Khadija added, 'My Lord, how beautiful she is! I've never seen anyone as beautiful.'
'What about her mother?' Aisha asked with a laugh. 'Haven't you seen her mother?'
Khadija frowned to lend dignity to her remarks and said, 'She's more beautiful than you, Aisha. You can't contest that'. Her ironic spirit returned at once, and she continued: 'And I'm more beautiful than either of you.'
'These people are talking about beauty,' Kamal reflected. 'What do they know about its essence? They like certain colors: the whiteness of ivory and the gold of precious ingots. If you ask me about beauty I won't speak of a pure bronze complexion, tranquil black eyes, a slim figure, and Parisian elegance. Certainly not! All those are pretty, but they're nothing but lines, shapes, and colors subject to investigation by the senses and open to comparison. Beauty itself is a painful convulsion in the heart, an abundance of vitality in the soul, and a mad chase undertaken by the spirit until it encounters the heavens. Tell me about this, if you can….'
'Why should the ladies of Sugar Street seek the affection of Mrs. Khadija?' Yasin asked, to stir his sister up again, when he noticed that the conversation was going to leave her in peace. 'Perhaps she does have some good qualities, as her husband has testified, but in general people are attracted by a pretty face and a sweet tongue.'
Khadija threw him a look as if to say, 'If you knew what was good for you, you'd quit'. Sighing audibly, she remarked, 'What more can I ask than God's protection and blessings. I didn't know I had another mother-in-law here.'
Then, to Yasin's surprise, she took up the topic again in a serious vein, explaining, 'I don't have time to waste on visits. The house aud the children consume every moment, especially since my husband pays no attention to either.'
In his own defense, Ibrahim Shawkat said, 'Fear God and don't exaggerate your role in everything. The truth of the matter is that a man with a wife like mine must take an active, defensive role from time to time, whether to protect pieces of furniture from being dusted and cleaned so much they're almost worn away or children from being pushed beyond their capacities. The most recent incident of this kind, as you know, is her thrusting Abd ai-Muni'm into religious school before he's even five.'
Khadija retorted proudly, 'If I had taken your advice, I would have let him stay home till he came of age. There seems to be some hostility against learning in your family. No, darling, my children will be raised like their maternal uncles. I review Abd al-Muni'm's lessons vvith him myself.'
Yasin asked incredulously, 'You review his lessons with him?'
'Why not? Mother went over Kamal's lessons with him in exactly the same way. I sit with him every evening while he recites what he's memorized at school'. She laughingly admitted, 'That also helps me remember the principles of reading and writing, which I fear I may eventually forget.'
Arnina blushed from embarrassment and delight. She looked at Kamal as though begging him for a sign that he remembered those bygone rights. He smiled to show how well he did.'Let Khadija raise her sons the way their uncles were,' Amina told herself. 'Let one of them follow in Kamal's footsteps as he makes his way to university. Let one of them emulate… oh, broken hearts are too weak to bear such dizzying blows. If he had only lived, today he would be a judge or on his way to becoming one. How often he discussed his hopes with you. Or were they your hopes? What has become of all that? If only he had lived, even as an insignificant member of the thronging masses…'
Ibrahim Shawkat told Kamal, 'We're not as bad as your sister makes out. I sat for the primary certificate in 1895, as Khalil did in 1911. In those days the primary certificate was a major achievement, unlike now, when no one finds it impressive. We didn't continue our education because we had no intention of pursuing a career. In other words, we didn't need a career.'
Kamal felt ironic amazement at Ibrahim's words: 'I sat for the primary certificate,' but answered politely, 'This goes without saying.'
'How could learning have any intrinsic value for two happy oxen?' he asked himself. 'The two of you have provided me with a valuable lesson, teaching me that it's possible to love a person I despise and to wish only the best for someone whose principles in life excite my aversion and disgust. I instinctively hate man's animal nature from the depths of my heart. This emotion became a reality once the heavenly breeze brushed against my heart.'
