Return of the Spirit

by Tawfiq al-Hakim

  Swallowing, he replied without lifting his head, “God be with you.” Then he fell silent.

  She was also silent, of course. Since she still thought it peculiar he had come, she was waiting to learn the reason. The silence lasted for a long time. She seemed to grasp, finally, that it was no use waiting for him to start. So she began, “Did you hear what your aunt did?”

  Muhsin had anticipated this question and had prepared a reply. All he had to do now was to speak. He opened his mouth and uttered at first some trembling, agitated phrases. He said that he and all the household were angry with his aunt Zanuba because of the way she had treated Saniya. But how was that his fault? Why should Saniya hold him responsible for his aunt Zanuba’s offense?

  Saniya said immediately, “Who told you, Muhsin, I’m angry with you?”

  This answer calmed Muhsin, and he relaxed a little. His embarrassment and fear dissipated somewhat. He seemed to have given this answer of hers a broader interpretation than it warranted. His understanding of it delighted him. He asked in a voice that trembled a little, “Is it true, you’re not angry with me? Do you still feel the same way about me you used to? Like the day before I left?”

  Saniya, who looked somewhat perturbed, said, “Of course! What have you done?”

  But Muhsin did not pay any attention to her answer. He burst out with boyish enthusiasm, telling her about his trip, about waiting for her letter, about his return, about his desire to see her, about being afraid to visit her once he returned, and about the ill-omened thought that had overwhelmed him that she had totally forgotten him and didn’t want to see him at all, and about those gloomy days he had spent remote from her. All that without daring to mention Mustafa or his role in what had taken place. . . . Saniya listened to him absentmindedly. She bowed her head frequently, especially when Muhsin talked of his pain at being far from her. Then he told her about her handkerchief, which was his consolation and his companion. He put his hand to his pocket. Here he felt a bundle of papers that contained poetry and prose he had composed and written since he and his uncles had decided he should visit Saniya. From that day till this visit he had been roaming about, wandering through public gardens and parks and along the banks of the Nile. His despair had been mixed with a small portion of delicious hope. Muhsin with his poetic temperament had previous experience composing poems, ballads, and lyrics for various occasions. So why not now, when his entire existence was in question? Today, shortly before he had come, it had occurred to him to present her everything he had written, so she would know the contents of his heart.

  The youth finished his prepared statement. He was blushing, and his throat was dry. He looked at her, waiting to see what she would say, but she couldn’t reply or found nothing to say.

  She kept quiet for a while, feeling anxious. Then she rose in distress and said, “No, Muhsin, I’m not angry with you at all.” This was the only response she had for everything he had said.

  Muhsin was a bit bewildered but remained silent, waiting hopefully for her to say something more.

  But she did not speak. She sat down again for a moment. Then she felt bored and looked at Muhsin, who had his head bowed expectantly. She rose halfway, as though suggesting he should leave, and said, “In any case, thanks, Muhsin. You can be sure I’m not at all angry with you.”

  Muhsin felt disappointed then. His eyes opened to the frightening reality, but like any desperate person, he closed them quickly and clutched at the impossible. He said in a pleading voice, “Do you remember the piano lessons?”

  She fidgeted in her seat and said without much enthusiasm, “Of course I remember them.”

  The youth steeled himself and said, “But I’ve forgotten my lessons. I need you to go over everything we did again.”

  Saniya lowered her eyes and did not respond. She thought of Mustafa. She had no spare time. Her life was such that she couldn’t spare a minute for anyone except Mustafa and thinking about him. She grew annoyed and said coldly, “I don’t have time.”

  Muhsin braced himself again and entreated her, “Don’t you want me to come?”

  She did not answer at once. When she replied, she said, “Muhsin, I have a lot to do now.”

  Muhsin’s confidence was waning. Sweat was dripping down his body. The world looked grim to his eyes. In a despairing voice he said, “You mean this is the last time I come? This is the last time I see you?”

