Naguib Mahfouz - Cairo Modern

Her eyes expressed her alarm, discomfort, and shame. So the bey told her in a calming voice, “Don’t think that I have betrayed you. Your future is secure in my hands, with God as my witness.”

Their eyes met — Mahgub’s and Ihsan’s — in silent astonishment. Each recognized the other and was overwhelmed by discomfort, feeling distraught. When Mahgub saw her, he almost lost his senses. Ihsan felt stunned when she saw him, because she remembered Ali Taha, the student hostel, and the past that she wished to flee. Glancing around, Mahgub saw Uncle Shihata Turki in a new overcoat and also a plump lady he realized was the man’s wife. Al-Ikhshidi perceived the group’s bewilderment and said, with a smile, “Perhaps you don’t need any introductions.”

Uncle Shihata said, “Mahgub Effendi has been our neighbor for the last four years.”

This did not come as a surprise to al-Ikhshidi, and that was his reason for making a point of concealing the identity of the two parties from each other before this surprise meeting. He proclaimed, “This is a delightful coincidence. People say, ‘Better a devil you know than a stranger.’ Shake hands and sit down, Mr. Mahgub.”

The young man roused himself from his stupor and approached his new family, greeting them one by one. Ihsan held out her hand but lowered her eyes and pearly face. She had wanted to drape a thick curtain over the past and to escape from it forever. Fate had thrown before her a person intimately linked to that past. It seemed that fate did not feel she had suffered enough. Al-Ikhshidi wished to lighten the tense atmosphere by chatting, but Mahgub ignored him.

How could his attention be drawn for a moment from the miracle standing before him? Here was Ihsan Shihata in person! Was this the secret cause of Ali Taha’s tragedy? Amazing! How had she strayed? How had the bey managed to seduce her? Ali had trusted her blindly. Was this what had become of Ihsan? Even he, who had never entertained blind trust in anyone, would not have been suspicious enough to predict what had happened. The Ihsan whom Ali Taha had loved no longer existed. That old love was finished. Here was a different, new Ihsan who was holding out to him her hand as their marriage contracted was signed. He had desired Ihsan for so long with such resentful torment. Wasn’t the truth stranger than fiction? He realized that al-Ikhshidi was chiding him, “Won’t you wake up?”

So he gazed up at him with blank eyes and stammered, “I’m astonished by this coincidence.”

Smiling, al-Ikhshidi asked, “How do you like it?”

Without any hesitation Mahgub replied, “No two ways about it — this is a happy coincidence.”

Al-Ikhshidi began to discuss the coincidence philosophically, and Umm Ihsan said a word or two. Uncle Shihata thought that he had summed it all up when he said, “The coincidence is God’s handiwork and decree. Glory to God.” Despite all this, the bridal couple remained sunk in their own reflections, and an apprehensive discomfort dominated the gathering. Then the doorbell rang. Al-Ikhshidi rose, liberating himself from the tension surrounding him, and exited, saying, “Perhaps it’s the marriage clerk.”

Their hearts were all pounding. A shaykh entered the room trailed by al-Ikhshidi. He greeted the party and prayed that God would bless his presence there. The shaykh sat down at a table, rolled back his sleeves, and set about his simple but all-important task. His hand, which was covered with thick hair, moved across the paper while Uncle Shihata and al-Ikhshidi looked on. Mahgub frowned a little and tried to force himself to pay attention, setting his reflections aside. Ihsan lowered her dull eyes and looked quite pale. The decisive moment arrived when the marriage clerk turned to Mahgub Abd al-Da’im and instructed him, “Repeat after me: ‘Now I accept in marriage Miss Ihsan, daughter of Mr. Shihata Turki, an adult virgin of sound mind …’ ” Mahgub repeated this statement with a calm inflection and a clear voice that displayed no emotion even when he pronounced the word “virgin.” It sounded odd to him and woke his latent sense of sarcasm and his deep-seated rancor. He remembered what al-Ikhshidi had said when he asked whether the bride was a virgin. The libertine had replied contemptuously, “She was.” Yes: was. Why didn’t the marriage clerk write, “Who was a virgin”? This constituted fraud in an official document. His marriage was a fraud. His life was a fraud. The whole world was a fraud.

