Khan Al-Khalili (15 page)

Why did God create people like him who could not handle life? In this moment of despair he came up with a new tactic: people who were scared of staring and smiling,
he told himself, could always write. Why didn’t he try writing to her? The idea appealed to him, and he gave the matter serious thought. All he would have to do was to write a few words on a piece of paper, fold it up carefully, and toss it up to the balcony. That was fine. But how was he to begin? Should he say, “My beloved Nawal”? No, that would be too familiar. How about “Dear Nawal”? No, mentioning the name was still forward of him. So just “My dear”? That was more in line with his sense of decorum. But then what? Letters usually began with greetings, so he could do that, but then what? Should he declare his love to her? No, that was something to keep under wraps for the time being. He should begin by expressions of admiration, but how was he supposed to compose the right expressions, the apposite phrases? What kind of style would impress her? What choice of words would have the right impact on her? And, even supposing he managed to solve all those issues, what was he going to ask her? To send him a reply? To meet him? In fact, there was something else that was far more important than any of these questions. What led him to believe that she would welcome the receipt of such a letter? How was he to know that she would not tear it up and throw it right in his face? Either that, or she might even get angry, in which case she would reveal his secret and expose his behavior. His ever-diffident mind had been on the point of grabbing a pen, but now it retreated to seek a safer solution.

The problem was that the window still maintained its loyal connection to the balcony above; both of them seemed to be adhering to a pledge that neither of them had actually undertaken. Eyes had met; acquaintance and even
familiarity had followed. Spirits had felt a mutual attraction unimpeded by either silence or shyness. By now he had started to believe that—taking his beloved’s sweet and unsullied glances into consideration—he had misjudged her teacher, Ahmad Rashid, allowing his emotions and thoughts to get the better of him. That young man was much too involved in socialist ideas and the eradication of outworn beliefs to be bothered about matters of love and flirtation. That thought allowed him a brief taste of the purest nectar of hope, and soon afterward fate dealt his hope and self-confidence a boost.

One afternoon late in Ramadan his father kept him busy and he wasn’t able to make his expected appearance by the window. Next day he waited patiently at the normal time, but discovered that the balcony was shut! He waited and waited in the hope that the balcony would open and the girl come outside, but it was in vain. He would have thought that the same kind of thing was keeping her inside as had been the case with him the day before, but he caught a glimpse of her shadow behind the balcony door. It was now clear that she had shut the balcony door on purpose just as he had done with the window the day before. All of which meant, if he was interpreting things correctly, that she had noticed his absence yesterday; in fact, she may have been annoyed and decided to get her revenge. And now, here she was, doing just that. He was inclined to believe this interpretation of events, and yet the revenge did not cause him any anguish; quite the contrary in fact, he was utterly delighted. He was so happy that he started snapping his fingers and pacing his room totally oblivious to everything around him.

The next day he approached the window with an entirely
new outlook, full of confidence and hope. He could feel that she was there even before he lifted his eyes. He had decided to give her a quizzical look, as though to ask her, “Why did you disappear yesterday?” Now was the time to implement the plan. He lifted his small head, and their eyes locked on to each other. He summoned every ounce of courage in his body to raise his eyebrows and move his head in a questioning gesture. He gathered his determination, as one does just before plunging for a dive in a swimming pool for the first time. But he waited just a moment too long, and his mind snatched the opportunity to inject a sense of doubt and fear into his thinking. He was afraid of making a mess of things once again. With that his determination flagged, and he abandoned his plan.

That night he blamed himself for what had happened and banged his bald pate. “Where’s your masculinity?” he asked himself angrily. Here he was in love with her, with her honey-colored eyes, her sweet naive looks, her sense of fun. He loved her because his dreams—they being the sole art in this world that he had truly mastered—refused to be apart from her for a single hour. He loved her because he was hungry—at the age of forty—and hunger was a primary instigator of dreams.

T
hen came the Night of Power during the blessed month of Ramadan. The family celebrated it in style: the breakfast table was graced with roasted chicken and a tray of kunafa. At suppertime Sitt Dawlat started by wishing her husband good health and her children long life and happiness. Akif Effendi, the father of the household, went to the al-Husayn Mosque to witness the celebration put on by a group of Qur’an readers on this most favored of nights.