  He lost control of himself. His tears rolled down, and he started sobbing. Saniya observed this and heard the sounds of his sobs. She turned her head away, trying not to see. But she noticed that his voice was beginning to get louder. So she rose and hesitated a little. Then she turned toward him and said in a peevish, gruff voice, “What’s the matter with you, Muhsin? Are you a crybaby? You’re too old to cry.”

  But Muhsin was not able to restrain himself. He continued sobbing, moaning, and imploring her in choppy phrases. He told her that all he asked was just to see her. Yes, he had reached the point where all he desired was to be near her, that he should live nearby. So let her love Mustafa or someone else. He would never come between her and her happiness. Indeed her happiness was his happiness. If she would only not deprive him of seeing her. Was this so much for her to grant? A look would cost her nothing, while it would be his entire life.

  In this fashion he continued to utter despondently and only half-consciously words that mixed with his tears. Saniya saw there was no way to hush him up or stop him. So she let him speak and rave. She went to the wooden balcony and opened its window. She started to look out it, not hearing a word he said.

  Muhsin grew a little tired. He fell silent and looked up. He found the woman he had thought was at least listening to him retreating from the window with a red face after granting someone an enchanting smile. He naturally knew who it was.

  At that moment Muhsin grasped that the woman in front of him was not Saniya. She closed the window and came back. Her breast was heaving with delight. As soon as she saw Muhsin facing her with wet eyes, she frowned and asked peevishly, “Are you still here, crying? Is that what you came for?”

  Muhsin stood up. He felt it necessary to leave and now understood that the affair was over. She advanced toward him and asked in a calm tone, “Are you going home?”

  He pulled together all his strength to quiet his nerves and say, “Yeah . . . I’m going home.” But he kept standing there, like a motionless statue.

  Saniya seemed to fear he would start talking and weeping again on the pretext of the farewell. So she suddenly drew back from him and walked slowly toward the door as though leading him there. But she was leading an imaginary person; he hadn’t budged from his spot.

  She reached the threshold and stood there as though waiting. Muhsin came to his senses, grasping the situation. He saw she was giving him a tacit invitation, indeed a fairly unambiguous one, to depart. He saw her expectant stance of visible annoyance, or at least of urgency and haste. So what, then, was he waiting for? What was keeping him and stopping him from leaving her at once, as she herself desired? The reality—which he had sensed and suppressed, deceiving himself about it, blinding himself so he wouldn’t perceive it—was so obvious to him now that there was no room to mask it or for self-deception. It was so transparent it was naked. She not only did not love him but had never loved him. If she had been nice to him in the past to a degree that seduced and misled him, it was due to her heart being empty. She had a natural tendency, like any young person, to flirt and joke. Now that she was in love, she had quickly forgotten that past slack period. When a woman fell in love, she considered her life to have begun at the onset of that love. She no longer remembered what came before it.

  Muhsin wasn’t old enough to understand all this about women. This was, precisely, the first of his experiences. Despite his total conviction then that everything had ended and that the name Saniya must be erased from his memory for good, he kept standing t
here, not knowing what he was waiting for, just as she remained at the door while her weariness with standing was apparent. She didn’t want to say anything, in order to avoid opening any new discussion. She needed to be alone in her room to gaze at Mustafa’s letter. It was Muhsin’s bad luck that he had come to her on her happiest day . . . on a day when there was no place in her mind or being for any person or thing other than Mustafa. A day like this can make a woman, even a tender woman—indeed a prophet or a saint—harsh and insensitive when she encounters something that interferes with that happiness. A happy woman in love can be selfish to the point of brutishness.

  Finally Muhsin saw she had leaned her hand on the door and moved her leg to give it a rest. He knew he was annoying her by standing there, by being there. He walked to the door and silently shook her hand. He pulled her silk handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it back to her silently. She took it without a word. Then she said calmly, “Thanks for the visit. On behalf of Mama, I can tell you she thanks you a lot too.”

