Serag was used to this insulting irony and didn’t answer. Only Uncle Mustapha always rose to his nephew’s bait. He couldn’t resist, even though he had been around him for almost three years. His bewilderment at such moments was pitiably funny. Rafik found him the perfect target and never lost an opportunity to abuse him. Actually, it wasn’t that he was innately malicious; he simply needed a release to calm his nerves which were continually on edge. Rafik’s sarcasm covered a painful sorrow; for at bottom he was the only sane person in his whole family. He had consciously chosen the quiet destiny that bound the native idleness of a whole clan. His reason, as well as his own temperament, had drawn him to it. He could analyze everything that such a destiny of disinterested grandeur meant and was provoked to see others not seemingly aware of their good fortune. From this came his scorn and sarcasm.
Since his conversation with Hoda, his face betrayed a strong annoyance that he tried to control but which shone through each of his words. He got up from the couch and took his place opposite Uncle Mustapha.
Hoda came back from the kitchen with the pot of lentils and placed them in the middle of the table.
“Help yourselves,” she said. “I have to wake Galal.”
“Have you served the bey?” asked Uncle Mustapha.
“The bey!” Rafik exclaimed. “What a sense of humour! Since when, Uncle Mustapha, is my father a bey?”
Uncle Mustapha reflected but didn’t answer. He wanted to find some ingenious formula to safeguard his dignity.
“Your father’s a bey,” he said. “And I too am a bey. If you weren’t so disrespectful, that’s what you’d call me. You above all, Rafik. You forget I was a rich man.”
“I haven’t forgotten a thing,” said Rafik. “Uncle Mustapha, you’re really quite a man. You should have been a minister of state.”
Uncle Mustapha sensed his helplessness and held back his irritation. He began to serve himself some lentils, then said with a detached air:
“You’re only a bad boy. Anyhow, I’m not going to talk to you anymore.”
“Oh, this is terrible. You’re not going to talk to me anymore! What’ll I do? Uncle Mustapha, answer me; it isn’t true — you’re not angry with me?”
Rafik put on a tragic face and fixed imploring eyes on Uncle Mustapha. But Uncle Mustapha didn’t budge. He kept silent and began to eat tranquilly, absentmindedly. Serag helped himself too; he was eating hungrily. The visit to the factory had made him ravenous. The suffering he felt outside was gone; he appreciated this peaceful security where there were no catastrophes. Rafik’s harangues with Uncle Mustapha created an atmosphere of complicity around him, a familiar warmth that enchanted him.
Silence reigned everywhere in the room. No one spoke. In the middle of the table the pot of lentils gave off steam that rose toward the ceiling in vaporous white clouds. Old Hafez, gloomy and smeared, disappeared little by little under the mist that filmed the glass of the picture. Finally, he disappeared altogether.
“Why are you awake?”
Galal, who had just asked this anguished question, was standing in the doorway with the frightened look of someone who has just awakened with a start. His eyes were still half closed; he yawned till he twisted his jaw. His disheveled hair fell on his forehead, and his face had a cadaverous pallor. He wore a large nightgown; foully dirty and stained with sweat, it clung to his skin. Obviously, he hadn’t changed it for months. Leaning against the wall, he stood without moving, blinking his eyes swollen with sleep, as if he wanted to take in everything in the scene.
“If we’re awake, my dear Galal, it’s only to eat,” said Rafik. “I swear it on my honor. Don’t think anything else.”
“I thought there must have been a fire!” said Galal with a gasp.
He came forward unsteadily and slipped into a free place at the table. He waited a moment, to take up consciousness again, to realize fully his state of being awake. He seemed very unhappy to be in action and obliged to move. His timid manners and mechanical gestures were like acts of daring revived each day. He served himself, sniffed his plate before putting it down in front of him and became motionless again. He still felt the remains of sleep — of a particular savor — and he wanted to make it last as long as possible. But soon he began to eat.
“Tell me, are the lentils good?” he asked.
“They’re rotten,” replied Rafik. “What else do you expect from this girl?”
