Naguib Mahfouz - Palace of Desire

"Are there to be more problems, ones I haven't anticipated?" he asked himself.

"What do you mean?" he inquired indignantly.

She toyed with her gold bracelets, spinning them around her left arm. Then she said, "A respectable gentleman wishes to marry me. He won't take no for an answer."

"The heat and the humidity are stifling you," he thought, "and this shrew is opening her mouth to swallow you whole. How lucky that seaman is, trimming his sail outside the window…."

"Who is he?"

"Someone you don't know. Call him any name you want."

He took a step back and sat down on a sofa flanked by two armchairs. Gripping the handle of his stick with both hands, he asked, "When did he see you? How did you learn of his intentions?"

"He saw me often when I lived with my aunt. Recently he's attempted to speak to me whenever he's run into me on the street, but I've ignored him. So he got one of my girlfriends to tell me. That's the whole story."

"How many stories you have!" he mused. "When I found you gone yesterday, a single pain devastated me. At the time I wasn't aware of all these other pains and troubles. Leave her if you can. Break with her. That's the way to find peace. Aren't people wrong to imagine death's the worst thing we face?"

"I want to know whether you wish to accept this proposal."

With a nervous flick of her wrist she stopped playing with her bracelets and stared at him haughtily. Then she asserted grandly, "I told you I ignored him. You should understand what that means."

"You mustn't go to bed tonight with such lethal thoughts," he counseled himself. "You don't need another night like the last one. Shield yourself from these fears."

"Tell me frankly whether any man has visited you on the houseboat."

"A man? What man do you have in mind? You're the only man who emers this houseboat."

"Zanuba, I can ferret it all out. Don't be secretive. Tell me everything, even trivial details. Then I'll forgive you, no matter what."

She protested angrily, "If you keep doubting my truthfulness, the best thing is for us to part."

"Remember the fly you saw die this morning in a spider's web?" he asked himself.

"Enough of that. Teil me if this man met you yesterday."

"I told you where I went."

In spite of himself he snorted, "Why do you torment me? I've never wanted anything so much as to make you happy."

She clapped her hands together, as though finding his suspicions hard to bear. Then she said, "Why won't you understand me? I've sacrificed everything I value for your sake."

What a beautiful song it was! The calamity was that it could easily have come from an empty heart, for a singer can dissolve into a sad and plaintive song while intoxicated with happy triumph.

"With God as your witness, tell me frankly who this man is."

"Why does it matter to you? I said you don't know him. He's a merchant from another district, but he used to frequent the coffeehouse of al-Sayyid Ali occasionally."

"His name?"

"Abd al-Tawwab Yasin. Do you know him?"

"I leased this houseboat to have a good time," he reminded himself. "Remember the happy hours? World, do you recall the Ahmad Abd al-Jawad whom nothing fazed? Zubayda, Jalila, Bahija… ask those ladies about him. No doubt he's some other man not this anxious fellow with white ravaging the hair of his temples."

"The devil of unhappiness," he observed, "is the most energetic one."

"No, it's the devil of doubt, because he's able to create something from nothing."

He began to rap the floor with the tip of his stick. Then in a deep voice he said, "I don't want to live like a blind man. Certainly not! And nothing can make me violate my manly sense of honor. In brief, I can't tolerate your absence last night."

"We're back to that again!"

"And again and again and again. I'm not a child, and you're an adult too, a sensible woman. Today you've been telling me about that man. Has his promise of marriage really duped you?"

She answered proudly, "I know he's not deceiving me. His promise not to approach me till we're married is a proof of that."

"Does this marriage tempt you?"

She frowned disapprovingly and then said as if astonished, "Didn't you hear what I said? I'm amazed at how slow you are today. At any rate, you're not your normal self. Shake off this gloom you've needlessly courted and listen to me one last time: I ignored the man and his wish for your sake."

He wanted to learn how old this man was but did not know how to phrase the question. Youth and age were not mattershe had paid attention to before. After some hesitation he said, "Perhapshe's a callow youth who says things without thinking about them."

"He's no child. He's in his thirties."

In other words, the man was a quarter century behind al-Sayyid Ahmad. In everything except age it is bad to be behind. Jealousy is a brazen assassin.

She continued: "I pretended not to know him, even though he promised me the kind of life I dream of."

"What a chip off the old block!" he told himself. "Zubayda could have learned a lot from you."

"Is that so?" he asked.

"Let me tell you bluntly that I can't stand this life any longer."

"Remember the fly and the spider," he reminded himself.

"Really?"

"Yes. I want a secure life and a legal one. Or do you think that's wrong?"

"You came to interrogate her," he reflected, "but where do you stand now? She's the one ready to throw you out. How come you're so forbearing? Reserve some self-respect for what's left of your life. Do you understand what she's hinting at? … How lovely the breaking waves are at sunset."

His silence was prolonged, and she calmly started up again: "This won't anger you, for you're a pious man in spite of everything.

How can you obstruct a woman's desire to live according to the teachings of her religion? I don't want to be a mount for every rider. I'm not like my aunt. I have the heart of a Believer: I fear God. This has strengthened my resolve to abandon my sinful ways."

He listened to her last statement with astonishment and alarm. He started to scrutinize her with annoyance, which he hid behind a feeble smile. Then he replied, "You've never mentioned this to me before. Until yesterday we were getting along fine."

"I didn't know how to disclose my feelings to you."

"She's getting away from you with frightening and wicked speed. What a disappointment! I'm prepared to forget last night, ill-omened though it was. I'll forget my doubt and my pain … if she renounces this devilish scheme."

"We lived together happily and harmoniously. Does our relationship mean so little to you?"

"No, but I want to make it better. Isn't a godly life better than a sinful one?"

His lower lip tightened into a meaningless smile. Then he said in a faint voice, "For me the situation is quite different". "How?"

"I'm married, my son's married, and my daughters are married. As you can see, the matter's extremely delicate". Then he added regretfully, "Weren't we blissfully happy?"

She answered testily, "I'm not telling you to divorce your wife and renounce your children. Many men have more than one wife."

He observed apprehensively, "Marriage for a man my a… in my situation is not an easy matter. It provokes a lot of comment."

She laughed sarcastically and said, "Everyone knows you have a mistress That doesn't bother you. How come the possibility of gossip about a legal marriage worries you — if you want to marry me?"

Smiling with uneasy confusion, he said, "Only a few people know my secret. Besides, my family's totally in the dark about it."

She raised her penciled eyebrows in disbelief and said, "That's what you think. Only God knows for sure. What secret's secure from people's tongues?"

Before he could respond, she continued irately: "Or perhaps you don't think I'm good enough to have the honor of belonging to your family?"