She beamed. “I go to the cinema.”
“On your own?”
“With Madame.”
“God keep you,” I said gently.
She smiled. “You worry over me as if I were a child.”
“You are a child, Zohra.”
“No. When I have to, I can take care of myself as well as any man.”
I set my old face nearer her pretty young one. “Zohra, these young men are always ready to play, but when it comes to serious intentions…” I snapped my fingers.
“My father told me all about that.”
“I won’t pretend I’m not very fond of you. So I’m concerned.”
“I understand. I haven’t met anyone like you since my father. I’m fond of you too.”
I had never heard the words said so sweetly, and they were words that, if it had not been for an accusation made in stupidity, and which no man alive had the right to make, I might have heard from the lips of dozens of children and grandchildren of my own. That white transparent veil! The old woman nips out from the door in the little alley: “Come on, it has stopped raining.” The girl in the white veil follows, stepping carefully on the slippery stones. Has time dimmed all the details of that beautiful face, leaving only the deep impression? I stand to one side and I whisper, “God be praised for creating such beauty.” While my heart is still pounding, I say to myself, “Take the decision, put your trust in God! The sooner the better!”
—
I am alone with Mariana, who sits beneath the Madonna, her blue eyes dark with thought. It has been raining steadily since noon, the clouds shaken by occasional rolls of thunder. Mariana speaks.
“Monsieur Amer, I smell something fishy!”
“What?” I ask warily.
“Zohra,” she says; and then, after a pause, “Sarhan al-Beheiry.”
My heart contracts. “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“But the girl…”
“I have an instinct about these things.”
“My dear Mariana, she’s a good honest girl.”
“Maybe, but I don’t like people going on behind my back!”
Of course. Either Zohra stays “honest” or she works for you. I know you through and through, old woman.
—
I have dreams, during my siesta, about 1919, that bloody uprising, and the British soldiers afterward forcing their way into the Azhar. I open my eyes with a brain full of shouting demonstrators, the smack of rifles, and the thud of bullets. There are loud voices in the entrance hall. I put on my dressing gown and hurry out. Others are there, watching, but Sarhan is adjusting his collar and tie with an angry sneer on his face. And there is Zohra, pale with anger, her breast heaving, her dress torn at the neckline, while Hosny Allam in his dressing gown is just going out the door with a strange woman who screams and curses—and who just before the door closes spits in Sarhan’s face.
“My pension has a good name!” Mariana shouts. “I won’t stand for this sort of thing. No, no, no!”
I am still half asleep. When there are only the three of us left, I ask Tolba Marzuq what happened.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I arrived on the scene only just before you did.”
Mariana disappears into Sarhan’s room; for an explanation no doubt.
“It seems the Beheiry boy is quite a Don Juan.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Didn’t you see her spit in his face?”
“Who was she, anyway?”
“Just a woman.” He grins. “Come for her runaway boyfriend, I suppose.”
Zohra comes back, still upset. “I opened the door for Monsieur Sarhan,” she tells us, though we haven’t asked her anything, “and there was this woman following him. He didn’t see her. Then they started fighting.”
Mariana returns from Sarhan’s room. “The girl was his fiancée. Or so I understand.”
We all understand. But it is Tolba Marzuq who slyly puts the question:
“Then what’s Zohra got to do with all this?”
“I tried to break it up and she turned on me.”
“You’ve got a fine fist, Zohra!”
“Let’s not speak of it any more,” I beg them.
Bismallah al Rahman al Rahim.
Ta. Sin. Mim.
These are revelations of the Scripture that maketh plain.
We narrate unto thee somewhat of the story of Moses and Pharaoh with truth, for folk who believe.
Lo! Pharaoh exalted himself in the earth and made its people castes. A tribe among them he oppressed, killing their sons and sparing their women. Lo! he was of those who work corruption
And we desired to show favor unto those who were oppressed in the earth, and to make them examples and to make them the inheritors.
Someone is knocking. Mariana comes in smiling and sits on the backless stool where I sometimes rest my feet. The wind is howling in the air shaft and I am swathed in my dressing gown. The room is very quiet and dim, drowsing in a light that does not reveal the time of day.
“Haven’t you heard?” She is stifling a laugh.
I close my book and put it on the bedside table. “Good news, my dear?”
“Zohra’s going to school!”
I do not understand.
“Really. She’s made up her mind. She asked permission to stay away for an hour in the afternoon. To take lessons.”
“Amazing.”
“She’s arranged it with a schoolmistress who lives on the fifth floor. A young teacher who’ll give her private lessons.”
I repeat, “It’s amazing.”
“I didn’t object, but I’m afraid she’s going to spend all her wages on it.”
“That’s thoughtful of you, Mariana. But I’m really and truly amazed.”
When Zohra brought me my afternoon coffee, I said, “You’ve been keeping secrets from me, you naughty child.”
“I keep no secrets from you,” she answered shyly.
“What about this decision to study? What made you think of it?”
“All girls go to school now. The streets are full of them.”
“But you never thought of it before.”
