The Yacoubian Building

by Alaa Al Aswany

  From her side, Dawlat endured loneliness and unhappiness and it grieved her that she should end her life without accomplishments or achievements after failing in marriage and seeing her children leave her in her old age. It provoked her greatly that Zaki seemed in no way like a failing old man waiting for death, but still wore scent and played the fop and chased women. No sooner did she catch sight of him smiling and humming in front of the mirror as he primped his clothes or notice that he was happy and in high spirits than she would feel a resentment that wouldn’t subside until she’d picked a quarrel with him and flayed him with her tongue. She attacked his childish ways and whims not from a standpoint based on any moral objections but simply because his clinging to life in this way didn’t match her own despair, her fury at him being akin to that felt by mourners at the man who guffaws in the middle of a funeral.

  In addition, there lay between the two old people all the irritability, impatience, and obstinacy that go with old age, plus that certain tension that develops when two individuals live in too close proximity to one another—from one using the bathroom for a long time when the other wants it, from one seeing the sullen face the other wears when he wakes from sleeping, from one wanting silence while the other insists on talking, from the mere presence of another person who never leaves you day and night, who stares at you, who interrupts you, who picks on everything you say, and the grating of whose molars when he chews sets you on edge, and the ringing noise of whose spoon striking the dishes disturbs your quiet every time he sits down to eat with you.

  Zaki Bey el Dessouki stayed stretched out on the bed going over these events and gradually drowsiness started to overcome him. However, his bad day wasn’t over yet, for it was not long before he heard, as he lay between sleeping and waking, the grating of the spare key, which Dawlat had known where to find. She opened the door, approached him, and, eyes wide with resentment and voice gasping with emotion, said, “Where’s the ring, Zaki?”

  Thus Your Excellency Mr. President will see that your son Taha Muhammad el Shazli has suffered injustice and the violation of his rights at the hands of the presiding general of the interviewing committee at the Police Academy. The Prophet—God bless him and give him peace—has said, in a sound hadith, “Verily, your people who were before you would leave alone a nobleman if he stole, and would invoke the punishment against a poor man if he stole. By God, even if Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, stole, I would cut off her hand.” The Prophet of God has spoken truly.

  Mr. President, I went to great trouble and made great efforts in order to obtain a score of 98 (Humanities), and I was able, through God’s bounty, to pass all the tests for admission to the Police Academy. Is it then just, Mr. President, that I should be denied admission to the police force for no better reason than that my father is a decent but poor man who works as a property guard? Is not the guarding of property a decent occupation, and is not every decent occupation to be respected, Mr. President? I ask you, Mr. President, to look into this complaint with the eye of a loving father who will never agree that injustice be done to one of his sons. My future, Mr. President, awaits a decision from Your Excellency and I am confident that, the Almighty willing, I shall meet with fair treatment at your noble hands.

  May God preserve you as an asset for Islam and the Muslims,

  Your sincere son, Taha Muhammad el Shazli

  Identity Card No.19578, Kasr El Nil

  Address: The Yacoubian Building, 34 Talaat Harb Street, Cairo

  Like a victorious wartime general who enters in triumph a city he has conquered after bitter fighting, Malak Khilla appeared on the roof of the building to take possession of his new room in a happy and vainglorious mood. He was wearing his blue people’s suit that he kept for special occasions and had hung around his neck a long tape measure that was for him—like an officer’s pips or a doctor’s stethoscope—the distinguishing mark of his professional status as a master shirtmaker. That morning he brought with him a number of workmen to get the room ready—a smith, an electrician, a plumber, and some young male assistants to help them.

  Master craftsman Malak muttered a prayer of thanks to the Virgin and Christ the Savior, then stretched out his hand to open the door to the room for the first time. The air inside was musty because it had been closed for a whole year following the death of Atiya the newspaper seller (some of whose effects Malak found and had one of the boys collect in a large cardboard box).

