Respected Sir, Wedding Song, the Search

by Naguib Mahfouz

  “I will get married,” was her confident reply. “There’s nothing else for me to do.”

  Her words fell on him like a blow. He poured himself a third glass.

  “Anybody in particular?”

  “It won’t be difficult to find somebody.”

  “But how?”

  “I’ve got five hundred pounds,” she replied boastfully. “I could furnish a flat for a hundred and fifty and keep the rest as something to fall back on. That being so, wouldn’t lots of men be keen to marry me?”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “If you find a suitable husband for me, let me know,” she added, laughing.

  At midnight, as he stealthily found his way under the arches, he bumped into a drunken man being sick. He was nauseated beyond endurance. A sense of his loneliness, of despair, and of the emptiness of life overtook him: he felt an urge to do away with himself. He changed his direction without thinking and staggered his way back to the lane. He saw Qadriyya coming down the stairs on her way home. He stopped her with his hand and said, “Qadriyya, I’ve found a suitable husband for you.” He did not see her face in the dark but was able to guess the impact of his words.

  “Let’s get married at once!”

  Thirty-Two

  The marriage took place on the following day. His decision did not stun the woman as he had expected. She just looked at him closely for a while to make sure that he was serious, then she nodded her head with approval. He told himself that she probably considered him the real beneficiary in the deal because of her five hundred pounds.

  “Let’s go to the Registrar’s Office at once!” he said with a sense of urgency.

  “Sober up first and wait till morning,” she said, laughing happily.

  He spent the night in her little flat in al-Shamashirji Close and in the morning he said to her, “Let’s furnish a new flat and then get married.”

  “No, we get married first and then furnish a flat,” she retorted in tones of determination and finality.

  The Marriage Registrar was called to the house. The contract required two witnesses and she could only find two pimps who used to procure men for her. He watched in a stupor during the simple ceremony. What was happening? A feeling of anxiety, almost of terror, took hold of him and tore him apart and he prayed that the unknown might intervene to rescue him from his nightmare. This feeling then gave way to one of resignation, almost of recklessness.

  When he stated his name and occupation to the Registrar, both the woman and the pimps were amazed. He told himself they would declare him crazy, as others had done. Certainly he himself might as well admit, from now on, that he was out of his mind. A woman who was half Negress, gross as a fat cow, and laden with half a century of lechery and dissolute living. So the crazy longing he had sought to satisfy had come true: he had become a husband and Qadriyya, the companion of his youth, had become his wife. What had he done to himself?

  “I must begin a new life…” he said.

  Because he had come to like the Rawd al-Faraj quarter since he used to visit Hamza al-Suwayfi, he rented a flat there consisting of three rooms and a lounge and they set about furnishing it together. He forced her to wear the veil, ostensibly in the name of modesty, but his real motive was to guard against her being recognized by one of her old customers. They bought furniture for a bedroom, a dining room, a living room, and a study. They also bought new clothes for both of them, a radio, and a few other things. They contributed a hundred pounds each toward the cost, for with the same spirit of recklessness he had changed his policy and spent money freely wherever the need arose with a sense of desperate resignation which blacked out the pain he usually felt in such circumstances. A strong desire possessed him to enjoy the pleasures of life of which he had always deprived himself.

  He said goodbye to Omm Husni in a touching scene. The old woman was taken aback at his decision to move. She wept and said to him, “Don’t run away from the place you were born! It’s not good.”

  But run away from it he did, and without regret. In any case he couldn’t conceivably bring Qadriyya to live in al-Husayni Alley. He generally thought of the place as a symbol of decay, of privation, of a wasted life, and of sad memories. He sought to drown his visible as well as his secret sorrows in what pleasures were available. And he determined to remind himself, or rather convince himself, that Qadriyya was the only woman he had really loved. Or else how could he have kept up his relationship with her for a lifetime? As for her, she spared no effort in playing her part as a housewife in her new and “fashionable” surroundings which represented a fantastic leap from the old lane. He prayed to God that none of her old customers would ever set eyes on her and advised her not to mix with the neighbors.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like their manners.”

  But what he really feared was that she might have a disagreement with one of her neighbors and that this would put an end to her reserve and cause the volcano of obscenities latent in her to erupt. Otherwise, he could not deny that she was making a real effort to make him happy and to adapt to her new situation, and as time went by he grew more confident about his new life and accepted it for what it was. He enjoyed the company and the comfort, the discipline and the cleanliness that it afforded him. And now he was able to perform his prayers with a clean conscience. He even felt that having saved a soul that had gone astray (perhaps two souls rather than just one), he was closer to God than ever before.

  Thus he bought a plot in al-Khafir Cemetery, after consulting people who knew about such things, and made preparations for the building of a suitable tomb. He frequently went to inspect the progress of the work in the company of an architect from the Engineering Section in the ministry. The architect asked him once, “Hasn’t the family got an old tomb?”