The marriage clerk delivered a sermon that began, “Praise God who made marriage licit and forbade fornication.” He carried on with his memorized texts as Mahgub continued his reflections, telling himself: But the bey forbade marriage and legalized fornication! He was endorsing this doctrine by signing a marriage contract that was actually a license for fornication. They were becoming a married couple before God and man. The young man stole a look at his bride and found that her eyes were red and that she was close to tears. He told himself sardonically: A downpour starts with a single drop. Congratulations were exchanged and soft drinks were handed around. It was an unusual wedding; everyone taking part in it felt he was performing a troublesome duty he wished to conclude in the shortest possible time. The bride’s parents were relieved but not over-joyed or delighted. The newlyweds sank into their gloomy reflections as anxiety and embarrassment overwhelmed them. At first Ihsan had been amazed when she learned that her hand was sought in marriage. She had asked herself anxiously who would want to marry a bride like her? Then, remembering her respected father, she realized that nothing could be ruled out. Her father had turned a blind eye to her fall. He had handed her to a lover, not to a husband. So why shouldn’t there be other people like him? Such a man did exist, and here he was, sitting beside her as her spouse. She certainly did remember him. She remembered how she had rejected his affection back when she could. She despised him but not to excess. She told herself resentfully: Am I not like him or even worse? Each of us has sold himself in exchange for status and money.

Yes, they were married.

So the experiment was launched, and his philosophy embraced it with open arms. Mahgub himself, however, felt some anxiety. Although this anguish did not prevent him from taking part and even made him desire it all the more, he never forgot his goal for one moment and worked ceaselessly, as if work provided relief from his whispered doubts. He amassed the documents to justify his appointment. The one that was apparently the most significant was a certificate attesting to his “good behavior and conduct.” Al-Ikhshidi and one of his colleagues signed that, causing Mahgub to wonder sarcastically: Who will attest to the bride’s character?

He received twenty pounds to set his affairs in order and grasped the banknotes dumbfoundedly, because he had never seen so much money at once. He began to shuffle them carefully, scrutinizing them with awe and disbelief. This was the price of the two horns that crowned his head. Each was worth ten pounds! He found the image of a peasant on one bill and that brought the suggestion of a smile to his lips. He remembered his bedridden father, who was on the verge of starvation, and wondered why the currency did not portray a pasha or the Turkish flag. He told himself ironically that this use of the peasant’s picture was comparable to his signature on the marriage contract. With his pocket bulging, he headed to the tailor to purchase cloth for two suits. The man realized that the student was becoming a government employee, since he had only made a single suit for him throughout his four years of higher education. Then, like a proper bridegroom, he went to the Muski, where he purchased two pairs of pajamas, some dress shirts, underwear, socks, shoes, and a new fez. As he packed his clothes into a large valise, his face flushed with delight and vitality. Casting around his small room a malicious look, he remembered those foul February nights and the beanery on Giza Square. To hell with those black days! No matter what it cost him, they would never return. He would have to bring some color to his pallid cheeks, fill out the space between his bones and skin, keep his phenomenal intellect in good form, and slay the dread specter of hunger. To survive, the ostrich stretched its neck as long as a serpent, the lion made its paw as lethal as a grenade, and the chameleon acquired the ability to shift colors. That was what he had done, by different means. Yes, let his aspirations be unlimited and his ambition boundless. He had paid a steep price and the reward must be commensurate. He reflected for a time and then gave himself some advice. Caution? He should do what he wanted but should say only what other people wished to hear. He had grasped this truth from the start. If he volunteered a word or two in praise of virtue, someone would always call him virtuous. Had he candidly declared his enmity to virtue, everyone would have attacked him, egged on by the most sullied among them. Let al-Ikhshidi serve as his role model — al-Ikhshidi who was seen at every charity event. Indeed, he himself might think seriously about joining some of these benevolent societies. Then, remembering his marriage, he wondered again how little Ali Taha seemed to have meant to Ihsan. How had her foot slipped? What might Ali do in the future if he learned that Ihsan had become his wife? He would be aghast; his mind would be torn by anxiety. He would not believe that he — Mahgub — was responsible for his suffering. If he felt obliged to accept this bizarre truth, he would spitefully and rebelliously accuse Mahgub of every meanness, baseness, and reprehensible deceit. So be it. He could accuse him as much as he wished. Let him despise him in every way. Even so, he remembered the loan he had not repaid — fifty piasters. He resolved to repay him that very day. Because of his guilt, he did not feel like seeing him in person and sent the sum by mail. He felt much better then, sensing that he had cut the last thread that linked him to Ali Taha and that it would no longer be possible for him to pay any attention to what the other man imagined or felt or to what he himself had done. He summoned the doorman and gave him the task of selling the contents of his room, promising him a third of the receipts in exchange for keeping an eye out for any letters that might arrive for him. Then he thought of his parents. It may have been the first time he remembered them without annoyance, grumbling, or anger. He fully intended to send his parents two pounds every month, in fact to increase that to three if he could.