“It’s your fault.” She smiled. “You said I was much prettier than they are and there was no reason why they should read and write while I stayed illiterate.” She went on looking up brightly at me.
“But that isn’t all.”
“What else is there?”
“Well…there’s our friend Sarhan al-Beheiry.” She blushed. “Learning to read and write is a wonderful idea. As for Sarhan…”
“Yes?” she asked, when I hesitated.
“Young men are ambitious.”
“We’re all the children of Adam and Eve,” she replied tartly.
“True, but…”
“Times have changed. Haven’t they?”
“Yes, they have. They have indeed. But young men haven’t changed.”
“When I learn to read and write,” she said thoughtfully, “I’ll try to learn some profession. Like dressmaking perhaps.”
I was afraid I might hurt her feelings if I said much more.
“Does he love you?” She lowered her eyes. “May God bless you and bring you happiness!”
From time to time I would help her with her lessons, that mysterious world of letters and figures. All the lodgers learned of her decision and discussed it at length. No one laughed at her, at least not to her face. They all liked her, I suppose, each in his own way.
Tolba Marzuq exercised his usual penetration. “The best solution to her problem would be a new lodger. A film producer or something. What do you think of that?”
I cursed his dirty mind.
Late one afternoon when I took my usual seat in the hall, I saw an unfamiliar girl sitting next to Zohra on the settee—obviously the teacher, good-looking and well dressed. She had agreed to come down to her pupil because there were visitors in her own flat. Mariana had of cours
e put all the questions she could. Later she told us that the young lady lived with her parents and a had a brother who worked in Saudi Arabia.
Afterward the teacher came frequently to the pension. She said she was pleased with her new pupil’s perseverance.
One afternoon, as she brought my coffee, Zohra seemed depressed. I asked her how she was.
“I’m as fit as a mule.”
“And the lessons?”
“Nothing to complain of.”
“Then it’s our friend Beheiry,” I suggested with concern. For a moment neither of us said a word, as if we were listening to the rain. “I can’t stand seeing you unhappy. You must tell me what’s happened.”
“I believe you,” she said gratefully.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, I suppose luck just isn’t on my side.”
“I warned you from the first day.”
“It’s not that easy, you know.” She looked miserably at me. “What can I do? I love him. What can I do?”
“Has he deceived you?”
“No! He loves me too. But he always speaks of obstacles.”
“But when a man’s in love…”
“He does love me! Yet he keeps talking about these obstacles.”
“But they’re not your fault. You have to be sure where you stand.”
“What’s the good of knowing what I should do when I couldn’t bring myself to do it?”
“My dear Pasha, how could you?”
“I had no alternative. I needed the loan from the Agricultural Credit Bank. Their terms were very clear-cut. I had either to quit the Wafd or be ruined.”
“But many have chosen that latter alternative.”
“Shut up!” he shouted. “You don’t own one square inch of land! You have neither son nor daughter! And even though I have been beaten and imprisoned at Kasr al-Nil barracks, my daughter is dearer to me than either this world or the next!”
“Come with me,” Mariana whispered. “Zohra’s people are here.”
I went out with her. Zohra’s sister and brother-in-law were there, the girl herself standing proudly in the middle of the room. The man was speaking.
“It’s all right that you came to Madame. As for your running away, though…”
“You shamed us,” her sister cut in, “all over Zayadiyya.”
“It’s none of anybody’s business,” said Zohra bitterly.
“If only your grandfather could be here!”
“I answer to no one, now my father’s dead.”
“How dare you! He only wanted to marry you to a good man!”
“He wanted to sell me.”
“God forgive you. Come along! Get your things ready.”
“I am not going back. Not even if the dead themselves come out of their graves.” Her brother-in-law was about to speak, but she stopped him. “It’s none of your business. I have a good job here.” She pointed to Mariana. “I earn my living by honest work.”
It struck me that they would have liked very much to tell her what they thought of Madame, the pension, and the statue of the Virgin, but felt themselves unable to.
“Zohra is the daughter of a man I respected,” said Mariana. “I treat her as a daughter and she’s welcome to stay if she wants to.” She looked at me, as if to prompt.
“Think, Zohra,” I said, “and make your choice.”
“I am not going back.”
Their mission was a failure. As he left with his wife, however, the man said to Zohra, “You deserve to be killed!”
Afterward we talked it over at length until Zohra said, “What do you really think I should do?”
“I wish you could go back to your village.”
“Go back to misery?”
“I said ‘I wish you could’—that is, go back and be happy.”
“I love the land and the village, but I hate that misery.” And when Mariana went out of the room, she said sadly, “Here is where love is. Education. Cleanliness. And hope.”
I could understand her feelings. I too had left the village with my father; and after that, like her, I had loved the village but could not bear to live there. I had educated myself, as she would like to do, and I had been wrongly accused and many people had said, as they had just said to her, that I should be killed. And like her again, I had been entranced by love, education, cleanliness, hope. May your fortune be better than mine, Zohra!
