The Cairo Trilogy

by Naguib Mahfouz

  At this juncture, Yasin's first choice for an escapade Zanuba seemed surrounded by obstacles with unknown consequences. He no longer considered going to her at this hour of the night, knocking on the door, thinking of something to say when the door was opened, and avoiding the night watchman to be laughing matters. They were real impediments and enough to cause him to shy away from her.

  With his mouth hanging open, he advanced gently and cautiously. He was oblivious to everything except the mountain of flesh spread at his feet. To his greedy eyes this body appeared to be preparing itself to receive him. He hesitated before her legs. Then, almost unconscious of what he was doing, little by little he leaned down over her, driven by urgent internal and external stimuli. Before lie knew it, he was sprawled out on top of her. He had perhaps not intended to go this far all at once. Perhapshe had intended to indulge in some of the foreplay that ought to precede the final violent motions, but the body on top of which he was sprawled began to heave with terror, and a resounding scream escaped, before his hand could stifle it. The pervasive silence was shattered and his brain was dealt a blow that brought him back to his senses. He put his hand over her mouth as he whispered anxiously and fearfully in her ear, “It's me. Yasin. It's Yasin, Umm Hanafi. Don't be afraid.”

  He kept repeating these words until he was certain she understood who he was. Then he removed his hand, but the woman, who had never stopped resisting, was finally able to push him off. She sat up straight, panting from her exertion and emotion, and asked him in a voice that was loud enough to alarm him, “What do you want, Mr. Yasin?”

  Whispering, he entreated her, “Don't raise your voice like that. [told you not to be afraid. There's absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”

  Although she lowered her voice a little, she asked sternly, “What brings you?”

  He began to caress her hand affectionately and sighed with anxious relief, since he saw in the lowering of her voice an encouraging sign. He asked, “Why are you angry? I didn't mean to hurt you”. Then he said amiably, “Come into the oven room.”

  In a troubled but decisive manner, she replied, “Certainly not, sir. Go to your room. Go. God's curse on Satan….”

  Umm Hanafi was not able to weigh her words carefully. They escaped from her in reaction to the situation. Perhaps they did not express her wishes so much as her surprise at a proposition that had not been preceded by any hint but had pounced on her while she slept like a predatory kite swooping down on a chicken. She rejected the young man and scolded him without taking time to think whether she wanted to.

  He took her words the wrong way and was filled with resentment. Ideas raged through hishead. “What's to be done with this bitch? I can't retreat after revealing my intentions and going far enough to cause a scandal. I must get what I want even if I have to resort to force.”

  He thought quickly about the best way to overcome any resistance she might display, but before he could reach a decision he heard an unexpected sound, perhaps footsteps, coming from the door of the stairway. He jumped to his feet, totally overcome by panic. He swallowed his lust the way a thief swallows a stolen diamond when caught unawares in his hideout. He turned toward the door anxiously and saw his father crossing the threshold, holding his arm out with a lamp. Yasin stayed nailed to the spot, pale with fear, resigned, stunned, and desperate. He realized at once that Umm Hanafi's scream had not been in vain. The rear window of his father's room had served as an observatory. But what use was hindsight? He had fallen into a snare set by divine decree and destiny.

  Trembling with rage, al-Sayyid Ahmad began to examine Yasin's face grimly and silently, dragging out the silence. Without taking his pitiless eyes off Yasin, he pointed with his hand to the door, ordering him inside. Although at that moment disappearing would have been dearer to Yasin than even life itself, he was paralyzed by fear and confusion. The father was outraged, and his scowl showed he was about to explode. His eyes seemed to shoot off sparks as they reflected the light of the lamp, which trembled as the hand holding it shook. He rebuked him loudly, “Go upstairs, you criminal. You son of a bitch.”

  Yasin became even more paralyzed. Then al-Sayyid Ahmad fell upon him. He grabbed Yasin's right arm roughly and yanked him toward the door. Yasin yielded to this extraordinary force and almost fell on his face. Regaining his balance, he turned around in terror. He fled for his life, leaping up the stairs, heedless of the darkness.

