Alaa Al Aswany - The Yacoubian Building

“Dawlat threw me out.”

“Just an impulsive act born of too much anger. In a day or two, go and apologize to her. Dawlat has a short temper, but she’s good-hearted. And don’t forget, you did lose her valuable ring and any woman in the world will throw you out if you lose her jewelry.”

Christine said this light-heartedly, but Zaki remained gloomy and said sorrowfully, “Dawlat has been planning for a long time to throw me out of the apartment and the loss of the ring has given her the excuse. I offered to buy her a new ring, but she refused.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Dawlat wants to get her hands on the apartment for herself.”

“Why?”

“My dear friend. I’m not religious, as you know, and there are things I never give any thought to, such as the estate and the division of bequests.”

Christine looked at him questioningly and he went on to explain, pouring himself another glass, “I have never married and I have no children. When I die, my possessions will go to Dawlat and her children. She wants to secure everything for her children right now. Yesterday, during the quarrel, she said to me, ‘I will never let you squander our rights.’ Imagine! Just like that, in the clearest way possible! She considers everything I own to be her children’s by right, as though I were just the steward of my wealth. She wants to inherit from me before I die. Do you understand now?”

“No, Zaki.”

Christine, who seemed to have become a little inebriated, shouted the last words, and when Zaki tried to speak, she interrupted him heatedly, “Dawlat could never think that way!”

“After all these years, you’re still naive. Why are you amazed at evil? You think like a child. You think that the good people should be smiling and jolly and the bad ones have ugly faces with thick, matted eyebrows. Life’s a lot more complicated than that. There’s evil in the best of people and in those closest to us.”

“My dear philosopher, you exaggerate. Listen. Let’s bet a large bottle of Black Label. I’ll call Dawlat tonight and make peace between you. Then I’ll make you buy the bottle and don’t you dare go back on your word!”

Zaki left Maxim’s and wandered aimlessly around Downtown. Then he returned to his office, where Abaskharon (who was aware of what had happened) met him with an appropriately sad expression on his face and prepared his drink and snacks quickly and fervently, as though offering condolences. Zaki took his drink out onto the balcony, still at that point harboring some hope of making up with Dawlat. He felt that in the end she was his sister and she couldn’t do him harm. Half an hour passed and then the telephone rang. He heard Christine’s voice, sounding embarrassed, say, “Zaki. I called Dawlat. I’m sorry. She seems to have really gone mad and is set on expelling you from the apartment. She said she’s changed the lock and she’ll be sending you your clothes tomorrow. I can’t believe what’s happened. Can you imagine, she talked about legal measures she’s going to take against you?”

“What legal measures?”

“She didn’t explain, but you’d better be careful, Zaki. Expect anything from her.”

The following day Abaskharon appeared with a lad from the street carrying a large suitcase in which Dawlat had sent all Zaki’s clothes. This was followed by a series of summonses from the police station, as Dawlat had made a number of reports with the intention of proving her legal right to possession of the apartment and had got an undertaking of non-harassment from Zaki. Friends tried to act as go-betweens to arrange a reconciliation between the two, but Dawlat refused. Zaki called her several times on the telephone, but she hung up in his face and eventually he consulted a lawyer, who told him that his position while not bad was not especially good, since the apartment was rented in his father’s name and it was Dawlat’s right to live in it. He also stressed to him that the law moved slowly and that the proper thing to do in such situations was to use force. He ought — it was most unfortunate — to hire some thugs, throw Dawlat out of the apartment, prevent her from going back in, and let her go to court; this was the only way to settle such disputes.

Zaki agreed to the lawyer’s idea and suggested that the door be broken and the lock changed on Sunday morning, when Dawlat normally went to the bank. He affirmed to the lawyer that neither the doorkeeper nor any of the neighbors would prevent him from carrying out the plan. He spoke enthusiastically and seriously but in his heart knew very well that he would never do any of it. He would never hire thugs, he would never throw Dawlat out, and he would never take her to court. He couldn’t do it.

Is he afraid of her? Maybe. He never confronts her. He always backs down in front of her and he’s not a fighter by nature; from the time he was little, he has hated conflicts and problems and avoided them at any cost. And in addition, he’ll never throw her out because she’s his sister. Even in the event that he should recover the apartment from her and throw her out onto the street, he wouldn’t be happy. His struggle with her saddens him because he cannot bring himself to think of her as a vicious and wicked person, whatever she might do. He cannot forget the way she once was, which he loved. How delicate and shy she used to be, and how she’s changed! He’s sad because his relationship with his only sister has deteriorated to this point and he thinks of what she has done and asks himself where she acquired this cruelty. How could she have brought herself to throw him out in front of the neighbors? And how was she able to sit in front of the officer at the police station and make out a report against her brother? Doesn’t she even once consider that he’s her brother and that he’s never done anything to her bad enough to deserve such a reward? And again, is a little property worth the loss of one’s family? True, the land that he’d recovered from the land reform has increased several times over in value, but all of it will go back to Dawlat and her children on his death in any case, so why all the problems and disrespect?

Zaki felt the melancholy spreading little by little and throwing its black shadow over his life and he spent whole nights unable to sleep, during which he would stay up on the balcony till morning, drinking and smoking, and going over in his mind the events of the past, sometimes thinking that he had been unlucky from the time he was born. Even the timing of his birth had been inauspicious, and if he’d been born fifty years earlier, his whole life would have been different. If the Revolution had failed, if King Farouk had made haste to arrest the Free Officers — who were known to him by name — the Revolution would never have taken place and Zaki would have lived the life he was supposed to — Zaki Bey, son of Abd el Aal Basha el Dessouki. He would have made minister for sure, perhaps prime minister — a great life, truly befitting him, instead of a life of aimlessness and humiliation. A prostitute drugs him and robs him and his sister throws him out and exposes him to scandal in front of the neighbors and he ends up sleeping in his office with Abaskharon. Is it bad luck or a failing in his character that always drives him to make the wrong decision? Why did he stay in Egypt after the Revolution? He could have gone to France and started a new life, as many children of the big families had done. There he would certainly have attained a position of note as friends had done who were less than he in all respects. But he had stayed in Egypt and started to acclimatize himself to the deteriorating situation little by little until he had sunk to these depths. And then… why hadn’t he married? When he was a young man, many rich and beautiful women had wanted him, but he’d kept refusing marriage until the chance was gone. If he had gotten married, he would now have grown-up children to take care of him and grandchildren to play with and love. If he’d had even just one child, Dawlat would not have done all that to him, and if he’d married, he wouldn’t feel that killing, agonizing loneliness, that pitch-black sense of mortality that sweeps over him whenever he hears of the death of one of his friends. The unanswerable question that comes to him every night as he takes refuge in his bed is, “When will death come, and how?” He thinks now of a friend of his who prophesied his own death. He was sitting with him on the balcony of the office and directed a strange look at him, out of the blue, as though he had noticed something on the horizon. Then he said quietly, “My death is close, Zaki. I can smell it.”