The Beginning and the End

by Naguib Mahfouz

  He walked to a car as old and dignified as himself, parked very close to the pavement. The step was almost two inches above the level of the pavement; at the door stood a driver, motionless as a statue. He climbed into the car without closing the door behind him; on instruction the driver immediately took his place behind the steering wheel. Thinking that she was lagging behind, the old man took off his spectacles and motioned to her with his hand. She could hardly restrain a smile. Then casting a scrutinizing look around her, urged for the first time in her life by sheer greed, she walked to the car. He moved a bit to give her room, and she sat down beside him. But anxiety soon overcame her when her nostrils filled with the strong smell of liquor on his breath. “I can’t be late,” she said.

  “Nor can I,” he said, his tongue thick with intoxication.

  He gave his instructions to the driver, and the car started off at high speed. A sense of alienation came over her. Sorrow and fear struck her heart, in a feeling of absolute degeneration. It was the first time in her life that she had gone with a man without any preliminary acquaintance, whether brief or protracted. Urged on partly by her sexual appetite, she had previously accompanied men she had met only once, twice, or three times. But this time, out of pure greed, and feeling no desire at all, she surrendered to a passerby. How complete was her degeneration! And how dreadful her end! She wondered how the man could single her out as a bed companion. Did her face, ugly though it was, betray her degeneration? Torn now by her old confusion, she was uncertain whether to keep her seductive makeup or to abandon makeup altogether, thus revealing her ugliness.

  He placed his palm on her hand. “You’re as beautiful as the moon,” he stammered.

  “I’m not at all beautiful,” she said.

  “No woman is devoid of some sort of beauty!” he replied disapprovingly.

  Was this man a liar or a fool? She marveled how lechery blinded men’s eyes. “Except me,” she said simply.

  Rapping his fingers on her bosom, he said, “But for your beauty, I wouldn’t have felt this desire!”

  She would have liked to believe him, but she knew it was a lie. No man’s love for her lasted more than a few hours. Perhaps he was dissipated, or, like her, suffering from bitter despair. Men had given her enough pain to make her spiteful. Nevertheless, the flames of desire which engulfed her body were never extinguished. Her body degraded her so much that she came to hate it as bitterly as she hated poverty. A captive of her body and her poverty, she knew no way to rescue herself. Swept away in the current of life and bruised on its rocks, naked, injured, unprotected and unpitied, she realized the futility of searching for a safe refuge. She heard him say with a sigh, “We’ve arrived.” Looking out, she watched the car move around a circular road with huge trees, like the shapes of giants, on one side. On the other the Nile ran its course through a vast area shrouded in darkness, decked with flickering lamplight at its remote fringes.

  “Is this the island of Gezira?”

  “You know it of course!”

  Waiting until the driver left his seat and disappeared in the dark, he took off his glasses. “Now,” he said, “show me your skill, for everything depends on it.”

  He was a decayed maniac, soaked with liquor. He thrust his body upon hers, roughly petting her, biting her brutally and pinching her until she was about to scream. The whole business was about to end in a pathetic fiasco. He soon became exhausted. His bizarre, fruitless exertions were almost laughable. At last, lying back drunkenly, he said to her coarsely, “Reach over to the driver’s seat and get me the bottle.”

  Uncorking it, he took several gulps. Then as he leaned back against the seat, his breathing became rough and heavy. Unable to bear waiting any longer, but having learned from experience that nothing more was to be feared, she entreated him ingratiatingly, “It’s time for us to return.”

  As if soliloquizing, he said, “I wish I would never return.”

  She did not grasp the meaning of his words, but summoning up her courage, she murmured, “Please!”

  Putting his hand in his pocket, he sluggishly took out a twenty-piaster piece, letting it fall in her lap. As she picked up the money, she stared at him in disapproval.

  “What is this?” she asked, infuriated.

  Suddenly aggressive, his eyes glistening with intoxication, the old man said, “It’s plenty! If you refuse it, I’ll put it back in my pocket.”

  “I think you’re a man of too high a position for this,” she said resentfully.