“This is no life,” said Galal. “All day long we’re upset by worries.”
“You’re wrong to be bothered,” said Rafik. “You could easily give up eating. Try it, you’ll see it’s not so bad.”
“I’ll try,” said Galal, “when you’re all dead.”
“O shame!” cried Uncle Mustapha. “Is that how you insult your father?”
“Who insulted my father?” asked Galal, disturbed.
“You just said, a second ago, ‘when you’re all dead.’ You Galal, you, the oldest — you’re a bad example to your brothers.”
Galal began to eat, indifferent to his uncle’s reproaches. Everything that happened around him was only illusion, vile conspiracies against the splendid web of sleep. He lived in the midst of his family completely immune to its quibbling. They were after him all the time with their little intrigues, but he always knew how to escape. Actually they were only weak novices who knew nothing of the delights of this drug like oblivion. Galal was several years ahead of them. Uncle Mustapha was still the most obtuse. He had only been living in the house for three years. What could he understand? When he was living alone in the city, he must have spent his time seeing people, going out every night, enjoying the company of easy women — an intemperate existence, without repose. At first, he used to come often to gossip with Galal. What did he take him for? Galal slept on and didn’t answer. It took Uncle Mustapha a long time to understand. Now, he didn’t disturb Galal except on grave occasions.
Hoda came back from the kitchen and sat down at the table near Serag. She always ate with the family. She was the daughter of one of old Hafez’s distant relatives, a miserable widow who had no one but her in the world. Old Hafez had hired her for practically nothing. She came every day to clean the house, fix the meals, and then returned in the evening to her mother, who lived in the neighborhood. She was considered as a member of the family, and not as a servant.
“Have you taken lunch up to the bey?” asked Uncle Mustapha.
“Yes,” said Hoda. “I just did.”
“Uncle Mustapha,” said Rafik, “if you keep calling my father bey, I’m going to lose my temper and do something you won’t like.”
“But why, my son?”
“Because I don’t like privilege.”
“What insolence!” said Uncle Mustapha. “And besides, I’m not talking to you.”
“All the more,” Rafik continued, “since the bey in question is getting ready to be married. On my honor, that’s going to be a beautiful wedding!”
“Be quiet!” said Uncle Mustapha. “That’s none of your business. By Allah! Have you ever seen such an insolent boy?”
“That’s why you’ve been calling him bey lately! You want to raise his prestige. The parents of the young lady must know he’s a boy. You might also call him pasha. What’s to stop you?”
“Why are you making so much noise?” asked Galal, very disturbed.
“My dear Galal,” said Rafik, “the day your father marries there will be no more sleep for you. I just want to give you a warning.”
At this news, Galal started as though he’d been bitten by a snake.
“My father going to marry!” he cried. “This is horrible. But how? He’s way up in his room; he never goes out.”
“He doesn’t have to go out. It’s Haga Zohra, that daughter of a whore, who’s managing the whole affair. She’s been visiting him continually”
“Don’t let her go up,” said Galal, crushed with astonishment. “Kill her if you have to. Rafik, my brother, I haven’t time to do anything about
this. But I have faith in you. I beg you, deliver us from this menace. A woman in the house! What a ghastly thought!”
“Don’t worry, I’m here,” said Rafik.
He looked at Hoda:
“And you, you bitch, if you ever let her in here, I’ll strangle you.”
“You really pass all limits,” said the uncle. “Rafik, I tell you again, this affair is none of your business.”
“Do you know,” Rafik continued, “what this worthless Haga Zohra is hawking all over town? She’s telling everyone our father has diabetes!”
“Diabetes!” said Serag. “But why?”
“Yes, why?” asked Galal, alarmed by this new misfortune.
“I’ll explain it to you,” said Rafik. “You’re too naïve to understand. According to this ignorant woman’s powers of reason, it would seem that a man with diabetes is a man who’s eaten many sweets in his life. And if a man’s eaten many sweets in his life, it doesn’t matter who he is. He must be a man of high social rank. Now do you understand?”
