The servant cast a quick look of inquiry or petition at Zanuba. Then he said anxiously and nervously, “But . . . only . . .”
Abduh contracted his eyebrows. “What?” he asked. “‘But only’ what? You think the amount is small? Is your point, namely, that it’s impossible for us to live on a pound to the end of the month? But that’s the problem which your good management is going to solve for us. This is your genius. Aren’t you our government? Cope. There are twelve days left to the end of the month. Get us successfully through these days. Do a good deed. Feed us as you will. The goal is for this pound to last till the end of the month without our needing to rely on Zanuba.”
Zanuba emitted a sarcastic, angry laugh and turned her back on them. Through her teeth she said, “May God make it easy for you. Oh my luck: peace of mind. A lazy man blames the mosque when he misses the prayer.”
She headed swiftly for her room, slamming the door violently behind her. Abduh saw the door slam and heard the deafening sound. He said angrily, “Sixty disasters!”
Then he turned to Salim and Mabruk and continued, “So we’ve agreed, haven’t we?”
Salim concurred enthusiastically: “We have!” Then he punched Mabruk’s shoulder and said, “Long live Mabruk! Long live Mabruk! Our bellies rely on God and you, Mabruk Effendi.”
But Abduh interrupted at once with a shout. “Not during this period, my dear. Till the end of the month it’s going to be fasting and moderation. One pound, of course, is not going to suffice. Listen, Mabruk. Do the impossible. Feed us for this period with lentils every day like the boatmen . . . or cottage cheese and corn bread like the fellahin . . . or fuul midammis, salad, and ta‘miya bean fritters like . . .”
Salim added quickly, “Like students at a mosque.”
Abduh continued seriously, “Right, Mabruk, do as you think best. Act. The whole idea is to have the pound last to the end of the month without us dying of hunger on a sum like that. Take it, Mabruk. Proceed by reasoning, brains, and sound management. You don’t need any guidance.” Then he handed him the pound.
Mabruk took from the pocket of his tunic a large pouch made of cloth the same color as the waistcoat he wore, as though the leftover cloth from it had been used for a bag.
After he thrust the pound in it and returned it to his pocket, he said, “By the blessing of the lady Umm Hashim, have no fear! The believer does not die of hunger. Bless our Prophet who said, ‘God repays those who rely on Him.’”*
CHAPTER 7
When Muhsin went to school the next day his face was beaming with happiness, and joy almost leapt from his breast. While he was in the streetcar on his way to school he imagined that God had never created a more beautiful morning. The streetcar passed by Lazoghli Square, where lush trees surrounded the statue, birds sang as they flitted from branch to branch, and kite and hawk called as they flapped their wings in the sky. Amazing! He saw and heard all this today; it drew his attention. He had passed there hundreds of times before without seeing anything. Had the world changed that morning, or was he the one who had changed and developed new eyes?
Muhsin entered the courtyard of his school wanting to speak to everyone he met, even the janitor, but he was astonished to find the place empty. Had he come extra early today? Yes, the wall clock in the guard’s room struck seven, right then.
Muhsin started pacing back and forth, dreaming of beautiful things. At times happiness would press his heart so hard he would race with strange hilarity to the great staircase. Then he would descend it in leaps and bounds and head for the water tap as though he wanted to drink. He didn’t drink but went to another room and from there to a third and a fourth.
Any of his acquaintances seeing him then would have been astonished and would have denied that it was Muhsin. At last he calmed down a little but began fretting that his colleagues—especially his close friend Abbas—were so slow to arrive.
Compared to other boys his age, Muhsin was serious and sensible. Unlike most of his peers, he had little taste for youthful games. He was rarely seen running and jumping. His amusements and diversions were mental rather than physical. His sweetest times were spent in poetry competitions and slams with Abbas and others who shared their artistic temperament. For this reason, he seemed older than he was—compared with his classmates, who were tireless, prattling, and boisterous. His teachers thought of him that way too. They treated him well and predicted brilliant results for him on his competency examination that year.
