She pointed at Muhsin and tried to complete her sentence, but the young fellow interrupted. “I get whatever the troupe does!”
Shakhla‘ chided him disapprovingly. “Cigarettes? Anything but that! No, Muhsin, shame!” She turned quickly to the bride’s mother and whispered in her ear, “For him, God’s name, a glass of fruit punch.”
The bride’s mother answered, “Only that? Such a cheap request, when we hold you so dear? You will have it, sister! Most gladly! Listen, Maestra Shakhla‘, by the Prophet, feel no reserve. This house is yours. Whatever you want, ask for it. We want this night to be the night of a lifetime, one we will remember you for, Madam Shakhla‘. Glow, shine, and let your voice resound. Make it incomparable!” She went off quickly to fulfill the troupe’s requests.
Shakhla‘ raised her eyes and cast a comprehensive glance over the guests. She saw that they were looking at her with admiration and anticipation. She smiled at them.
At once a daring voice called out, “Maestra Shakhla‘! Please, the song ‘My Darling’s Gone, My Heart Dissolves.’”
Shakhla‘ politely nodded her consent while the ladies laughed—some uninhibited and encouraging, others disapproving and surprised. Their eyes searched for the lady who dared say out loud, “My darling’s gone; my heart dissolves; I’ve endured a long time without a letter from him.”
* * *
• • •
An hour passed while the artistes did nothing more than tune their instruments, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, sip fruit punch, chatter, and criticize. Perhaps their most important accomplishment was to vex the audience and exhaust their patience. Actually, this is an element of the art of the people of that profession. Indeed, perhaps the sole art that Egyptian artistes have perfected is the art of vexation and keeping the audience waiting.
But no one was quite so impatient as little Muhsin. This novice did not understand yet why the troupe was deliberately drawing out that tedious delay and procrastinating. Stirred by a fever of enthusiasm, he wanted the troupe to sing at once. He asked the maestra innocently and forcefully, “Why are you all silent? When will we sing? The people have been waiting for us to sing for a long time!”
Shakhla‘ gave him a look of pity and compassion, like someone eyeing an infant or an ignorant, inexperienced simpleton. Then she leaned over and whispered confidentially, “This is our craft, dummy. This is the whole secret of the craft. The more you bore the audience, the more they fall into your fingers. Do you understand, son?”
Hafiza, the drummer, added, rubbing the head of the drum with her palm to tighten it, “Whoever said that it’s an art to bore people was right.”
Shakhla‘ agreed. “That’s so true!” Then she held the cigarette in her mouth toward Hafiza to light for her.
* * *
• • •
When Shakhla‘ determined that according to the dictates of the art the moment had arrived to sing and gave the order to pick up the instruments, it was too late. The hostesses came to announce the opening of the buffet.
So the maestra ordered the instruments set down again. Smiling, she said to the troupe, “A blessing, group, thanks to you as much as me.”
The mother of the bride came to invite just Shakhla‘ to the buffet, apologizing that it was too crowded for her to invite the other members of the troupe. She suggested they eat at their places and said a large tray with a wide variety of dishes on it—just like those at the buffet and better—would be served them while they sat peacefully in their corner, far from the turmoil and from anything that might disturb them while they ate. The maestra agreed but asked if it would be possible to bring young Muhsin with her to the buffet. The bride’s mother answered immediately as she attempted to kiss Muhsin, “So! Sister, good gracious! He’s goodness and blessing!”
But Muhsin refused to leave his colleagues again this time. Faced with Shakhla‘’s urging, he shouted, “No, I don’t want to. Why should I? Alas!”
Remembering what she had told Muhsin’s mother and her promise to look after him and keep him near her, Shakhla‘ insisted he accompany her. She told him rather frankly and angrily, “Come with me, I tell you!” Then she whispered gently in his ear, “The buffet’s better. You’ll eat delicious things there.”
Clinging to the arm of the chair, Muhsin answered stubbornly, “I don’t want to eat better things. I want to eat here with the troupe.”
Two maids appeared at that moment, carrying a large tray, which they set on the floor between the artistes. There was a large platter on it filled with couscous and roast turkey, along with various types of vegetables and meat, kebab and kofta, and different varieties of sweets, pastries, and fruit.
Muhsin didn’t hesitate and crowded in at once among his colleagues, not paying attention to anyone. Shakhla‘ hesitated a little over what she ought to do but quickly reached a decision too. She turned to the bride’s mother and declined the buffet. Then she sat on the floor beside Muhsin to eat with the troupe, like him.
Blind Salm smelled roast turkey. She asked her colleagues to confirm it really was turkey.
The artistes commenced with the couscous. At that point it became clear that the servants had forgotten the spoons. Blind Salm stretched her hand out in the air, saying, “Where’s the spoon, sisters?”
Eating with appetite and delight, young Muhsin answered, “There’s nothing but forks. Will you take a fork?”
The blind woman said in doubt, “A fork? What do you eat couscous with, you there?”
Muhsin replied immediately with a smile, “With a fork. We’re all eating that way. Eat like us.”