  He took another big swig from the bottle and smacked his lips, frowning. “True enough,” he replied. “But a twenty-piaster piece is too much for a person like you. I’ll bet no woman with a nose like yours would hope to get this sum!”

  This wounding insult pierced her breast. Allowing her fear to overcome her anger, she said, “Why do you speak to me in this way?”

  “First, because you’re greedy, and second, because the female sex is responsible for what happens to me. For your information, I only keep change on me. When I return home, my wife questions me even about this change. So I prefer to beat you rather than be beaten by her!”

  Shaking with anger, she kept silent.

  “One day,” he continued, “I was pestered by a woman in a similar situation. I slapped her on the face and threw her half naked out of the car. What do you think she did? Nothing. Sure, she knew that a policeman would do her more harm than I. I know she’s unjustly treated. So are you. But so am I. The real oppressor in this case is my wife.”

  Sighing resentfully, she muttered, “Please, let’s go back.”

  “It’s up to you,” he said with a yawn. “Open the window and call the driver.”

  The car sped on its way back. Her eyes dim as she huddled absentmindedly in a corner of the car, she stared out into the darkness.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Hassanein’s admission to the War College was the happiest event of his life. As he always took the fulfillment of his wishes for granted, he had mistakenly imagined that his enrollment would be rather easy. But later he realized how extremely difficult it was, so much so that eventually he became convinced that, of all his troubles, his arrangement for obtaining the first installment of the fees was the easiest. He paid frequent visits to the villa of Ahmad Bey Yousri, who, almost despairing of his admission to the War College, advised him to turn his attention elsewhere. But the “miracle” of acceptance (as the difficulties of enrollment caused the young man to call it) occurred, thanks to his determination, an advanced place on the list of applicants, his good appearance, his outstanding ability in football and running sports, and above all to the intercession of Ahmad Bey. He was nearly put out of his mind with joy. In fact, he had pinned his hopes so much on his admission that had he failed to get into the War College, he would have been incapable either of doing anything else or of turning his attention elsewhere. His ambition to join this college burst from the depths of his soul, for he was desperate to climb out of his miserable, humble life.

  The College seemed like a magic wand, capable of transforming him from a feeble, obscure nonentity into a highly envied officer in only two years’ time and with hardly any effort. A friend of his had once observed, “Army officers are pompous and highly paid, and their work, like play, is good for nothing.” This description had turned Hassanein’s head and intensified his dream of becoming such an officer. When he learned he had been admitted, he refused to acknowledge the great importance of the role played by Ahmad Bey Yousri; it was primarily due, he told his mother, to his physical fitness and distinction in sports. As of this moment I can consider myself an officer, he thought proudly. In the fancy of his conceit, he happily began to form a mental picture of the people on whom his military uniform would exert its magical effects: soldiers, girls, the rank and file, even Ahmad Bey Yousri himself. Hassanein in person broke the pleasant news to the family of Farid Effendi Mohammed, and they welcomed it enthusiastically. Farid Effendi saluted him. “We’re honored by your visit, young
officer,” he said with a laugh.

  For Bahia’s benefit, Hassanein remarked, “I’ll have to stay away from you for forty days, until we’re permitted to leave the College once a week.” At the moment, he hoped to get what he had been deprived of for two years. But there was opportunity to be alone with the girl for only a few minutes; had she acquiesced, this would have been enough. But the girl insisted on chastity. Overcome by her usual shyness, she shrank at bidding him farewell, her heart throbbing with pain and anxiety. Almost inaudibly he said to her hurriedly, “I want a hot kiss from your lips!” But her shyness and immobility persisted.

  “Even at a moment like this,” he said, “you deny me. I can’t imagine that you love me.”

  Breaking her silence, the girl replied, “I refuse because I do.”

  He mused inquiringly, “I don’t understand you.”

  With touching courage, she spoke more frankly, “I refuse you because I love you.”

  This was the first time he had heard her open and candid confession, and he was so deeply moved that he was about to come too close to her. But nodding her head toward the open door of the room, she signaled a warning.

