Naguib Mahfouz - Palace Walk

The young man’s vital forces were so powerful that they dominated him if he was otherwise at liberty. At no time did they grant him any relief from their proddings. He continually felt their tongues burning against his senses and consciousness. They were like a jinni on his back, guiding him wherever it wished. All the same it was not a jinni that frightened or upset him. He did not wish to be freed from it. In fact, he might even have desired more like it.

His jinni quickly disappeared and changed into a gentle angel when he approached his father’s store. There he kept his eyes to himself and walked normally. He was polite and modest. He walked faster and did not let himself be distracted by anything. When he passed the door of the shop, he looked inside. There were many people present, but his eyes met those of his father, who sat behind his desk. He bowed respectfully and saluted his father politely. The man answered his greeting with a smile. Then Yasin continued on his way as delighted with this smile as though he had received an unparalleled boon.

The fact was that his father’s accustomed violence, even though it had undergone a noticeable change since the youth joined the corps of government employees, still remained in Yasin’s opinion a form of violence moderated by civility. The bureaucrat had not freed himself from his former fear, which had filled his heart when he was a schoolboy. He had never outgrown his feeling that he was the son and the other man the father. Huge as he was, he could not help feeling tiny in his father’s presence, like a sparrow that would tremble if a pebble fell. As soon as he got past his father’s store and safely out of sight, Yasin’s airs returned. His eyes began to flutter about again, not discriminating between fine ladies and women who sold doum palm fruit and oranges on the street. The jinni controlling him was wild about women in general. It was unassuming and equally fond of refined and humble women. Although they resembled the ground on which they sat in their color and filth, even the women who sold doum palm fruit and oranges occasionally possessed some beautiful feature. They might have rounded breasts or eyes decorated with kohl [8] kohl — a preparation used especially in Arabia and Egypt to darken the edges of the eyelids . What more could his jinni wish for than that?

He headed toward the Goldsmiths Bazaar and then to al-Ghuriya. He turned into al-Sayyid Ali’s coffee shop on the corner of al-Sanadiqiya. It resembled a store of medium size and had a door on al-Sanadiqiya and a window with bars overlooking al-Ghuriya. There were some padded benches arranged in the corners. Yasin took his place on the bench under the window. It had been his favorite for weeks. He ordered tea. He sat where he could look out the window easily without arousing suspicion. He could glance up whenever he wished at a small window of a house on the other side of the street. It was quite possibly the only shuttered window that had not been carefully closed. This oversight was not surprising since the window belonged to the residence of Zubayda the chanteuse. Yasin was not ready for the chanteuse herself. He would need to pass patiently and persistently through many more stages of wantonness before he could aspire to her. He was watching for Zanuba to appear. She was Zubayda’s foster daughter. She played the lute and was a gleaming star in the troupe.

The period of his employment with the government was a time full of memories and came to him after the long, obligatory asceticism he had endured out of respect for his father and the frightening shadow he cast on his life. Thereafter, he had plunged into the Ezbekiya entertainment district like water down the falls, in spite of the harassment of the soldiers brought to Cairo by the winds of war. Then the Australians appeared on the field, and Yasin had been obliged to forsake his places of amusement to escape their brutality. He had been at his wits' end and had begun to roam the alleys of his neighborhood like a madman. The greatest pleasure he could hope for was a woman selling oranges or a gypsy fortune-teller.

Then one day he had seen Zanuba and, dumbfounded, had followed her home. He had confronted her time after time but had almost nothing to show for it. She was a woman, and to him every woman was desirable. Moreover, she was beautiful and so he was wild about her. Even when his eyes were wide open, love for him was nothing but blind desire. It was the most elevated form of love he knew.

He looked out between the bars at the empty window with such apprehension and anxiety that he forgot what he was doing and drank hot tea without waiting for it to cool. He swallowed some and burned himself. He started to breathe out and put the glass back on the brass tray. He glanced about at the other patrons as though implying that their loud voices had disturbed him so much they were responsible for his accident and the reason that Zanuba had not appeared at the window.

"Where could that cursed woman be?" he wondered. "Is she hiding on purpose? She must certainly know I'm here. She may even have seen me arrive. If she continues to play the coquette right to the very end she'll make today one more day of torture".

He resumed his stealthy looks at the other men sitting there to see whether any of them had noticed. He found they were all immersed in their endless conversations. He was relieved and looked back at his targeted site, but the train of his thoughts was interrupted by memories of the troubles he had encountered during the day at school. The headmaster had questioned the honesty of a meat distributor and had undertaken an investigation in which Yasin, as school secretary, had participated. Then he had appeared a little slack in his work, and the headmaster had scolded him. That had spoiled the remainder of the day for him and made him think of complaining about the man to his father, for the two men were old friends. The only problem was he feared his father might be rougher on him than his boss.

"Get rid of these stupid ideas," he advised himself. "We're done with the school and the headmaster, curses on them. What I'm being put through by that smart-ass bitch, who’s too stingy to let me see her, is enough for now".

Dreams of naked women began to swarm through his mind. Such visions frequently played on the stage of his imagination when he was looking at a woman or trying to remember her. They were created by a rash emotion that stripped bodies of their coverings and revealed them naked the way God created them. This emotion did not make an exception for his body either. His visions would progress through all types of fun and games with nothing held back.

He had just sunk into these dreams when the voice of a driver crying "whoa" to his donkey roused him. He looked in that direction and saw a donkey cart standing in front of the singer’s house. He asked himself if the wagon might have come to carry the members of the troupe to some wedding. He summoned the waiter and paid him to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Time passed while he waited and watched.

Then the door of the house opened and one of the women from the troupe emerged, leading a blind man. He was wearing a long shirt, an overcoat, and dark glasses and carried a zitherlike qanun [9] qanun — a zitherlike musical instrument under his arm. The woman climbed into the cart and took the qanun. She grasped the blind man’s hand while the driver helped him from the other side till he reached the woman. They sat next to each other at the front of the wagon. They were followed immediately by a second woman carrying a tambourine and a third with a parcel under her arm. The women were concealed in their wraps but their faces were visible. In place of long veils they were wearing short ones embellished with brilliant colors that made them look like the candy bride dolls sold at festivals. And then what?… With yearning eyes and throbbing heart he saw the lute emerging from the door in its red case.