The Beginning and the End

by Naguib Mahfouz

  Hiding his astonishment with a faint smile, Ali Sabri walked up to him.

  “Yes, sir?” he said.

  “I’ve heard you’ve got the filthiest kind of liquor to be found in this district. Since good liquor no longer has any effect on me, I’ve come here to get drunk,” he said defiantly. Pushing Ali Sabri roughly aside, he went toward a table at which a number of relatively dignified men were sitting. Casting a savage look at them, he said authoritatively, “Clear this table!”

  They all stood up and silently left the café. Examining the faces around him with insolent defiance, the intruder sat in a chair and stretched his legs onto another.

  Approaching Ali Sabri, the café apprentice whispered in his ear, “This is Mahrous the Negro, a bully; everybody in the whole district is afraid of him.”

  Worried, Ali Sabri asked, “Is he likely to stay long?”

  “He frequents any café he likes, eats and drinks, and nobody dares ask him to pay. Perhaps he’s come to introduce himself to you. Or perhaps…”

  The boy hesitated a little.

  “Speak,” Ali Sabri urged him.

  “Perhaps one of the café owners in the darb has incited him to destroy our coffeehouse!”

  Casting a furtive look at the Negro, Ali Sabri observed that he was half asleep, apparently feeling secure and at home, and that the customers had deserted the nearby tables. His heart filled with fear and depression. He retreated silently to the dais, where Hassan was sitting with the rest of the band. He nodded to Hassan, and they both withdrew behind the buffet, where he confided to Hassan what the boy had told him.

  “Maybe it would be better for us to ask Mistress Zeinab the Twanger to use her tact in this dire situation,” Ali Sabri suggested.

  Inspecting Mahrous from a distance, Hassan replied, “I don’t approve of asking a woman for help. In this darb such a policy won’t do. Leave it to me.”

  “They say that he is a terrible bully.”

  “They say the same thing about me, too,” Hassan said with a smile, “though the people here don’t know it. Leave this matter to me.” Then he thought, sarcastically: My mother is not the only one who endures misery just to live.

  “It will be a fierce fight,” he told Ali Sabri, “and unless we win, it’ll be impossible for us to make a living in this place.”

  “Suppose we don’t win?”

  “Trust God and me.”

  Whatever the consequences, he would not avoid the forthcoming fight. After all, this was the only means by which he could enhance his own prestige in the eyes of Ali Sabri and throughout the whole district.

  Perhaps Ali Sabri is right in worrying about the safety of his coffeehouse and his money, he thought. But my own future depends on the outcome of this fight. So let Ali Sabri himself go to hell. Besides, I should not forget that sooner or later a victory of this sort is my only means of gaining access to the girls of Zeinab the Twanger. My fortunes in life, and perhaps those of my family—this occurred to him as an afterthought—depend on the outcome of this fight.

  Mahrous the Negro stirred. Stretching his limbs, he yawned and belched. “Where’s the filthy cognac we’ve heard so much about?” he bellowed.

  Calmly and steadily, Hassan left his place. He walked up to the Negro and stood before him.

  “Peace be upon you,” he said quietly.

  Arrogantly the Negro raised his fiery eyes. He examined Hassan’s solid body and glistening eyes with malice and suspicion. He frowned angrily and his face assumed an inhuman glow.

  “The curse of God be upon you and your mother! What do you want?” he shouted at Hassan.

  “I heard you shouting for cognac, and I saw it was my duty to tell you that here we require payment in advance,” Hassan said in clear tones, preserving his veneer of calm.

  Pulling his legs from the chair before him, Mahrous burst out into a long, affected laugh, beating his knees in excitement. Then he calmed himself and stopped, casting a disparaging look at Hassan.

  “Are you the bouncer of the café?” he asked mockingly.

  Hassan said quietly, “I should also like to tell you that your behavior is not proper.”

  In the next few moments the nearby customers jostled their way out of the coffeehouse. The path facing the entrance was crowded with people of all ages. The workers at the buffet quickly concealed the bottles, glasses, and musical instruments—anything that could be broken. Mahrous still had a sarcastic smile on his thick lips.