  Now Malak stands in the middle of the room after opening the window and letting sunlight flood the place and issues detailed instructions to the workmen as to what they have to do. From time to time, one of the residents of the roof stops and watches what’s going on out of curiosity. Some watch for a short while, then move on. Others offer Malak their congratulations on taking possession of the new room and shake his hand, wishing him well in his enterprise.

  Not all the residents of the roof, however, are so well mannered. After less than half an hour, word has spread on the roof and soon two individuals appear who do not seem to be the least bit eager to welcome the new arrival—Mr. Hamid Hawwas and Ali the Driver.

  The first is a civil servant in the National Sanitation Authority whose boss got angry with him and transferred him from his hometown of El Mansoura to Cairo, so he rented a room on the roof where he lives alone, expending all his energy for more than a year now to get his arbitrary transfer cancelled and return home. Mr. Hamid Hawwas is a major writer of official complaints, and finds a genuine and all-encompassing pleasure in selecting the subject of the complaint and formulating it eloquently, then writing it out in a neat, easy-to-read hand and subsequently following it through to the end at whatever cost this may impose upon him, for he considers himself to be responsible to some degree for the proper performance of all public utilities in any area in which he may be residing, or even passing through. He always finds the time to make a daily round of the District Administration, the Governorate, and the Utilities Police, during which he pertinaciously and single-mindedly follows up on the complaints he has made against street vendors who may stand in locations far distant from his place of residence but whom, as violators of the law, he nevertheless believes it to be his duty to pursue with one complaint after another, never tiring and never despairing, until the Utilities Police finally move and arrest them and confiscate their goods—at which point Mr. Hamid watches from a distance, feeling the ease of conscience of one who has gone that extra mile to do his duty in full.

  As for Ali the Driver, he’s an alcoholic, over fifty, never married, who works as a driver at the Holding Company for Pharmaceuticals, going straight from work every day to the Orabi Bar in El Tawfikiya, where he eats and sits sipping a drink until midnight. Loneliness and the cheap alcohol to which he is addicted have had their effect on him, making him gross, violent, and ever in search of a quarrel on which to expend his aggression.

  Mr. Hamid Hawwas approached Malak and greeted him, then opened the conversation in an extremely refined way by saying, “About this room, my friend. Do you have a contract from the owner of the building giving you the right to use it as a commercial establishment?”

  “Of course I have a contract,” answered Malak excitedly, and he pulled out of his small leather purse a copy of the contract that he had signed with Fikri Abd el Shaheed. Hamid took the piece of paper, put on his glasses, and examined it carefully. Then he handed it back to Malak, saying quietly, “The contract is invalid in this form.”

  “Invalid?” repeated Malak, apprehensively.

  “Of course invalid. According to the law the roof is a common resource for the residents and a common resource may not be rented out for commercial purposes.”

  Malak didn’t understand and stared angrily at Mr. Hamid, who went on to say, “The Court of Cassation has issued more than one ruling on the issue and the matter is closed. The contract is invalid and you have no right to the use of the room.”

  “Yes, but all of you are living on the roof, so why not me?”


  “We are employing our rooms for residential purposes, and that is legal. You, however, are exploiting your room for commercial ends, and that is illegal and we cannot allow it.”

  “Okay. Go complain to the owner of the place since he’s the one who gave me the contract.”

  “Certainly not. The law itself forbids you to make use of the room, and we, as injured residents, are obliged to prevent you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’d better get a move on and scram or else!”

  These last words were spoken by Ali the Driver in his husky voice as he looked challengingly at Malak. Laying his hand on Malak’s shoulder in a clearly threatening way, he went on, “Listen, sonny boy. This roof is for respectable folk. You can’t just turn up here in your own sweet time and open a shop, with workers and customers looking at the ladies going in and out. Got it?”

  Malak, who now felt the danger of the situation, responded quickly, “My dear sir, all my workers are educated people, praise God! They’re the most polite and discreet people in the world. And the people living on the roof and their ladies have my utmost respect.”

  “Listen. Forget the chitchat. Pick up your stuff and get going!”

