Return of the Spirit

by Tawfiq al-Hakim

  The teacher came soon, and the students allowed Muhsin to go to his place. They all rose respectfully for the teacher, although Abbas, who sat behind Muhsin, kept nudging him with his arm, trying to get him to talk to him, not wanting to wait till the end of the period. Muhsin gently ignored him until the teacher calmly began to deliver his lesson.

  This total calm proved to be the best environment for reviving Muhsin’s thoughts and reflections. He was speedily submerged in seas within himself and forgot the class period, the lesson, and the teacher, who began to discuss his lecture with his pupils. Then it was Muhsin’s turn. Till that day Muhsin’s status had been high with his teachers and his peers. He was known for his seriousness, intelligence, and attentiveness. When the teacher asked him today about the lecture topic, it became clear at once that he had not been paying attention to anything said throughout the hour. His teacher, who was astonished and amazed at this behavior from Muhsin, asked in disbelief and surprise, “What’s happened, Muhsin? What’s on your mind?”

  The youth, who had stood up, mumbled as though just waking up, “It’s nothing, sir . . . nothing.”

  The teacher softened his tone and said, “A student returns from a vacation energetic, relaxed, refreshed, ready to study, and eager to learn—isn’t that so, Muhsin?”

  The boy hung his head in shame, confused and hurt. The whole class was looking at him. He heard Abbas whisper behind him. Abbas was sorry, grieved, and even angry. He didn’t want this to happen to his friend, whom he cherished, believing him to be faultless and perfect. This hurt Muhsin all the more. He sat down, concerned and distressed. He was determined to pay attention to the lesson while he was in class. In a desperate, nervous motion he imposed the force of his will on the muscles of each of his eyes, which opened wide, gazing at the blackboard with long, steady looks. He emptied his mind of everything to focus on the teacher alone, no matter what it cost him. He kept struggling to achieve that and knit his brow as sweat poured from him.

  * * *

  • • •

  Muhsin’s willpower was fruitless. The poor fellow could not control his errant thoughts, which were stronger than he was. The day passed, and the pupils went home. He left with his head down, dragging his tail behind him, after making a bad impression on his teachers and most of his comrades. They were no doubt puzzled by him and what had come over him. The bewilderment of his friend Abbas was the most extreme, especially when he informed Muhsin that unfortunately his father wouldn’t allow him to register for the arts section and that, for this reason, he was forced to break his promise to Muhsin. Abbas was anticipating that Muhsin would be angry, annoyed, or sorrowful at least. How astonished he was when he saw that Muhsin was unfazed by the news and that his face showed no interest.

  * * *

  • • •

  Muhsin’s head contained only one thing: the empty life stretching before him. How could he fill it? How could he patiently traverse the far-reaching future and the long days to come? He heard within himself a mocking voice answer sarcastically, “What were you doing before you fell in love? Go back to what you were before.”

  The youth smiled bitterly and gave the sky a rebellious look of anger, as though shouting from his depths: Go back to what I was before? Yes, I lived without love and lived happily, but it was the happiness of a blind man who did not see beauty, light, or life. You opened the eyes of this blind man and made him see, dazzling him. Do you think if you put him back in his prior darkness he can recapture his prior happiness?

  Muhsin saw suddenly that he was in Al-Sayyida Square. He trembled when he remembered he would be forced to return home, where he would sit with his companions: his uncles and his aunt.

  They would without doubt see from his face how he felt. He stood, hesitating, not knowing what to do. Then, suddenly, his glance fell on Al-Sayyida Zaynab’s barbershop. All at once he became as pale and motionless as a corpse, because he had glimpsed Mustafa Bey coming out with white powder still on his chin. His small golden mustache had been trimmed in the latest fashion. He was strutting along in a beautiful suit. In his hand was a silk handkerchief the same color as the suit. He placed it elegantly in his left breast pocket as an emblem of his taste. His face was aglow with pleasure and contentment.