  42

  BESIDES HIS father and Umm Hanau, two other people knew about Yasin's scandal, Mrs. Amina and Fahmy. They had heard Umm Hanafi's scream and watched from their windows what transpired between the young man and his father. They were able to amess what had happened without too much thought.

  Al-Sayyid Ahmad mentioned his son's blunder to his wife and asked her in some detail about Umm Hanafi's morals. Amina defended her servant's character and integrity, reminding him that had it not been for the woman's scream, no one would have been the wiser. The man spent an hour cursing and swearing. He cursed Yasin and cursed himself for fathering children who would destroy bis peace of mind with their evil passions. His anger boiled over, and he damned his house and all the people in it.

  Amir a remained silent, as she did later, when she pretended to know nothing about it. Fahmy also feigned ignorance of the subject. He pretended to be sound asleep when his brother returned to the room, out of breath after forfeiting the battle. Fahmy never gave any indication that he knew about it. He respected his older brother and would have hated for him to realize he was aware of the shameful depravity to which Yasin had stooped. Fahmy's respect for Yasin was not shattered by this discoveiy of his reckless antics, by his own superiority to Yasin in education and culture, or even by Yasin's nonchalance about whether his brothers respected him. Yasin would joke with them and let them tease him as though they were his equals. Fahmy still respected him. Perhaps his desire to continue respecting him could be attributed to Fahmy's own manners, seriousness, and sense of dignity, which made him seem older than he was.

  Khadija did not fail to observe the morning after the incident that Yasin was not eating with his father. She asked incredulously why. He claimed he had suffered indigestion at the wedding. The girl, by nature acutely suspicious, felt there must be some reason other than indigestion. She asked her mother about it, but did not receive a convincing answer.

  When Kamal returned from the dining room, he also asked. He was not motivated by curiosity or regret but by the hope of good news of a prolonged period during which the field would be empty of a dangerous competitor for food like Yasin.

  The matter might have been forgotten had Yasin not left the house in the evening without participating in the customary coffee hour. Although he apologized to Fahmy and their mother and claimed he was tied up with an appointment, Khadija said bluntly, “There's something going on. I'm no fool…. I'll cut my arm off if Yasin hasn't changed.”

  The mother was forced to announce that al-Sayyid Ahmad was angry at Yasin for some unknown reason, and the coffee hour was devoted to their conjectures about the cause. Amina and Fahmy guessed along with the others, in order to conceal the truth.

  Yasin avoided eating with his father until he was summoned one morning to meet him before breakfast. The invitation did not come as a surprise and yet it alarmed him. He had expected it from day to day. He was certain his father would not feel there had been an adequate response to his offense. His father would return to the subject by one avenue or another. Yasin expected to be treated in a manner inappropriate for a gainfully employed person like himself. At timeshe thought of leaving the house temporarily or for good. For his father, especially the father he had learned about in Zubayda's house, to make such a catastrophe out of his blunder was not nice. It was also not right for Yasin to expose himself to treatment incompatible with his manly status. The best thing would be for him to leave, but where to? He would have to live alone. That was not out of the question. He considered the matter from every angle, estimated his expenses, and
asked himself how much would be left over for his entertainment in al-Sayyid Ali's coffee shop, in Costaki's bar, and with Zanuba. At this point his enthusiasm flagged. Then it was extinguished like the flame of a lamp when a strong gust of wind hits it.

  Although he knew he was not being totally honest, he told himself, “If I obey Satan and leave home, I'll create a bad precedent that would be wrong for our family. No matter what my father says or does, he's my father. It's absurd to think his discipline would be unjust”. Then he continued with the candor he affected when in a playful mood: “Have some humility, Yasin Bey. Spare us the talk about honor, by the life of your mother. Which do you love more: your honor or Costaki's cognac and Zanuba's navel?”