Salm said sharply, “Couscous with a fork? What an idea! Don’t kid around, by the Prophet, Muhsin. Bring me a spoon at once, may God reward you. Shame on you! This isn’t a time to joke. Get me a spoon quickly. Do me a favor.”
Shakhla‘ intervened and said with affected gruffness, “There aren’t any spoons. He’s telling you to take a fork. Won’t you listen and quiet down?”
Salm stretched out her hand and took a fork, scolding, “Still a fork? Does this work with couscous?”
She plunged the fork straight into the couscous as though spearing a piece of meat. Naturally, not a single grain struck to it. She raised it to her mouth, but found not a speck of couscous.
Her colleagues roared with laughter. Little Muhsin in particular was laughing, innocently and boyishly. He said, “Look! She doesn’t know how to eat couscous with a fork.”
He wanted to teach her how to position the fork—horizontally, not vertically. She should shovel and scoop with it, not plunge and stab. Her other colleagues, however, signaled to him secretly to refrain. Najiya said out loud, while giving him a wink from the corner of her eye, “Leave her alone. She’s eating just fine. Is she lacking in any way?”
Then she whispered in his ear, “If she keeps that up, by God, she won’t get more than ten grains all evening. Leave her be, by the Prophet, Muhsin. Let’s see what she does. It’s amusing. Let us laugh at her a little.”
Muhsin consented at first and put a hand over his mouth to hold back his childish giggles. But he thought it over. Then, simply and innocently he said, “You mean she’s not going to eat? Salm’s not going to eat with us? That’s wrong! She must eat with us. Look, Salm.” Then he proceeded to teach her how to eat couscous with a fork, till she was able to eat like the others.
Shakhla‘ observed all this silently with interest. Touched, she said, as though to herself, “What a good heart you have, Muhsin.”
* * *
• • •
Toward midnight the wedding festivities reached a climax of joy and commotion. The troupe had sung several long numbers and some short popular songs, each separated from the next by long intervals.
The audience of enthusiastic female guests surrounded the troupe like the crescent moon around the star on the Egyptian flag. They listened as thou
gh they were all a single individual. They weren’t quiet and still with their heads bowed; to the contrary—their cries of admiration, approval, and enthusiasm were louder than the singing. Yet their faces all had the same expression: one of boisterous happiness. They had a single expression because the music had that effect on them. There wasn’t even one of the guests who set herself apart from her sisters to wrest some other meaning from the music or some different emotion from that sweeping the others. They all became a single person as they responded to the music. The music itself seemed a beloved capable of turning all creatures back into one person.
* * *
• • •
Just a little after midnight, someone came to whisper softly in Maestra Shakhla‘’s ear, and she at once passed the word on to the members of the troupe under her breath. The news prompted them to straighten up, and their faces took on an air of earnestness and consequence. They lifted their instruments energetically and enthusiastically, like soldiers raising their weapons after receiving the order to attack. Suddenly a shrill and prolonged ululation, like the whistle of a houseboat on the Nile, was heard throughout the house, and the bride appeared—fresh from the hand of the bridal stylist—in her white silk gown, with the bridal tiara on her head. Her family and relatives and the women of the household followed her, with the stylist on her left, scattering salt in every direction and crying out, “If you love the Prophet, pray for him.”
The bride strutted to her chair on the dais and sat down. The stylist sat near her and held out her kerchief to receive wedding money from the guests. Meanwhile the troupe was singing so boisterously that their music filled the room.
As soon as the bride was settled, a person came to announce the arrival of the groom. He appeared at the door and entered with embarrassment, after smiling at the men assembled to see him off at the door of the women’s quarters. They were also trying to catch a glimpse of the bride, but that didn’t prevent them from looking at the beautiful women among the guests and smiling at them. The groom made his way between the ladies, who were almost devouring him with their eyes while they whispered their opinion of him to each other. When he reached the dais, he paused hesitantly. Then he collected his courage and with his right hand raised the tiara’s white silk veil to reveal the bride’s face.
At this, necks craned and the people present stood up. They were staring in a dreadful silence, hardly breathing, as though awaiting a verdict not subject to reversal or challenge. Even the troupe, although they were singing and playing enthusiastically and vigorously, kept their eyes fixed with intense concern on the groom’s face.
When he lifted the veil, the groom seemed slightly surprised and astonished but quickly recovered himself and smiled. He bent over the bride’s hand and raised it to his lips to kiss. Then he mounted the dais and sat down beside her.
At that, sounds of joy and jubilation rose from every side, and deafening ululation resounded. The singing of the artistes grew louder as the commotion and uproar increased.
Suddenly the sound of finger cymbals rang through the hall as Shakhla‘, half-naked in a glittering gold dance costume, made her appearance. She advanced to the middle of the chamber, dancing with every sinew of her supple, slender body. Her torso was in play as though it were a thong of taffy. The castanets rang from fingers decorated with henna.
The room fell silent as the commotion of the guests died away. Everyone was staring with enchanted, admiring eyes that followed the movement of this extraordinary body and the pulsations of that slim belly and of her breasts, which resembled ripe fruit. All this was aquiver in a beautiful vision to the accompaniment of the drum and the tambourine.