  The square seemed a cheerless place to Muhsin. Without any premeditation, he made his way to the mosque. In his heart he felt dismay that this man might have seen him. Trembling, he quickly removed his shoes and crossed the carpet of the mosque to the shrine. He secreted himself in one of the corners of the dark mausoleum, which was lit only by a large chandelier hanging from the top of that magnificent, lofty dome. Muhsin grasped the brass bars of the grille and began to whisper desperately from his innermost heart in a staccato, nervous voice, “O Sayyida Zaynab! Sayyida Zaynab! Sayyida Zaynab!”

  He began weeping, and his tears fell on the carpet of the shrine. He suppressed his sobs so the visitors around him wouldn’t hear them.

  CHAPTER 12

  At the same hour, Abduh was in his school at a drafting table, determinedly working on the assigned engineering project. The fact was that since the day of the Saniya story his despair had been channeled into work. When he concentrated on his assignment at his college, nothing disturbed him except the image of Mustafa whenever it passed through his head. For this reason he could not bear to have that story mentioned in his presence, or the name Mustafa uttered. It humiliated and enraged him. He would shout at anyone who broached the topic in his presence, “That subject is closed, people. My brain is hurting me.” Then he would leave the room at once, moving nervously.

  Until the last moment his pride hadn’t permitted him to imagine that Salim, the braggart show-off, deserved to beat him. Salim’s claims and boasts about what had happened when the piano was repaired hadn’t been enough to convince Abduh. As for the lad Muhsin, he was too young to be taken seriously. This was the way he saw things until the day the handsome, wealthy young man, Mustafa Bey, appeared in the field. Then his self-confidence took a beating. He was foaming and frothing to himself, making threats without being able to carry them out. He lacked a true feeling of malice. All this froth floating on top concealed beneath it nothing but pure water. The upshot of the matter for him was that after a few days he devoted himself to work, attempting by determined force of nervous willpower to forget.

  His disdain for Salim turned into affection and solidarity. It had been like that between them before their competition and rivalry. Despite all that, however, he still had a feeling that some light within him had been extinguished. Neither work nor anything else could compensate him for that sweet hope and those few beautiful imaginings that had brought tenderness to his dry, stiff life.

  The image of Saniya came to his mind then, and he couldn’t keep from throwing down his pen. He left the drafting table and angrily went out into the gardens surrounding the school in Giza. He realized that his life lacked something. He perceived that intuitively. Neither his intellect nor his mouth dared put that into words. For this reason he attributed his depression, anger, and this exodus to the gardens to something else. He was either dissembling or lying to himself when he walked along, saying to himself in a peevish, rebellious rage, “Work, work, work! There’s nothing to life but work. We were created only to work . . . like asses!”

  He passed by a green field planted with lettuce, and his eyes were filled with this greenness. He trembled, remembering at once the day he went to the neighbors’ house to repair the electric wiring. He had seen Saniya flutter from time to time before his eyes in her green silk dress. It had seemed she was intentionally letting him see her from a distance. Her delicate voice when she asked whether Abduh Bey would like a cold drink or coffee! Abduh sat down on a wooden bench he chanced upon. He freed his soul to dream of the past and to picture it however it wished, enlarging and exaggerating the image according to its desires.

  He well remembered what he had said and kn
ew the ring of her voice. Everything about her that day indicated she was interested in him and in his presence. The question of the electrical wiring might even have been a pretext.

  He did not remember seeing her much. The first time had been the day he, along with his comrades, stole a look at her through the cracks in Zanuba’s door. The last had been the day he repaired the electrical wiring. He had had an excellent opportunity that day to fill his eyes with her, even though she would appear from behind the doors like a fleet antelope. She had peeked out and tarried there once. But he had lowered his eyes in bedazzlement after they met hers. How beautiful she was, even though he had only seen her briefly. He remembered with a shudder his initial impression the day he saw her and his final feelings the day he parted from her: that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Abduh shuddered at this, for he remembered that the woman now belonged to one man, a man who was foreign to all of them. She preferred him to all of them. She loved him. She was writing to him and he to her. Envoys were going and coming between them.

