attached to the topic, he said, 'Let me revert to an old subject. Do you still persist in your mistaken opinion about private lessons?'
Kamal always felt uncomfortable and uneasy when forced to disagree openly with one of his father's ideas. He replied gently, 'We've finished discussing that.'
'Every day friends ask if you won't give their children private lessons. You shouldn't reject honest work. Private lessons are a source of substantial income for teachers. The men asking for you are some of the most distinguished inhabitants of this district.'
Kamal said nothing, but his face showed his polite refusal. His father asked regretfully, 'You refuse and waste your time with endless reading and writing for free. Is that appropriate for an intelligent person like yourself?'
At this point Amina told Kamal, 'You ought to love wealth as much as you love learning'. Then, smiling proudly, she reminded al-Sayyid Ahmad, 'He's like his grandfather. Nothing equaled his love of learning.'
Her husband grumbled, 'The grandfather again! I mean, washe an important theologian like Muhammad Abduh?'
Although she knew nothing about this distinguished modern reformer, she replied enthusiastically, 'Why not, sir? All our neighbors came to him with their spiritual and worldly concerns.'
Al-Sayyid Ahmad's sense of humor got the better of him. He laughed and said, 'There are more religious scholars like him than you can shake a stick at.'
The woman's protest was conveyed by her face, not her tongue. Kamal smiled affectionately but uneasily. He asked their permission to depart and left the room. In the sitting room Na'ima stopped him, wishing to show him her new dress. While she went to get it, he sat down beside Aisha to wait. Like the rest of the family, he indulged Na'ima in order to humor Aisha. But he was also as fond of this beautiful girl as he had been of her mother in the old days. Na'ima appeared with the dress, which he spread out in his hands. He examined it appreciatively and gazed at its owner with love and affection. He was struck by her gentle but extraordinary beauty, which purity and delicacy made magnificently luminous.
Kamal left the room with a heavy heart. It was sad to watch a family age. It was hard to see his father, who had been so forceful and mighty, grow weak. His mother was wasting away and disappearing into old age. He was having to witness Aisha's disintegration and downfall. The atmosphere of the house was charged with warning signs of misery and death.
He ascended the stairs to the top floor, which he called his apartment. He lived there alone, going back and forth between his bedroom and his study, both of which overlooked Palace Walk. He removed his clothes and put on his house shirt. Wrapping his robe around him, he went to the study, where a large desk with bookcases on either side stood near the latticed balcony. He wanted to read at least one chapter of Bergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion and to revise for the final time his monthly column in the magazine al-Fikr. This one happened to be about Pragmatism. The happiest part of his day was the period he devoted to philosophy. Lasting until midnight, it was the time as he put it when he felt like a human being. The rest of his day spent as a teacher in al- Silahdar School or in satisfying various needs of daily life was the stamping ground of the animal concealed inside him. That creature's goals were limited to self-preservation and the gratification of desires.
He neither loved nor respected his career but did not openly acknowledge his annoyance with it, especially not at home, for he wished to deprive people of the opportunity of rejoicing at his misfortune. All the same he was an excellent teacher who had won everyone's respect, and the headmaster had entrusted some administrative chores to him. Kamal jokingly accused himself of being a slave, for a slave might have to master work he did not like. The truth was that his desire to excel, which had stayed with him from his youth, compelled him to work hard for recognition. From the beginning he had resolved to win the respect of his pupils and colleagues, and he had achieved that goal. Indeed he was both respected and loved, in spite of his large head and prominent nose. Without any doubt, they or his painful self-consciousness about them were primarily responsible for his powerful determination to fashion a dignified persona. Realizing that these features would cause trouble, he had steeled himself to defend them against the plots of troublemakers. He did not escape the occasional gibe or taunt in class or on the playground but countered these attacks with an unflinching resolve softened by his innate sympathy for others.
His ability to explain the lessons in a way students could understand and his selection of interesting and engaging topics related to the nationalist movement or to memories of the revolution also swayed public opinion among the pupils in his favor. These factors as well as his firmness when it was necessary nipped rebellion in the bud. At first he had been hurt by the taunts, which were extremely effective at stirring up forgotten sorrows, but he was pleased by the high status accorded him by the youngsters, who regarded him with respect, love, and admiration.
His monthly column in al-Fikr magazine had caused him another problem, for he had to worry about the reaction of the headmaster and the other teachers. They might ask if his presentation of ancient and contemporary philosophical ideas that occasionally seemed critical of accepted beliefs and customs was compatible with a teacher's responsibilities. Fortunately none of these colleagues read al-Fikr. He realized at last that only a thousand copies of each issue were printed, of which half were exported to other Arab countries. That fact encouraged him to keep writing for the magazine, without fear of attacks or of losing his job.
During these brief nocturnal periods the English-language teacher at al-Silahdar School was transformed into a liberated voyager who traversed the limitless expanses of thought. He read, pondered, and jotted down observations that he later incorporated into his monthly columns. His efforts were motivated by a desire to learn, a love for truth, a spirit of intellectual adventure, and a longing for alleviation of both the nightmare engulfing him and the sense of isolation concealed within him. He escaped his loneliness by adopting Spinoza's notion of the unity of existence and consoled himself for his humiliations by participating in Schopenhauer's ascetic victory over desire. He put his sympathy for Aisha's misery into perspective by devouring Leibniz's explanation of evil and quenched hisheart's thirst for love by appealing to Bergson's poetic effusions. Yet this continuous effort did not succeed in disarming the anxiety that tormented him, for truth was a beloved as flirtatious, inaccessible, and coquettish as any human sweetheart. It stirred up doubts and jealousy, awakening a violent desire in people to possess it and to merge with it. Like a human lover, it seemed prone to whims, passions, and disguises. Frequently it appeared cunning, deceitful, harsh, and proud. When he felt too upset to work, he would console himself by saying, 'I may be suffering, but still I'm alive…. I'm a living human being. Anyone who deserves to be called a man will have to pay dearly in order to live.'
117
Looking over the ledgers, keeping the books, and balancing the previous day's sales were all tasks Ahmad Abd al-Jawad performed as expertly and exactly as ever, but he accomplished them with greater difficulty now that he was old and sick. He looked almost pitiable as he sat hunched over his ledgers, beneath the framed inscription reading 'In the Name of God,' his gray mustache almost concealed by his large nose, which looked bigger now because of the thinness of his face. The appearance of his assistant, Jamil al-Hamzawi, almost seventy, was even more pathetic, and the moment he finished waiting on a customer, he would collapse, breathless, on his chair.
Ahmad told himself rather resentfully, 'If we were civil servants, our pensions would spare us work and effort at our age'. Raising his head from the accounts, he announced, 'Sales are still off because of the economic crisis.'
Al-Hamzawi pursed his pale lips with annoyance and said, 'No doubt about it. But this year's better than last year, and that was better than the one before. Praise God in any event.'
Merchants called the period commencing with 1930 the days of terror. Isma'il Sidqy had dominated the country's politics, and scarcity had governed its economy. From morning to night there had been news of bankruptcies and liquidations. Throwing up their hands in dismay, businessmen had wondered what the morrow had in store for them. Al-Sayyid Ahmad was definitely one of the lucky ones. Although bankruptcy had threatened him year after year, he had never gone over the brink.
'Yes, praise God in any event.'
He noticed that Jamil al-Hamzawi was gazing at him in a strange, hesitant, and embarrassed way. What could be on the man's mind? Al-Hamzawi stood up to move his chair closer to the desk. Then, sitting down again,