  Farid Effendi and his wife soon returned, and he spent the rest of the time torn between mixed feelings of ecstasy, anxious longing, and torment. Bidding Farid Effendi’s family goodbye, he went down to his flat.

  This is wise love, he thought. Love governed by firmness and foresight, as if she had devised a careful plan to make sure that I will marry her. But does true love know this kind of frigid logic?

  But these thoughts were, in effect, provoked by his overwhelming feeling of irritation and regret. He considered the farewell scene the worst a lover could ever have experienced. He spent part of the night with his mother and sister. Unable to control her feelings, Nefisa as usual shed tears. Depressed, she said, “We’re doomed to live alone.”

  Hassanein himself experienced the sinking feeling of a person parting from his family for the first time in his life. But his yearning to lead an independent life in a different place and milieu alleviated his depression. As for Samira, she preserved her apparent calm, bidding Nefisa not to allow grief to carry her away. Sharply she said to her daughter, “Don’t cry like a child. We’ll see him frequently. It gives us happiness enough to see that he has realized his hopes.”

  But her heart actually spoke a different language. The imminent parting from her son evoked her sorrow and brought back to her mind memories of grief long past. She remembered Hussein’s farewell scene. She imagined what her home would be like when her last son was gone. In spite of herself, the memory of her departed husband was revived; she wondered at her own life, which would not allow her any measure of happiness unless it was associated with the pains of partings and farewells. Was she doomed to remain alone for the rest of her life? And was it for such an end that she had patiently and stoically suffered and struggled?

  But summoning up her latent strength, she prevented herself from being carried away by grief. She drew on the success of her son to dispel the melancholy that beset her. However, she now believed that her patience and strivings had not been in vain, and that the tossing ship of her life was heading for a secure harbor. She felt she had the right to rejoice, for she had sacrificed every drop of her heart’s blood to cause the fruits of her family life to bloom and flourish.

  Next morning, Hassanein bade his mother and sister farewell and went off to his college.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Hassanein found himself among the freshmen in the College court. To escape loneliness his eyes searched, to no avail, for an old friend from the Tawfikiyah School. Although this annoyed him, he felt proud that he was the only one from his school admitted to the War College. As eager as he was for conversation, it was no use waiting for someone to address him first, and his sense of pride stopped him from taking the first step. So he contented himself with the sights of the College, the extensive court, with its superb, massive buildings, and the statues of the two guns erected at the entrance, which engaged his attention for a long time. The qualities of the College which he admired not only thrilled him but turned his head. At the beginning he was confident of his physical superiority: his tall stature, erect carriage, and handsome figure. But much of his self-admiration was deflated when he examined his classmates, among whom he saw young men in the prime of their youth, of blooming vitality and splendid good looks. Moreover, some of these young men were aristocratic in appearance. Hassanein’s eyes fell upon a man coming out of a room overlooking the court; he recognized him as an old schoolmate at the Tawfikiyah School, perhaps his senior by a year or more at the War College. He wore short khaki trousers and a shirt with four stripes on his left arm. He was not a friend but merely an acquaintance to whom he had been introduced in the court of the school. Although he remembered him only as Irfan, and since under normal circumstances he would have been reluctant to speak to him, yet at that moment he warmly welcomed a conversation with him to show the other freshmen his friendship with this upperclassman.

  Hassanein walked up to stand face to face with the young man. He stretched out his hand with a smile. “How are you, Irfan?” he said with familiarity.

  But a rigid glance from the grim, conceited countenance of his colleague caused his smile quickly to die out. Examining his interlocutor with arrogance and something akin to anger, Irfan uttered not a word. He merely touched Hassanein’s hand and withdrew it quickly as though he were afraid a hideous disease might contaminate it. Dumbfounded, Hassanein thought the young man might have forgotten or misunderstood him.

  “Don’t you remember me? I’m Hassanein Kamel Ali,” he cried plaintively.

  Unimpressed, Irfan remained as rigidly recalcitrant as before. Finally breaking the silence, he said gruffly, “There’s no friendship here. You’re a freshman and I’m a sergeant major.”