  Abduh suddenly stood up straight. He thought he should go straight to this Mustafa and pummel him. Or he might go to the landlord and ask him to evict the man. Or he would do something to harm Mustafa.

  He made his way toward Al-Sayyida district. The length of the trip weakened his fury, and his pique cooled. He began to listen to reason a little, asking himself: Why harm Mustafa? Was it this man’s fault if she loved him? Did he know of their love for her? Even if he did, what was he to do if she chose him?

  Abduh turned his fury on her then and began to ask: How could this girl reject them? They were the ones who had been in contact with her and her family all this time. She had become entangled with a man without links to her or her family. She didn’t know anything about him.

  At that moment Abduh forgot his rage at Salim and Muhsin, the fury he had felt toward them whenever they flocked to Saniya’s home on any pretext. He felt now that he would have liked it a thousand times better if Saniya had chosen one of them instead of this stranger. He felt affection, sympathy, and a tie uniting him to his comrades, who were out of luck too. He noticed that when he spoke and raged, he did it on behalf of all of them, not just for himself.

  For the first time, he felt a need to be near them and to talk to them about this affair. They had shared the emotion—just as they shared everything—and then the disappointment and pain.

  * * *

  • • •

  At that hour Salim was upstairs at the Soldier’s Coffeehouse. He had returned to it the day after it became clear there was nothing to be hoped for from the neighbors’ house. Salim had tried to convince the folks that the neighbors’ household was of absolutely no interest to him and that Saniya was simply a girl like all the others. She did not concern him. A man like him would not pay attention to her. Even if he could convince others of this, he was the one most in need of convincing.

  Thus Salim went to the Soldier’s Coffeehouse, supposing that he had wiped everything away at this minimal cost. He afforded himself pleasure and consolation by saying, “What’s Saniya? How does she compare with these high-spirited mesdemoiselles and good-time girls?”

  He took his seat, looking right and left to reacquaint himself with the place, remembering his past there, a past filled with happiness and merriment. He began to scrutinize the faces of the young women sitting with the customers, those exiting, those waiting for a date, and those who were idle and scouting opportunities. It seemed he did not know any of them, even though he used to know every woman who entered this place, back when he was the most constant and regular customer. But he soon noticed one woman sitting alone at a table. She recognized him and smiled at him invitingly. He rose at once and approached her, twisting the ends of his mustache pompously. He gave her his hand in greeting. With the tone of an old friend he said, “How are you, Maria!”

  He had scarcely taken a seat beside her when he was surrounded by waiters. He raised his head and asked with a frown, “What’s up?”

  But he got control of himself at once, for he knew them. He remembered he had pretended to them he was wealthy. He altered his tone and said to one of them, a stout Nubian, “So you’re still alive, Pistachio!”

  “So, Your Excellency, how may I serve you?”

  Salim puffed himself up a little and motioned toward his woman companion. He told Pistachio, “See what the mademoiselle will order.”

  The waiter leaned over the woman to receive her order. She took her time. Salim waited for her words anxiously, as though awaiting a sentence to pay a fine. Salim had no capital other than pretense, boasts, and braggadocio. With these he had been able to frequent this drinking establishment in the past and to make an outstanding name for himself among its patrons and waiters. Finally the mademoiselle spoke. She told the waiter, “Bring me one Martell cognac with soda.”

  Pistachio left her and turned respectfully to Salim. “And the bey?”

  Salim scratched his head. He pretended to think and have trouble deciding for a moment. Then he said, “Me? . . . Bring me a soda straight . . . with a bit of rose water. You know my digestion, Pistachio.”

  The waiter hesitated momentarily. Then he found no alternative to going for their orders. At that the woman turned to Salim and asked, “Salim Bey! Do you still have digestive complaints?”