Muhsin didn’t like to mix much, preferring solitude at school. Although he seemed to scorn youthful frivolity, most of the pupils respected him and liked to listen to him when he spoke. The pupils would frequently gather around him and Abbas, if they noticed them by the walls, debating with each other under the great staircase in their usual meeting place during the noon break. But Muhsin himself wouldn’t seek out anyone except Abbas, for in him he found a temperament to match his own. There was something more important too: Abbas believed in Muhsin and was devoted to him. He acknowledged to himself that Muhsin influenced his ideas and thinking.
Muhsin awaited Abbas’s arrival with a bounding desire he couldn’t explain. Did he want to confide something to him? Was Abbas worthy of that? Was it right? Yes, Abbas was his dear friend, but did he have the capacity to understand such things? Over and beyond this concern, did Muhsin have the right to reveal something that did not concern only him?
But he wanted to talk this morning. He wanted to lighten the burden he felt. He calmed down again. When he saw a number of pupils entering the courtyard, he rushed to them, greeting them and chatting with them merrily. He talked freely with them and joined in their laughter. Words filled his mouth. They were amazed by all this coming from him and began to exchange glances among themselves, because Muhsin was known for his aloofness; they were the ones who had to chase after him to try to get him to converse.
At last Abbas appeared. As soon as Muhsin saw him, he left the boys he was with and rushed toward him. He grasped his arm and took him off in another direction, rather than to the wall of the great staircase, where the others would think they were having a debate or poetry slam, which they would hurry to observe.
Muhsin began by asking him why he was so late—in such a concerned tone that Abbas was astonished. He replied straightforwardly that he had come at his normal time and wasn’t tardy at all. But Muhsin insisted determinedly, making clear the importance he attached to it.
Abbas replied with equal certainty, “Not at all, brother. You seem to have come early today.”
Muhsin, however, retorted in his unaccustomedly eager voice, “No way . . . you’re late!”
Abbas’s astonishment heightened, but he limited his response to: “Fine. What’s happened?”
Then Muhsin stopped talking and lapsed into anxious confusion. His zeal abandoned him, and he found nothing to say.
His silence lasted till he sensed that Abbas, who was looking at him with astonishment, was waiting for an answer. So he suddenly pretended to laugh. Moving closer to his friend, he made him think it had all been a joke. He began to chatter and laugh, attempting to turn things around. He talked about all sorts of subjects quickly, moving from one to another without any tie, as though he simply wanted to talk and wished for nothing more than to be immersed in chatter, merely to relieve himself and lessen the pressure on his heart. Sensing Muhsin’s nervous state from his excited, breakneck manner of talking, Abbas turned on him suddenly and asked, “Muhsin, what’s wrong with you today?”
The boy looked at him inquisitively and fearfully and blushed. Then he said hesitantly, “Nothing. . . .”
At once he changed the topic to something commonplace, but this time he tried to speak in a calm, coherent, ordinary way. So the two started discussing their lessons, their homework, and the day’s classes. Then Abbas suddenly remembered something and shouted, “My God! Today there’s oral composition in Arabic! Remember?�
�
Muhsin asked him mechanically, “Which period?” Meanwhile he had allowed his thoughts to drift to the far horizon.
Abbas answered without noticing that Muhsin wasn’t paying attention to him. “Sixth period, at the end of the day.” Muhsin didn’t reply. Once again happiness flowed through him. He wanted to burst forth, fly, leap, or speak.
Thinking his comrade was listening to him, Abbas continued, “Whose turn do you suppose it will be? The shaykh chooses the name from the roster. Oh Lord, I hope he doesn’t call my name today. I haven’t prepared a topic.”
Muhsin did not respond to that but said suddenly, “Abbas, life is beautiful!”
Abbas looked at him with surprise, but Muhsin went on, not paying attention to him. “Do you know what that happiness we hear about is? Be a good fellow and tell me what happiness is.”
Abbas repeated in astonishment, “Happiness? Do I know?”
Muhsin asked him forcefully, “Don’t you know when you’re happy?”
Abbas thought for a moment before saying, “That will be when I pass the competency examination.”