Galal burst out with a dull laugh, but stopped at once. He understood that it was no laughing matter, but rather a tragic turn of events.
“But the woman’s a fool,” said Serag.
“She isn’t a fool,” said Rafik. “She’s an admirable go-between. What parents, pray tell, wouldn’t be proud to give their daughter to a man who’s got such a glorious disease? At least it proves that he hasn’t eaten only bread and bad cheese.”
“Once more, my dear Rafik, save us from this misery,” said Galal. “I count on you and name you guardian of our sleep. Show us what you’re worth. You’ve studied — you’re almost an engineer.”
“I don’t have to be an engineer to know how to slice Haga Zohra into a thousand little pieces. You can count on me.”
“You’re a brave man!” said Galal, reassured.
“My children,” said Uncle Mustapha, “don’t interfere in this. Your father is master here. If he decides on something, it’s his own business.”
“Uncle Mustapha, it’s not possible. You want to kill us!” said Galal. “A woman in the house! As if this girl weren’t bad enough.”
During this discussion, Hoda had prudently remained silent. Old Hafez’s marriage had given rise to endless disputes, and she hadn’t managed to escape the consequences. She was worried about the future. She got up silently, gathered the dirty plates, and carried them to the kitchen.
Uncle Mustapha didn’t speak, but he was busy thinking. Not able to make himself respected, he was careful to defend his brother’s decisions. Old Hafez’s permanent absence gave him a right to authority. Unfortunately, he used it badly and had become the constant butt of his nephews. Uncle Mustapha suffered to find himself reduced to this subordinate role. But he couldn’t do anything to change his situation. Actually, he was very fond of this quiet house and found himself strangely at home there. He now slept as much as the others. Only sometimes he remembered his old happy bachelor’s existence and was seized with regret. He gave vent to several sighs of unexpected feeling and looked vaguely around him. These sighs of Uncle Mustapha always gave the impression of an unjust and terrible fate that darkened his existence past the limits of mere weariness.
“Uncle Mustapha,” said Rafik, “you should go on the radio. Then your sighs would be heard around the world. I like your sighs; it’s as if the world should be bored along with you.”
“I don’t understand your insolence. What’s this new idea?”
“Simply,” said Rafik, “I think it’s a shame that such beautiful sighs should be lost to strangers. I’m sure the radio would pay you well.”
Uncle Mustapha, in reply to this flippancy, gave several more of his singular sighs and became silent.
“You’re right to sigh, Uncle Mustapha,” said Galal. “It’s horrible to wait like this. Where did that girl go?”
“What are you waiting for?” asked Rafik.
“I’m waiting for dessert. And I haven’t time.”
“You’re in a hurry?”
“Yes, I’m in a hurry,” said Galal.
After a minute, Hoda came back with a plate filled with oranges and put it on the table.
“I’ll take mine with me,” said Galal. “I’ll eat it in bed. I guess I’ll take two: one for dinner, too. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat with you tonight. I’ve wasted enough time in this dining room.”
He got up and went toward the door. Suddenly he came back.
“I don’t have to tell you not to make any noise. Come to bed. What are you doing here awake? On my honor, you’re all vicious. Goodbye!”
“Adieu,” said Rafik. “And don’t forget to write. We’re always anxious to hear from you.”
IV
It was the sacred hour of siesta; the house was silent as though it were buried at the very depth of silence. Sometimes, a noise of dishes, imperceptible, muffled, laid itself upon the motionless air, like a cry lost in crossing the heaviness of sleep. Rafik, stretched on his bed, was not asleep. His eyes wide open in the gloom, he kept awake with meticulous care, exhausting himself in the unequal struggle against drowsiness. He was waiting for Haga Zohra, the go-between whose intrigues threatened to throw the house into irreparable chaos. He had decided that his father’s marriage must not take place; because of this, he hadn’t slept for several days. It was an act of daring, almost of folly, and Rafik was afraid of succumbing to his fatigue, of failing at the crucial moment. Sweat dripped from his forehead as he fought the pernicious languor that was taking hold of his limbs, this heavy inertia that crept through him. Already, he had begun to suffer. He was getting stiff and raised himself on his elbows, panting. He heard his own breathing and was alarmed; he had almost awakened Galal who slept in the next bed, his face turned toward the wall, completely shrouded in his quilt. Not a breath marred his sleep that seemed like death. Rafik admired this tremendous anesthesia that no anxiety could disturb. It was almost a comatose state, a stupor. Galal had had no choice; his sleep was not a desire to escape from a world that didn’t please him. He even ignored that there was a world outside, full of unhappiness, menacing and greedy. He abandoned himself to sleep naturally, without cares, as to a simple and joyous thing.
