Naguib Mahfouz - Khan Al-Khalili

Everyone laughed, including Akif.

“Don’t be so quick to laugh, Boss Nunu!” Sayyid Arif was forced to respond. “Pretty soon things are going to change. I’ve heard about some brand new pills. You’ll see!”

That was as far as Ahmad could go in keeping up with their chatter. He felt like a swimmer whose strength is flagging and whose resistance is growing weaker by the minute. He had no idea how he managed to change the subject to war news nor how it came about that Sayyid Arif started counting off the German victories in Russia, proudly rattling off the way Vyazma, Bryansk, Orel, Odessa, and Kharkov had all fallen and the Crimea had been overrun. At that point Boss Nunu stood up to leave and perform the Friday prayer. Ahmad got up too, excused himself, and left to go home.

When he got there, he stood in the hallway for a while wondering whether Rushdi was still in his room. He walked along the hallway and stood by the door of his brother’s room. He could smell cigarette smoke wafting its way through the gaps in the door, so he turned round and went back to his own room. For the first time ever, Rushdi was spending his weekly day off (or rather their weekly day off) at home! More likely than not, he would not be going out either, and she too would be staying close by the window. God knows how many times they had already exchanged waves and smiled at each other, and how many hopes had arisen.

Taking off his suit, he put on a gallabiya and skullcap, then sat down on the settee next to the bookshelf. He was feeling utterly miserable, and yet there was no jealousy, or, at least, nothing that showed. He managed to convince himself that whatever went on in the other part of the apartment was simply child’s play and of no interest to him. Was this just a temporary feeling on his part? How could he know? Even so, he felt badly done by. How could it all have happened so quickly, he asked himself. Was the emotion that he had convinced himself was real love truly this superficial?

He let his feelings calm down a bit, then went to the bookshelf and took down Imam al-Ghazali’s book, Goals of the Philosophers . Now, here was something far more deserving of his attention, one of those treasures about which Ahmad Rashid knew absolutely nothing. He opened the book up to the chapter on theology and tried reading the preface to the division of the sciences. Before long he realized that he was devoting so much energy to concentrating on what he was doing that it was impossible to enjoy the actual process of reading. He closed the book and put it back on the shelf. He decided that his mind had used up a good deal of energy that day on the process of forgetting — no matter what kind of effort was involved — so he could afford to give it a day’s rest.

It had all been a silly piece of emotionalism. How could that girl have possibly made him happy when he was so intelligent and learned while she was totally naive and uncultured? Truth to tell, his younger brother had just saved him from making a mistake that might have been the end of him. From now on, he needed to keep his eyes wide open and abandon forever any thought of getting married. How absurd to even think that he could ever find a suitable woman! Even so, she had betrayed him in a way that was both mean and reprehensible. Hadn’t she flirted with him? Hadn’t she been happy enough to have him as an admirer? How could she have changed her mind so unbelievably quickly? He asked himself whether God had ever created a more repulsive sight than a two-faced girl. Telling himself to “get over it and move on” was all very well, but what a paltry world it was where feelings could be turned upside down at the drop of a hat!

“God damn the world!” The loud voice interrupted his feverish ruminations, and he realized that Boss Nunu had just come back to his store from the Friday prayers. He was delighted to be distracted from all his woes in this abrupt fashion. Moving over to the window on the side that was still new to him, he looked out over the neighborhood that he had come to know and already found tedious. If only the family had never left al-Sakakini! Not only that, but he also found himself secretly wishing that his younger brother had never come back to Cairo from Asyut. If he hadn’t come back, his peace of mind would not have been shattered so completely. But no sooner did the thought cross his mind than he felt a deep sense of pain. He dearly loved his brother; there was no doubting that. It would be impossible to fake the real affection he felt for his brother who was almost his son and foster child. What was really odd and wrong was that he loved him and hated him at the same time. Had Rushdi not come back to Cairo, Ahmad would now be engaged.

Before realizing it, his whole inner self started gushing sentimental about married life, completely ignoring all previous misgivings. The number two was sanctified, he decided. Pythagoras may have said that the number one was sanctified, but he was wrong — it was two. Humanity can lose itself in groups, but drowns in misery when left alone. A life companion can provide succor. Mutual revelation, profound love, shared companionship, delight of one heart in another, and infinite serenity, all of them are the deep delights that only happen between two people. Ahmad was utterly fed up with his own misery, exasperated by his loneliness, and resentful of the void in his life. Now his inner self was contradicting him, by expressing a great longing for love, sympathy, company, and affection. Where are those lips to give him a smile of affection? Where is the heart to share its beats with another? Where is the bosom from which to nurse some droplets of repose and to which to entrust his innermost thoughts?

His exasperation reached its peak. He went back and sat on the bed, shaking his head in anger. It was almost as if he were trying to block out these sad feelings so that he could recover his anger and severity, not to mention his insane belief in the virtues of loneliness, arrogance, and contempt for human emotions. His jealous feelings might cool in the long run, and his emotions might flag as well, but, when it came to his sense of his own importance, it was an entirely different story. That was an ulcer that could not be lanced. How on earth could that be? Whenever it repaired itself, his blind conceit would remove the scab.

“That girl has got to realize,” he said between grinding teeth, “that from now on I have decided to give her up without so much as a second thought!”

On Saturday morning he woke up exhausted. He had not slept at all well, and he was now paying the price for the joyful interlude of love, however short it may have been. What was past was past. True enough, but, as long as the possibility of forgetting it all still lurked behind all his sorrowful memories, then consolation in some form or other was still something to be devoutly desired. Where was that lovely Jewish girl from al-Sakakini now with her ideal kind of love? By now time had done its work, drawing a veil of forgetfulness over the past and swallowing up all such memories. Still he clearly understood that from now on he needed to remain unaffected, or at least to make a show of doing so. He had to show Nawal that he was barely even aware of the fact that he had been jilted by a young girl.

When he went to the bathroom, he noticed that his brother’s door was ajar. He could see him getting dressed, which was amazing in itself because his brother always got up later than he himself did. He also noticed his brother looking up at the window opposite. That gave him a jolt, as though someone had stuck a needle into him. He let the cold water flow over his head for some time as a way of calming his shattered nerves. Back in his room he put on his suit, then went to the table to drink his cup of morning coffee, smoke a cigarette, and eat something light. He had decided to greet his younger brother in a perfectly normal way, not least because he was anxious to keep his real feelings hidden. Rushdi came in wearing a suit and fez, and gave him his usual smile.