Naguib Mahfouz - The Time and the Place - And Other Stories

“Too bad!” I muttered. “She robbed us; then there was the death of my brother and my mother’s distress.”

“I’m sorry about that, but she’s as much a victim as you are. Even the fortune she made off with brought her to disaster. And now here she is begging.”

Prompted by casual curiosity, I said, “It’s as though you know something about her.”

He shook his head with diplomatic vagueness. “A woman who couldn’t have children, she was married and divorced several times when she was in her prime. In middle age she fell in love with a student, who, in his turn, robbed her and went off.”

He did not divulge the sources of his information, but I surmised the logical progression of events. I experienced a feeling of gratification, which a sense of decency prevented me from showing.

On the day of the court session, I was again seized by a mysterious desire to set eyes on her. I recognized her as she waited in front of the lawyers’ room. I knew her by conjecture before actually recognizing her, for the beauty that had made away with our fortune and ruined us had completely vanished. She was fat, excessively and unacceptably so, and the charming freshness had leaked away from her face. What little beauty was left seemed insipid. A veneer of perpetual dejection acted like a screen between her and other people. Without giving the matter any thought, I went up to her, inclined my head in greeting, and said, “I remember you…perhaps you remember me?”

At first she gazed at me in surprise, then in confusion. She returned the greeting with a gesture of her covered head. “I’m sorry to cause you trouble,” she said, as though apologizing, “but I am forced to do so.”

I forgot what I wanted to say. In fact words failed me, and I felt an inner peace. “Don’t worry — let the Lord do as He wills.” I quietly moved away as I said to myself, “Why not? Even a farce must continue right to the final act.”

Mohammed Rasheedi, in a tone shaky with sorrow and emotion, said, “To the mercy of God the Merciful, to the proximity of your noble Lord, O Zahia, my life’s companion. To the mercy of God I commend you.”

He sobbed as he bent over the body laid out on the bed, leaning, through his great weariness, with his right hand on the pillow, until the old servant woman took pity on him, gently patted his hand, and took him from her who lay dead into the sitting room, where he sank with loud sighs into an armchair. He stretched out his legs, moaning, then mumbled, “Now I’m alone, without a companion. Why did you leave me, Zahia? After being together for forty years, why did you go before me, Zahia?”

The servant consoled him with trite phrases, though the sight of the old man in his nineties weeping was a truly sad one. His furrowed cheeks and pitted nose gleamed with tears. The servant left the room, struggling with her own tears. He closed his eyes, on the rims of which there was only the occasional single eyelash. “Forty years ago I married you,” he continued, “when you were still in your twenties. I educated you myself, and we were very happy despite the difference in age. You were the best of companions, you kindly person — so I commend you to the mercy of God.”

For his age, he was in excellent health, tall and thin. The surface of his face had completely disappeared under wrinkles and furrows, while the bones protruded sharply, skull-like. Deep within his eyes there lurked a gaze beneath a pale veil on which the visible things of this world were not reflected.

The funeral was attended by many people, not one of whom was a friend or acquaintance of his. They came to give their condolences to his son, or in deference to his daughter’s husband, employed at an embassy abroad. As for him, not a single friend of his was still alive. He went on welcoming the faces that were unknown to him and asking himself where the first generation of educators were. Where were the real politicians from the time of Mustafa Kamil and Mohammed Farid?

When the obsequies were concluded around midnight, his son Sabir asked him, “What do you intend doing, Father?”

His son’s wife said, “It’s not possible for you to stay on here alone.”

The old man understood what they meant. He complained, “Zahia was everything to me. She was my mind and my hand.”

“My house is yours,” said Sabir, “and if you came to live with us you would bring a blessing to it. Your servant Mubarka will come to look after you.”

Certainly he could not live in this house on his own. Yet despite the kindness shown by his son and his son’s wife, he believed that by moving he would be losing a lot of his freedom and authority. But what was to be done? In his youth and early manhood, he had been a robust person, and he still retained his dignified bearing. How many generations of educators and outstanding personalities had he trained — but what was to be done?

With a dejected air, the man witnessed the liquidation of his home. He saw it being demolished, just as he had seen the death of his wife, and they left nothing intact but his clothes, his bed, his cupboard of books (books he no longer looked at), some bibelots, and pictures of members of the family and of certain great men of literature, politics, and entertainment, like Mustafa Kamil, Mohammed Farid, al-Muwailhi, Hafiz Ibrahim, and Abd al-Hayy Helmi.

He left his house for Heliopolis in his son’s car. A bedroom had been prepared for him, and the old servant Mubarka got ready to serve him. “We’re all at your beck and call,” his son said.

Munira, Sabir’s wife, gave him a welcoming smile. It showed a kindly disposition, but this was still not his house — that was his overwhelming feeling. He sat in an armchair, exchanging glances with her in an almost embarrassed way. If only his daughter Samira were in Egypt. He would have found a more congenial atmosphere in her house. Tutu appeared in the doorway. He looked from one of his parents to the other, then ran and clung to his father’s legs. He regarded his grandfather, and the old man smiled and said, “Hullo, Tutu. Come here.”

It was only occasionally that Tutu would go with his father to visit his grandfather. The old man loved him very much and did not spare himself in playing with the boy whenever possible, though Tutu was violent in his fun. He used to like to jump on those who were playing with him, and would threaten to scratch their eyes and nose. All too soon the old man would gently avoid him, preferring to love him from afar.

Tutu pointed at his grandfather’s tall tarboosh. “Your head!”

He meant that the old man should take off his tarboosh so that Tutu could see the sloping oblong of orange baldness that had drawn his attention and inquiries from the first time he had seen it. When his wish was not fulfilled, he began pointing at his grandfather’s furrowed face and pitted nose, and went on asking questions despite his father’s attempts to shut him up. The old man told himself that the dear child would not cease to annoy him and that he required protection. But where was Zahia? And his watch, his flyswatter, and his cigarettes — how would he keep them out of the reach of the boy’s prying hands? Tutu tried to get to his grandfather to implement his wishes himself, but his father caught hold of him and called the nurse, who carried him off, screaming in protest.

“When I finish work in the evenings,” said Sabir, “Munira and I go to the club, so why don’t you come with us?”

“Don’t bother yourself about me. Just let things go on as usual.”

Sabir and Munira went off, and the old man welcomed being left on his own so that he could recover. But being alone became more quickly tedious than he had imagined. He cast an indifferent glance at the room and was then enwrapped by loneliness. When would he become accustomed to the new place and to life without Zahia? For forty years he had not seen a day go by without Zahia. Since she was brought to him in marriage in Helmiyya, and Sarrafiyya had danced before them, the house under her direction had enjoyed an ordered cleanliness, with its fragrant smell of incense. What was the point of Ramadan and the feasts without her?