Naguib Mahfouz - Cairo Modern

He caught sight of Rashad Pasha Street when the sun was dissolving into a bloody lake of twilight and darkness was already shading the edges of the horizons. Chancing to look round as he turned onto the street, he saw Ali Taha coming from the university. So he stopped to wait for him. They shook hands and then Ali said with concern, “Mr. Ma’mun told me your father was ill. I felt really sad. Your prompt return tempts me to think you’re reassured and that makes me happy.”

Mahgub did not want anyone to learn about his woes. So, smiling, he replied tersely, “Thanks.”

“He is better, isn’t he?”

“Certainly, thanks.”

They walked along slowly, side-by-side, as though out for a stroll. Mahgub wondered whether his companion was returning from or heading toward a romantic tryst. Ali afforded him as many reasons to feel delight as pain. He glanced stealthily at him and found he was walking along dreamily, his face illuminated by a smile, and his forehead aglow with joy and good humor as he quivered excitedly with love’s intoxication. Didn’t a lover’s success provide pleasure and pride equivalent to a warrior’s? He felt an irresistible desire to tempt him into a discussion of this beautiful subject. So gesturing toward the clumps of trees with a suggestive smile, he exclaimed, “Oh, if only these trees could talk!”

Ali Taha grasped the reference, and his sentiment was so vivid that he felt inspired to speak clearly, needing to express himself. So he said emotionally, “Mr. Mahgub, that’s what you think, but don’t cast a sarcastic eye on love. By no means. It should not be taken lightly. The throbbing of a serious heart is as significant in this world as the planets’ trajectories are in the heavens. So don’t ever mention the ‘boiler’s reservoir’ or ‘safety valve.’ ”

Mahgub felt profound contempt for his interlocutor. This was compounded both by the agitation his inflection betrayed and by the envy Mahgub felt for him. He told himself sarcastically: The idiot wants to fashion a shrine even for procreation. Then out loud, he said calmly and coldly, “You lovers, I don’t worship what you worship.”

Ali smiled and responded in kind, “Nor do we worship what you worship. ”

Mahgub was afraid that his Qur’anic sarcasm would bring the young man back to his senses. He regretted his slip and wished to disguise it. So he changed his tone and said with superficial interest, “What a strange affair love is. Although your girlfriend really is exceptional!”

Ali replied enthusiastically, “Beauty’s not her only virtue. Her spirit is refined, her heart is perceptive, and I can’t begin to describe for you how perfectly our personalities mesh. This is Ihsan!”

Mahgub’s soul was troubled by hearing her name and was suddenly filled with fury. Do you suppose this is the jealousy that people discuss? How shameful! How could someone who aspired to smash all shackles fall victim to depraved jealousy?

In a different tone that masked his revived sarcasm, he shot back, “For this melding to be perfect, I suppose your girl must be liberated from religion and believe instead in society, high ideals, and socialism.”

Ali replied primly, “It’s enough for us to live a single emotional and spiritual life. Our two intellects will unite, commingling, so that we become a happy family one day.”

Mahgub asked skeptically, “Have you reached that point?”

“Yes.”

“Have you proposed to each other?”

“Yes. I’m waiting till she finishes her higher education.”

“Congratulations, sir.”

It hurt him to offer congratulations when he himself was the person who most deserved consolation. He was filled with anxiety and despair. He thought to himself: He beat me out of the prettiest girl in Cairo. Tomorrow the fresh, pliant body will belong to him. He blurted out a question without meaning to, “How did you meet her? On the street?”

Ali replied with astonishment, “Of course not! From the window!”

“But you’re not the only one who looked down at her?” This sentence escaped without any premeditation as well. He deeply regretted uttering it and feared his companion would grasp its real meaning. So he added to mislead him, “Our student neighbors also look out.”

Ali remained silent but smiled, and Mahgub did not say anything for fear his tongue would commit some new offense. They came in sight of the student hostel, which looked like a military barracks: a huge building with many small windows. They saw opposite it, at the corner of al-Izba Street, Uncle Shihata Turki’s home. The man, who was standing in front of his establishment, was in his fifties with a fair complexion and handsome face. Mahgub commented to himself sarcastically: What a great in-law he will be! Then the two young men entered the large structure: the happiest of men and the most wretched.

The three friends congregated in Ma’mun Radwan’s room. The window was closed and the heater in the center of the room had a layer of ashes on top. Ma’mun was criticizing the Friday sermon he had heard that noon. He began by saying that sermons needed radical revision and that in their present state they were a frank incitement to ignorance and superstition.

His two companions paid no attention to sermons, but all the same, Ali Taha said, “The really pressing need is for preachers of a new type: from our college, not from al-Azhar. They would tell people that their rights have been plundered and show them how to liberate themselves.”

Mahgub Abd al-Da’im customarily participated in his friends’ discussions, not to defend one of his beliefs, because he did not have any, but from a love for contentious, mocking debate. This evening, though, more than ever, he felt he was one of those wretched people to whom Ali referred. He wanted to get some relief for the tightness in his chest by speaking. Although he was not concerned with the welfare of people in general, the only way he could refer to his own concerns was by couching them in universal terms. So he said, “Fine, our problem is poverty.”

Then Ali Taha said fervently, “That’s right. Poverty’s fetid air stifles science, health, and virtue. Anyone who’s content with the peasant’s living conditions is a beast or a demon.”

Mahgub added to himself: Or a bright guy like me, if that’s the only way to get rich. Then out loud, he said, “We know the disease. That’s obvious. But what’s the cure?”

Ma’mun Radwan, adjusting his skullcap, said, “Religion. Islam’s the balm for all our pains.”

Stretching his legs out till they almost touched the heater and ignoring what his host had just said, Ali Taha replied, “The government and parliament.”

So Mahgub objected, “ ‘Government’ implies rich folks and major families. The government is one big family. The ministers select deputies from their relatives. The deputies choose directors from a pool of relatives. Directors select department chiefs from relatives. Chiefs pick office workers from their relatives. Even janitors are chosen from among the servants in important homes. So the government is a single family or a single class of multiple families. And it’s a fact that this class sacrifices the people’s welfare whenever that conflicts with its own interests.”

“How about parliament?”

Smiling mischievously, Mahgub answered, “A representative who spends hundreds of pounds to get elected can’t represent impoverished people. Parliament’s no different in this regard from any other organization. Look at Qasr al-Aini Hospital, for example. It’s termed a hospital for the indigent, but actually it’s a laboratory for potentially lethal experiments on the poor.”