With comic enthusiasm Yasin cried out, 'Long live the old primary certificate!'
'We're in the majority in any case'. Yasin was annoyed to hear Khalil thrust himself, and by implication his brother, among the holders of the primary certificate, which they had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain, but found himself forced to play along.
Khadija said, 'Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad will continue their studies until they receive university degrees. It will be a new era in the Shawkat family. Listen carefully to the sound of these names: Abd al-Muni'm Ibrahim Shawkat and Ahmad Ibrahim Shawkat. Don't they have the same ring to them as Sa'd Zaghlul?'
Ibrahim laughingly shouted, 'Where do you get such wild ambitions?'
'Why not? Wasn't Sa'd Zaghlul Pasha a student at al-Azhar? He went from the student dole to being Prime Minister. One word from him is enough to make everyone sit up and take notice. Nothing's too much for God to achieve.'
Yasin asked ironically, 'Wouldn't you be satisfied if they were as important as the politicians Adli Yeken Pasha and Abdel Khaliq Sarwat Pasha?'
As though seeking refuge with God, she shouted back, 'Traitors? My sons won't be the kind of politicians people chant about night and day to get them removed from office.'
Ibrahim took out a handkerchief from his trousers and wiped his face, which had turned a deeper red from the heat and from the perspiration caused by drinking cold water and hot coffee. As He dried his face he said, 'If a mother's severity is a factor in the creation of great men, then you can already announce the glory awaiting your sons.'
'Would you want me to let them do anything they wish?'
Aisha remarked gently, 'I don't remember Mother ever scold-iug any of us, let alone striking us. Do you?'
Khadija replied sorrowfully, 'Mother never resorted to violence because Papa was there. A mention of him was enough to ensure that his commands were obeyed. But at my house — and yours is just the same the father is present only in name'. She laughed when she made this last comment. 'What can I do when the situation's like that? If the father's a mother, then the mother must be a father.'
Yasin said with delight, 'I'm sure you're successful in your paternity. You a father! I've felt this for a long time without being able to put it into words.'
Khadija pretended to be complimented and retorted, 'Thank you, Miss Bamba Kashar, you seductive songstress.'
'Khadija and Aisha,' Kamal thought. 'What different types…. Consider them carefully. Which do you think better suited to be a model for your beloved? … Ask God's forgiveness! No one can be a model for my beloved. I can't picture her as a housewife. How impossible it is to imagine that!' His beloved in a housecoat, restraining a child, or supervising a kitchen? 'How alarming! How disgusting! She ought to be at ease, oblivious, promenading in a splendid gown through a garden or a park, riding in a car, an angel on a happy, impromptu visit to earth, a unique exemplar of her species, itself unlike any other and known only to my heart. If she is referred to by the same term as these women, it's simply because I don't know the correct one. If her beauty is called by the same name as Aisha's and all the other varieties, that's because I don't know the real name for it. Here is my life, which I consecrate to learning about you. What other thirst for understanding is there beyond that?'
'What do you suppose Maryam's news is?' Aisha asked when she happened to think of her former friend. The name made visibly different impressions on the various people sitting there. Amina's expression changed to reveal her intense annoyance. Yasin pretended not to have heard the question and busied himself with an inspection of his fingernails. Kamal's head swarmed with disturbing memories. It was Khadija who replied coldly, 'What do you expect? She's divorced and has returned to her mother.'
After it was too late, Aisha realized that she had inadvertently tumbled into an abyss and hurt her mother through a slip of the tongue. Her mother had long believed that Maryam and her mother had not been sincere in their grief for Fahmy and might have actually gloated over the family's misfortune, because of al-Sayyid Ahmad's opposition to the proposed engagement between Maryam and his late son. Khadija had been the first to suggest the idea, and her mother had not hesitated to embrace it uncritically. Amina's feelings toward her longtime neighbor