  “A very old one indeed,” he answered, unshaken by the question. “It’s become pretty crowded with so many generations of the family. There was nothing for it but to have this one built.”

  “There’s no comparing old tombs with new ones,” commented the architect. “A new tomb is a beautiful, modern structure.”

  “Personally I wouldn’t bother to own a house in this world; a rented flat will do. But a tomb is a must, or else one’s dignity is lost.”

  “In India they cremate the dead,” the architect said, laughing.

  “How awful!” Othman said with disgust.

  The architect laughed again and went on: “If you want my opinion, a dead man loses dignity less by being burned than by being buried. Do you ever think about the process of decomposition that a corpse undergoes in the grave?”

  “No,” Othman replied with annoyance. “Nor do I want to know about it.” He thought for a while and then said to the architect, “Shouldn’t we provide a lavatory?”

  “It will be used by strangers and made filthy.”

  “But surely we could plant some kind of a tree or ivy, couldn’t we?”

  “That won’t be a problem. It could be watered from outside.”

  When the work had been completed, he went to examine the tomb and pay the balance. He looked over it admiringly. The door was open, and through it he could see the stairs leading down to the burial place, brightly lit by the sun. He bent forward a little to look at the floor of the tomb. It was smooth and fresh and spotlessly clean, bathed in light. He felt it was his eternal home, all ready for him; and his bones were not going to be lost in a heap of others like his parents’. Out of the depths of his soul came a soft strange voice whispering to him like a lover to lie down on the clean, bright ground, have a taste of the comforts of which he had had no share in life, and enjoy the peace which he had never experienced in the tumult of his raging emotions. For a moment he wished to obey that mysterious call and be through with the world, both its cares and its hopes.

  He remained in the grip of these enigmatic thoughts until he left the cemetery and made his way back to town. And how he wished to transfer the remains of his parents to
the new tomb so that he would feel more at home in it! But that, he had learned a long time ago, was not feasible, for the paupers’ burial ground was so crammed with corpses, it was impossible to tell them apart.

  “There’s no doubt that my life today is better than it was before,” he thought, desperately trying to convince himself that he had done the right thing.

  This of course did not mean that he had abandoned the path of God’s eternal world, even though his zeal had noticeably waned.

  Thirty-Three

  Let the days go by!

  Whatever happened, he had become a family man and the owner of a tomb; he had come to know new kinds of food, other than sheep’s head, rice, lentils, and beans, and he had also discovered something to be done with money other than mummifying it in the Post Office Savings Bank.

  But were days not heavy and monotonous in their passage? Had he lost hope irretrievably?

  Out of the stream of days there rose, quite unexpectedly, a high and powerful tide which changed fortunes and created the world anew. One morning the whole ministry learned of the decision to appoint Bahjat Noor, the Director General, as Under Secretary of State. Thus the position of Director General became vacant for the first time in a very long period. For two weeks many hearts were beating in continuous and uneasy expectation until it was decided to promote Abdullah Wajdi, the Director of Administration, to Director General; so he became a full-fledged “Excellency.” Another heart which had been tranquil for a long time began to beat with excitement.

  “I’m the only eligible person,” Othman said to himself. “I’m first in line for promotion and nobody has got my ability or experience. What are they going to do?”

  A few weeks elapsed without anything happening. Othman spared no effort in pleading his cause with both the new Director General and the Under Secretary of State.

  In a conversation, he heard someone express the opinion that the position of Director of Administration was a sensitive one. He asked him what he meant.

  “It is not only experience and qualifications that count when such appointments are made. Social status matters too,” said the man.

  “That’s only true in the case of an Under Secretary of State or a Minister,” Othman retorted with indignation. “As for Director of Administration or even Director General, these are jobs open to the common people. This has been the case since British officials stopped taking them.”

  His anguish did not last for long, for the decision to promote him to Director of Administration was made the same month. Later he used to remember that day with a kind of passionate excitement, and he would say to himself, “The miracle took place in a twinkling!” And he would also say, “In terms of seniority there is no one now between me and the Director General.”

  But how did the miracle take place? He had already come to believe that he was going to be pensioned off before anybody ahead of him in the official line had moved. But a Cabinet change took place in which the Under Secretary of State was made Minister, and as a result there was that happy and unexpected shuffle lower down.

  Bahjat Noor, now Under Secretary of State, said to him, “I’ve promoted you in the face of many objections.”

  Othman thanked him warmly. “But why the objections?” he inquired sadly.

  “You’ve been too long in government service not to be able to guess the answer to your question.”

  However, he now set about his work with the same old vigor as in the past. He pledged before God to make history during his directorship of the administration and to create an unmatchable record full of expert and ingenious administrative practices that would last forever. He was going to demonstrate to everybody that a government post was something sacred, a duty to humanity and a form of worship in the full sense of the word.

  From the first day he determined to give Abdullah Wajdi the fullest cooperation. For cooperating with the Director General was a sacred ritual of government service, and he had never been unfaithful to the duties of his office. Moreover, he was determined to use his own experience to cover up the Director General’s incompetence, and even to offer him what private help he needed just as he did with the Under Secretary of State. Perhaps one day he might reap what he had sown.

