculine ones, whereas glances lingered on her and left festering scars. She went to bed each night after a hard day’s work armed with a fantasy to relieve the loneliness. She persistently compensated her worries and sorrows with debauched feverish dreams, imaginary sins, and barren friendships with other dispossessed colleagues in her monastic profession. The secret life she lived in her fantasy world was utterly incongruous with her public life, which rested on earnest and praiseworthy work, a venerable commitment to religious obligations, and a sedate manner that disappointed any hopefuls but won their appreciation.

During this period of youth and activity, her uncle’s son Labib — with his good looks, brilliant legal career, and for whom the road of conquest would have been easy were it not for his repugnant egotism — approached her. He invited her to the quiet Fish Garden and proposed an illicit relationship, which, in his mind, suited their circumstances.

“You’re prevented from marriage and I’m avoiding it,” he said.

She told herself angrily that he only wanted a girlfriend and did not see her as marriage material.

“A proposition for a prostitute!” she said with resentment and scorn.

He met the blow with the characteristic coolness he had inherited from his mother, Sitt Zaynab, while she returned to Bayn al-Qasrayn overflowing with anger at her whole family. They were wretches, rich and poor alike. They sold their souls without honor. This was how Amer married Abd al-Azim’s daughter Iffat and Hamid married Shakira despite her ugliness. If the gaze of a young man from the Murakibi or Dawud family fell on one of Amr’s or Surur’s daughters all hell broke loose and their honor was roused. Wretches … wretches.… The Murakibi family sold their souls to the Crown to safeguard their interests and the Dawud family joined the Constitutional Liberals imagining they were following the path of noble families but their real roots issued from the soil; Dawud Pasha was merely the younger brother of Aziz, the fountain watchman! There was not a young man among them of her age, or older, who did not covet her honor, but none considered marrying her; a madman from al-Hussein was better than any of them.

Yet this period of verdant youth was not devoid of a respectable marriage opportunity in the form of her headmaster, who suggested she resign and marry him. But although she rather liked the idea, she quickly rejected it, maintaining that her mother would live at the mercy of someone from a wretched family who worshiped money and rank and would do anything to get it. Thus, she carried on her tedious, arid life, educating other people’s daughters and preparing them for marriage, divided between illicit fantasies and a reality characterized by seriousness, piety, and respect. The tree of youth thirsted in the gloom of loneliness, the pain of deprivation, and the frivolous amusement of forbidden fantasies. Then its leaves began to fall one by one, leaving their mark in her excessive corpulence, coarsened features, flabby muscles, and overwhelming bitterness. During this time, Amr, Surur, Ahmad, and Mahmud passed away and many things changed beyond recognition. Her mother developed heart disease and took to her bed.

“I’ll never forgive myself for what has happened to you,” said Rashwana.

“I chose what suited me,” she answered smiling and feigning cheerfulness.

“Marry at the first opportunity,” Rashwana begged.

“It won’t be long,” she lied, for she no longer turned anyone’s head.

Death came to Rashwana as her daughter was bringing her her evening apple. Dananir instantly grasped what was happening. “Don’t leave me on my own,” she cried. The woman breathed her last with her head propped against her chest. Dananir burst into tears and sent the old maid to fetch Radia from Bayt al-Qadi. With her mother gone, she suffered total solitude in Bayn al-Qasrayn. She became a picture of obesity and gloom. When the July Revolution arrived she saw it as just revenge for the tyrants, the weak, and the opportunistic. She lived it with listless satisfaction, for listlessness had subsumed everything, including her secret world and barren games. She plunged alone into the whirlwinds of the revolution with the radio, then television; it fanned the coals of her listless soul but it quickly passed. She was pensioned off and took shelter in the darkest loneliness with no comfort in the world except worship and Qur’an recitation. One leader died and another assumed power. New events swept in. The infitah policy came, and she suffered rising prices besides loneliness and old age. She began to prepare for her reckoning, asking herself: Could I be destined to suffer more troubles from this life? Can the future really conceal anything worse?

Radia Mu‘awiya al-Qalyubi

THE FIRST CHILD OF SHAYKH MU’AWIYA al-Qalyubi and Galila al-Tarabishi, she was born and grew up in the old house in Suq al-Zalat, followed by Shahira, Sadiqa, and Baligh. Sadiqa was the most beautiful of the three sisters but Radia had the strongest personality and sharpest mind, as well as a good share of beauty. She was tall and slender and had a high forehead, straight nose, black almond eyes, and wheat-colored skin — the image of her mother. The shaykh was anxious his children should have a religious upbringing and she was the most receptive, for although in theory she only got as far as knowing the prayers, fasting, and memorizing a few of the Qur’an’s shorter suras, her heart was permeated with love of God and the family of the Prophet. Yet she learned from her father only a fraction of what she learned from her mother in the way of mysteries, supernatural phenomena, the lives and miracles of saints, magic, ifrit, the spirits that inhabit cats, birds, and reptiles, dreams and their interpretations, astrology, popular remedies, and the blessings of monasteries and holy men and women. Her faith in her mother was only enforced by the confidence her father, the Azhar scholar, had in her medical prescriptions and incantations, and the fact that he kept the amulet she gave him around his neck.