  Thus Yasin abandoned the thought of leaving home and kept on waiting for the anticipated summons. When it arrived, he puLled himself together and set off, reluctantly and apprehensively. He entered the room, walking softly, hishead bowed. He stopped at some distance from his father and did not dare offer him a word of greeting. Yasin waited while al-Sayyid Ahmad gave him a long look. Then the father shook hishead in amazement and said, “God's will be done! So tall and broad… a mustache and a wide neck. If someone saw you on the street he'd comment admiringly, ‘What a fine son for some lucky man.’ If only he'd come to the house to see you in your true colors.”

  The young man became even more distressed and embarrassed but said nothing. Al-Sayyid Ahmad continued to examine him angrily. Then in a stern and commanding voice he told him tersely, “I've decided you're going to get married.”

  Yasin was so astonished he could scarcely believe his ears. Curses and rebukes were all he had been expecting. It had never occurred to him that he would hear an important decision altering the whole course of his life. He could not keep himself from raising his eyes to look at his father's face. When they met his father's piercing blue ones, he looked down, blushed, and kept silent.

  AI-Sayyid Ahmad realized that his son had been expecting rough treatment and was caught off guard by these blissful tidings. The father was enraged at the circumstances that dictated this mild-mannered approach, fearing it would shake Yasin's faith in his reputation for tyranny. He vented his anger in his voice as he said with a frown, “I don't have much time. I want to hear your answer.”

  Since the man had decided Yasin was to marry, there was only one possible answer, and there was nothing to prevent him from hearing the answer he wanted. In this case, Yasin's obedience to his father was also obedience to his own desire. Yes, no sooner had his father announced the decision than Yasin's imagination shot offj depicting his beautiful bride. He would have a woman entirely to himself, to be at his beck and call. The image delighted him so much, his voice almost gave him away when he answered, “The decision's up to you, Papa.”

  “Do you want to marry or not?… Speak.”

  With the caution of a person wanting to get married but financially unprepared, the young man replied, “Since this is your wish, I agree with all my heart.”

  Al-Sayyid Ahmad softened the roughness of his voice when he said, “I'll request for you the daughter of my friend Mr. Muhammad Iffat, a textile merchant in al-Hamzawi. She's a treasure who's too good for an ox like you.”

  Yasin smiled delicately and, trying to ingratiate himself with his father, said, “With your help I'll try to be a good husband for her.”

  His father glared at him as if attempting to pierce through his flattery and said, “No one hearing you would imagine what you're capable of doing, you hypocrite___Get out of my sight.”

  Yasin started to leave, but his father stopped him with a gesture of his hand. Al-Sayyid Ahmad added, as though he had just happened to think of the question, “I suppose you've saved up enough for the dowry?”

  Yasin did not have an answer. He became more upset. His father was enraged and remarked incredulously, “Even after you got a job you continued to live at my expense the way you did when you were a student. What have you done with your salary?”

  All Yasin did was move his lips without uttering a word. His father shook hishead in annoyance. He remembered speaking to him a year and a half before. When Yasin got his government position, al-Sayyid Ahmad had told him, “If I were to ask you to take care of your own expenses like an adult, I would not be deviating from the norm between fathers and sons, but I will not ask you for a single penny, so you can have an opportunity to put aside a sum of money to have at your disposal when you need it”. In this way he had shown his confidence in his son.

  He could not imagine that one of his sons, after the stern discipline and training he had meted out, would have an inclination for any of the passions that squander money. He could not imagine that his little boy would turn into a philandering drunkard. The wine and women al-Sayyid Ahmad considered a harmless form of recreation for himself, fully compatible with manly virtue, became an unforgivable crime when they defiled one of his sons. The young man's blunder in the courtyard, which al-Sayyid Ahmad had discovered, reassured him to the same extent that it angered him. It would have been impossible, in his opinion, for Umm Hanau to tempt the young man if he had not been struggling to maintain an intolerable level of chastity and rectitude.

  He could not imagine that his son had wasted his money on wine and women, but he did remember noticing Yasin was fond of elegance, choosing expensive suits, neckties, and shirts. He had been uncomfortable about that and had warned him against throwing away his money. His warning had been mild, because he did not think elegance a crime and because it was an interest he shared with his son. He saw no harm in his sons imitating him in this manner. It made him feel kindly and well disposed toward them. What had been the result of that lenience? It was clear to him now that Yasin had squandered his money on unimportant luxuries. The man snorted with rage and told his son bitterly, “Get out of my sight.”