  “It’s true that Abdullah Wajdi is still a young man,” he would tell himself, “but the age of miracles has returned.” But in point of fact he did not pin his hopes on miracles alone. He watched Abdullah Wajdi’s corpulence with interest and listened with secret happiness to gossip about his overindulgence in food and drink.

  “There is no end to the diseases that people like him are exposed to,” he would think to himself.

  And it was only fair, wasn’t it? For in spite of his limitations, he himself was a believer, a man of God, a follower of al-Husayn, the Prophet’s grandson; and God would never abandon him. On the Day of Judgment what better could a man plead than the noble ambitions he had entertained, the achievements with which he had been blessed, the steady progress he had made, and the record of the services he had done for the state and the people? The state was God’s temple on earth, and our standing in both this world and the next was determined by the extent to which we exerted ourselves for its sake.

  Meanwhile, the peace and quiet of his matrimonial life did not last long. However much he deceived himself and hoped for the best, the difficulties were predictable. He reproached his wife, “Qadriyya, you drink too much.”

  She looked at him with astonishment.

  “Yes, I know, and I’ve always done so.”

  “It’s never too late to overcome our bad habits,” he said hopefully.

  “Not worth the effort.”

  “But it is,” he went on in the same vein, “and my hope is to see you praying and fasting. We need God’s blessing.”

  “I believe in God,” she retorted angrily. “And I know He is merciful and forgiving.”

  “You are a respectable woman, and a respectable woman wouldn’t get drunk every night.”

  “How often then does a respectable woman get drunk?”

  “She shouldn’t at all.”

  She gave a hoarse laugh, and then quickly her look darkened and she said wistfully, “It’s hopeless!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We can’t hope to have a child. It’s too late.”

  He was conscious of sharing her sorrow but said, “We can still live happily.”

  She made a halfhearted attempt to keep off the drink but went on much as before. Indeed, Othman’s renewed absorption in his work and her brooding about the dreadful emptiness of life without companionship may have made her an even worse addict than she already was. One evening Othman was appalled to see her taking opium.

  “No!” he screamed.

  “Let things be!” she said sharply.

  “Since when have you been…” he inquired anxiously.

  “Since Noah and his Flood.”

  “But…”

  “Oh, lay off! It’s stronger than death.”

  “But death and opium are one and the same.”

  “I don’t care,” came the reckless answer.

  He was overcome with horror. What had he done with himself? He had gone after illusory happiness and now he had to pay the price. It was useless to think of divorce, for that would lead him into a fierce dispute which could finally destroy him.

  “How do you get it?” he asked her.

  She did not reply.

  “So you’re going to those old contacts that were always suspect. Don’t you know how dangerous that can be?”

  “Don’t exaggerate!”

  “Qadriyya, think about it, please! If you do not change your lifestyle, it will be the end of us.”

  To protect his reputation and his future he managed, by a great effort of will and after what nearly amounted to a fight, to get her to a rehabilitation center in Hilwan, where she stayed for a few months until her addiction was cured.

  He imagined she had come back a new woman. But now food
became the only consolation in her life and she ate gluttonously. She kept putting on more and more weight until her body became so grotesquely fat as to invite not just ridicule but pity. He never ceased to worry about her. All day long his attention was divided between her and his work. And he would say sadly to himself, “I have even lost the one thing that made those nights of animal behavior enjoyable, for all that’s left of her now is a miserable wreck: no manners, no faith, no sense, and no taste.”

  He recalled the arguments which some of his politically minded colleagues advanced to justify cases like his wife’s by blaming them on social injustice and class inequality. But he also recalled his own “case.” Did he not grow up, like Qadriyya, poor, helpless, and deprived in every sort of way? Yes, but he discovered at the right time the divine secret in his feeble heart, just as he discovered the eternal wisdom of God and thus found the path of glory along which he walked and suffered in a manner worthy of Man, the creature of Almighty God. For this reason he hardly pitied her and again he asked, “What have I done with myself?”

  What indeed was the meaning of married life without real love, a spiritual bond, the promise of posterity, or even mere human companionship? Then he addressed this warning to himself: “Take it easy! Don’t let your sorrows get the better of you. You are not as strong as you used to be. There’s been a new change, soft as a breeze, but cunning as a fox: it has to do with age, with the passage of time…”

  He thought for a little while and then added: “It is Time we must thank for every achievement, and Time we must blame for every loss…And nought abideth save the face of the Almighty One.”

  Thirty-Four

  As usual he forgot his new promotion completely. Joy disappeared and a cloud of worries built up. The duties of his Director’s job soon became a familiar routine: something that he had to transcend, and quickly, for not much of life was left. Otherwise his service would come to an end while he still stood like a beggar at the door of the Blue Room. Ambition was ruthless and marriage no longer a comfort.