Among all those dazzled eyes, Muhsin’s were the most dazzled and amazed, in an extraordinarily innocent way. It was not the first time he had seen her dance. Indeed he had seen her dance time and again. Tonight, however, when she was the object of all those admiring, hungry looks, Muhsin—because he knew her and lived with her—felt for the first time a kind of glory and pride. He was a member of the troupe, her troupe. Then he felt, in addition to that, other vague sensations. Before Shakhla‘ finished her dance, the wedding family, followed by relatives and then the guests, took turns going up to her and pressing on her forehead a gold coin: a pound or a napoleon, as though sticking stamps on an envelope.
Whenever her forehead became heavy with gold, she wiped it off with her kerchief, so to speak, to let it be covered a second and third time.
She received banknotes as well as gold, and a large sum was showered on her by the groom’s family. The artistes crowded around her, gathering money from the floor, along with the servants, hangers-on, and dependents.
* * *
• • •
By two a.m., after much singing and dancing, the bridal pair made known their desire to leave the room for the nuptial chamber.
They stood and descended the steps of the dais slowly, arm in arm. Then the family, relatives, and hangers-on fell in behind them. Maestra Shakhla‘ rose with all her ensemble, their instruments in their arms, and they were followed by the guests. Thus the wedding procession, amid cries of praise to God and ululation, advanced till the couple reached the door of their chamber. They entered and the door closed. Then, after a final trill of joy resounded through the house, the party started to break up and the commotion, hubbub, and turmoil began to dissipate. Everyone went pell-mell to the wedding family, invoking blessings on them and saying, “We look forward to the birth of the children.”
Thus ended the wedding. The hosts and guests fell upon Maestra Shakhla‘, heaping her with words of praise and expressions of wonder and admiration for the success and regard she had earned during that glamorous evening.
Shakhla‘ was intoxicated by this victory and began to separate herself graciously from the guests and to make her way through the crush, while she hummed with pleasure, back to the troupe. She was preparing to depart but suddenly remembered Muhsin. She struck her breast in anxiety and fear. “Woe is me! What a fix! Where’s Muhsin, kids?”
The fact was they had all forgotten poor little Muhsin. They were distracted from him by the wedding procession for the bride and groom. None of them had remembered that it was after two a.m. and that the child could not fight off sleep forever.
Shakhla‘ searched with anxious, worried eyes until she finally found him on the floor, fast asleep, half-hidden under a chair. She took him in her arms quickly and firmly and then covered his face with kisses.
He opened his eyes.
When he could see her clearly, sleep left him all of a sudden. His lashes trembled and his cheeks flushed. He felt a little uneasy. He didn’t know why. Then he quickly released himself from her embrace and ran off.
* * *
• • •
The passing years will never erase from his memory that sweet and happy moment when he opened his eyes to find himself in her arms, treated to her kisses.
When eventually Shakhla‘ married al-Hajj Ahmad al-Mutayyib, Muhsin felt distressed and disappointed. A mirage seemed to have vanished. Despair settled deep inside his soul without his knowing why.
CHAPTER 10
The time passed without their noticing. They had not been singing, nor had she been playing the piano. Instead the two were silent, with their heads bowed, as though they had something on their minds. The expression on Saniya’s face was serious and concerned. Muhsin was beset by hesitation and fear for a variety of reasons.
This wasn’t because of the story that Muhsin had related concerning his childhood. Although Saniya had certainly enjoyed it, that story would not have been able to generate such preoccupation and concern in her.
Muhsin, however, when he finished his account of his early days, had found the courage to tell her—without any preamble and all in a rush—about her silk handkerchief. He informed her that it had not been lost and that the wind hadn’t blown it away. It was still around and
in the possession of a man who carried it always, protecting and treasuring it. He did not, however, tell her the name of that man. Despite her urgent entreaties, he remained silent without answering, feeling alternately hesitant and fearful. She gave up on him and began to wonder who might be keeping her handkerchief. From time to time she gave Muhsin a pleading look. She was perplexed. He was the one who had started it and sparked her curiosity. Finally she raised her head resolutely—the matter was beyond her—and shouted at him, “Won’t you tell me who has my handkerchief?”
She softened her shrillness a little and continued in an enchanting tone of censure, “Why don’t you want to tell me? Shame on you!”
When Muhsin did not reply, she continued, “You know him, of course.”
The youth trembled and immediately stammered, “Who?”
She did not notice his agitation and observed thoughtfully, “You said just now that the handkerchief did not necessarily land on your roof. . . .”
Muhsin calmed down and smiled, because he had thrown her off the scent. He said mischievously, “Right! Not necessarily!”
She said, as though to herself, “Okay, whose roof might it have fallen on then?”
At once an idea flashed through her mind, and she rose quickly to head to the balcony. She looked and whispered to herself, after scrutinizing al-Hajj Shahhata’s coffeehouse before her, “It’s possible. . . . Impossible. . . . Why . . . why not?”
Then, turning her eyes to the building next door, but to the lower apartment, she whispered to herself, “The floor below them has a balcony!”
Muhsin followed her with his eyes without understanding this movement of hers or why she went to the balcony, although he felt somewhat depressed.
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