Cairo Modern

by Naguib Mahfouz

  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.

  10

  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.”

  Ali Taha observed calmly, “Outrage is a sacred sentiment, but despair is an illness. In any event, parliament is a lake where separate streams meet. Inevitably these waters mix together and from them a new spring wells up.”

  Smiling bitterly, Mahgub muttered, “These are the names I admire: Ahmosis and the Hyksos, Merenptah and the Jews, Urabi and the Circassians!”

  Ma’mun Radwan laughed and commented, “The strangest thing is that Taha’s a constructive communist, but you’re destructive. You, more than anyone, deserve the title anarchist.”

  Mahgub laughed so hard that he ended up coughing. He replied, “We impose far too much on ourselves—as if this room were responsible for the world’s welfare.”

  Ali Taha said, “As long as it houses students, its walls will hear the hopes of successive generations.”

  Ma’mun Radwan observed attentively, “This room is an incubator. So what’s next?”

  Mahgub replied with malicious delight, “Prison—if any of us means what he says!”

  Then, remembering the worries he had brought back with him from al-Qanatir, he lost his enthusiasm for debate. Rising, he excused himself, alleging that his trip had tired him. He went to his room, where he sat thinking sadly at his small desk. When January ended, his present “welfare” would end. Yes, this life had seemed an inferno to him in the past. Compared to what awaited him in the future, it would seem a lost paradise. There was no doubt that the next three months would bring forms of suffering he had never imagined. So what was he to do? He tugged on his left eyebrow, frowning, while determination and defiance flooded his pale face.

  11

  During the remaining days of January he busied himself searching for a cheap room. He had trouble, both because the neighborhood was heavily populated and because it was crowded with students who competed vigorously for isolated rooms on rooftops. Then, finally, he located a rooftop room in a new building on Jarkas Street, near Giza Square, but its newness proved a disaster for him when the building’s owner refused to rent the room for less than forty piasters. Mahgub was forced to accept this rent unwillingly. He told his friends he would move to a room in a new building, informing them with a wink that special circumstances required it. He said that, even though he knew he would be unable to afford trysts with the cigarette butt collector in the future. All the same, he preferred a lie to humiliation. He found that he would need to pay for transportation and to purchase a kerosene lantern. Looking through his meager furnishings, he found nothing he could spare except his small wardrobe, which was more like a trunk than an armoire. With the concierge’s assistance, he sold this secretly for thirty piasters. On the first of February, he bundled his possessions together, said goodbye to his friends, and moved to the new room. He paid the rent in advance, and then all he had left of his new allowance was sixty piasters, which had to last him the whole month: two piasters a day for food and kerosene, not to mention laundry—an unavoidable necessity. He could forget about paying a cleaner, and then there was shaving. As for his cup of coffee—that was a forbidden luxury. Among his miserable furnishings there was nothing he could spare or that would conceivably fetch a helpful price. His bed, which was his most important possession, was barely worth half a pound, whereas its utility was inestimable. He slept on top of it and stored his garments beneath it. He shook his head with its frizzy hair and mumbled, “The three mo
nths will pass like any others. I won’t die of hunger at any rate.” So he spent his first night in his new digs.

