Naguib Mahfouz: Morning and Evening Talk

“Didn’t you think of Bahiga before you gave Hamid to Mahmud al-Murakibi?” Surur asked his brother.

“We are poor men at God’s door, Surur. We have to examine our birds to find their feathers! Your daughter Gamila, praise God, will not wait long,” Amr replied.

Surur’s feelings toward his older brother and the rest of the family thus alternated between love and bitterness. He unleashed his tongue on his relatives like a merciless dagger, which ultimately lowered his ranking in their affections below that of his brother, Amr. The futile platitudes Amr offered a second time round exasperated Zaynab. She retained her outward cool but nevertheless announced bitterly, “I know what is behind all this!”

“My brother is deeply conscious of his lowly place before our wealthy relatives,” said Surur. “He is always eager to strengthen his ties with the family’s richer branches.”

“Don’t forget either that Radia, ally of the jinn and black magic, is jealous of me and sparing with her kindness.”

Bahiga was unconcerned by the loss of Hamid — she disliked his coarseness and vulgar manner anyway. At the same time, she observed with disgust the scandalous mischief her sister, Gamila, was carrying on with her cousin Qasim. Her sister was sixteen years old and her cousin was twelve, or perhaps a little over. What was it she sometimes caught them doing on the roof and under the stairs? Good morals repelled it and religion cautioned against it. But she kept it secret for fear of the consequences. Then, after Gamila was engaged to be married and had become sensible, she found it was her turn to think about Qasim. However, she was not reckless and foolish like her sister. Her heart beat with tender love, locked in a cage behind steel bars of shame and tradition. The boy noticed her and read the silent summons in her clear eyes. He complied, overflowing with desire and hoping to continue with her the games interrupted by Gamila’s disappearance. He found a loving heart, but an iron will. He hovered around her like a madman until her mother declared, “You’re the same age so he is not right for you.”

She did not protest, but nor did she agree.

“He has a long way ahead of him. Don’t forget his mother,” Sitt Zaynab continued.

Bahiga felt wretched. When the young man suffered his tragedy and was presumed lost she was completely drowned in misery. She had no choice but to resume her place in the queue for a suitable man. But the wait stretched out inexplicably until tongues in the family consigned her to the same basket as her aunt Rashwana’s daughter, Dananir. She was a pretty girl and a paragon of good morals so what kept the suitors away? The waiting and heartache dragged on and on until her uncle Amr, her father, Surur, and her mother, Zaynab, had all passed away.

In 1941 she was alone in the old house next door to her uncle’s in Bayt al-Qadi with only the maid, Umm Sayyid. Her brother Labib‘s work kept him away from Cairo and he would only visit as a guest. Despair gnawed away at her night and day as she approached thirty; she had nothing in the world except a share of her father’s pension. Then suddenly — as if by revelation — Shaykh Qasim awoke to her once more and said to his mother, “I want to marry Bahiga!” Radia interpreted the request as a miracle, a decree sent down from the clouds. She spoke to Labib about it the next time he visited. The man thought for a long time. His cousin was not short of money but …? He put the question to his sister and met with consent. Was it despair? Was it the love from long ago? Was it fear of loneliness? The marriage the family had long joked about took place one night as Cairo suffered a major air raid and convulsed with the sound of antiaircraft fire. Bahiga moved to her uncle’s house as Qasim decreed he would not leave home. Years went by, but there was no sign of children.

“You will give birth to a boy when the moon is content,” Qasim assured her.

In 1945 she gave birth to a son, who his father named al-Naqshabandi. He started school after the July Revolution and drank of splendor and glory throughout his education. He was blessed with a radiant face, slender body, and shining intellect. He graduated as an engineer in 1967 and was sent on a delegation. Radia was in her final days when she said goodbye. His father said to him, “God is with you. I bid you farewell without tears.” Al-Naqshabandi traveled to West Germany a few months after June 5, crestfallen and somber. He learned there of the death of the leader, but did not mourn. When he obtained his doctorate he decided against ever returning to Egypt. He worked in Germany, married a German, and took up German nationality. When his father learned of this he said once more, “God is with you. I bid you farewell without tears.”

After Radia died, Qasim and Bahiga remained in the old house behind the walnut tree that had witnessed their love long ago. Their hearts still beat with love and solitude.

Galila Mursi al-Tarabishi

SHE WAS BORN A QUARTER OF THE WAY through the nineteenth century in Bab al-Sha‘riya to a father who worked in a tarboosh factory that was set up, along with other factories, by Muhammad Ali. Her father was a relative of Shaykh al-Qalyubi and lived near his house in Suq al-Zalat, so he betrothed his daughter, Galila, to his neighbor’s son, Shaykh Mu‘awiya, who at that time was starting out as a novice teacher at al-Azhar. Thus, Galila became mistress of the old house in Suq al-Zalat and was known about the quarter as Galila al-Tarabishi. She was so tall she towered over the shaykh, for which he never forgave her. She was dark skinned, slim, had a high forehead and wide brown eyes. With the passing years, she gave birth to Radia, Shahira, Sadiqa, and Baligh. She was renowned for her encyclopedic knowledge of mysteries, miracles, and popular remedies; it was as though she had taken something from every religion from the time of the pharaohs to the Middle Ages. Shaykh Mu‘awiya tried his best to teach her the principles of Islam but through their many years together he took from her more than he gave. He obeyed her when he was sick and, when a mishap befell him, would bow his head for her magic spells, surrender to her incense, and repeat incantations after her. She was stubborn and, if the need arose, aggressive, hence the neighbors were extremely careful around her. She imparted all her knowledge and experience to her daughters and they responded to her variously. Radia embraced her bequest more wholeheartedly than the others and claimed more of her love than the other children, including Baligh.

Whenever Shaykh Mu‘awiya tried to assert authority over her she would defy him stubbornly; even the threat of divorce did not frighten her. He was aware of her moral strength and superior domestic skills so would back off and be content with armistice and co-partnership. She was utterly dedicated and rigid in her beliefs and this was made plain the day her husband, Shaykh Mu‘awiya, died during the Occupation. The engagement of Radia and Amr had been announced according to an agreement reached between Shaykh Mu‘awiya and his friend Aziz Yazid, Amr’s father. An hour after his death, as Sitt Galila’s cries broadcast the bad news, the bride’s hamper arrived, the most important gift from the bridegroom, who did not know what had happened. Galila accepted the gift — a fish the size of her son Baligh — and gave the carrier his portion. Its arrival in the middle of the loud sobbing made her uneasy and she feared the consequences for her favorite daughter’s future. She leaned over the shaykh’s head, shrouded in a green wrap, and whispered from her wounded heart, “Forgive me, Mu‘awiya.” Then she hurried to a room on the eastern side of the house which looked out to the mosque of Sidi al-Sha‘rani in the distance, telling herself, “Bad luck will strike if the gift is not received in the proper way.” She dried her tears, stood behind the window and let a high-pitched ululation burst forth, dancing to melodies of effusive joy. She hurried back to the room where the body was laid out and resumed wailing from the bottom of her heart. The affair reached the ears of some sly women and they whispered to one another and joked about it all Galila’s life. It was passed around as a living testimony to the eccentricities of the controversial woman, who combined piety, love, and madness.