  Then, suddenly, he gave Hassan’s left leg a violent kick. Hassan staggered backward. Though he had been vigilant and wary, watching his rival, Hassan had been focusing his attention on Mahrous’s hands, expecting him to throw something or thrust a dagger at him; thus he hadn’t seen the kick coming until it actually hit him. Hassan staggered under the force of the kick, but he summoned sufficient strength to avoid falling down. Staggering backward, enraged at the pain, he clenched his teeth to overcome it. The Negro allowed him not a second’s rest. He jumped at him like a man diving into the water. Afraid lest he become an easy victim for his adversary, Hassan made no attempt to control his staggering. Instead, he jumped backward, crashing against the wall of the café, and thus evaded his powerful enemy. Mahrous gave Hassan no time to regain his balance. He attacked him with a blow to the abdomen, which Hassan blocked with his hands. With this punch, Mahrous had expected his adversary to expose his neck; as swift as lightning he seized Hassan’s throat in his iron hands, pressing them together brutally to strangle him. The fight seemed to be over. Ali Sabri’s head swam. The faces of the café workers and members of the band turned white. They exchanged worried looks, hoping someone would act to save their dying friend but remaining transfixed in their places. Expecting Hassan’s corpse to fall to the floor, the girls began to wail. As he began to lose consciousness, Hassan was suddenly aware that he could not escape the deadly grip of his rival, who held his neck in a vise. Realizing that the end was very near unless he did something to avert it, Hassan clenched his teeth and stretched the muscles of his neck, concentrating all his strength in it. Then, with all the force he could muster, he bent his right leg and drove his knee into his adversary’s groin. The Negro’s firm hold on his neck immediately relaxed. Shaking with anger as he regained his breath, Hassan gave his rival a second blow; all of this occurred in the first thirty seconds after the Negro’s attempt to strangle him. Finally Mahrous’s hands were lifted from Hassan’s neck and the Negro retreated with dazed, gloomy, bloodshot eyes, his face contorted with rage. Realizing that he was now master of the situation, Hassan wasted no time. He attacked his rival, who was now striving fiercely to shake off his pain. Using his forehead like a pile driver, Hassan butted his rival on the forehead. The two heads snapped dreadfully as they collided. The Negro dealt Hassan several terrible blows but these failed to weaken Hassan’s determination. Blood gushed from the Negro’s head, streaming over his face like flames on burning tar. He seemed to be struggling. Hassan recovered from the pain in his leg, neck, and chest, and with the side of his palm he delivered a blow to his adversary’s head as cutting as the sharp edge of a knife. The Negro groaned and fell unconscious to the floor. Thrilled with his victory, Hassan stood over his rival, his chest heaving. But with the danger passed, the pain began to mount. Had no one been watching him, Hassan would gladly have flung himself down beside his enemy. But the eager eyes of the onlookers forced him to compose himself. The screams, commotion, and shouts of the mob struck his ears. He sensed a strange movement throughout the café, and at the touch of a hand on his shoulder, he turned to see Ali Sabri smiling at him, his face deathly pale.

  “Come with me,” Hassan heard him whisper in his ear. “I want to offer you a glass of cognac.”

  He went with him in silence to the dais. He sat on a chair, and Ali Sabri brought him a full glass of cognac; Hassan drank it down and when he asked for another, Ali Sabri brought him one, and said, “You must be very tired.”

  “The fight was inevitable,” Hassan mu
rmured with confidence.

  The waiter came. “They are calling you the Head* because you knocked him down with your head,” he said, laughing.

  Hoping to avoid people’s glances, Hassan said to Ali Sabri, “Let’s wipe out all traces of the fight. Start the second singing performance!”

  * * *

  *In colloquial Arabic, this is a play on words, associating the expression which means “Russian” (a complimentary reference to a strong man) with “russiat,” which means “butting with the head.”

  FORTY

  His strength, vitality, and fighting experience had enabled Hassan to regain his composure. It was an hour or more past midnight when the last intoxicated customer staggered out of Ali Sabri’s café. The darb was almost completely dark once the lights outside were turned off. Houses were closing their doors so that the parties inside could begin, usually to last until dawn. Two policemen were passing by, and the street resounded with their heavy footsteps. Hassan was sitting with Ali Sabri at the back of the café discussing the night’s take when a boy who worked as a waiter in the house of Zeinab the Twanger walked up and greeted them.

