'The wedding day! That could be the title of a funeral dirge. The heart will be conducted in solemn procession to its final resting place surrounded by flowers, as people pay their last respects with shrieking trills. In the name of love, the young woman raised in Paris will bow before the turbaned shaykh as he recites the opening prayer of the Qur'an. In the name of pride, Satan left paradise.'
Smiling, Kamal said, 'Your excuse is accepted, and your invitation welcomed.'
Isma'il Latif objected loudly: 'Eloquence like this belongs with the seminarians at al-Azhar Mosque. When some people see food on the horizon, they forget they have any cause for complaint and magnanimously begin singing the praises of their hosts, all for the sake of a hearty meal. You're a true writer or philosopher or some other type of beggar like that, but I'm not.'
Then he continued his attack on Husayn Shaddad and Hasan Salim: 'You two are a couple of rascals… a long silence followed by the announcement of an engagement. Huh? Really, Mr. Hasan, you're the long-awaited successor for Tharwat Pasha, who did such a good job of suppressing information when he was Prime Minister.'
Smiling apologetically, Hasan Salim said, 'Husayn himself knew nothing of the matter until only a few days ago.'
Isma'il asked, 'Was this a unilateral engagement, like Great Britain's unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence on February 28, 1922?'
The conquered Egyptian nation as a whole had proudly rejected that declaration, but nominal sovereignty had been thrust upon it, with the inevitable consequences. Kamal laughed out loud.
Winking at Hasan Salim, Isma'il carelessly mangled and mis-attributed a quotation from the prophet Muhammad: 'To accomplish' I don't remember what 'rely on secrecy.' The caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab said that… or the poet Umar ibn Abi Rabi'a, or Omar Effendi down at the department store. God only knows.'
Kamal said suddenly, 'It's customary for matters like these to come to fruition silently, although I must acknowledge that Mr. Hasan once referred to something of this kind in a conversation with me.'
Isma'il gazed at him skeptically. Looking at Kamal with wide eyes, Hasan corrected him: 'It was more like subtle hints.'
Kamal asked himself in amazement how this statement had escaped from his mouth. It was a lie or at best a half-truth. How could he have wished to convince Hasan in this devious manner that he, Kamal, knew about the young man's intentions and had not been surprised or troubled by them? 'What stupidity!'
Staring critically at Hasan, Isma'il told him, 'But I didn't garner a single one of these subtle hints.'
Hasan replied earnestly, 'I assure you that if Kamal found anything in my remarks he considered a reference to a forthcoming engagement, he must have relied on his imagination, not my words.'
Husayn Shaddad laughed loudly. He said to Hasan Salim, 'Isma'il's your lifelong friend. He wants you to realize that even if you have gotten your degree three years ahead of him, that doesn't mean you should begrudge him your secrets or favor others with them instead.'
Smiling as though to conceal his discomfort, Isma'il observed, 'I don't question his friendship, but I'll keep after him so I'm not forgotten in a similar manner on his wedding day.'
Smiling, Kamal said, 'We're friends of both parties. If the bridegroom forgets us, surely the bride won't.'
He spoke to prove to himself that he was still alive. But he was alive with pain, intense pain. Had he ever imagined his love would end in any other way? Certainly not…yet belief in the inevitability of death does not diminish our anguish when it arrives. This was a ferocious, irrational, and merciless pain. He wished he could see it, so he might know where it was concealed or the microbe from which it had emerged. Between seizures of pain he was a victim of lethargy and listlessness.
'When will the ceremony take place?' Isma'il asked the question thai: was running through Kamal's mind, as though he had been delegated to represent Kamal's thoughts.
But Kamal would have to speak too. He commented, 'Yes, it's very important for us to know, so we won't be taken by surprise again. When's the wedding?'
Husayn laughingly asked, 'Why are you two in such a hurry? Let's give the bridegroom a chance to enjoy what's left of his bacheloi days.'
