The Beggar, the Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail (30 page)

           

T
he agent advised him to do a bit of bargaining, but he felt a pressing need to make his future secure and so he refused. His share of the selling price of the house would enable him to maintain his present standard of living for ten years at least, and during that long period of time a suitable job might open up for him. None of his three sisters disagreed with the position he had taken, and he was given absolute freedom to accept or reject the offer.

Days went by and he began to get worried. Then the agent brought him the good news that the lady had accepted the quoted price. From the agent's chatter he gathered that Inayat Hanem was the widow of a police officer, but her money had been left to her by her father. Her daughter, Qadriyya, her only child, had been divorced five years earlier without ever having any children. Isa went to visit the lady at home in a building she owned in Sakakini Square.
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The superb, classically styled furniture showed that the family had real prestige, and all the formalities of the sale were settled at a friendly session. Isa pointed to the
picture of the lady's husband. “I knew your late husband,” he said suavely. “When I first started working, I heard enough things about him to convince me that he was a respectable man and loved his homeland.”

This had a very good effect on the two women. Inayat Hanem invited him to stay for a while, and before long the servant brought in some tea and splendid cakes. The old woman expressed her happiness at being able to serve as hostess to one of her late husband's admirers. However, Isa did not sense that his welcome was due to any generosity on her part, and guessed that the invitation was rather more for her daughter's benefit. Qadriyya was sitting quietly and filled up the empty chair very nicely; from time to time, she looked at him drowsily.

“Those days serving in the provinces were really unforgettable,” Inayat Hanem said, “days full of goodness. My late husband earned Saad Zaghlul's esteem, and he was transferred to the Interior in 1924. But he was subjected to the worst kinds of treatment during the periods of revolution.” She went on to praise his intuition. “When Qadriyya's husband came to ask for her hand,” she told Isa to prove her point, “my late husband said he was not happy with him. But I insisted, and so I was responsible for my daughter's bad luck!”

Isa happily took his cue. “How was that, might I ask?”

“He was from a good family, but had a really depraved character. My daughter is a good girl; she looks after the house, and is of a generous disposition. By her very nature, she wasn't prepared when he turned her home into a tavern and gaming den!”

“What bad luck!” Isa said regretfully. “Our Lord will recompense her well for her patience.”

A considerable amount of time passed in this heavily
loaded conversation. Isa asked himself how much he could enjoy a woman like Qadriyya; he could regard her as a kind of lifetime security, and she could undoubtedly be considered a stroke of good fortune when measured against the misfortunes he had suffered.

When he left the house, he was sure that he had made a considerable impression on the two women. Qadriyya needs a husband, he thought with a good deal of sorrow, and I need a wife. He decided to make a few of the usual inquiries, which established that she had been married three times, not just once. The first had lasted for only a month. She had been betrothed to a relative of her father's, and before the marriage was consummated, they had realized that he was after her money and was just taking advantage of her. Her father had forced him to divorce her. The second had lasted for four or five years. Her mother was not prepared to give her daughter any of her money, even though the husband had asked that she should and kept pressing her. She thought that he should be able to take care of his own responsibilities without any help from her, and that these requests were irresponsible and showed some sinister design on his part. The argument had ended in divorce. The third marriage had lasted for six years and seemed likely to last, especially since her mother had changed her policy and gave her enough money and more. But the husband had wanted children, and Qadriyya had given him none; and judging from her previous marriage, probably would never do so. The husband had married again in secret and then told her. This had caused a crisis which could not continue indefinitely and so she was divorced for the third time.

This, then, was Qadriyya's story. However, Isa did not
go into all the details in the corner at El Bodega. “A very presentable woman wants to marry me!” he said.

Their gazes fastened on him like compass needles attracted to a pole.

“She's from a very respectable and wealthy family,” he said gleefully and with a touch of vanity.

“The last quality you mentioned is the one to look for!” said Abbas Sadiq with his ringing voice, as though he were announcing the news.

“I hope you'll be very happy,” said Ibrahim Khairat, smiling to hide his jealous feelings. “We should see about repairing the house now that political hurricanes are about to knock it down!”

This bitter comment irritated him. “Particularly as I haven't got a pen to use to curry favor with my enemies!” he retorted.

They all laughed. He was inundated with questions and began to answer them cautiously until the lies were piling up. He only revealed his real feelings to Samir Abd al-Baqi as they were walking alone together down Sulaiman Pasha Street. He told him the whole, unadulterated truth.

