How startled he had been by her encouragement, which, implied that she agreed with the decision. She had congratulated him, saying, 'Now you've become a man. You have a right to a bed of your own'. Who said it would make him happy to become a man or that he craved a bed of his own? Although he had soaked his first private pillow with his tears and warned his mother he would never forgive her so long as he lived, he had never dared slip back into his former bed. He knew that behind that treacherous, tyrannical action crouched his father’s unalterable will. How sad he had been. The dregs of sorrow embittered his dreams. How furious he had been with his mother, not just because it was impossible for him to be furious at his father but because she was the last person he thought would disappoint his hopes. She knew, though, how to appease him and gradually cheer him up.
At first she took care not to leave him until sleep made off with him. She would tell him, 'We haven't been separated the way you claim. Don't you see that we're together? We'll stay together always. Nothing but sleep will separate us. It did that even when we were in one bed'.
Now the sorrow had sunk below the surface of his emotions. He had accepted his new life, although he would not allow her to leave until he had used up all his tricks to make her stay the longest possible time. He held her hand as avidly as a child grasping his toy when other children are trying to snatch it away. She kept on reciting verses from the Qur'an with a hand on his head until sleep took him by surprise.
She bade him good night with a tender smile and went to the next room. She opened the door gently and looked toward the blurred shape of the bed on the right. She asked softly, 'Are you both asleep?'
She could hear Khadija’s voice reply, 'How can I fall asleep when Miss Aisha’s snoring fills the room?'
Then Aisha’s voice was heard, protesting sleepily, 'No one has ever heard me snore. She keeps me awake with her constant chatter'.
Their mother said critically, 'Have you forgotten my advice to cease your banter when it’s time to go to sleep?'
She closed the door again and went to the study. She knocked on the door gently. Then she opened it and poked her head in to ask with a smile, 'Do you need anything, sir?'
Fahmy raised his head from the book and thanked her, his face aglow with a charming smile. She closed the door and crossed the sitting room to the outer hall, before climbing the stairs to the top floor, where her husband’s bedroom was. The Qur'an verses she was reciting preceded her.
12
When Yasin left the house he naturally knew where he was going, since he went there every evening. He appeared, however, to have no idea where he was heading. He was always like this when walking in the street. He went along slowly in a friendly, complaisant manner. He strutted vainly and proudly, as though never forgetting for a moment his enormous body, his face radiating vitality and manliness, his elegant garments that received more than their fair share of attention, the fly whisk with its ivory handle that never left his hand winter or summer, and his tall fez tilted to the right so it almost touched his eyebrows.
As he walked, he was also in the habit of lifting his eyes but not his head to spy out what might just possibly be hiding behind the windows. By the time he got to the end of a street he would feel dizzy from moving his eyes around so much. His passion for the women he encountered was an incurable malady. He scrutinized them as they approached and gazed after their bodies as they drew away. He would get as agitated as a raging bull and then forget himself. He could no longer conceal his intentions discreetly. In time Uncle Hasanayn, the barber, Hajj Darwish, who sold beans, al-Fuli, the milkman, al-Bayumi, the drinks vendor, Abu Sari', who roasted seeds for snacks, and others like them noticed what was happening. Some of them joked about it, and others criticized him. The fact that Ahmad Abd al-Jawad was a neighbor and highly regarded by them gave them a reason to close their eyes and pardon Yasin.
The young man’s vital forces were so powerful that they dominated him if he was otherwise at liberty. At no time did they grant him any relief from their proddings. He continually felt their tongues burning against his senses and consciousness. They were like a jinni on his back, guiding him wherever it wished. All the same it was not a jinni that frightened or upset him. He did not wish to be freed from it. In fact, he might even have desired more like it.
His jinni quickly disappeared and changed into a gentle angel when he approached his father’s store. There he kept his eyes to himself and walked normally. He was polite and modest. He walked faster and did not let himself be distracted by anything. When he passed the door of the shop, he looked inside. There were many people present, but his eyes met those of his father, who sat behind his desk. He bowed respectfully and saluted his father politely. The man answered his greeting with a smile. Then Yasin continued on his way as delighted with this smile as though he had received an unparalleled boon.
The fact was that his father’s accustomed violence, even though it had undergone a noticeable change since the youth joined the corps of government employees, still remained in Yasin’s opinion a form of violence moderated by civility. The bureaucrat had not freed himself from his former fear, which had filled his heart when he was a schoolboy. He had never outgrown his feeling that he was the son and the other man the father. Huge as he was, he could not help feeling tiny in his father’s presence, like a sparrow that would tremble if a pebble fell. As soon as he got past his father’s store and safely out of sight, Yasin’s airs returned. His eyes began to flutter about again, not discriminating between fine ladies and women who sold doum palm fruit and oranges on the street. The jinni controlling him was wild about women in general. It was unassuming and equally fond of refined and humble women. Although they resembled the ground on which they sat in their color and filth, even the women who sold doum palm fruit and oranges occasionally possessed some beautiful feature. They might have rounded breasts or eyes decorated with kohl[8]. What more could his jinni wish for than that?
He headed toward the Goldsmiths Bazaar and then to al-Ghuriya. He turned into al-Sayyid Ali’s coffee shop on the corner of al-Sanadiqiya. It resembled a store of medium size and had a door on al-Sanadiqiya and a window with bars overlooking al-Ghuriya. There were some padded benches arranged in the corners. Yasin took his place on the bench under the window. It had been his favorite for weeks. He ordered tea. He sat where he could look out the window easily without arousing suspicion. He could glance up whenever he wished at a small window of a house on the other side of the street. It was quite possibly the only shuttered window that had not been carefully closed. This oversight was not surprising since the window belonged to the residence of Zubayda the chanteuse. Yasin was not ready for the chanteuse herself. He would need to pass patiently and persistently through many more stages of wantonness before he could aspire to her. He was watching for Zanuba to appear. She was Zubayda’s foster daughter. She played the lute and was a gleaming star in the troupe.
The period of his employment with the government was a time full of memories and came to him after the long, obligatory asceticism he had endured out of respect for his father and the frightening shadow he cast on his life. Thereafter, he had plunged into the Ezbekiya entertainment district like water down the falls, in spite of the harassment of the soldiers brought to Cairo by the winds of war. Then the Australians appeared on the field, and Yasin had been obliged to forsake his places of amusement to escape their brutality. He had been at his wits' end and had begun to roam the alleys of his neighborhood like a madman. The greatest pleasure he could hope for was a woman selling oranges or a gypsy fortune-teller.
Then one day he had seen Zanuba and, dumbfounded, had followed her home. He had confronted her time after time but had almost nothing to show for it. She was a woman, and to him every woman was desirable. Moreover, she was beautiful and so he was wild about her. Even when his eyes were wide open, love for him was nothing but blind desire. It was the most elevated form of love he knew.
He looked out between the bars at the empty window with such apprehension and anxiety that he forgot what he was doing and drank hot tea without waiting for it to cool. He swallowed some and burned himself. He started to breathe out and put the glass back on the brass tray. He glanced about at the other patrons as though implying that their loud voices had disturbed him so much they were responsible for his accident and the reason that Zanuba had not appeared at the window.
'Where could that cursed woman be?' he wondered. 'Is she hiding on purpose? She must certainly know I'm here. She may even have seen me arrive. If she continues to play the coquette right to the very end she'll make today one more day of torture'.
He resumed his stealthy looks at the other men sitting there to see whether any of them had noticed. He
