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

As he was changing his clothes in the room, his voice could be heard outside. “Tomorrow I’ll be traveling to Sharqiyya.”

He was away for two days. Late in the afternoon of the third day, Salama waited for him, seated on the piece of sacking outside the fence. Quiet and heavy lidded he sat, running his fingers through his beard, counting the kites that were still to be seen, and looking out at the wasteland with languorous self-surrender. From inside he heard Amna as she scolded the children in a voice vibrant with a sense of well-being, and he gazed at the sun’s hem as it began to disappear suddenly behind the crest of the mountain. Night would soon descend. A noise from the west caught his attention, and he saw a taxi approach and draw up at the far end of the fence. Dahroug got out of it. He approached, striking the ground with firm, heavy tread, his head held high. Getting to his feet, Salama greeted him, and the two men shook hands, then Dahrough gave the other a punch in the chest and said, “Salama, you son of a bitch, the English are real men.”

Salama gave him an inquiring look, and Dahroug continued boastfully, “They must be from Upper Egypt!”

Salama called on God to grant Dahroug continued success, and the man entered the ruins, calling out gleefully like a child, “Mahmoud, my boy…!” Then he began singing, “Give my greetings,” and he snapped his fingers and danced.

Before dawn the siren wailed, and Dahroug and Salama went out to the wasteland beyond the fence as they had taken to doing of late. “The siren no longer frightens anyone,” said Dahroug.

The desert flowed away under the moonlight, fertile ground for dreams. Dahroug gave a long laugh, and when Salama asked him what he was laughing about, he motioned with his elbow to the room. “Tonight saw your old Uncle Dahroug as he used to be during the nights of his youth.”

A short silence descended, roofed by searchlights, then again Dahroug spoke in a tone that was both serious and brotherly. “Salama, today’s not like yesterday. A lot of new clients will be coming, and I’m frightened for you.”

“Must I go away?” asked Salama dejectedly.

“Yes, I’ll smuggle you out to Palestine, and you’ll work there for me. How do you feel about that?”

“Whatever you think best.”

“Everything’s planned and decreed, you son of a bitch.”

Suddenly the earth shook with the convulsive reverberation of an explosion that paralyzed their heartbeats. Dahroug pulled nervously at Salama’s arm. “What’s that?”

Salama, his face pallid in the moonlight, answered, “A bomb. Hurry to the room.”

Amna’s screams rang out, and Dahroug called to her, “Stay where you are…stay where you are, Amna.”

The bombing continued without interruption. The two men ran toward the ruins. The next instant Dahroug gave a scream, then fell forward to the ground.

“Master!” shouted Salama. He leaned over to help the man to his feet, but he could do nothing. Then, helpless, he found himself being flung on top of him, his forehead sinking into the sand. The earth collapsed around him and the desert rose up toward the sky. Something opaque blotted out the face of the moon.

“What’s wrong with you, Dahroug?”

A voice called, then the darkness swallowed up all sound and color. Salama wanted to say to his companion: “Forgive me — I am overcome by sleep.”

But he uttered not a single word.

*I.e., father of Mahmoud, Mahmoud being Dahroug’s eldest son — a respectful and friendly way of addressing a man.

Yesterday the challenges were hunger and utter destitution; today the challenge is excessive wealth. An ancient house for half a million. Isam al-Baqli was born again, born again at seventy.

He enjoyed looking at his image in the old mirror: a decrepit image ravaged by time, hunger, and afflictions; the face a mold of protruding bones and repugnantly tanned skin, a narrow sunken forehead, and lackluster eyes with but a few lashes remaining; black front teeth and no molars; and a skinny, wrinkled neck. What is left of life after seventy? Yet despite everything the fortune that had alighted upon him carried an intoxication that would not evaporate. Innumerable things must be achieved. Isam al-Baqli, indigent loafer, was now Isam al-Baqli, millionaire. All those old friends who were still in the land of the living were exclaiming, “Have you heard what’s happened to Isam al-Baqli?” “What’s happened to the layabout?” “The house has been bought by one of those big new companies for half a million.” “Half a million!” “I swear it by the Koran!”

Consternation spread through Sakakini, Qubeisi, and Abbasiyya like a hurricane. The house, with its spacious courtyard, faced onto Qushtumur Street. He had inherited it from his mother, who had passed on ten years ago after old age had turned her into a wreck. She had clung doggedly to life until the threads had been ripped to pieces and she had tumbled down. He had not grieved for her — life had accustomed him not to grieve for anything.

The family had had nothing except for his mother’s small pension and the roof over their heads. He had had no success at school, had learned no trade, had never done any work — a good-for-nothing loafer. He might win a few piasters at backgammon through cheating and the indulgence of numerous friends won at school, or friends who had been neighbors in the days of childhood, boyhood, and youth. He possessed a certain charm that made amends for his many bad attributes and made one forgive him his faults, and his extreme wretchedness and the hopelessness of his situation always excited people’s sympathy. His father had been an employee in the post office, and his mother had inherited the one-story Qushtumur house with its spacious and neglected courtyard. He was entitled to say that he was the son of a good family but had been unlucky, though the fact was that he was stupid, lazy, and ill-mannered, and it was not long before he was expelled from school. Practically his whole life was spent in the Isis Café, either in debt or in the process of settling his debts through cheating and the generosity of friends. His friend the lawyer Othman al-Qulla thought about taking him into his office on Army Square, but al-Baqli, with his absolute loathing for work, refused.

When left on his own after his friends had gone off to their jobs, he would spend his time indolently daydreaming. At election festivities and at weddings and funerals, he would indulge himself a little. His whole life he had lived off his charm and his friends’ generosity; he made a profession of poking fun, singing, dancing, and cracking jokes in order to earn himself a meal of beans, a piece of sweet basbousa, or a couple of drags of hashish.

His natural impulses had remained starved, repressed, crazed. The Qushtumur house knew no food but beans (and the various dishes made from beans), eggplant, and lentils. As for his dreams, they revolved around fantasies of mysterious banquets and repressed sex. There were stories about his affairs with widows, divorcees, and married women too, but no one believed him, though no one called him a liar. The story everyone did believe was of his affair with a widowed servant woman ten years his senior, an affair that had quickly turned to discord and strife when it became clear that she was of a mind to marry him. In fact she had also stipulated that he find himself a job because, as the saying goes, idle hands are unclean. The affair broke up after a row in which humiliating blows were exchanged. That was the only real affair he had had, and his neighbor Mr. Othman al-Qulla had been a witness to the fight and had recounted it at the café. “You missed a scene better than a circus. A woman as fat as a sack of coal bawling out our dear friend al-Baqli and making him a public spectacle in the courtyard of his gracious house and within sight and earshot of his gracious and dismayed mother. The battle wasn’t over till he was at his last gasp and some kind folk had intervened — when right away a new battle started up with his mother herself!”