“Aren't you concerned about having children?” Samir asked.

“I need to find a companion and put an end to my loneliness,” Isa responded angrily. “This woman is quite respectable and she's prepared to take me with all my faults. So why shouldn't I accept her with hers? Where can I find a decent girl who'll accept me in my present circumstances?”

He went to see Inayat Hanem to ask for Qadriyya's hand, and found her quite prepared to accept his proposal. “I want to be honest with you,” he said. “Lies are the
enemy of marriage. I have a fair amount of money left in the bank, in addition to my share of the money on the sale of the house. I also have a small pension. At the moment, I haven't got a job, but it's possible that I'll find a decent job in the future. I was expelled from the government, not for reasons having to do with honor but because of blind political partisanship. It wasn't possible for the present regime to spare someone like me whom it regards as being very dangerous!”

“That's fine,” the old lady replied. “We're not worried about money. We prefer work only because it's undesirable to be doing nothing. I've no doubts about your honor whatsoever; my late husband suffered just as you have. My heart tells me that you'll be the best husband for my daughter.”

She did not tell him about her daughter's successive marriages or her sterility. That made him happy. He realized that, if he knew about the bride's faults in advance, later on he wouldn't be able to play the role of the faithful husband whose hopes have been dashed. And that was a very important role to leave open should he later have the chance to regain his influence and prestige!

           

H
e travelled to Ra's al-Barr
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to spend his honeymoon in Inayat Hanem's chalet. Relations among the three of them grew in a way which augured well for the future. From the beginning, he wanted to be a man in every sense of the word. He did not give way on anything which he felt he might regret later on. For that reason, he refused to stay in her mother's house, even though she suggested it, and insisted on living with his wife far away in Dokki, that quarter with its unforgettable memories. He showed a strange courage in telling her quite frankly that they both—he and his wife, that is—had to enjoy her money while she was alive so that they could honestly wish her a long life! He was sticking to his demands till they were all met in full; the reason why the mighty party had been ruined, he told himself, was that it had been too tolerant toward the end of its life, a life which had otherwise been marked by an obstinate persistence.

He was seeing Ra's al-Barr for the first time in his life.
He was struck by its special character, the way it combined the beauties of the city, the countryside, and the shore. The place where the Nile and the sea came together fascinated him, and so did the all-embracing quiet, like some happy dream, the fresh faces, and the dry, gentle breeze which seemed somehow to infringe on the house's sanctity as it permeated the hospitable walls. He did not find any of his friends on a summer vacation, and so he devoted all his time to his family. He found his marriage a great success and felt he had a powerful influence over his wife. For the first time, he found it irksome to be idle once he discovered that life in the house was revolving around an axis other than his own. He found out that neither his personality nor his wife's love of him, nor the way in which his mother-in-law adapted to his wishes, could drive this painful feeling away. In the old days, he had openly lived like a notable with his money, but now everyone was looking at his wife and her money.

No one would believe that he could lead a life of luxury forever with his share from the sale of the house and his pension. He started hiding his thoughts behind loud laughter and a pretense of naïveté and trust. However, he was quite sure that his life would not go on like this for long, and that he had to arouse his dormant ambitions and embark upon some enterprise worthy of himself.

He learned everything about his wife by living with her. She emerged as a past master at cooking and making clothes. She filled him up with different kinds of food, especially sweetmeats, which she was particularly good at making. She was gluttonous and infected the people with whom she ate with the same vice. Her prowess at innocent
games like backgammon and conquian
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gave her a great deal of pleasure. She was a devotee of the cinema and the comic theater even though her primary education had been almost completely erased from her memory; all she retained of it was a meager ability to read and to write a poor letter. A woman in every sense of the word, she had a fiery temperament, allowing him no complaints on that score. However, he did worry about the way she jumped down his throat every time she could. It seemed that she had an unconscious desire to make a husband, father, and son out of him at one and the same time; this may have had something to do with her sad but overwhelming longing for children, and the way she expressed her suppressed emotions through worried looks and sudden nervous movements that did not suit her staid and ample person. Misery, Isa thought, seems to be the greatest common denominator among people everywhere; and then he thought how insignificant appearances really are. What could be the hidden reason for this absurdity? he wondered; it is fortunate that we can at least hide our thoughts from other people. I wonder what ideas about me are going around in that small head of hers covered with thick hair. Would she be upset, for example, if she knew the real reasons for my having to give up my post?