  “Someone wants you,” he whispered in Hassan’s ear.

  When Ali Sabri overheard the boy’s whisper, an interested look appeared on his face. “A woman?” he murmured.

  “I think so,” Hassan answered indifferently.

  “Don’t you prefer transitory love, as I do?”

  Hassan gave a meaningful smile. “But this kind of love doesn’t amount to much,” he replied.

  “Wait and see.”

  Hassan bade his companion goodbye and followed the boy to the house opposite the café. The boy knocked on the door; it opened warily to a narrow slit. The boy slipped inside; Hassan followed. The door closed. Just at the front entrance, a blind man sat in a chair playing a flute, while Mistress Zeinab the Twanger, wearing a black cloak and a veil with a big gold clasp in the center to hide her decaying nose, sat on a raised divan. Casting a scrutinizing look around him, Hassan saw that all the girls were engaged. Leaning toward the drawn curtain at the threshold of the stairs, the boy pulled it aside and entered. Hassan followed. They climbed the stairs together in silence.

  “Who is it?” Hassan asked, breaking the silence.

  “Lady Sana’a.”

  Hassan remembered her. She was a woman of dark complexion, curly hair, fleshy body, coarse lips, and large black eyes. She spent most of the day sitting at the entrance to the house, her crossed legs exposing her thigh all the way up to her white silk panties. They climbed to the second floor and passed through a long corridor leading to a small hall with three doors. The boy went to the middle door and knocked three times. A brassy, resonant voice shouted, “Come in!”

  The boy pushed the door open slightly and stepped aside. Hassan entered the room. Before closing the door behind him, he felt the boy’s hand stroking his back. As he turned, the boy laughed.

  “Recite the Exordium of the Koran for us,” he said as he departed.

  Hassan closed the door. The room was pitch-dark. It occurred to him to grope for the switch to turn on the light, but he soon changed his mind. He stood leaning against the door, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the surrounding darkness. For a while, the silence seemed complete. Then he became aware of someone breathing, and he listened, smiling. He expected something to be said or done, but nothing happened. He walked slowly to his left, toward the sound of breathing, until his knee bumped against something solid. Groping with his hands, he recognized it as the edge of a wooden bed. He stood looking down with glistening eyes until he could distinguish in the darkness an obscure, featureless mass stretched out on the bed. He lowered his thumb little by little until it pressed into the soft flesh of a body that quivered at the touch. A suppressed laugh emerged from the dark.

  Afterward, turning on the light, he started to put on his clothes. He took ten piasters from his pocket and put the money on the bed while the woman watched him with laughing eyes. She jumped to the floor and walked naked to the table. She opened a drawer and returned with a fifty-piaster note, which she silently placed on top of his ten piasters.

  “Are you bringing me the change?” he asked with a laugh.

  “This is your fee,” she said calmly.

  Pretending indifference, he casually finished dressing, controlling his features lest they betray his delight. He picked up the money and put it in his pocket.

  She cast a deep glance at him. “Would you be my lover?” she asked.

  “I have a mistress,” he lied.

  Her glistening eyes betrayed her. “In this darb?”

  “No, in another.”

  “Is she a foreigner?”

  “No, an Arab.”

  Silence prevailed for a moment.

  “Do you still desire her?” she asked.

  He decided to keep silent and replied only with a smile.

  “Where do you live?” she inquired, laughing.

  “In Shubra.”

  “It’s too far from your work. Do you have to sleep there?”

  “No.”

  “I live nearby, in Gandab alley in Clot Bey. Do you know where it is?”

  “From now on I shall know where it is.”