Rafik, on the contrary, always had with him the vision of a world of degradation and misery, and had chosen sleep as a refuge. He could feel at peace only behind the shelter of these walls, barricaded against the fatal presence of other beings and things. Around the house ranged a multitude of wrecks with human faces; their nearness was horrible to him. He recalled with terror the times when he used to go out, those chance contacts with the world of men; they were all murderers. He had an unbelievable hatred for them. When still very young he had learned to appreciate the value of the monotonous but sublime existence that his father’s house offered. This security, rid of all contingencies, he owed to old Hafez, who had always maintained an atmosphere of passivity around him. Rafik always respected his father for the one noble idea he had found in life, and when, at a certain period, old Hafez had forced him to sacrifice his love of a woman, Rafik had not hesitated, in spite of the suffering it had cost him, to obey his father’s will. Old Hafez had been right. Rafik was grateful and blessed him for saving him in time. But now it was his father who was about to ruin this security so painfully acquired by many generations. Rafik rebelled; he felt offended and betrayed.
The woman whom Rafik had loved, at the time when he went out in the world, was a young prostitute who lived in an old dilapidated house near the highway. The quarter referred to her as “Imtissal, the students’ friend,” because she only recruited her admirers among the youth of the universities. A whole clientele, scarcely past puberty, crowded to her door. Rafik had sometimes visited her with the other students. In the beginning, Imtissal had scarcely paid any attention to him; he was a customer like the others. Then came a day when she began to treat him differently and refused the money he gave her. Rafik thereupon conceived a certain pride that led him to believe
he was an extraordinary being. Imtissal seemed to find a strange pleasure in making love to him. Rafik was never able to forget this time of discovery of the savageness of the flesh. Imtissal began to love him with incredible passion that was almost hysteria. She no longer received her numerous admirers, passing the days waiting for him; she became devouringly faithful. After a few months of this violent love Rafik decided he would marry Imtissal and bring her to live, with him at the house.
When he told his father of his resolution, old Hafez became intractable; he formally opposed it. His son must either leave the house or renounce his insane plan. Rafik’s first impulse was to leave and marry Imtissal. However he needed money to live. What could he do? Work! The word was so painful he couldn’t bring himself to pronounce it. He deliberated a long time, tortured between his real passion and the vicissitudes of a life where sleep and tranquility would be banished forever. Finally, he renounced his love; no joy of the flesh was worth the sacrifice of his repose. He announced his father’s refusal to Imtissal; he confessed his decision to separate from her. It was an unforgettable scene.
This adventure had taken place two years earlier, but Rafik had never forgotten the intensity of those carnal moments. The memory of them burned in him like a devouring flame. The image of Imtissal haunted him even in his sleep. Since their break, she had refused to see him. She had gone hack to her old life as a prostitute, and the young students had come back to knock at her door. Rafik kept informed of everything she did; he had learned that she had had a bastard child, whose father she didn’t even know. She was raising it herself, in the single room in which she made love.
What tormented Rafik above all was not his separation from Imtissal, but rather the misunderstanding that existed between them. Imtissal had only understood one thing: that Rafik had ceased to love her. He had never had time to make her understand his real motives for leaving her. She had suddenly begun calling him a pimp, because he had told her he never wanted to work. Without even attempting to listen to him, she had screamed like a madwoman, then had thrown him out, showering him with curses.
Laziness in the Fertile Valley Page 4