He thought of Salwa and the wound she had gouged in his heart, and felt even more unnerved. He thought of Riri as well; he frowned bitterly, and a black look came over his face. He was aware of his own limitless insignificance, and recalled how the ministry used to quake when he got out of his government Chevrolet in the morning. He also remembered a day when he had wanted to put himself forward
as a candidate for the al-Wayiliyya district. But Abd al-Halim Pasha Shukri had advised him to hold off till the coming elections because he was sure that he would be nominated as under secretary in the ministry!

One day, the radio surprised him by announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company. His interest rose to boiling point, and he started panting apprehensively as in the old days. Before long, he was immersed in the same enthusiasm which was engulfing everyone. He longed to see his absent friends so that he could discuss the situation with them. He acknowledged in a daze that it was something of almost unbelievable significance and importance, and there his mind stopped. His heart buried itself inside him like an invalid, and a feeling of jealousy gnawed away at him. He felt alarmed every time a peak was reached in the present which would compare with those peaks in history which served as the backcloth for his life's memories. He felt an intense pain as he experienced the tug-of-war between the two sides of his own split personality. He wondered what the consequences might be, and tried to ask himself what his stand was in relation to them. But he soon fled from this inner struggle by sharing the news with his wife and her mother. However, he found they had no reaction to the events, and he hurried to the refrigerator to get something to drink.

In the middle of September, he returned to Cairo with his senses bloated. He had noticeably gained weight. He walked past his old home on his way to his new house in Dokki, and sad memories came flooding back. All his friends now had young, educated wives, and he began to exchange visits with them. Qadriyya was especially admired because of her social standing and
wealth. Samir Abd al-Baqi asked him how he liked married life.

“It's fine,” he replied after a diplomatic pause, “but…”

“But?”

“I doubt if any man could stand it without a job or children.”

The Jews attacked Sinai. The papers slapped that in his face one morning, and the news staggered him. He sat down by the radio and followed the news with dwindling attention; it had such an effect on him that he was almost babbling. Thoughts spun around inside his head till he felt dizzy. Yes indeed, he thought, the fate of the revolution is swaying in the balance. However, his own nationalist feelings burst out and overwhelmed everything else; he showed a rage worthy of an old nationalist almost overtaken by death, an old nationalist who was suffering even though he had been tarnished because of Egypt. His feet clung to the edge of the abyss which threatened to annihilate his own country. He pushed the revolution and its fate out of his mind so that he could keep his feelings completely responsive. Through the sheer force of his will, he eliminated those contradictory emotions which were spreading beneath the stream of his turbulent consciousness. Turning toward his wife, he was astonished to see how unconcerned she seemed and how completely she was bound up in the routine of her daily life. She only came out of it when she asked scornfully, “War and raids again?”

He treated the whole thing as a joke and teased her to calm his nerves. “You're very concerned about getting food ready,” he said. “Tell me, how would the world be if everyone behaved like you?”

“Wars would stop!” she replied simply.

In spite of his anxiety, he managed to laugh. “Qadriyya, you're not worried about public affairs,” he said, feeling the urge to make a joke. “I mean things involving the people and our country.”

“It's enough for me to look after you and your home.”

“Don't you love Egypt?”

“Of course!”

“Don't you want our Army to win?”

“Of course. Then we'll have some peace again.”

“But don't you even want to think about it?”

“I've got quite enough to worry about.”

“Tell me how you would feel if the Jews were trying to take over your mother's property!”

“What a terrible thought,” she replied with a laugh. “Have we killed any of them?”

He found it all very amusing, and it helped to relieve his tense feelings. Even though the sky was very overcast, they went to visit Inayat Hanem in Sakakini and had lunch with her. They left before it got dark. They were standing in the square looking for a taxi when the siren went off. She gripped his arm. “Let's go back,” she whispered in a shaky voice.

They returned to her mother's building. As they were climbing the stairs, an antiaircraft gun began firing. She shuddered and his heart jumped violently. They all gathered in a room with the blinds closed.

“From one war to the next,” Inayat Hanem protested, “life is lost. Sirens, antiaircraft guns, bombs. Wouldn't it be a good idea for us to seek refuge in another country?”

They stayed there in the darkness with dry throats. Four guns boomed out in the distance.

“This generation will enter Paradise without any Day of Reckoning!” her mother continued.

How could the Jews dare to attack Egypt, Isa asked himself in despair, when she had prepared herself with such an army?