  The next morning he left the room after closing everything. The concierge offered to clean it for him, but he rejected this offer with thanks. Actually he fled, because he could not sacrifice even a millieme to him. Reaching Giza Square, he cast his eyes around till they fell on a ful shop, which he glumly approached. He found groups of workmen seated on the curb in front of the shop devouring their food while talking and laughing among themselves. He told himself, “I’ve become one of these laborers Ali Taha pities.” He ordered half a pita bread stewed bean sandwich, which he ate with gusto after stepping aside. When he finished he was still hungry. By nature, he had a large appetite, and his normal breakfast was a plate of beans with a loaf of flat bread, not to mention an onion and some pickles, but now he could only eat two small snacks a day. Shrugging his shoulders, he headed toward the university, telling himself, “I desperately need to remain clearheaded, because either I succeed or kill myself.” The school day passed as usual, and he met all his friends. They spent a considerable amount of time in the Orman Gardens discussing their lectures. When lunchtime arrived, he left them as they headed to the cafeteria. He returned to Giza Square. Only the day before, he had eaten in the cafeteria with Ali, Ma’mun, and Ahmad Badir. His lunch had been a plate of spinach with lamb and rice and then an orange. But today! As he approached the ful shop, the proprietor greeted him with a smile, saying “Welcome.” This greeting hurt his feelings and deflated his pride. Next to the ful shop was a kebab stand, and the aroma of grilled meat wafted to his nostrils. He salivated and his stomach hurt. Then he took a complete pita bread sandwich, filled with ful midammis, and fled from the tantalizing scent. When he returned to his room and opened the door, the air smelled stale because he had left the window closed. Even so, he saw that dust covered his desk, his books, and his quilt, which lay on the bed. He realized that for the foreseeable future he would be a student, a servant, and perhaps a laundress, too. Vexed and rebellious, he set about his new tasks. This new life was hard and exhausting. He would doubtless continue with his studies. He would pursue them with stubborn determination, but hunger would not leave him alone and he would never feel rested. He lay awake nights, prey to hunger, or sat at his desk for long hours, his limbs frozen and his back bowed. His new circumstances might ruin his appearance and expose him to mockery and sarcasm. Perhaps hunger would debilitate and sicken him.

  But he had no choice—he had to struggle stubbornly and obstinately. He was obliged to defy people, fortune, and the world at large. He had to become furious, to hate, and to fly off the handle. He kept working till midnight when he abandoned his desk for his bed. Lying down exhausted, he mumbled, “So ends the first night of my ordeal.”

  12

  The next morning he woke up tired and headachy. Amazingly, he was not hungry, although he remembered his hunger pangs from the previous night, for the ful sandwich had not lasted him through the evening. Instead it had left in its wake an excruciatingly painful hunger. He thought about skipping breakfast so he could have a sandwich and a half for lunch. That would allow him to feel more comfortable during the evening and thus study with his mind at ease. During the first hours of the day, his courses would distract him from his stomach. This fine idea was appropriate for a poor, distraught head. He would rely on habituation to defang the pain. Nevertheless, he had barely taken a sip of water and inhaled the morning breezes on the street when his beastly stomach flexed its muscles, and his resolve broke down. So he hastened to the beanery, oblivious to anything else. While eating, he began to reflect on what people said about Hindu ascetics. He was amazed by their extraordinary ability to withstand hunger. How could they cope with this pain with such bitter patience and derive an elevated pleasure from the whole experience? Oh, my Lord! How this unique word “pleasure” varied according to human temperament! In his case, both pleasure and privation were clearly demarcated. Even the butt collector had become too precious to touch. He went to the faculty, attended his first class, and then went to the garden to wait for the second one, which began two hours later. He sat on a bench surrounded by a bunch of students who were basking in the sun’s gentle rays, which February provided with a limited generosity. With youthful zeal, flitting from topic to topic as the spirit moved them, they discussed: the plump young woman whose volume was erratic and whose voice quavered when she rose to recite a text; Mr. Irving, the golden-haired Latin teacher, who should have been born a woman, whereas the brilliant young woman should have been a man; the cinema and how it threatened true culture and refined art; whiskey and hashish (which was more enjoyable); whether the 1923 constitution would be restored; who should be given more credit for founding the university (the king or the late Saad Zaghlul); whether members of the Young Egypt Association were sincere fellows or conspirators; who deserved more credit for the theater’s resurgence (Yusuf Wahbi or Fatma Rushdi); and which would be better for the nation: that Prince Farouk should complete his studies in Italy, as his father wished, or in England, as the British wanted. Opinions and comments filled the air, which rang with laughter and shouts. Mahgub participated in the talk to some extent, listening cynically as usual to what was said. Then he rose and strolled through the vast garden. When it was just about time for class, he shot back to the faculty. Once that class was over, he left—arm-in-arm with Ahmad Badir.

  The youthful journalist said, “Congratulations on your new digs.”

  Smiling, Mahgub replied, “Thanks.”

  Ahmad Badir asked, with a crafty smile, “From a good family or a good-time girl?”

  Mahgub immediately grasped his companion’s meaning and was relieved by it. With a mysterious smile, he replied, “This is a secret that cannot be disclosed.”

  “Does she live with you or come every night?”