The night was a happy one, but just before dawn, as the family was going to bed, the air-raid sirens went off. They put on their clothes and rushed down to the shelter along with all the other inhabitants of the apartment building. By now they were all so thoroughly familiar with the route that they did not need any help from servants. Ahmad felt both alarmed and secretly happy, the latter because the shelter would bring him that much closer to Nawal; he could feast his eyes on her beloved countenance. Once in the shelter, he noticed Ahmad Rashid and Sayyid Arif
chatting, so he went over and joined them. They were standing close to the most visible corner of the room.

“Have you heard what Sayyid Effendi has just told me?” Ahmad Rashid asked as soon as he saw Ahmad Akif. “He says that Sulayman Ata was engaged to the daughter of the perfumer today!”

“That’s right,” said Sayyid Arif with a smile, “a truly blessed event!”

“Just see how money can have its way with beauty,” Ahmad Rashid commented angrily. “The very worst aspect of this world of ours is the way lofty virtues and values can be subjected to animal necessities. How could that lovely girl have allowed herself to give her hand to such a foul ape? Their union is not a real marriage, it’s a double crime: robbery on the one hand and rape on the other. Her beauty will continue to reflect his ugliness, while his ugliness will reflect her crass greed.”

He gave a cryptic smile, then went on, “Such a crime could never be committed in a socialist system!”

Someone else chimed in at this point. “Didn’t they tell us,” he asked angrily, “that the Germans wouldn’t be conducting air raids during Ramadan?”

Sayyid Arif looked in his direction. “The English are bombing Tripoli,” he said, “and they’re Muslims too.” He then turned to his two companions. “There’s no military reason for the English to bomb Tripoli,” he said with complete confidence. “They just want to force the Germans to bomb Cairo!”

Ahmad Akif did not pay any attention to the discussion; but stared silently through the indifferent throng. However, he did not have much time to enjoy it, because a gruff voice
suddenly yelled, “Shut up, everyone! Aircraft noise!” With that, the entire place fell silent, with everyone listening.

“No, it’s not,” another voice chimed in. “That’s the police car!”

“Yes it is,” the first voice insisted. “It’s aircraft noise. Listen!”

Everyone listened, and sure enough, there was the sound of a plane diving from high in the sky. Ahmad’s heart gave a leap. He looked over at his parents; his mother had her eyes aimed at the ceiling, while his father had his closed. Then they heard the sound of an anti-aircraft gun being fired in the distance, followed by intermittent gunfire. For a moment the noise stopped, but then it resumed even louder than before. Now the gunfire was non-stop and completely random. Everyone began to panic and started blathering hysterically.

Someone who was feeling scared tried desperately to sound calm. “That explosion was Almaza for sure,” he said.

Everyone took comfort from what he said, albeit unconsciously.

Ahmad went over to his parents. “How are you, Papa?” he asked, even though he was feeling as scared and edgy as everyone else.

“God our Creator is here!” was his father’s quavering response.

The sound of gunfire continued, and its sources became even more numerous. Sayyid Arif started identifying the source of every single round of fire, as though he was some kind of expert on the subject. “Abbasiya that one,” “Almaza,” “Bulaq,” “that one’s from the Citadel,” and so on.

This was followed by a round of fire that was the
loudest yet. “That’s a German gun,” said Sayyid Arif. “The government purchased it from Germany before the war.”

People started getting aggravated at this kind of talk and told them to stop. The noise intensified, and there were yet more moments of extremely violent gunfire which went on for quite a while. Everyone’s nerves were on edge. In actuality, it was not a very long time, but the tense period involved needed to be measured more in terms of rapid breathing and pounding hearts. It felt as though everyone was carrying the burdens of fate on their shoulders.

Gradually, the gunfire began to slow down, and then it could only be heard from one direction. Finally the last gun fell silent, and silence ensued. No one knew, needless to say, whether the firing would resume or the night’s punishment was at an end. Even so, people who had been feeling as if their very souls had come close to being seared, now began to relax a bit. There was a short period of silence, then the all-clear sirens went off. Everyone stood up, intoning the shahada as they did so.

