Return of the Spirit

by Tawfiq al-Hakim

  Muhsin replied that this wasn’t the reason, it was just he was unaccustomed to it being made this way. “Why do you make it like this? It’s black as ink and bitter as colocynth.”

  One of the laborers spoke up. “What, bey? Tonight it’s as delicate as pump water.”

  Muhsin burst into laughter. The laborers were happy that they had been able to make the young bey laugh and to delight him. The conversation turned to tea and the peasants’ love of it. To make and prepare it in this fashion required a great amount of both sugar and tea. Even so, the fellahin wouldn’t shrink from sacrifice for its sake and from extra fatigue and work to raise money for it. Some of them craved it so much they sacrificed all they possessed, or nearly.

  When the conversation reached this point, one of the laborers turned to Muhsin and, pointing to the long spout of the pot, asked, “Would you believe, by God, that twenty camels and two calves have flowed out of this spout?”

  CHAPTER 6

  Muhsin’s anxiety returned. Days had passed without the promised letter arriving. He became so upset that he was oblivious to everything. His eye no longer saw anything. It was incapacitated. He didn’t want to stay and wanted to return to Cairo right away. Whenever he remembered Saniya, it seemed to him he had been separated from her for years, not a few days. He wondered how he could tarry here and put up with being far from her any longer. He went to his mother to tell her he wanted to leave but found the house all topsy-turvy. He heard the clatter of bowls and dishes and the sound of tables being set and food prepared. He asked what was happening and was told that his father was going to host a dinner party for the English irrigation inspector and a renowned French archaeologist in honor of their visit to the province.

  He looked for his father and learned he had taken the carriage to Damanhur to meet the guests. His mother was engrossed in supervising the preparations. When she saw him, she smiled and pointed out the stuffed lamb the cook was decorating with roses, marjoram, and posies. “Look, Muhsin! Tomorrow they’ll be saying that our banquet was better than the governor’s.”

  At that moment the estate’s overseer, dressed in his magnificent gown of striped homespun, entered with a basket containing several pairs of pigeons and chickens. The lady looked at him and then asked distrustfully, “Is that all you could find on the estate?”

  The overseer replied apprehensively but courteously, “The peasants are dirt poor, madam.”

  The lady scoffed, “Dirt poor! If you had used the whip you would have brought twice as many. But you’re a dunce of an overseer.”

  The overseer was silent. When he raised his head he pointed at the stuffed lamb with a smile. In an attempt to humor the lady he said, “What a blessing that is, lady. One of us fellahin—all kidding aside—tastes meat only at festivals.”

  She did not respond. Muhsin edged up to her and said, “Mother, there’s more than enough food for two guests.”

  She replied, “I want our banquet to be better than the governor’s.” Then she turned on the overseer and glared at his clothes. She rebuked him, “Get lost, man, you peasant. Put on your best clothes!”

  The man bowed his head in embarrassment. He did not utter a word but blushed a little. Muhsin discerned this secretly and felt sorry for him.

  The lady noticed the overseer’s silent dejection and attacked again with renewed force. “My God! Amazing! Why are you standing there? What are you waiting for?”

  The man replied in a weak stammer with an anxious, innocent smile of embarrassment while looking at the floor, “This is my best, lady.” He remained silent for a bit with his head down. Then he raised his head and said with simple conviction, while taking a hem of the garment in his hand and showing it to the lady, “Is this ugly, lady? By the life of the Prophet’s head, it’s homespun.”

  The lady did not deign to look at his thawb. She turned her back on him and walked off to supervise another task. Muhsin trailed after her. He wanted to speak to her in private so he could entreat her not to be so hard on these people. He wanted her to understand that these poor peasants were not into pomp.

  * * *

  • • •

  At exactly one p.m. the estate dog began barking to announce the arrival of a stranger. The dust from the carriage and its magnificent horses could be seen at the bridge. The carriage passed under the sycamore and entered the estate’s threshing ground. Two Europeans, who were wearing hats, descended from it, followed by the master of the house, the bey.