  Mahgub proclaimed proudly, “As you know, cohabitation courts suspicions.”

  The journalist nodded his head and puckered his lips. Then he exclaimed, “Lucky devil!”

  As February’s days passed and the cares of life beat him down, hunger’s ghost haunted him night and day, because his stomach felt full for only limited moments. In addition to his schoolwork, he swept his room, cleaned his desk, made his bed, and washed his handkerchiefs, socks, and shirts. He did not know how to acquire necessities others would have considered a trivial expense whether a bar of soap, kerosene for the lamp, or the paper he needed. Some days he was forced to limit himself to one meal. Hunger ground him down. He grew ever leaner and his face more sallow, until he feared for his life, for his person, which he loved more than the whole world or which he loved even without loving the world. In a room that some of his friends thought a nest of fiery passion, he holed up, hungry and solitary. Why didn’t he ask his brethren to feed him? Had he asked Ali Taha, that young man would not have hesitated or delayed. If he had asked Ma’mun Radwan, he would have shared his food with him, even if only a morsel of bread. What prevented him? A sense of honor? Pride? Damn that! Hadn’t he spurned everything? Didn’t he disparage all values? What were honor and pride to him? Damn it! His philosophy was still merely words and nonsense. When would he become a true man? When would he liberate himself from honor and reputation as if brushing dirt from his shoe?

  His distress peaked when he was required to buy a Latin text that cost twenty-five piasters. He was dumbfounded. He did not even have a millieme he could devote to that, and the exam loomed ever nearer. What was he going to do? To ask one of his friends was an odious, hateful solution—especially since he knew he would never be able to repay the money. So what was he to do? One day after another passed as his life became ever more disturbed. He had almost given in to despair when he remembered his mother’s distinguished relative—Ahmad Bey Hamdis. How could he despair when he had a notable relation like this? It was true that his father held a serious grudge against him, saying he was an ungrateful fellow who had forgotten his family and snubbed them.
This was actually true, but his father was wrong to be angry. The bey’s conduct was appropriate. If his relative put on airs, so did all men like him. They had a right to be uppity. The stupid rural moral code was solely responsible for his father’s anger. Although the bey was conceited, that would not prevent him from viewing Mahgub’s plight with an affectionate eye and from extending a helping hand. So he should seek out the bey in good conscience instead of loathing him.

  13

  He left his room, fully resolved to visit his relative and try his luck. He spared no expense in getting ready. He pressed his fez and shined his shoes for a whole piaster—in other words, the price of an entire meal. Even so, he looked like an invalid with a pale face and emaciated body. He looked up his relative’s address in the telephone directory—al-Fustat Street in Zamalek—and hurried off.

  On his way there, his imagination soared through a world of half-forgotten memories illuminating a distant period when he was eight and his relative was still Ahmad Effendi Hamdis, an engineer in al-Qanatir. The engineer’s family consisted of his lovely wife, their daughter Tahiya, who was four, and a little boy of two. It was a happy family that drew strength from the exceptionally beautiful lady of the house. At that time the Hamdis family had not grown too important to exchange social visits with the Abd al-Da’im family, and Abd al-Da’im went all out to honor this dear family. How often he rushed to the markets to buy chickens and pigeons to prepare a tasty meal for them! Mahgub himself had won the affection of Hamdis Bey’s spouse, who praised his intelligence and admired his cleverness. She allowed Tahiya to play with him in the yard and the street. What would Tahiya be like now? Would she remember him? That era had been buried by fifteen years. It was forgotten, obliterated, and finished. Memories of it had been carried away by time and neglect. If they were of any significance, some trace of them must lie in a deep layer of memory. The Hamdis family, however, had ascended and become significant, whereas his family had remained as nondescript and insignificant as ever. Al-Qanatir had been erased from life’s record and memories of it had sunk into the past’s gloomy stretches. Abd al-Da’im Effendi, as a clerk in a Greek-owned firm, had been dismissed from mind. What was Tahiya like? Wasn’t it possible she would remember him? That boy who carried her in his arms and ran with her from the house to the train station! Hamdis Bey could not have forgotten him; even if he had, he would remember him the moment he set eyes on him. He would not refuse to give him a hand.