Naguib Mahfouz - Sugar Street

After clapping his hands to order more charcoal for the water pipe, Isma'il scoffed, "If the English remember his good deed! I tell you right now they'll sack him long before that."

Riyad said with conviction, "The man has stepped forward to assume the greatest responsibility in the most trying circumstances."

Smiling, Kamal replied, Just as you will step forward to assume the greatest responsibility of your life."

Riyad laughed. Rising, he said, "If you'll excuse me," and headed off toward the rest room. Then Isma'il leaned in Kamal's direction and gleefully remarked, "Last week a bunch you surely remember visited my mother."

Looking at him inquisitively, Kamal asked, "Who?"

Smiling in a knowing way, the other man answered, "A'ida."

For Kamal this name had an odd ring that eclipsed all the emotions it might otherwise have evoked. At first this name appeared to have emerged from deep inside him, not from his friend's lips. Nothing could have been more unexpected, and for some moments the name seemed meaningless. Who was Ai'da? Which A'ida was it? That was all ancient history. How many years had passed since he had heard that name? Since 1926 or 1927… sixteen years… long enough for a boy to reach the prime of adolescence, fall in love, and experience heartbreak. He really had grown old. A'ida? How did this memory affect him? It had no i mpact on him aside from a sentimental interest mixed with emotions like those of a person who remembers a former painful a nd critical condition as his hand probes the scars of a surgical operation. He murmured, "A'ida?"

"Yes. A'ida Shaddad. Don't you remember her? The sister of Husayn Shaddad."

Becoming nervous under Isma'il's scrutiny, he said evasively, "Husayn! I wonder what's new with him."

"Who knows?"

He was conscious of how ridiculous his subterfuge was, but what could he do when he sensed that his face was starting to burn in spite of the intensely cold February weather? Although the comparison was a bit odd, love seemed to him to resemble nothing so much as food. "When it's on the table," he mused, "we are intensely aware of it. We are still conscious of it to a lesser degree as we digest it. But when it has been incorporated into our blood, our relationship to it is quite different. Then it is absorbed into the cells, and they are renewed. Eventually no trace of it remains, except perhaps for an inner echo we term 'forgetfulness.' A person may unexpectedly encounter a familiar voice, which will move this forgetfulness toward the level of consciousness. Then somehow he will hear this echo". If this was not correct, then why washe so shaken? Of course, he might pine for Aida, not because he had once loved her for that relationship had vanished never to return but because she represented love, which he had often sorely missed over the years. She was nothing but a symbol, like a deserted ruin that evokes exalted historic memories.

Isma'il continued: "We talked for a long time — Aida, my mother, my wife, and I. She narrated for us how she and her husband in fact, all the other diplomats — retreated from the advancing German forces until they ended up taking refuge in Spain. They are finally being transferred to Iran. Then we reviewed the past and laughed a lot."

No matter how dead his love was, his heart felt an intoxicating longing. Inside him, chords once silent reverberated softly and sadly. He asked, "What does she look like now?"

"She's possibly forty. No, I'm two years older than she is. Aida's thirty-seven. She's filled out a little but is still slender. Her face looks just about the same, except for the earnest and serious expression of her eyes. She said she has a son of fourteen and a daughter who is ten."

So this was A'ida then. She was not a dream, and he had not imagined his time with her. There had been moments when that part of his past had seemed an illusion. She was a wife and a mother. She remembered the past and laughed a lot. But what was her true image? How much of it did he still retain in his memory? Impressions might easily be transformed during their stay in one's memory. He would have liked to get a good look at this person, in order to discover the secret that had enabled her to exert such enormous influence on him in the past.

Riyad returned to his seat. Although Kamal feared that Isma'il would drop this topic, he continued: "They asked about you!"

Looking from one friend to the other, Riyad realized that they were involved in a private conversation and turned his attentions to the w ater pipe.

Kamal felt that the phrase "They asked about you" posed as great a threat to his immune system as the most virulent germs. Doing bis utmost to appear natural, he inquired, "Why?"

"They asked about one and another of their friends from the old days. Then they asked about you. I said, 'He's a teacher in al-Silahdar School and a great philosopher who publishes articles that 1 don't understand in al-Fikr magazine, which I don't even open.' They laaghed and then asked, 'Hashe gotten married?' And I answered, 'Absolutely not.'"

Kamal found himself asking, "What did they say then?"

"Something I don't remember what diverted us from this topic."

The dormant disease threatened to flare up again. Anyone who has had tuberculosis must beware of catching a cold. The phrase "They asked about you" resembled a children's song, for its meaning was as simple as its impact on the soul was profound. Circumstances may arise for a soul to relive in all its fury a former emotional state that then dies away again. Thus, for a fleeting moment Kamal felt he was that lover from the past, resonating with love's joyous and mournful melodies. But he was not in serious jeopardy, for he was like a sleeping man who is distressed by a dream and yet senses with relief that what he sees is not real. All the same, he wished at that moment for a heavenly dispensation allowing him to meet her, if only for a few minutes, so she could confess that she had reciprocated his affection for a day or even pait of one and that what had kept them apart had been the difference in their ages or something similar. If this miracle ever came to pass, it would repay him for all his pains, past and present, and he would consider himself a happy person, aware that his life had not been in vain. But wishful thinking like this was as false an awakening as that of death. He should content himself with forgetfulness. That would be a victory, even if tinged with defeat. He should let his consolation be the fact that he was not the only person to suffer failure in life.

He asked, "When are they leaving for Iran?"

"They were to leave yesterday, or at least that's what she said during her visit."

"How did she take her family's disaster?"

"I naturally avoided the subject, and she did not refer to it."

Pointing straight ahead, Riyad Qaldas exclaimed, "Look!" Glancing toward the left-hand side of the balcony, they observed a strange-looking woman in her seventh decade. Skinny and barefoot, she was attired in an ankle-length shirt like a man's and wore a skullcap from which no wisp of hair protruded. Her scalp was either bald or diseased, and her face was so coated with makeup that it appeared ridiculous and disgusting. Her front teeth were missing, and her eyes radiated beaming messages of affectionate ingratiation in all directions.

Riyad asked with interest, "A beggar?"

Isma'il replied, "A crazy woman, more likely."

She stood looking at the empty chairs on the left. Then choosing one, she sat down. When she noticed that they were looking at her, she smiled broadly and said, "Good evening, men."

Riyad responded warmly to her greeting, "Good evening, my good woman."

She emitted a laugh that, as Isma'il said, reminded him of the Ezbekiya entertainment district in its days of glory. Then she answered, "Good woman'! Yes, I am that, if you mean 'good' as in 'good times.'"