Naguib Mahfouz - Midaq Alley

"Can't you think of a better way to address me than that?"

Kirsha flew into a rage. "Now I know you really have nothing to say to me. You had better go off to sleep like sensible women do…"

"If only you would go off to sleep like sensible men do!"

Kirsha slapped his hands together and shouted, "How can I go to sleep at this hour?"

"Why did God create night, then?"

Her husband, astonished and furious, exclaimed, "Since when have I gone to sleep at night? Am I ill, woman?"

She replied in a special tone of voice which she knew he would at once recognize and understand. "Turn in repentance to God, and pray that He accepts your repentance even though it comes so late!"

He realized what she meant and his doubts gave way before certainty. However, he pretended not to understand and, bursting with anger, said, "What sin is there in staying up talking for which a man should repent?"

His deliberate failure to understand merely increased her fury, and she shouted, "Repent about the nighttime and what goes on in it!"

Kirsha replied spitefully, "Do you want me to give up my whole life?"

She shouted back, now completely overcome with anger, "Your whole life?"

"That's right. Hashish is my life."

Her eyes flashed. "And the other hashish?"

He answered sarcastically, "I only burn one kind."

"It's me you burn! Why don't you have your parties in your usual place on the roof anymore?"

"Why shouldn't I have my parties where I please? On the roof, in the government buildings, in Gamaliya police station? What's it to do with you?"

"Why have you changed the place where you hold your parties?"

Her husband threw up his head and shouted, "May God bear witness! I have managed to stay out of government courts so far and I am now lucky enough to find my own home a permanent courthouse!" He lowered his head and continued: "It's as though our house were under suspicion and there were investigators prowling around it all the time."

She added bitterly, "Do you think that shameless youth is one of the investigators who have made you leave your home?"

Oh, so the insinuations were becoming declarations? His near-black face became even darker and he asked her, his voice showing his annoyance, "What youth is that?"

"The immoral one. The one you yourself serve with tea as if you were a waiter, like Sanker!"

"There's nothing wrong in that. A cafe owner serves his customers just as the waiter does."

She asked scornfully, her voice trembling with anger, "Why don't you serve Uncle Kamil, then? Why do you only serve the immoral one?"

"Wisdom says that one should take care of new customers!"

"Anyone can talk glibly, but your conduct is disgraceful and immoral."

He gestured toward her warningly with his hand and said, "Hold your tongue, you imbecile!"

"Everyone around here is grown up and acts intelligently…"

He ground his teeth, swore and cursed, but she took no notice of him and continued: "Everyone around is grown up and acts intelligently, but your brain seems to have got smaller the bigger you got!"

"You are raving, woman, raving by the life of the Prophet's grandson Hussain! May God recompense him for his cruel murder!"

Quivering with emotion, she shouted hoarsely, "Men like you really deserve to be punished. You have brought disgrace on us again! Now we will have another nice scandal!"

"May God recompense him for his cruel murder! May God recompense him!"

Despair and anger got the better of her and she shouted out warningly, "Today only four walls can hear us. Do you want the whole world to hear, tomorrow?"

Kirsha raised his heavy eyebrows and demanded, "Are you threatening me?"

"I am and I am threatening your whole family! You know me!"

"It seems I'll have to smash that silly head of yours!"

"Ha… ha… The hashish and your immoral living haven't left an ounce of strength in your arms. You couldn't even raise your hand! It's come to an end, to an end, Kirsha!"

"It's your fault things are where they are. Isn't it always women who put men off women!"

"How sorry I am for a man who is past women altogether!"

"Why? I have fathered six daughters and one son… apart from abortions and miscarriages."

Umm Hussain, quite beside herself with rage, shouted, "Aren't you ashamed to mention your children? Doesn't even thinking of them keep you from your filthy behavior?"

Kirsha struck the wall hard with his fist, turned about, and made for the door, saying, "You're completely crazy."

She shouted after him, "Has your patience run out? Are you longing for him because you had to wait? You'll see the results of your filthy behavior, you pig!"

Kirsha slammed the door hard behind him and the noise shattered the silence of the night. His wife stood wringing her hands in anger and desperation. Her heart overflowed with a desire for revenge.

Abbas, the barber, gazed critically at his reflection in the mirror. Slowly a look of satisfaction came into his slightly protruding eyes. He had curled his hair nicely and carefully brushed away the dust from his suit.

He went outside his shop and stood waiting. It was his favorite time of day, early evening, and the sky was clear and deep blue. There was a slight warmth in the air, brought on by a whole day of drizzle. The surface of the alley, which was only bathed two or three times a year, was wet; some of the hollows in Sanadiqiya Street were still filled with thickly clouded clay-dust water.

Uncle Kamil was inside his little shop, asleep in his chair, and Abbas' face glowed with a smile of pleasure. The love deep down within him stirred and he sang quietly to himself:

Uncle Kamil opened his eyes and yawned. Then he looked toward the young man, who laughed, standing in the door of the barber shop. He made his way across the road to him, poked him in the ribs, and said delightedly, "We are in love and the whole world must laugh with us."

Uncle Kamil sighed and his high-pitched voice piped, "Congratulations, then, but please give me the shroud now before you sell it to get a dowry for your wife."

Abbas laughed and strolled leisurely out of the alley. He wore his gray suit, which was also his only one. A year ago he had reversed its cloth and darned a few holes and, because he took care to clean and press it, it appeared fairly neat. He glowed with excitement and self-confidence and he was experiencing that feeling of deep tension which normally precedes the revelation of the hidden desires of the heart. His love was a mixture of gentle affection, sincere devotion, and hungry passion. He longed to feel the warmth of her body and experience the magical, mysterious intoxication of her eyes. Abbas had felt the joy of victory when he approached the girl on the street in Darasa and his fancy told him that her resistance was merely what all women pretend in answer to the call of desire.

His intoxication had lasted for days. Then it and his confidence had smoldered and died, and neither renewed themselves. Doubt stirred in him and he asked himself why he saw her resistance as proof of her love. Why shouldn't it be genuine opposition? Was it because she had not been cruel or rude? But, then, could one expect any worse treatment from a lifelong neighbor?

Each morning he appeared in front of his shop ready to catch a glimpse of her if she should open the window to let the sun into her flat. Each evening he sat outside the cafe beneath her window, smoking a water pipe and glancing up time after time, hoping to see her lovely form moving behind the shutters of the closed window. He was not satisfied with this lonely vigil and had approached her a second time in Darasa. Again she had snubbed him. Again he had tried and failed.