  “Dear me! What’s going on? Are you going to behave like ruffians or what?”

  “That’s it, momma’s boy, we’re going to behave like ruffians.”

  As Ali the Driver said this, he pulled Malak toward him by his collar and gave him a slap to announce that battle was about to commence. He conducted his quarrels with ease and proficiency as though he were carrying out simple, routine procedures or practicing a sport of which he was fond. He started with a well-placed head butt at Malak, followed by two punches to the stomach and a third, powerful and audible, that struck his nose. A thread of blood flowed down Malak’s face and he tried to resist by aiming a useless, symbolic punch at his opponent, but it missed. Then as violent blows fell on him, he started screaming in protest and chaos reigned, while the workmen, not wanting problems, quietly fled and people gathered from every direction to watch. Abaskharon appeared suddenly on the roof and started screaming and wailing for help and the fight continued until Ali the Driver succeeded in expelling Malak from the room.

  Mr. Hamid Hawwas had slipped away at the beginning and called the Emergency Response Police from the telephone in the cigarette stand on the opposite side of the street and it wasn’t long before a young police officer and a number of policemen and goons took everyone involved into custody—Malak, his assistants, Abaskharon, and Ali the Driver.

  Approaching the officer, Hamid Hawwas greeted him politely and said, “You’ve studied law, of course, sir. Now our friend here”—pointing to Malak—” wants to open a commercial establishment on the roof, while the roof is a common resource that may not be exploited commercially. As you know full well, sir, this is a crime, known in legal terminology as ‘extortion of possession,’ and is punishable by imprisonment for a period of up to three years.”

  “Are you a lawyer?” the officer asked Mr. Hamid, who responded confidently, “No, sir. I, sir, am Hamid Hawwas, deputy director of auditing in the National Sanitation Authority, El Mansoura Branch. Equally, I am one of the residents whose rights to the common resource of the roof have been usurped. How could the owner, my dear sir, go and rent the roof for a commercial purpose? This is a flagrant attack on the common resources of the residents. If he gets away with this, he could rent out the elevator, or the entrance to the building! Has the country gone to the dogs or what?”

  Mr. Hamid Hawwas posed the last question with a theatrical flourish, looking hard at the assembled residents, who, stirred by his words, muttered in protest. Confusion appeared on the young officer’s face, and after thinking for a little he said disgustedly, “Okay, come on. Everyone to the station!”

  Dr. Hassan Rasheed was a leading figure in the law in Egypt and the Arab world. Like Taha Hussein, Ali Badawi, Zaki Naguib Mahmoud, and others, he was one of the great intellectuals of the 1940s who completed their higher studies in the West and returned to their country to apply what they had learned there—lock, stock, and barrel—within Egyptian academia. For people like them, “progress” and “the West” were virtually synonymous, with all that that entailed by way of positive and negative behavior. They all had the same reverence for the great Western values—democracy, freedom, justice, hard work, and equality. At the same time, they had the same ignorance of the nation’s heritage and contempt for its customs and traditions, which they considered shackles pulling us toward Backwardness from which it was our duty to free ourselves so that the Renaissance could be achieved.

  During his studies in Paris, Dr. Rasheed met a French woman, Jeanette, and fell in love with her. Then he brought her with him to Egypt and married her and they had their only son, Hatim. The family lived a life that was European in both form and essence. Hatim could not remember ever seeing his father pray or fast. The pipe never left his mouth, there was always French wine at his table, the most recent records from Paris resounded through the house, and French was the main language of conversation at home. In the Western manner, everything about the family’s life took place according to a set time and schedule, Dr. Rasheed even setting aside special times during each week for meeting friends and relatives and writing his personal correspondence.

  The fact is that in addition to his exceptional mental capacities he possessed an astonishing appetite for uninterrupted work and was able in two decades to bring about a real blossoming of Egyptian civil law studies. With time his star rose till he assumed the deanship of the Faculty of Law at Cairo University. Then the International Law Society in Paris chose him as one of the hundred most prominent lawyers in the world.