  Yasin departed from the room, leaving his father angry at him for squandering his money, not, as he had anticipated, for his moral lapse. Being a spendthrift had never troubled Yasin before. He had let it happen without any thought or planning. He would spend whatever he had in his pocket until it was gone. He was immersed in the present, turning a blind eye to the future, as though it did not exist. Yasin left the room upset, cowering from his father's scolding, but he felt a deep relief since he realized that this scolding meant be would not be thrown out of the house and also that his father would bear the expenses of his wedding. He was like a child who, having pestered his father for a coin, gets it and is shoved outside. Then the happiness of the boy's triumph makes him forget the strength of the push.

  Al-Sayyid Ahmad was still angry and began to repeat, “What an animal he is. He's got a big, strong body, but no brain”. He was angry th at Yasin had squandered his money, as though he himself never had. He saw nothing wrong with extravagance, any more than he did with his other passions, so long as it did not bankrupt him, make him forget his obligations, or harm his character. But what guarantee did he have that Yasin would be as resolute? Al-Sayyid Ahmad did not forbid his son what he allowed himself merely out of egoism and authoritarianism, but because he was concerned about him. Of course, this concern of his revealed how confident he was of himself and how little he trusted his son, and neither sentiment was entirely free of conceit. As usual, his anger abated as quickly as it had flared up. His peace of mind returned, and his features relaxed. Matters began to appear to him in a new, agreeable, tolerable light.

  “You want to be like your father, ox? … Then don't adopt one side and neglect the others. Be Ahmad Abd al-Jawad completely if you can, otherwise know your limits. Did you really think I was angry at your extravagance because I wanted you to get married at your own expense? Far from it…. I simply hoped to find you had been careful with your money so I could marry you off at my expense and leave you with a surplus. This is the hope you disappointed. Did you suppose I wouldn't have thought about choosing a wife for you until I caught you philandering? What a wretched excuse for sex that was, wretched, like your ta
ste and your mother's. No, you mule, I've been thinking about your married bliss since you became a government employee. How could it be otherwise, since you were the first to make a father of me? You're my partner in the torment to which your damned mother has exposed us. So don't I have the right to give you, in particular, a festive wedding? I'm going to have to wait a long time to marry off the other ox, your brother, who's a prisoner of love. Who knows who'll be alive then?”

  The following moment he recalled something directly related to his present situation. He remembered how he had told Mr. Muhammad Iffat about Yasin's “crime” and how he had scolded him and yanked him by the arm in a way that almost made him fall on his face. That revelation had been apropos of his request for the hand of the man's daughter for his son. The fact was that the two men had already agreed on the marriage before he brought it up with Yasin.

  Muhammad Iffat had asked him, “Don't you think it would be appropriate to change the way you treat your son, as he grows more mature, especially now that he has a job and has become a responsible adult?” He had laughed before continuing: “It's clear you're a father who doesn't ease up until his sons openly rebel.”

  Al-Sayyid Ahmad had answered his friend: “It's out of the question that the relationship between me and my sons should change with time”. He had felt a boundless confidence and pride in this answer but later had acknowledged that his treatment actually had changed, although he had tried to keep anyone from detecting his hidden intention to change. He had added: “The truth is that I'm no longer willing to lift my hand against Yasin or even Fahmy. I only yanked Yasin like that because I was so angry. I didn't mean to get carried away”. Then, reverting to a time in the distant past, he had continued: “My father, God's mercy on him, raised me so strictly that my severity with my sons seems lenient, but he quickly changed the way he treated me once he asked me to help him in the store. Then after I married Yasin's mother, his treatment changed into a father's friendship. My self- esteem became so great that I opposed his final marriage, because he was much older than the bride. All he did was to say, “Do you oppose me, ox?… What's it got to do with you? I'm better able than you to satisfy any woman.' I couldn't keep from laughing, and I apologetically set about conciliating him.”