Naguib Mahfouz - Palace of Desire

The next time Kamal went to the Shaddad mansion at the customary hour for their weekly reunion, Hasan was absent, having excused himself because something had come up. After the session disbanded, Isma'il Latif informed Kamal that he — Hasan — was very sorry for what he had blurted out in a moment of pique about "the merchant's son and the son of the superior court judge" and that he believed Kamal had made serious accusations based on fanciful deductions. Hasan hoped that this untoward incident would not end their friendship and had asked Isma'il to convey this message to Kamal orally.

Later Kamal received a letter from Hasan to the same effect, emphasizing the request that they should put the past behind them when they met and forget about it. The letter concluded with the statement: "Remember everything you did to offend me and what I did to offend you. Perhaps you will be as convinced as I am that each of us was in the wrong and that therefore it would not be right for either of us to reject his friend's apology". This letter made Kamal feel better for a while. Yet he noticed the contrast between Hasan's customary arrogance and this delicate and unexpected apology. Yes, it was unexpected, since he had never imagined that Hasan would apologize for any reason. What had made him change? Their friendship would not have had this huge an impact on his comrade's pride. Perhapshe, Hasan, wished to restore his own reputation for civility more than he wished to reclaim their friendship. Perhapshe also wanted to keep the quarrel from growing any more virulent lest news of it reach Husayn Shaddad, for that young man might be indignant at having his sister embroiled in the dispute or angry for his own sake if he heard what had been said about "the merchant's son and the son of the superior court judge," since Husayn was also the son of a businessman. Any of these would have been plausible reasons and more logical, given Hasan's character, than an apology influenced by nothing but their friendship.

Whether he made peace with Hasan or continued to be his enemy seemed insignificant to Kamal. The important thing was to know whether A'ida had decided to conceal herself. She no longer wandered by when they were sitting in the garden. She was not visible at the window. She did not appear on the balcony. Counting on her pride, Kamal had told her what Hasan had said about being able, if he chose, to prevent her from visiting them. Kamal had done that to shore up her determination to visit the gazebo, so he would not be deprived of seeing her. But in spite of that she disappeared as though she had quit the house altogether, indeed the whole district. Why not say the whole world, which had become insipid? Was it possible that this separation would last forever? He hoped it was her intention to punish him for a time and then pardon him. If only Husayn Shaddad would mention some reason for her absence and dispel his fears…. He wished with all his heart for one of these eventualities and bided his time, but his wait was long and fruitless.

Whenever he went to visit the mansion he approached it with anxious eyes, as he wavered between hope and despair. He would steal a glance at the front balcony and another at the window overlooking the side path. Then on his way to the gazebo or the men's parlor he would gaze at the rear balcony. As He sat with his friends, his long reveries featured the happy surprise that just did not take place. When they split up after their conversation, he would keep looking stealthily and sadly at the window and the balconies, especially at the window over the side path, for it frequently served as a frame for his beloved's image in his daydreams. Then he would depart, gulping down his despair and puffing out his distress. He became so despondent that he would have asked Husayn Shaddad the secret behind Aida's disappearance had it not been for the traditions of the ancient quarter, with which his mentality was saturated. Thus he said nothing but began to wonder anxiously about the extent of Husayn's knowledge of ttie circumstances leading to the disappearance of the beloved.

Hasan Salim made no reference to the past, and his face gave no indication that he thought about it at all. Yet doubtless at each session that brought them together, he saw a living witness to his victory: Kamal. This thought hurt Kamal a good deal. He suffered a lot and felt the torment penetrating his marrow. The delirium of suffering affected his thinking. His worst agonies stemmed from the grief of separation, the bitterness of defeat, and the anguish of despair. Even more atrocious than all of these was his sense of abasement at being expelled from the garden of her good graces aud deprived of the beloved's melodies and illuminations. As his spirit shed tears of grief and sorrow, he began to repeat, "You deformed creature, what are you compared with those blissful fellows?" What meaning would life have if she persisted in concealing herself? Where would his eyes find light or his heart warmth? What rapture was there for his spirit to enjoy? So let the beloved appear at whatever price she stipulated. Let her appear and love anyone she pleased, Hasan or someone else. Let her appear and mock his head and nose as much as her sense of humor and her playfulness wanted. His craving to contemplate her form and to hear her voice exceeded the human norm so what then of a pleasant look to remove the resentment, despair, and desolation from his breast and to cheer a heart deprived of happiness as a blind man is deprived of the light? Let her appear even if she ignored him, for in that case, although he would be denied the pleasure of being acknowledged by her, he would not miss the happiness of seeing her and thus of seeing the world her magnificent light revealed. Otherwise, life would be nothing but successive moments of pain racked by insanity. Her withdrawal from his life was equivalent to extracting the spine from a body, which, having once known a balanced perfection, is then reduced to a sentient blob.

His pain and anxiety made him restless. He could not bear to wait for Friday to come, and he would go with friends to al-Abbasiya and circle around the mansion at a distance, on the chance that he might see her at a window, on a balcony, or as she walked when she thought she was far from his eyes. One of the consolations of waiting patiently in his home on Palace Walk was despair. In his feverish condition hovering near the shrine of the beloved was comparable to putting sticks of dynamite around a pillar of flame. He never saw her. Several timeshe saw one of the servants going or coming on the street. Then he would follow the fellow with amazed and curious eyes, as if asking the fates why they singled out this person to be near the beloved, to associate with her, and to observe her in various different modes whether lying down, singing, or daydreaming. Why should all this good fortune befall a man who lived in her prayer niche with a heart oblivious to her worship.

On one of his jauntshe witnessed Abd al-Hamid Bey Shaddad and his treasured wife as they left the mansion to get into the Minerva automobile, which was waiting for them at the gate. Thus he saw the two happy individuals whom, more than anyone else in the whole world, Ai'da venerated and respected. They occasionally gave her orders, which she had to obey. This precious mother had carried Ai'da in her belly for nine months. Doubtless A'ida had once been a fetus and then a newborn, like those creatures Kamal had stared at for a long time when they first appeared in Aisha's and Khadija's beds. No person knew more about the childhood of his beloved than this happy and precious mother The pains would remain, or at least their effects would not be erased, so long as he wandered through life's labyrinth. To what avail were those nights in January when he buried his eyes, flowing with tears, in the pillow? He spread out his hands in prayer to the Lord of the heavens, pleading with total commitment, "O God, tell this love to be as cold as as hes, just as You commanded the fire burning Abraham: 'Be cold and safe'" (Qur'an, 21 y6g). He wished that love was concentrated in one location in the human being, for perhaps then it could be surgically removed the way a diseased limb is amputated. With a humble heart he uttered her beloved name to hear it echo in the silent room, as though someone else had summoned her. To revive a dream of lost happiness, he imitated her voice speaking his name. He ran his eyes over the pages of his diary to confirm that what had happened was a reality, not a figment of his imagination.