  With these words, Irfan moved off. Finding himself in an embarrassing situation which he had never before experienced, Hassanein felt his limbs go numb and his lips twitch. He imagined the others laughing and winking sarcastically at him; to avoid their glances he stood aside. Why, he wondered, did the fool behave in this way? Was it possible that he had gone out of his mind or had he insulted him out of sheer spite? Was this the customary College procedure? Absorbed in his thoughts, he became blind to everything around him, and he came to himself only when the freshmen were called for the first time to line up in their civilian clothes.

  As instructed by the sergeant major, Mohammed Irfan, and several soldiers, they formed two parallel lines. Hassanein avoided looking at his old schoolmate, to whose cutting authority he had to submit. He controlled his fury lest it betray him. Surrounded by a group of junior officers, a high-ranking officer approached. He cast a penetrating glance at the freshmen, then delivered a speech on the military life which they had chosen for a career. Addressing them in colloquial language and with a gruff voice reflected in his fierce, stern features, he punctuated several of his sentences with repeated references to “strict punishment” which, recurring like rhythmic beats, struck awe into their hearts. Immediately after this speech, the first day of their new military life began. This was Hassanein’s initiation into the new life to which he was to become accustomed. Like all days, the first was long and arduous, beginning with cold showers in the early morning, followed by the lineups and the lessons. So continuous were their labors, and so coarse their food, clothes, and treatment, that when bedtime came they slept like logs. Harsh treatment, considered mandatory by the authorities, was the worst aspect of this life. A cadet had only to earn a stripe for seniority to feel it his right to treat his subordinates roughly and exercise his authority tyrannically and without mercy, in what almost amounted to insults and deliberate effrontery. Since the cherished motto of the College was blind obedience, objection and protest were out of the question. Hassanein found his only solace from such a terrifying atmosphere in the hope that one day he would become a corporal and later a sergeant major. Then
, at one stroke, he would be able to pay it all back!

  With fondness he recalled his days at the Tawfikiyah School, which he had once described as instilling “stark fear.” He sometimes became so annoyed with this harsh discipline that he regretted his choice of such an infernal college, wishing that he had guts enough to leave it. Many of his classmates shared the same sentiments, especially in their first days at the College. The discipline sapped their energy and left them weak. Indeed, Hassanein might perhaps have been the only cadet immune to the baneful effects of this unnatural mode of life. Unlike the others, his body seemed to have been unexpectedly replenished. Coarse as the food at the College was, it provided him with regular meals, so infrequent during his previous, troubled years. But on Fridays, when parents were customarily permitted to visit, he underwent unusual psychic suffering. Such days were delightful occasions; the outer court of the College was filled with parents and relatives, and the cadets returned afterward to their rooms laden with presents of sweets, fruits and delicious food. Since even the cadets from the countryside had relatives in Cairo, none spent this happy day alone except for Hassanein; nobody visited him, nor did he expect anybody to visit him. Before he left home, his mother had told him that she could not possibly visit him because, as he knew, she was unable to afford a new, decent overcoat to wear before his fellow cadets. As for Nefisa, she had said to him in her usual joking manner, “I don’t think it would do you honor if I put in an appearance before your classmates with a face like mine.” Since Bahia was shy and unaccustomed to appearing among strangers, he had no hope that she would come. The only possibility was Farid Effendi, but he was lazy by nature and refused to leave his house except in matters of urgency. However, Farid Effendi once did pay him a visit and brought a present of biscuits. On visiting days, Hassanein used to choose a place at the entrance to the interior court, watching the visitors with melancholy eyes and enjoying the sight of the women and girls, their captivatingly beautiful faces and their superbly elegant dresses. He wondered at the class differences that segregated human beings, and he was perplexed and disturbed. Boiling inside with discontent, anger, and revolt, he could give vent to such passions only in questioning God’s ways toward man, wondering defiantly about His wisdom in making the world what it was. One of his classmates once asked him why he kept himself aloof. “My father is dead,” Hassanein replied without hesitation, “and my brother is a teacher in Tanta. My family is conservative, and we’re not accustomed to appearing here in society as you are.”