With his customary composure Hasan said, 'First of all, I need to learn whether I'm to stay in Egypt or not.'
Husayn Shaddad explained, 'He's going to be appointed either to the attorney general's staff or to the diplomatic corps.'
'Husayn seems delighted with this engagement,' Kamal reflected. 'I can assert that I hated him, if only momentarily, for having betrayed me. Has anyone double-crossed me?
Everything seems such a confusion. But this evening I'll be alone….'
'Which would you prefer, Mr. Hasan?'
'Let him choose whatever he wants…judicial service, diplomatic corps, the Sudan… Syria if possible.'
'Working as a prosecutor somewhere would be an insult. I'd prefer to be a diplomat.'
'It would be good if your father understood that clearly, so he can concentrate on getting you into it'. This sentence too jumped out of Kamal's mouth. No doubt it was on target. He would have to get control of his nerves. Otherwise he would find himself embroiled in a public dispute with Hasan. He would also have to keep Husayn Shaddad's feelings in mind, for these two now formed a single family. How cruel this stabbing pain was!
Isma'il shook his head sorrowfully and said, 'These are your last days with us, Hasan. After a lifelong relationship, this comes as a sad end.'
How stupid it was of Isma'il to think that sorrow could influence a heart grazing in the beloved's oasis.
'It really is a sad ending, Isma'il.'
'Lie upon lie …' Kamal thought, 'like your congratulations to him. In this respect the merchant's son and the son of the superior court judge are equal.'
He asked, 'Does this mean you'll spend your whole life outside the country?'
'That's what I expect. We'll only see Egypt on rare occasions.'
Isma'il marveled: 'What a strange life! Have you thought about the difficulties it will pose for your children?'
'Alas, my heart! Is it right to toss around ideas like that? Does this wretch imagine that the beloved will get pregnant and endure cravings, that her belly will become distended and round, that she'll suffer through labor and give birth? Remember Aisha and Khadija in the final months of their pregnancies? This is blasphemy. Why don't you join an underground assassination society like the Black Hand? Murder's better than blasphemy and more beneficial. Then you'd find yourself in the defendant's dock one day. Presiding over the court would be Salim Bey Sabry, father of your friend the diplomat and father-in-law of your beloved, just as he presided this week over the trial of those accused of killing the supreme commander, Sir Lee Stack. The traitor!'
Husayn Shaddad laughingly asked, 'Should nations cut off diplomatic relations so the children of diplomats may be raised in their own countries?'
'No, cut off their heads! Abd al-Hamid Inayat, al-Kharrat, Mahmud Rashid, Ali Ibrahim, Raghib Hasan, Shafiq Mansur, and Mahmud Isma'il sentenced to die on the gallows along with Kamal Ahmad Abd al-Jawad… by the Egyptian judge Salim Bey Sabry and the English judge Mr. Kershaw. Assassination is the answer. Do you want to kill or be killed?'
Isma'il cautioned Husayn, 'Your sister's departure will reinforce your father's determination to refuse your request to travel abroad.'
Husayn Shaddad replied confidently, 'My case is making steady progress toward a satisfactory solution.'
Ai'da and Husayn in Europe at the same time … he was going to lose his true love and his best friend. 'Your spirit will search for your beloved and not find her. Your intellect will search for your companion without finding him either. You'll live alone, exiled to the ancient district, like the echo of a yearning on the loose for generations. Ponder the pains lying in wait for you. It's time for you to harvest the fruit of the dreams planted in your gullible heart. Beseech God to make tears a cure for sorrows. If you can, string your body up with a hangman's ropes or put it at the front of a destructive force unleashed on the enemy. Tomorrow you'll find your spirit's empty — as empty as you once discovered al-Husayn's tomb to be. What a disappointment! Sincere patriots are hanged, while sons of traitors are made ambassadors.'
As though to himself, Isma'il Latif remarked, 'There'll be no one in Egypt except me and Kamal, and Kamal's not reliable, because his best friend before, after, or besides Husayn is the book.'
