Naguib Mahfouz - Khan Al-Khalili

Now, third building on the left.” He paused for a moment and looked at his surroundings. The street was long and narrow, with four square apartment buildings on either side, all of them connected by side-passages that intersected with the main street. The sidewalks of these passageways and the main street itself were crowded with various stalls: watch repairer, calligrapher, tea maker, rug maker, clothes mender, trinket seller, and so on. Here and there cafés were scattered around, but they were no larger than the stalls. Doormen stayed close to the building entrances, their faces as black as pitch, their turbans as white as milk, with expressions languid enough to give the impression that the perfumed scents and wafts of incense that floated through the air had sent them into a stupor. The atmosphere of the place was enveloped in a brownish haze, as though the entire quarter never saw the sun’s rays. The reason was that in many places the sky was blocked by overhanging balconies. The various craftsmen sat in front of their stalls, patiently and skillfully plying their trade and producing little masterpieces; the ancient quarter still preserved its long-standing reputation as a place where the human hand could make exquisite crafts. It had managed to withstand the influx of modern civilization and to confront the insane pace with its own calming wisdom; its simple skills stood counter to complex technologies, its reverie of imagination to an uncouth realism, and its drowsy ocher hue to the gleaming brilliance of modernity. As he took in the scene with confusion, he wondered to himself whether he would be able to get to know this new quarter the way he had the old one. Would the day ever come when he could make his way through this maze without even thinking about it, following the path wherever his feet took him because his mind was so distracted by other matters?

“In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful,” he intoned as he approached the door.

He walked up the spiral staircase to the second floor and found apartment 12. When he spotted the number he smiled, almost as though he had known it for some time and was pleased to see it again after a long absence. He rang the bell, and the door opened. His mother was standing at the threshold, smiling in welcome.

“Do you see this wonderful new world of ours?” she said with a laugh as she let him in.

He entered the apartment. “Congratulations on the new home!” he replied with a smile.

Her laugh revealed yellowing teeth because she too, like her son, smoked a lot. “I’m sorry,” she went on apologetically, “we haven’t been able to put the furniture in your room or ours today. It’s been a really exhausting day. In spite of our best efforts, a chair leg was broken, and the headboard of your bed was scratched in some places.”

Ahmad found himself in a small room stuffed full of utensils, chairs, and pieces of furniture. In the middle stood the table with crockery and rolled-up rugs on it. The room had two doors, one to the right of the entrance, the other straight ahead. He took it all in without saying a word.

“God knows,” his mother commented, “I’ve not had a moment’s peace today. Pity the poor mother who’s never given birth to a daughter so she can lend a helping hand when needed. You ran away to your ministry and your father’s huddled in his room as usual. Even so he still found the energy — God forgive him — to ask a short while ago what I was preparing for dinner, as though I’m some kind of magician who can conjure up anything she wants! Fortunately this new quarter we’re living in is full of food stalls. I’ve sent the servant to buy us some taamiya, salad, and zucchini.

At the word taamiya Ahmad’s tastebuds began to salivate, and his anticipation was reflected in the gleam in his eye.

“So is my father feeling relaxed and at ease?” he asked his mother.

His mother smiled sweetly, showing that, even though she was now fifty-five years old, she had lost none of her feminine charm. “Yes, thank God!” she replied. “He’s feeling relaxed and happy. Maybe he even trusts his own instincts. But the apartment’s small and the rooms are narrow. We’ve managed to squeeze all the furniture inside, and, as the saying goes, ‘whatever’s imprinted on the forehead must be visible to the eye.’ ”

As he listened to his mother talking, he was looking around. A hallway stretched away to the left, and the kitchen and bathroom were in the opposite direction. His mother pointed to the room facing the outside door. “That’s your room,” she said. Of the two rooms off the hallway, the first was his parents’ bedroom, while the second, to quote his mother, was to be put aside for his brother and kept empty for him. Ahmad went over to his parents’ room and found the old man lying down on the bed, his expression one of calm resignation. Like his son, Akif Effendi Ahmad was tall and thin. He had a full white beard and wore thick spectacles that gave his feeble eyes a deceptive brilliance. He looked up at Ahmad with a cautious unease, ready to spring to the attack if he made the slightest hint of a sarcastic remark about moving to this new home.

“Congratulations, Papa!” Ahmad said by way of greeting.

“God reward you likewise,” his father replied calmly. “Everything happens according to His will.”

“True enough,” replied Ahmad with a shake of his head, “but fear has now brought us to such a pitch that we’ve lost all sense of reason. Don’t you realize, Papa, that the airmen flying over Cairo aren’t going to distinguish between al-Sakakini and Khan al-Khalili?”

“But this quarter is close to the Mosque of al-Husayn,” his father responded firmly. “He has found favor with God. This is a quarter of religious faith and mosques. The Germans are too intelligent to bomb the heart of Islam when they’re trying to win us over.”

“But what happens if they bomb this area by mistake,” Ahmad asked with a smile, “the way they did al-Sakakini?”

“Don’t quibble!” his father replied, now out of patience. “I’m optimistic about this place, and your mother’s happy, even though she keeps chattering on without expressing any sense of gratitude. You’re feeling more secure too, but you keep playing the phony philosopher and putting on a false display of courage. Come on, change your clothes and let’s have dinner.”

Ahmad smiled. “Father’s right,” he told himself as he went to his own room. He took a closer look at it and discovered that with the addition of his furniture it had lost all sense of proportion. To the left was his bed and to the right his wardrobe; close by was the desk with a pile of books beside it. The room had two windows, so he decided to take a quick look out of both of them. He went over to one and opened it. It looked out on the street he had come along to get to the house. From this height he could make out the main features of the quarter: the apartment buildings had been constructed as sides of a big square; in the middle courtyard smaller quadrangles had been built consisting of small shops with narrow alleyways leading off from them. The apartment windows and front balconies overhung the roofs of the shops and blocked out a fair amount of air and sunlight. Nothing blocked the view of the other apartments; looking out from the front windows of one of the four sides of this large square he could see a large quadrangle of apartments; down below there were many other square patterns made up of shop roofs, the scene being broken up by a complex web of alleys and streets. Beyond it all he could make out the minaret of the al-Husayn Mosque whose soaring height bestowed blessings on all those who lived around it.

When Ahmad saw that he could see open sky from his window, he relaxed; the thing he had feared most was that he’d only be able to see blank walls. He now made his way over to the other window opposite the door to his room and opened it too. This time the view was completely different. Down below was a narrow street leading to the old part of Khan al-Khalili; its shops were closed, and it looked deserted. On the other side of the street was the side of another apartment building whose windows and balconies were very close to those of the building he was in. He now realized that the roofs of the two buildings were actually connected at several points and that their different floors were also linked by balconies, all of which made him think that it was in fact a single apartment building with two wings to it. On the left side of the street you could see the old Khan al-Khalili; from where he was standing it looked like a series of dilapidated roofs, collapsing windows, and wood and cloth canopies to give shade to the network of streets below. The space beyond that was filled with minarets, domes, and the tops and walls of many mosques, all of which gave the viewer an impression of the Cairo of al-Mu’izz’s time. This was the first time he had ever seen that view, and it only served to intensify his dislike for this new quarter. He started gazing at the strange, sprawling scene, a truly amazing sight for eyes accustomed only to paper and unversed in the real wonders of nature and historical monuments. But he had no time to indulge in such sensations, because he heard a knock on the door.

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