Naguib Mahfouz - Khan Al-Khalili

Obviously she was aware that he had stopped their morning excursions because of his cold. Since the cold had now gone, she encouraged him to resume their walk together since she was keen for them to be alone together.

She sneaked a quick glance in his direction. “Do you know what my grandmother says about you?” she asked.

His heart gave a leap, fearing that he might be about to hear something relevant to the question of an engagement. “What does she say?”

“She asked me with a laugh, ‘How come your professor is as thin as a rake? Do you want me to suggest some recipes to put some weight on him?’ ”

Nawal gave a gentle laugh, and he laughed with her so as to cover up the intense feeling of sorrow that came over him. He started to feel alarmed, but could see no way out of his predicament other than to put a bright face on things.

“I don’t need to get fat. Being thin is all the rage now. Thank your grandmother for me and tell her that I’d actually like to get even thinner!”

Just then she frowned as though she were remembering something. “By the way, you naughty boy,” she chided him, “sometimes when we’re gathered around the table for our lessons, you play footsie with me. You seem to forget that you’re wearing shoes but I’m barefoot!”

Rushdi blushed. “My heart and soul would sacrifice itself for your lovely little feet!” he laughed.

They were passing by the café called The Desert Club. She pointed at the waiter who was eating his breakfast. “Do you realize,” she said, “that cunning waiter over there has cottoned onto our rendezvous every morning? As soon as he spotted me walking on my own these last few days, he started clapping his hands whenever I walked by.

“ ‘Where’s your mate, little bird?’ he’d say as though talking to himself. ‘All lovers work in pairs!’

“Good heavens! How embarrassed I felt; it almost made me pass out!”

Once again they burst into laughter. They had almost reached the turn in the road where the Akif family’s wooden tomb lay on both sides. Nawal looked over at it.

“You owe me at least a hundred prayers,” she said. “Every single day I recite the Fatiha by your family tomb.”

“My dear Nawal,” Rushdi replied with a smile, “you’re a mercy for my grandfather who’s buried there and a gigantic tease to his grandson!”

He too looked over at the tomb. Suddenly a scary thought crossed his mind, like some demon emerging out of a graveyard. Would fate soon decree that this girl of his would be walking past this tomb and reciting the Fatiha over his departed spirit? His heart froze, and he looked wonderingly at her lovely face. She was his everything in life, he realized; if there was one single thing that could scoff at death, it was surely the deep love shared by two hearts. He now had a very powerful motive for his relationship with her, for holding her close to his heart, indeed inside his heart if possible. She looked back at him and noticed his dreamy-eyed gaze.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.

“Because I love you, Nawal,” he replied with a break in his voice. “Looking at those graves by the light of your lovely eyes, I’ve come to realize the true meaning of the saying that life is love. The graves have told me that every hour we allow ourselves to be apart from each other is in fact a crime whose penalty is the darkness of the tomb. I heard a voice yelling at me: ‘What a fool you are! All you bother about is trivialities. You’re gambling away the real pleasure of life.’ ”

She blushed, and her eyes sparkled with emotion. Neither of them felt the cold wind that was blowing in from the desert. He clasped her hand, and they walked on together. He started asking himself how he could possibly avoid bringing up the topic of an engagement after everything he had just said. For her part she was expecting him to raise the much beloved topic with every step she was taking. But he said nothing more until they were at the end of the road. They said farewell and parted. He slowed down and watched her walk on, his gaze full of all the love, emotion, and sadness he was nursing in his heart. She turned off toward Abbasiya, and he headed for the trolley stop. It was only then that he began to feel totally exhausted. He felt short of breath and so dizzy that he almost threw up.

Rushdi now made a point of talking to his brother about the possibility of an engagement and the bad impression her family would get if he did not raise the subject. His brother was already annoyed because Rushdi had gone out so early in the morning and so told him that he was not prepared to broach the topic with Kamal Khalil Effendi until he was completely cured.

“You can make whatever excuses you like,” he told his brother. “You certainly know how to do that. But it’s not right to make anything official until you’re completely well again, God willing. The engagement announcement can be a reward for getting better. We’ll see how strong your resolve really is!”

Ahmad found that he could not dissuade his brother from going out early and exposing himself to the cold. He gave up and entrusted his brother’s welfare to God, begging Him to show mercy and kindness. Ahmad was one of those types who take the sufferings of their nearest and dearest on themselves. In such weak hearts, deeply buried fears and worries can find fertile ground for all sorts of sorts of sorrows and delusions. From the very first his brother’s illness had become his overriding concern, a poisonous thorn in the side of his own sense of security.

His anxieties extended to other spheres as well, so much so that he ended up having to deal with the most delicate of ethical issues, one that had not even occurred to him before. He was well aware that his brother was meeting the girl every morning; he may even have spent time alone with her in the evening when he was tutoring her. If passion got the better of him — as happens when people are in love — and he stole a kiss, might not the girl be exposed to some serious kind of harm. Did Rushdi not realize the risks he was taking? Was his conscience not serving as a kind of restraint? But then, how could someone who was treating his own life with such levity give any value to those of other people? Ahmad thought about this for a while. He was both exasperated and worried, but he had no idea how to rescue this innocent girl from disaster. His indecisiveness was based entirely on the purest of ethical motives; he was convinced of that and also of the profound moral obligations on which it was based. Even so, he did not seem to realize his natural propensity to indulge in self-examination, or that all too often the eye only sees what it wants to see, so he was both exasperated and worried, both of which only complicated his thinking even more. He could not tell Kamal Khalil the truth since such a betrayal of his beloved brother would be an appalling crime, nor could he reveal his fears to his brother, since that would strike his sensitive soul in its most vulnerable spot. The reluctance, fear, and worry that Ahmad was feeling were all torture for him, but now as always he had neither resolve nor will to act. Disconsolate and confused, he gave up. His worries continued to plague him and prick his conscience, so much so that the entire process wore him out and made him desperate.

“Perhaps the kind of stupor that Boss Zifta enjoys is better than the kind of life I’m living!” he thought to himself in despair.

Rushdi’s health went from bad to worse, and he became even thinner and paler. Even so, he refused to change his behavior, as though the whole thing had nothing to do with him. From this point on, he was no longer content merely to take his early morning walks. Whenever he felt like seeing his friends at the Ghamra Casino, he would rush over there and spend a riotous evening with them.