  Muhsin hesitated a little before departing. Finally, he didn’t know why or with relation to what, he took from his pocket the sheaf of poems and prose and handed it to Saniya. She took it in astonishment. He departed quickly and speedily descended the steps. Only God knew the secret feelings of this youth’s heart at that hour.

  CHAPTER 22

  It did not take long for the condition of Mustafa’s small balcony to be transformed and for evidence of new life to appear on it, after it had been closed day and night and neglected, with dust piling up on its floor and railing. Mustafa hadn’t been conscious of its existence, since he spent so little time in the house. His servant had not given it any consideration, because he was busy with other things. But it was now the place with top priority and was open day and night. Pots of flowers and fragrant herbs were lined up on it, and Mustafa began to spend there the time he used to pass at the coffeehouse.

  Since this transformation, Mustafa, who had been happy just to glimpse Saniya, rarely passed a day when he did not gaze at her and converse with her. A veritable enchantment took hold of him the unforgettable day he heard her voice for the first time returning his greeting. She was smiling from her window in the middle of the night. Then there were those delightful, extemporaneous discussions during the following evenings. He hadn’t known this girl was so bright. How delightful her conversation was, how fine her repartee, and how charming her gestures! After conversing with her, Mustafa was convinced he had discovered in her whole new kinds of beauty, over and above her beauty of form and body. Was it a beauty of spirit? He did not know. He only knew that he had come to love her a thousand times more intensely than before. He could not bear to have a day pass without hearing her voice. For that reason he waited impatiently for night to come, so darkness would shield them from the eyes of passersby.

  But if the eyes of the two lovers were open, the eye of the jealous critic wasn’t asleep either. Zanuba quickly uncovered the new developments on Mustafa’s balcony. This was easy for her, since one of the living room windows was located directly above Mustafa’s balcony and overlooked it. All Zanuba had to do was peer down to see and hear everything that took place.

  For this reason, over the course of several days she slipped away from everyone else to go to the living room at night and stayed there until the conversation below her ended. It seemed that she couldn’t bear to keep secret for long what she saw. She soon confided in Mabruk and made him her partner in the observation and surveillance. He was the only one who was unable to oppose her, accepting her invitation without argument or protest. Moreover, of late, the others and young Muhsin in particular had begun to seem strangely and frighteningly subdued. Yes, it frightened her; she didn’t know why. All the same she felt it impossible for her to broach this with them.

  So whenever the time for the rendezvous arrived, she gave Mabruk a wink, and they went to their positions at the window, where they began to follow developments. Zanuba would whisper in the servant’s ear from time to time, while pointing out what was going on in the conversation, “Do you hear that, Mabruk?”

  He would nod his head at her, looking like a moviegoer who didn’t want anyone to interrupt his entertainment. But Zanuba would frequently nudge him and slap him on the shoulder, asking wrathfully, “Do you see the vile girl?”

  Finally Zanuba’s rage intensified, and the malice of this jealous woman boiled over. She would stop at nothing to disrupt their bliss. So she told Mabruk to fetch the duster and the broom. He was to pretend he was cleaning the window, and the dust and dirt would fall on Mustafa.

  The servant retorted skeptically, “Does anyone dust their windows at night?”

  She shouted at him, “That’s what we do! Do we need a partner?”

  The matter didn’t stop there but escalated to their tossing down dirt, wastepaper, and fruit and vegetable peels from the living room window, letting them fall on Mustafa’s balcony. Zanuba chose nighttime, first because that was when they met, and second so she could argue—if anyone objected—that she was only throwing these things into the street by night when it was deserted so the street sweeper could clean it up in the morning.

  For that reason, as soon as she finished eating, she would remind Mabruk, “Don’t forget! Collect the cucumber peelings.”

  The servant would answer her with a wink, “I won’t forget, so we can throw them to the drake.”