—
Autumn is wearing on to its end. Alexandrian weather, which knows no rule, blesses us with a bright warm morning; Ramleh Square is radiant with sunlight pouring out of a pure azure sky. Mahmoud Abu al-Abbas, the newspaper seller, smiles at me as I stand in front of his stall, which is adorned with the covers of magazines and books.
“Sir,” he begins, while I wonder whether there’s been some mistake in our account, for he stands there, tall and thickset, saying, “you live in the Pension Miramar?”
“Yes.” I nod.
“I beg your pardon. But there is a girl called Zohra.”
“Yes?” I am suddenly attentive.
“Where are her people?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I beg your pardon, but I want to propose to her.”
I reflect for a moment. “Her people are in the country. I think she’s quarreled with them. Have you spoken to her about it?”
“She comes here to buy papers, but she doesn’t encourage me to talk.”
The same evening he paid Mariana a visit and asked for Zohra’s hand. Mariana spoke to her, but the girl refused him on the spot.
“You’ve spoiled her, Mariana,” commented Tolba when he heard the story. “Cleaning her up and dressing her in modern clothes won’t do her much good. She mixes with fine young men and her head’s turned. She’ll come to no good. You mark my words.”
When she came with my afternoon coffee, we discussed the matter.
“You should have given it more thought.”
“But you know everything!” she protested.
“Still, there’s no harm in considering a serious proposal.”
She said reproachfully, “You think I’m too humble to hope for anything better, don’t you?”
“No!” I flung out my hand. “I just think he’d make you a suitable husband, that’s all.”
“It’d be the same as going back to the village.” I did not like that answer. “You see, I overheard him speaking to another newsboy once,” she explained. “He hadn’t noticed me standing there. He was saying, ‘All women have one thing in common. They’re cuddly little animals without brains or religion, and the only way to keep them from going wild is to leather them every day!’ ” She challenged me. “Am I to blame if I refuse such a man?”
I had nothing to say. And though I pretended to be disturbed, I felt an unbounded admiration for the girl. I thought to myself, No more old men’s advice! Saad Zaghloul always used to listen to what they had to say, then followed the counsel of the young. God protect you, Zohra.
—
“Great things are happening right under your nose, old man,” Tolba Marzuq said, grinning slyly. We were sitting alone in the pension, listening to the beating rain.
“What’s the matter?” I expected bad news.
“The Don Juan from Beheira is preparing another coup.” I showed concern for Zohra’s sake. “He’s changed his quarry. Aiming at something else, in fact.”
“Forget your own pleasures for a minute and speak plainly.”
“It’s the teacher’s turn now.”
“Zohra’s teacher?”
“Exactly! I caught surreptitious looks going back and forth above the diligent student’s head. I’m quite an expert, you know. Papa Amer, watch out for a most entertaining comedy at the Miramar!”
“You’re simply depraved.”
I was determined not to believe a word of what he said. But I was worried. The same evening Hosny Allam told us about a fight between Sarhan al-Beheiry and Mahmoud Abu al-Abbas, the news vendor in the square. Th
ey’d come to blows, and people had hardly been able to separate them. I knew at once what had been behind the quarrel.
“They hit each other until people had to force them apart,” said Hosni.
“Did you see them fight?” asked Tolba.
“No, but I learned about it shortly afterward.”
“Did they go to the police?” Mariana wanted to know.
“No, the whole thing ended in a lot of name calling—and threats.”
Sarhan said nothing about this incident and none of us made any reference to it. The thought of Sarhan and the teacher depressed me. Poor Zohra.
“ ‘And when are the fair ever faithful? My only comfort is tears!’ ” We clap and cheer for several encores and he sings until the break of dawn. I am full that night of youth and strength and food. Drink too. But the heart, alone, endures its secret chagrin.
Deep in sleep, in the lost hours of night, I had dreamt of my father’s death. I saw them carry the body out of the arcade of the mosque of Sidi Abu al-Abbas, where death had found him, and take him home. I was weeping and I could hear my mother’s shrieks of mourning and they went on and on until I opened my eyes. Good God, what could be going on outside? Was it the same thing again? The pension had become a battlefield, though by the time I left my room everything was over.
When she saw me Mariana came running. “No! No! To hell with the whole lot of them!” she cried when we were in my room. I looked at her out of heavy-lidded eyes and I listened to the story. She’d been awakened by the sound of a fight and gone out to find Sarhan al-Beheiry and Hosny Allam exchanging blows in the corridor.
“Hosny Allam?”
“Yes, why not? They’re all stark mad.”
“But why?”
“Apparently something happened that I didn’t see. I was asleep too.”
“What about the girl?”
“Zohra says Hosny came home dead drunk and that he tried to…”
“No!”
“I believe her, Monsieur Amer,” said Mariana.
“I do too. But Hosny didn’t seem interested in her.”
“But we can’t notice everything, Monsieur Amer. Anyway, Sarhan woke up at the right time. Why must these things happen?” She massaged her throat, as if to rub off the pain of shouting. “No,” she repeated, “to hell with them.”
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