Muhsin’s face displayed a mix of disappointment, annoyance, and scorn. Through his teeth he told his friend Abbas, “You’re a dunce!”
At this point the school bell rang, and they sped off to join the queue. Muhsin felt a desire within him to speak about this topic all day long. Abbas, on the other hand, was surprised by Muhsin’s last remark and wanted to know why he was a dunce.
The pupils took their seats in the classroom. Abbas sat on the bench behind Muhsin’s. He couldn’t bear to wait and whispered to Muhsin, “Why am I a dunce?” But Muhsin gestured to him to be quiet and straightened himself to attend to the lesson with more than usual delight and energy. He was very quick to answer questions and to understand their obscurities. His enthusiasm and vigor pleased and gladdened the teacher.
* * *
• • •
At the noon break, Muhsin and Abbas met beside the wall under the great stairway. Muhsin wanted to recite love poetry and with that in mind had brought along Mihyar’s diwan, which he adored. The students from the class, however, had since the fourth period been absorbed by the question of choosing the school to enroll in after the competency examination. The math teacher had raised the question today in the algebra lesson, although it was premature. When the pupils saw Muhsin and Abbas in the spot set aside for debate and discussion, they asked Muhsin the following question: “Which are you going to select: arts or sciences?”
Muhsin replied without hesitation, “Arts, of course!”
Abbas, however, hesitated a little. “I like the arts section, but my father wants me to be a physician.”
Muhsin yanked Abbas toward him and said, “Listen to what your soul says, to what you want.” It was not just today that he was choosing his path but since infancy a person senses where his natural inclination lies. Taking Abbas’s arm and squeezing it, he said, “Abbas, you’ve got to enter arts like me. . . . I must convince you to enter arts like me.”
One of the pupils present objected at this point. “What future does arts provide?”
Muhsin turned toward him and said, “You mean in terms of money and wealth; I don’t care about money and wealth.”
Another asked curiously, “So what do you care about?”
Muhsin pointed to himself and Abbas. With youthful braggadocio he replied, “Tomorrow we’ll be the eloquent tongue of the nation.”
He looked at Abbas as if to give him extra courage and resolve. He wanted to continue, but he thought of a phrase that made his face beam. It was a phrase that could only seem to kids of his age and education to be a revelation. He burst out, “Abbas! Our occupation tomorrow will be to express what is in the heart of the entire people. Do you understand? My goodness! If only all of you knew the value of being able to express what is in the soul, to express what is in our hearts!”
He thought a little. Then, his eyes gleaming with another idea, he said, “Think of the maxim in our book of memory pieces: ‘A man is known by two of his smallest parts: his heart and his tongue!’ The nation also has a heart to guide it and a tongue to direct the physical forces within it. Wealth by itself is nothing.” He began to spout words in enthusiastic bursts to develop this idea.
* * *
• • •
The bell rang and the pupils went in for their afternoon lessons. By the time the sixth period arrived, Muhsin wanted nothing more than to leave. His emotions were close to the flash point. Shaykh Ali, whose beard was thick and demeanor solemn, appeared. The students rose respectfully, not sitting back down until he did. He started by looking around the room. Then he opened his roster. At that, the young students began to exchange glances, wondering who would be called to speak on a topic of his own choosing in an extemporaneous fashion. Some who hated the class trembled and held their breath while the teacher ran his eyes up and down the column of names before him—each fearing he would hear his name. Finally the teacher spoke. The name was: “Muhsin.”
The teacher looked at Muhsin and commanded him: “Muhsin! Come up to the blackboard.” The pupils calmed down. They were pleased by this selection. Muhsin didn’t hesitate; he rose at once and went to the blackboard.
At that, the teacher ordered him, “Muhsin, choose a topic; then speak on it.” The boy stood, hesitating anxiously. He hadn’t prepared a topic, and nothing came to his mind then. He stood there indecisively for a long time. Then the teacher said in his deliberate way, “Write the topic heading on the blackboard. Then divide it into subheadings as usual.”