  “What am I to do, Maria! By the way, what’s become of Katina and her sister Adèle?”

  He began to converse with her on various trivial topics. He flirted, joked, and laughed with her, forcefully, boisterously, energetically, and contentiously, in a way she had not seen in him before. He seemed to be venting today and seeking revenge for a defeat he had encountered in another arena.

  A new customer with the mark of true wealth entered and clapped his hands. Immediately the eyes of all the women were on him. Maria stopped conversing with Salim to stare at this new patron. Finally she rose, excusing herself for a moment to go to the restroom. She walked past the new customer with a swinging gait, leaving Salim behind with the orders. Salim settled back into himself. The dust of this false merriment that he had deliberately stirred up in his heart fell away from him. The depression and disappointment from which he had tried in vain to shield himself took root. The smile of pleasure on his lips turned into a smile of bitter derision. He looked at the girls and began to stare at their makeup, which sweat was causing to ooze down their sallow faces. He observed those gestures, affected voices, phony laughs, winks, and sniping. For the first time he asked himself how he had been able to frequent this place. How had these prostitutes been able to satisfy him?

  Maria eventually returned to him, since the new customer had ignored her, choosing to sit with another woman. She found Salim, his face grave and frowning, lost in thought. She asked him with surprise, “What! Salim! Aren’t you very happy?”

  He looked up at her and aimed a harsh, frigid stare at her. He answered coldly, “Very happy?”

  Then he left her and turned his attention straight to the glass of soda with rose water. He concentrated on it, excluding her. She went on looking at him for a while. Then she turned her face away and shrugged her shoulders lightly. Salim began to move the spoon around in the glass. Looking at its color reminded him of a day he drank rose-flavored punch at Saniya’s when he went to examine the piano. He was mistaken if he thought that girl had not made a lasting impression on him. Indeed, she had done more than make an impression. Here he was today disdaining these women for her sake. She had awakened in his soul a new emotion he hadn’t known before, the emotion of honest admiration. That loathing and revulsion he felt now toward these mesdemoiselles had been inspired by his memory of Saniya’s refined beauty, her charm, which wasn’t hackneyed, and her sincerity of emotion. Salim perceived now that he could no longer settle for a prostitute. He sensed that his heart had been elevated. Indeed he sensed that he had developed a heart that wouldn’t allow him to frequen
t prostitutes.

  Captain Salim was feeling this now? What a change! He was amazed at this elevated feeling. He knew that Saniya had made him learn things about himself and discover within himself unknown regions. Had this captain known before today that he had within him pure sentiments? Indeed, would a person like that have known the meaning of the words purity and nobility? He himself had understood his love for Saniya as a trivial, fickle, trite love like his previous love for the Syrian woman in Port Said . . . or for these women. He hadn’t realized he had the ability or sensitivity for a higher form of love. Salim took one sip from his glass. Then he spat and pushed it away with the tips of his fingers. He clapped. The Nubian Pistachio came. His eyes fell on Salim’s full glass. He looked at him with questioning eyes: Why hadn’t he drunk it? Salim’s mouth revealed his revulsion. “It tastes bad!” he said.

  The waiter wanted to object, but Salim motioned not to. There was no need for words. He put his hand in his pocket, brought out the price of his order and of the mademoiselle’s cognac and soda water, and added a tip. Then he rose and walked away after giving an abbreviated gesture of farewell to the woman. Surprised by his conduct, she incredulously watched him disappear down the stairs. She shrugged her shoulders as though annoyed and laughed scornfully.

  Salim walked along the street, filled his lungs with the fresh air, and felt at ease. It seemed to him he had been breathing foul-smelling, polluted air in that place.

  CHAPTER 13

  In the hallway once Salim returned home, he ran into the servant Mabruk, who motioned for him to be quiet and pointed with a mischievous smile at the closed door of Zanuba’s room. Salim trembled, hesitated a little, and then launched a gentle assault on the room, walking on tiptoe. He looked through the cracks of the door.