  The guests stood for a moment gazing at their surroundings. They looked at the fields, which spread out green like the sea. The overseer and Shaykh Hasan stood before them, politely awaiting a command or signal. One of the guests, the English irrigation inspector, expressed a wish to have a look around the fields for a moment to see the drainage ditches and make sure they were clear. He wanted to see the sluice gates to find out their size and how they linked the canal and the plots of land. Everyone set off for the fields, and the bey gestured for the overseer and the headman to lead. So they hurried off in front. The bey unfurled his white parasol with the golden handle and raised it over the heads of the guests while he described for them the method of irrigation and drainage in the eastern quadrant, through which they were passing. The French visitor smiled admiringly at the levelness of the land and at its olivine color. He was astonished that all Egypt was like this, as if the ancient gods had especially leveled it and prepared it for the fine inhabitants of Egypt.

  The bey turned toward him and asked innocently, “Isn’t the land in France like this?”

  The visitor replied, “France is all valleys or hills. You rarely find a region that’s this level.” Then he looked at the bey and said with a laugh, “France wasn’t fortunate enough to have once been a home for gods who smoothed it out—unlike your land.”

  The bey did not understand what he was saying very well. Nonetheless he replied, “You’re right, honored inspector; our land has been cultivated since antiquity.”

  The Frenchman perceived a more profound meaning in this statement than the bey intended. He agreed, “Yes, yes. You are a people with a deep-rooted civilization, not like the arriviste peoples of Europe.”

  The bey did not respond. The Englishman bent over to pick up a handful of earth, which he rubbed between his fingers. He murmured under his breath in admiration of the fertility of the soil, “Gold . . . gold!”

  Then he gave a sign to return. So everyone went back to the house, where the table was spread and the two Nubian servants stood with their clean white gowns and their red sashes. The meal was served.

  * * *

  • • •

  Muhsin at this time was beside his mother in the hall between the kitchen and the dining room. She was supervising the arrangement of the different dishes and foods. She herself rearranged anything she thought substandard before allowing the servant to take it to the guests. Muhsin stood watching. His mouth was watering in hunger and anticipation of the stuffed lamb. He looked forward to the return of whatever remained of it after the guests finished. His mother asked him to be patient: “The right thing is to let the guests eat first.” Then the two of them would eat. His mother, however, was at that time preoccupied and absentminded. She was running here and there, supervising. She was agitated and implored God that the meal would conclude successfully and that the guests would leave happy and pleased. She wished she knew what the guests were saying just then about the food and its presentation. At times she would leave Muhsin and follow the servant cautiously. Drawing close to the door surreptitiously, she would peek and eavesdrop. Perhaps she would glean a word of praise from one of the guests.

  The visitors finished the meal except for dessert and fruit, and the two servants carried in the plates of sweets. At that moment the bey scurried out of the dining room and went straight to his spouse to ask in a quick, significant whisper, “Where’s the cheese? Cheese at once!”

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bsp; His wife frowned. She looked at him gravely without moving. “Cheese? What cheese?”

  “Yes! Right away! They’re asking for cheese. They eat cheese at the end of their meals.”

  “Cheese! After eating all of that!”

  “Right! Save us! Do me a favor!”

  The lady immediately summoned her servants in a whisper and asked about cheese. She was told there was none at all except for some fat-free white cheese soaked in whey in a pot. She slapped her face and asked herself how to escape from this crisis. Her husband was whispering as loudly as he could, “Gibna arish in whey . . . that’s totally out of the question! Are foreign gentlemen going to eat whey? Impossible! We’re to serve them whey with maggots? That’s just not possible.”

  With a voice choking with despair, the lady said, “What a disaster for me! What will we do now? What on earth can I do now, sisters?”

  Her husband asked censoriously, “Didn’t you know that banquets must have cheese?”