Muhsin asked himself: Do I know what the topic is? Suddenly he thought of an idea that made him blush. He dismissed it from his thoughts at once, but it soon returned. He didn’t know how he found the courage or what force was pushing him to it. Perhaps his powerful feelings at that time convinced him he could not speak then at length or with pleasure on any other topic. He took the chalk at once and wrote impetuously, “The topic heading is: Love.”
As soon as this word appeared on the blackboard, the class grew boisterous and rowdy. The teacher, who was astonished at the insurrection of the class in front of him, did not know the cause yet. He rapped his pencil on the table for silence and shouted, “What’s up?”
He saw that they were looking at the blackboard and, turning toward it himself, he saw the word “love.” He could not restrain himself from screaming out in disbelief, “God, God! God’s will be done. Step down! Go back to your seat. We can’t allow shameless wisecracks.”
Muhsin was taken aback; he wasn’t used to treatment like this from his teachers. He stood there in anxious confusion but had not lost the confidence and strength that had impelled him to write that daring word in front of the poor students, who were accustomed to hearing words like “knowledge,” “study,” “learning,” and “perseverance,” but not words like “love,” “emotions,” or “heart.” If they did hear them, their meanings were reduced to the least common denominator, as though life provides only two options: learning and corruption. For them, learning was synonymous with studying and success on the examination. Corruption was synonymous with love and the heart and everything else that wasn’t an exam subject. Virtue and vice were presented in this manner to these young people.
Shaykh Ali saw Muhsin standing there, confused and courteous in spite of everything. He remembered that his record was good and that he had been well behaved since he started at that school the previous year. The teacher relented a little. All the same, he said in a voice not lacking a sting of censure, “What’s come over you today? Are you bewitched?”
Muhsin didn’t reply. The idea of rebelling against this shaykh, who understood no more than any of those pupils, passed through his head. Muhsin imagined he was seeing and sensing stupendous things—extremely stupendous—that a person like Shaykh Ali would never see.
Shaykh Ali looked at his
roster to pick another student, but the class as a whole summoned the courage to say with unaccustomed enthusiasm, “We want this topic! We want this topic! Speak, Muhsin, speak.”
Muhsin looked at the class and realized that this word had aroused a great curiosity among these young and ignorant fellows. These pupils clearly showed a thirst for a topic like this. Muhsin saw that his friend Abbas was a leader of those requesting it. He was waving his hands at his friend, and his smile spoke for itself. The clouds were dispersing before his eyes.
Muhsin gained courage then and resolved to speak no matter what the price, but saw from the Hanbali shaykh’s body language that there was no way to get around him.
Then Muhsin had an idea that showed a certain brilliance. He took the chalk at once and wrote under the word love these lines: “There are three forms of love: (1) love of God, the High and Exalted, which is humble submission and acknowledgment of grace, (2) love of parents, which is based on kinship, and (3) love of beauty, which is love of the heart.”
The class was jubilant and, with Abbas as chief advocate, sought the shaykh’s acceptance of the topic since it was totally literary. The shaykh turned toward the blackboard again after putting on his spectacles. As he read the first division, then the second, his voice had a ring of acceptance and agreement in it. When he reached the third division, however, he became distressed and hesitated again. He looked at Muhsin and said, “Erase number three!”
Muhsin was reluctant, but Shaykh Ali would not relent or budge this time, despite the objections and pleas of the class. Finally Muhsin saw no alternative to erasing the third section, although he resolved secretly to address it during his discussion of the first two, as though comparing causes and reasons.
Thus Shaykh Ali consented to allow the word “love” to remain on the blackboard. Muhsin began to speak while the boys listened more quietly and attentively than in any class all year. Whenever Muhsin inched toward the topic of the heart, Shaykh Ali grumbled, scolded, and murmured like a cat that sees a mouse. But the class focused their attention on Muhsin and soaked in through their eyes and ears what he said with unusual delight and joy, as though they were really benefiting somehow. Indeed it was more than that, much more. They seemed to be hearing something they had all sensed for a long time but hadn’t dared express or hadn’t realized they felt, because they lacked knowledge of the existence of beauty in the world. They were ignorant of the heart’s role in their lives and didn’t know the sublime meaning of life.
Return of the Spirit Page 11
