Naguib Mahfouz - Palace Walk

He often hoped she would remain invisible to other suitors until he could get established as a free man, acting and deciding his own fate. As days, weeks, and months passed without a suitor asking for her hand, it seemed his wish had been granted, but he did not enjoy any real peace of mind. He was prey to anxiety and fear, which took turns, time and again, ruffling his serenity, spoiling his dreams, and conjuring up for him many different types of pain and jealousy, which although imaginary were no less ferocious and cruel than if his fears had been realized. Even this desire itself and the delay in the occurrence of the misfortune became incentives for more anxiety and fear and consequently for pain and jealousy. Whenever his torment was severe, he wished the calamity would take place so he could receive his share of grief all in one blow. Perhaps afterward, through his despair, he could attain the tranquillity and repose he had not been able to achieve through his pipe dreams.

He could not yield to his emotions at a musical soiree where he was surrounded by the looks of friends and relatives. Yet the impact the sight of Maryam had made on him as she walked behind his sister could not pass without provoking some noticeable reaction. Since Fahmy was not able to brood about his sorrows or reveal his hidden emotions, he softened their impact by going to the other extreme. He talked, laughed, and pretended to be blissfully happy, but whenever he had even a moment to himself, he felt deep inside the alienation of his heart from everything around him. With the passing of time he realized that the sight of Maryam walking in the bridal court had aroused his love the way a sudden racket decisively arouses an anxious person with a tendency toward insomnia. For that evening at least, Fahmy would be unable to enjoy any peace of mind. Nothing happening around him would be able to remove from his mind her image or the smile with which she responded to the warm welcome composed of trills of joy and roses. It was a pure, sweet smile, suggestive of a carefree heart aspiring to calm and happiness. It was a smile that seemed too pretty ever to be replaced by a grimace of pain. The sight of her ripped into his heart, disclosing to him that only he was suffering. He alone bore his troubles. But had he not been laughing boisterously just now and moving his head to the music as though he was happy and glad? Was it not possible that someone looking at him might be deceived and think the same thing of him that he did of her? He derived some consolation from that thought but was no more convinced than a typhoid patient who asks himself, "Isn't it likely that I'll recover the way so-and-so did?"

Fahmy remembered her message Kamal had brought him some months before: "Tell him that she won't know what to do if a suitor asks to marry her during this long period of waiting". He asked himself, as he had tens of times before, whether any emotion lay behind those words? Indeed, no man, no matter how obstinate, could blame her for a single one of them. Nor could he overlook the good sense and wisdom they contained. Yet, for this very reason, he felt powerless against them and hated them. Good sense and wisdom are seldom happy with the impetuousness of emotion, which characteristically knows no limits.

Fahmy returned to the present, to the musical evening, and his raging love. It was not merely the sight of her that had rocked him so violently. Perhaps seeing her for the first time in a new place had done it. She had been here in the courtyard of the Shawkat residence, far removed from his house. He had never seen her in any other area before. For her to remain put in the old location established her in the mechanical daily routine, whereas her sudden appearance in a new place recreated her before his eyes and gave her a new existence in his consciousness, which in turn reawakened her original, latent presence in his mind. Both old and new visions of her had joined together to create this violent jolt. Moreover, her former existence linked to his house was separated from him by a wall of despair created by the stern rules of his family. Here, far removed from that house, her new existence was attended by a feeling of freedom and liberation as well as a spirit of parade and vivacity unknown to him. Her new existence was in the context of a wedding and thoughts of love and union. All of these circumstances helped to free her from her confinement atop a pedestal. Now his heart could see her as a possible goal. She seemed to be telling him, "Look where I am now. Just one more step and you'll find me in your arms". This hope soon collided with the thorny reality, helping create his violent jolt. Perhaps the sight of her in this new location also worked to establish her even more firmly in his soul, embed her in his life, and fix her in his memories. Images penetrate more deeply into us when they are associated with the different places we know from our experiences. Previously Maryam was associated with the roof of his house, the arbor of hyacinth beans and jasmine, Kamal, listening to his English lesson, the coffee hour, and talking to his mother in the study, and the message Kamal brought back from her. Henceforth she would be associated with Sugar Street, the courtyard of the Shawkat residence, the evening’s musical entertainment, the singing of Sabir, Aisha’s wedding procession, and everything else that was crowding in through his senses. Such a transformation could not occur without adding to the violent shock that had stunned him.

During one of Sabir’s intermissions, the voice of the female vocalist happened to carry through the windows overlooking the courtyard so the men could hear her? She was singing "My lover’s departed". Fahmy set about listening eagerly and with enormous interest. He concentrated all of his attention on absorbing the music, not because he particularly liked Jalila’s voice, but because he thought Maryam would be listening to her at that moment. The lyrics would be speaking to both of them at the same time. Jalila united the two of them in a single experience of listening and possibly of feeling. She had created an occasion for their spirits to meet. All of these considerations made him revere her voice and love her song. He wished to share this one sensation with Maryam. He tried for a long time to get through to her soul by retreating deep into himself. He sought to contact the vibrations of her reactions by following his own. Notwithstanding the distance and the thick walls separating them, he wished to live for a few moments inside her essence. To accomplish this, he attempted to determine from the lyrics the effect they would have on his beloved’s soul. What would her response be to "My lover’s departed" or "It’s a long time since he sent me a letter"? Had she been lost in a sea of memories? Had not at least one of those waves slipped away to reveal his face? Had not her heart felt a stabbing pain or a piercing grief? Or was she in such a daze throughout that she saw nothing in the song but enjoyable music?

Fahmy imagined her listening attentively to the music, free of her veil, parading her vitality, or her mouth parted in a smile like the one he had glimpsed when she arrived, which had upset him since he had inferred from it that she had forgotten him. She might be talking to one of his sisters as she frequently enjoyed doing. He envied his sisters that privilege, which would daze him to the point of panic, whereas they regarded it as an ordinary conversation like any they conducted with girls in the neighborhood. Indeed, he had frequently been amazed by his sisters' attitude toward her, not because they took an interest in her, for they did love her, but because they loved her exactly the same way they did the other girls in the neighborhood, as though she was just some girl. How could they greet her without getting flustered and do it in an ordinary manner, the way he greeted any passing girl or his fellow law students? How could they talk about her and say, "Maryam said this" or "Maryam did that" and pronounce the name like any other one, Umm Hanafi, for example? Hers was a name he had only pronounced once or twice in someone else’s presence. Then he had been amazed by its impact on him. When he was alone, he would only repeat her name as though it were one of the venerable names of Muslim saints engraved in his imagination along with the ornamentation provided by legends. These were names he would not pronounce without immediately adding one of the appropriate religious formulas: "May God be pleased with him" or "Peace on him". How could he explain that not merely the name but even Maryam herself lacked any magic or sanctity for his sisters?