  FORTY-ONE

  At about sunset Nefisa left the house of one of her customers on Al Walid Street. She looked annoyed. She always felt miserable when she was alone. The fact that her meager earnings from her work were swallowed up by the family’s urgent needs increased her misery, for she was unable to keep any of her earnings. Besides, a serious change had come over her. Now she paid close attention to her appearance. Her orange dress, decorated with violets, revealed her tall, slim body. She applied makeup flamboyantly. She continued walking along Al Walid Street until she reached Shubra Street. At the corner she turned, casting a distant look toward the garage, which infused her heart with vitality and watchfulness. The sight of the garage and its proprietor, Mohammed al-Ful, brought back to her memory a violent conflict that had torn her heart throughout the past weeks. She neither stepped forward nor backward, but came to a complete stop. Fear paralyzed her legs. Although her tortured wavering had been resolved, yet, as she took the last step, she was stricken by fear.

  Isn’t it better for me to think the matter over? she thought. No, no. Thinking will only cause me headaches. He’ll block my way as he does every evening. I can’t deny that I smiled at his pleasantries. What will happen next? Now it is too late to retreat. He doesn’t conceal his motives or intentions. Nor am I ignorant of them. I understand everything. I understand why he invites me to ride in his car. He doesn’t try to deceive me as someone else did. What he wants is perfectly clear. Shall I do it? Why is he interested in me? I’m not pretty, and it’s impossible that this makeup will make me so. But in the market of lechery even ugliness itself is a salable commodity, and pleasure seekers, at least some of them, are not fastidious in their demands. This is the truth. Marriage is a different matter. But where seeking pleasure is concerned, people are all the same. Should I allow myself to fall? Why not? I wouldn’t be losing anything I haven’t already lost. But isn’t it better to think this over carefully?

  Bitter memories of her old despair galled her and besieged her mind, and she remembered how bitterly hopeless her condition had become. However, in addition to the feeling of despair, an intense desire boiled in her veins, clamoring for gratification; she felt helpless before it. Whenever she surrendered to despair, this fierce desire stung her to the depths of her being. This desire alone would get in her way, were she ever to think of hiding herself away from people. It was so strong that she came to detest it as much as she detested her life itself, but consciously she denied its existence. Shutting it out of her mind, she would persuade herself that she could accept humiliation for the sake of the money which her family so badly needed. Her family’s condition being what it was, she was not lying when she thought in this fashion. But it was only half the truth, the half she admitted wh
ile she ignored the other. She found pleasure, if we might call it that, in looking upon herself as a martyr and a victim of despondency and poverty.

  At that moment, the young man appeared from the garage. He was speaking to some workers. Her heart fluttered, and her eyes remained fixed on him. Instinctively, she realized she would not retreat. Turning her back and standing at a distance from him, she mentally surrendered to him, and her surrender was complete. It was at this moment that the violent, distressing conflict which had torn her heart for weeks was finally resolved. In despair and heated emotion, she sighed, and with slow steps approached him, pretending to ignore him until she felt him, with his usual daring, somehow blocking her way.

  “My lady, why are you so hard-hearted? My entreaties would soften even a rock. My car is waiting at the turn of the road. For ages it has been waiting for you,” he said.

  Encouraged by her smile, he walked by her side. “Stop being so coy. Even if I had the patience of Job, it would run out…” he pleaded.

  How delicious flirtation was, even if it was false! Though it was a pity to feel this way, his flirtation restored her long-humiliated sense of female dignity. She wished he knew who she was and who her father had been. She heard him speak to her in a menacing tone: “Here is the car. If you don’t get in, I’ll pick you up in my arms in front of everyone.”

  They reached the car, parked in the next blind alley. With one hand he seized hers, and opened the door of the car with the other. Swallowing, she nervously entered the car and sat down. He closed the door behind her. Walking around the car, he got in through the other door. She was almost unaware of his presence. She leaned far back to avoid the window looking out on the road. At that moment she experienced a feeling of alienation. Everything seemed to her eerie and phantasmagorical: the road on which the curtain of night was falling, the figures of the people passing by, the old dilapidated car, herself, people’s voices, and the rumbling sound of the wheels of tram-cars. Determined, she forced herself to regain her composure. She gave him a furtive look. He was sitting erect before the steering wheel, veins bulging from his solid face with its big, rocky nose, protruding cheeks, and broad, bulldoglike mouth.