  The lady regained her pride and self-respect. Placing her hands on her waist she shouted at her husband, “You, sir, what are you saying? Banquets? I’m the one who understands what the picture is. I was raised in the houses of pashas. I know how Ottomans eat. Who says that after lamb stuffed with raisins, hazelnuts, and pine nuts; chicken and pigeon prepared blanquette-style and also with hazelnut sauce; and stuffed grape leaves, people eat cheese?”

  “Here they are, asking for cheese. What will we do now?”

  The lady relapsed into anxiety and despair. She began asking the servants again, insisting, entreating. Finally a maid appeared shouting with joy that a piece of “Greek” cheese had been found in the pantry. As soon as she announced that, the lady rushed toward her, as did everyone else. It was as if they had made an important discovery. Despair turned to joy. The bey was reassured and left his wife. He hurriedly rejoined his guests after making it clear to his wife that this piece needed to be served immediately. Finally the servant brought the piece of “Rumi” cheese from the pantry, but it was brown with age. Everyone realized that this piece had been left in the pantry for such a long time to be used to bait mousetraps. The lady hesitated a little, and her distress returned. But finally she resolved to let it pass. She told the servants, “Mice or cats . . . it’s better than nothing. I mean, will they know?”

  She took it greedily and, carrying it to the tap, washed it to remove the look of age and filth. All the members of the household followed her, the hangers-on and the servants. They stared at that piece of cheese in the lady’s hand as though looking at a precious gem. Since they were all so interested in that rare piece of cheese, they wanted to help the lady. They gathered around her. One of them turned on the tap. Another suggested it be washed with a sponge and soap so that it became pure white again. A third thought washing might harm it and said it should be only wiped with a damp cloth. A fourth did not like washing or wiping and recommended scraping—that is, scraping off the soiled surface with a sharp knife. While everyone was full of these suggestions and this concern, the lady, who was grasping the piece, suddenly shouted, because in her excitement it had slipped from her hand and fallen into the drain. They were struck dumb for a moment. When they came to their senses they all swooped over the sink at once. They got the piece of “Greek” cheese out with some effort after a desperate struggle. They saw no alternative to washing it again. Once it was put on the plate and presented to the guests, the lady raised her head and sighed deeply.

  The two guests finished eating and were served coffee. Then the bey appeared hastily in the hall to ask for Muhsin. The lady went to him. The first words to cross her lips were a question about the banquet. What had the guests said about the food and the presentation? The bey, however, did not answer her. Instead he asked her quickly, “Where’s Muhsin? Where is Muhsin? They want to see him.”

  He wanted to tell her he had said he had a son at the competency level who knew English and that the honorable English inspector therefore wanted to see him. But his wife interrupted him. “Fine . . . fine! The important thing is what did they say about the banquet? What did they say about the cheese? Tell me!”

  He leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, “They’re very pleased!”

  The lady’s lips opened in a smile. She said with pride, vanity, and arrogance, “So you see, I’ve civilized you and raised you, peasant, loafer. Won’t you congratulate me then?”

  The bey laughed and said, “Fine! I congratulate you!”

  She asked proudly and boastfully, “Wasn’t I the one who told you to invite them?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Listen to me all the time and you’ll do splendidly. Tomorrow invite the governor too, so he’ll know.”

  The bey scratched his head. Then he exclaimed anxiously, “But the cost!”

  The lady cast him a glance that silenced him at once. He stopped thinking about the enormous sums squandered on banquets and parties for years. He started looking around in confusion. “Where’s Muhsin?” he asked. “Where is Muhsin?”

  The two guests, meanwhile, were sipping coffee, sunk in large chairs, their faces directed toward a window that was wide open. There lay before them a limitless green expanse and the total stillness of the siesta hour. The farm laborers were resting in their houses or under the shady Nile acacias and lebbek trees by the waterwheels. The animals were quiet too. The farm dog was lying down with one eye closed. Even the birds—the larks and wagtails—seemed to have declared a truce. They had settled in the branches over the heads of the prostrate laborers. They had ceased their chirping and begun to pass the time grooming their feathers with their beaks.