Ahmad glanced over at his beloved goal. She was looking in his direction, and their eyes met. That made him so happy that it swept away all the traces of fear and panic he had just been feeling. He watched as she went ahead of her family toward the shelter door; when she reached it, she turned and gave him a very meaningful look. With that she went quickly up the stairs. Ahmad was so overjoyed by the situation that he assumed that she wanted him to follow her; after all, eyes are like instincts—they have their own secret and silent language. His innate shyness held him back, and yet the way she had rushed outside gave him
a temporary courage that managed to overcome his shyness and hesitancy.

He headed toward the door ahead of his parents and their servant and made his way up the stairs, wondering all the while if he would run into her in front of the door. What was he supposed to say or do? However, he saw that her shadow had moved several yards away in the direction of the apartment. They were the only two who had left the shelter thus far; if he quickened his pace, he could catch up with her.

In less than a second, he would be able to walk with her along Ibrahim Pasha Street and go up the staircase together, alone. These ideas occurred to him immediately, but he didn’t make a move; actually he did move, but just a few steps. The distance between them actually increased until she was almost at the entrance to the building. Once again his bashfulness got the better of him. He started looking behind him as though asking his parents to catch up and get him out of this fix. With that, all fear, hesitation, desire, and hope came to an end.

In the company of his parents he made his way silently back to the apartment building, feeling a heartfelt sense of regret. As they started climbing the stairs, he looked up sadly, fully aware that if he had only been able to overcome his fears he could have had her to himself. Even so, he was still asking himself what he would have said to her. Just suppose he had plucked up the necessary courage and greeted her, and she in turn had greeted him with a smile, a word, or a gesture—notwithstanding the entire issue of how he should greet her, which posed a problem of its own. What was he supposed to say? “Good morning,”
“Hello!” “Peace be upon you!” or what? Suppose he had done that, and she had replied, then what? Would they have said nothing else until they parted company by the door of his apartment? What are lovers supposed to say in situations like this? How many of them there are! In streets and on boats they whisper and confide in each other, so how was it he had lost the knack of speaking in their favorite tongue?

As he went back to his room, he was full of remorse, but still delighted. In fact, he was veritably drunk with the kind of happiness that is the heart’s most pleasant sensation of all. Whatever the case might be, he could not forget the way her look had issued a call to him—that in itself being one of the wonders of delight in the canons of emotion. In and of itself, that was enough to justify the particular joy he was feeling despite his bashfulness and regret. He glanced over at the window—which by now he was calling “Nawal’s window”—and his besotted heart urged him to look up to the balcony. Opening the window he looked up and, to his astonishment, saw that the door was open, the light in the room was lit, and the girl was standing right by the door. What on earth could have led her to stand by the door at this early hour? He could see her shadow, but the features of her face were obscured because the light was behind her. It was the same with his room, meaning that she could only see his shadow too. That was enough to encourage him to stay and stare at her. He had not been standing there for very long when he had the most wonderful surprise in his whole life: she greeted him with a gesture of her head! He was stunned, but this time it was not enough to stop him; he too nodded his head
in greeting. The girl was obviously shy; as he watched, she went back inside and closed the balcony door. Then the light was turned off. Ahmad just stood there for a while, unaware of either the passage of time or of his own self. Shutting the window, he sank to his knees, placed his palms on his chest, and prayed in a low voice, “O God, praise and thanks be to Thee!”

T
he next morning he woke up exhausted. After all, joy is just like grief—an ancient foe of slumber. He was feeling so happy and full of joy that he simply brushed his tiredness aside. When in the past twenty years had he ever experienced such a joyous morning? He left the house happy and smiling, his heart beating like someone in the prime of youth. Now at last he had become a member of the particular group he had always regarded with envy and hatred: lover and loved. That morning his emotions were pure, completely unclogged by feelings of hatred and rancor. Even if it were just for a short while, he could have some respite from the specters of failure that swooped like bats over his dark memories. He felt no need to argue, confront, or get angry with any of the other employees at work. Instead, a dancing wave of contentment washed away the putrid, stagnant slime that lurked deep inside him.