  Since Dr. Rasheed was always absorbed in his research and lecturing and because his wife Jeanette’s job as a translator at the French embassy occupied all her time, their son Hatim spent his childhood sad and lonely, to the point that in contrast to all other children he even liked school days and hated the long summer vacations, which he spent on his own with no friends to play with. And along with the painful loneliness, there were the feelings of alienation and mental confusion from which the children of mixed marriages suffer.

  Little Hatim spent a lot of time with the servants, and his parents (being always busy) would often send him with one of them to the Gezira Club or the cinema. Among the many servants in the house, little Hatim was particularly fond of the steward Idris, with his flowing white caftan, broad red cummerbund and tall fez, and his tall, strong, slim body, his handsome brown face, his intelligent, bright eyes, and his beaming smile from which his gleaming, white, regular teeth shone out. It was Idris’s habit to sit with Hatim in his large room overlooking Suleiman Basha, playing with his toys with him, telling him stories about animals, singing beautiful Nubian songs to him and translating for him what they meant. Idris’s voice would tremble and the tears would glisten in his eyes when he spoke to him of his mother and his brothers and sisters and his village that they had taken him away from when he was young to go work in people’s houses. Hatim loved Idris and their relationship grew till they were spending many hours together every day, and when Idris started kissing Hatim on his face and neck and whispering, “You’re beautiful. I love you,” Hatim felt no revulsion or fear. On the contrary, the burning sensation that his friend’s breath left on his body excited him. They continued to exchange kisses until one day Idris asked him to take off his clothes. Hatim was nine at the time and felt embarrassed and confused, but in the end he gave in to the insistence of his friend. The latter was so aroused by the sight of his smooth, white body that during the encounter he sobbed with pleasure and whispered incomprehensible Nubian words. Idris, despite his lust and vigor, entered Hatim’s body gently and carefully and asked him to tell him if he felt the slightest pain. This approach was so successful that when Hatim now thinks back to that first time with Idris, the same strange, piercing sensation that he knew that day for the
first time comes back to him but he cannot remember feeling any distress at all.

  When Idris was finished, he turned Hatim to face him and kissed him ardently on the lips, then looked into his eyes and said, “I did that because I love you. If you love me, don’t tell anyone what happened. If you tell them, they’ll beat you and throw me out and your father may put me in prison or kill me and you’ll never see me again.”

  Hatim’s relationship with Idris lasted years, until Dr. Rasheed suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage caused by overwork and his widow was obliged to get rid of many of the servants because of the expense. Idris left the house and nothing more was heard of him. His absence affected Hatim so much psychologically that that year he got a poor score in the general secondary exam. Thereafter he plunged into his tumultuous homosexual life and two years later his mother passed away.

  This released him from the last constraint on his pleasures. He had inherited a solid income which along with his reasonable salary from the newspaper underwrote an opulent lifestyle. He redid the large apartment in the Yacoubian Building to liberate it from its traditional style, turning it into something closer to a Bohemian artist’s studio than the home of an established family. It was now in his power to invite lovers to share his bed for days and sometimes months at a time. Hatim had relationships with many men and left them for a variety of reasons, but his covert, sinful desire remained forever linked to Idris the steward and, as a man searches among women for the image of his first love, with whom he first became acquainted with pleasure, so Hatim sought among all other men for Idris—the rough-hewn, primitive male whom civilization had not refined, and with all the hardness, crudity, and vigor that such a man represented. He never ceased thinking about Idris and often would relive, with a delicious, burning tenderness, his feeling as he lay facedown on the floor of his room (like a little rabbit surrendering itself to its fate) following with his eyes the Persian designs drawn on the carpet as Idris’s hot, bursting body clung to his, wringing it and melting it. The strange thing was that their sexual encounters, many as they were, always ended up on the floor and they never got into the bed, a fact probably attributable to Idris’s feelings of insignificance as a servant and his psychological inability to use his master’s bed even when having sexual intercourse with him.