  A lovely breeze was wafting over the guests at that time. The Frenchman had his eyelids half-closed; his head was leaning back. He began to draw on the cigarette in his hand. He seemed to be in an enchanted dream, but his English companion had not lost any of his energy, nor had he relaxed. Instead, he stuck his hand in his pocket, brought out his pipe, and began to fill it with tobacco. He was sitting upright with an erect posture. His movements were steady and his glance strong. When he finished filling his pipe he put it in his mouth and lit it. Then he stood up. He wanted to pace back and forth in the room or go outdoors to the garden. But his French comrade thrust a hand out and motioned gently for him to sit back down. He asked in a sleepy voice, “Where to? Doesn’t this delicate breeze have any effect on you, Mr. Black?” The Englishman looked from him to the window as if searching for this breeze to see it with his own eyes. The fellahin had started then to rise in groups or one by one. Each was carrying his hoe or scythe so they could resume their work in the field.

  The Englishman said to his companion, “All I see are swarms of men in blue shirts.”

  The Frenchman looked at the fellahin and said admiringly, “What wonderful taste they have! The color of their clothing is like the color of their sky!”

  A sarcastic smile appeared on the Britisher’s face. He said, “You go too far if you ascribe taste to these ignorant people.”

  The French archaeologist answered him forcefully and with conviction, “Ignorant! These ignorant people, Mr. Black, know more than we do.”

  The Englishman laughed and said just as sarcastically, “They sleep in the same room with their animals!”

  The Frenchman replied seriously, “Yes, precisely because they sleep in one room with the animals.”

  Mr. Black scrutinized him carefully, with a smile. “What a clever joke, Monsieur Fouquet.”

  The Frenchman replied, “No, it’s a truth that Europe doesn’t know, unfortunately. Yes . . . this people you consider ignorant certainly knows many things, but it knows by the heart, not the intellect. Supreme wisdom is in their blood without their knowing it. There is a force within them they’re not conscious of. This is an ancient people. If you take one of these peasants and remove his heart, you’ll find in it the residue of ten thousand years of expe
riential knowledge, one layer on top of the other, although he’s not conscious of it.

  “Yes, he doesn’t know that, but there are critical moments when this knowledge and these experiences come forth and assist him without his grasping the source of this assistance. This explains for us Europeans those moments of history during which we see Egypt take an astonishing leap in only a short time and work wonders in the wink of an eye.

  “How could that be possible if it were not for the layers of experience from the past? These have become instinctive, giving them a push in the right direction and helping them through critical times without their realizing it.

  “You don’t imagine, Mr. Black, that these thousands of years that are Egypt’s legacy have vanished like a dream and left no trace in these descendants. Even inanimate things are subject to at least that much of the law of inheritance, for what are the earth and mountains except a layer-by-layer inheritance? Why should that not be the same for ancient peoples who haven’t budged from their land, when nothing in their environment or nature has changed?

  “Yes, Europe is in front of Egypt today, but in what? Only in that acquired knowledge the ancients considered accident rather than substance, a surface indication of hidden treasure that is not of any particular significance by itself.

  “All that we arriviste Europeans have done has been to steal from those ancient peoples this superficial symbol without the buried treasure. For that reason if you take a European and open his heart you’ll find it empty and desolate.

  “The European lives on what he gleans, what he learns when he is young, because he has no inheritance or past to assist him unbeknownst to him.

  “Deprive a European of schooling and he’ll be unspeakably ignorant. Europe’s only power is in the intellect, that limited goddess we must flesh out with our will. The power of Egypt is in the heart, which is bottomless. For this reason, the ancient Egyptians did not possess a word in their language to distinguish the intellect from the heart. The intellect and the heart to them could be expressed by one word: heart.”