  But naturally none of this kept Mustafa from going out on the balcony. He was enraged, however, that he was unable to protest. Saniya had categorically forbidden him to utter a word. Saniya understood this provocation and thought the best thing was to keep silent and pretend not to notice. She knew that Zanuba could not be beaten when it came to squabbling. She no doubt wanted to start a quarrel at any price. Why expose oneself to her and her filthy tongue? One had to put up with it, then, and say absolutely nothing.

  Yes, Saniya comprehended right away that these acts were Zanuba’s alone. None of Zanuba’s relatives would think of doing something like this, not even Muhsin, to whom Saniya had been rude. She had mistreated him and more or less thrown him out that day. All the same, he would not be able to do this.

  Strangely enough, this thought reminded Saniya at once of Muhsin and of the bundle he had handed her just before he departed. She had dropped it in her room, she knew not where. That prompted her to search for it so she could read these pages. For some time she had overlooked and forgotten them.

  When she opened the bundle, sheets of poetry and prose fell out. She started to read and found her name linked with epithets of love and adoration. She was raised in the imagination of this poetic schoolboy and in the heart of this lad to divine rank. She read some memoir-like selections in which he confided to her his sorrows. Saniya was incredulous that she should have rewarded him for this with her brutal treatment. She remembered how he had wept in front of her. She had ignored him at the time to think of her own love. She had asked him to leave in a humiliating fashion. Had she done all that? She, who at least knew the right way to do things? Does a woman in love forget even that? Yes, she had wronged this boy. She did not deny that. She wished she could set right what had happened, to offer him some relief. Her conscience hurt her. She felt the burden of this injustice. But what could she do? She was a woman in love. She did not have even a small portion of her heart or thought available for anyone except . . .

  At this point both the wrong and the person wronged began to fade away. Not a single trace was left in her soul of Muhsin or his poetry and prose. She went at once to the mirror. Then she looked at the sky and after that at her small alarm clock on the bedside table to see how much time was left before nightfall.

  * * *

  • • •

  The moon was full that night. The clock struck ten. The members of the household had gone to sleep. All was still. Saniya rose from her chaise longue. In the darkness she put on over her silk chemise a dressing gown of r
ose muslin. She quickly patted her beautiful hair in place. Then she went to the window and opened it. The light of the moon burst upon her face. She was taken by surprise and retreated quickly back into the room. She smiled at once, however, for she saw that light from the silver sphere was illuminating even the corners of the dark room. She began again and proceeded fearlessly to the window. Mustafa was laughing. He must have seen and understood the secret of this delicious panic of hers. The young man was wearing ruby-colored pajamas trimmed with gold piping that shone in the light with the same gleam as his wavy chestnut hair. Everything about him on this beautiful night spoke of wealth and good looks. She was silent and smiled. She was gazing at the moon, which in all its roundness was looking down at them from the tranquil sky of Salama Street at that hour. An inner joy took hold of her. She laughed delicately, allowing her diamond teeth to flash in the moonlight, which seemed finally to have dazzled her. She raised her hands to rub her eyes gaily. Mustafa gazed at her, leaning his arm on the balcony railing, as though his heart were suddenly overflowing. He looked at her and said with a tone of censure softened by a quavering tremor of love, “You’re half an hour late tonight.”

  She replied with a smile, “Right!”

  “Why?”

  She looked at him mischievously. Then, laughing, she said, “Why? Do you want me to interrupt your colloquy with the moon?”

  He replied immediately, “Which moon?” Pointing to her window, which framed her, he said, “The only moon I know rises in this window.”

  She laughed and bowed her head modestly. She wanted to say something. Hastily, with a noticeable impetuousness, she said, “Mustafa, it’s very warm tonight.”

  Mustafa did not answer her. He seemed annoyed that she had taken the conversation in another, pointless direction; although this sentence, coming from Saniya, like all her sentences, was invaluable to him. Mustafa began to look around him at the night. Yes, the air was still. It seemed to be holding its breath so as not to spoil their tranquility. Mustafa remembered that it was the beginning of March. He said, letting the light, which was dancing and floating in this still air, fall on his face, “Spring is here!”