dealing with personnel officers.'
Yasin said, 'You live like a king, as is only right for a person named after God's friend, the prophet Abraham.'
But Khadija retorted scornfully, 'May our Lord never decree that a man should stay home.'
Zanuba, as usual, intervened with a pleasant word: 'To be forced to stay home is a curse, but a man with a private income has a sultan's life.'
A mischievous gleam in his eyes, Ahmad said, 'Uncle Yasin has a private income and a civil service position too.'
Yasin laughed out loud and replied, 'I have a civil service post and that's all, if you please. My private income! That's over and done with. How can anyone with a family like mine hold on to his fortune?'
Khadija cried out in dismay, 'Your family!'
To end this conversation, which was beginning to get on his nerves, Ridwan turned to Ahmad and said, 'God willing, you'll find us ready to serve you next year when you get your degree.'
Ahmad answered, 'Thank you very much, but I'm not entering government service.'
'How so?'
'A civil service job would kill a person like me. My future lies outside the government.'
Khadija wanted to remonstrate with her son but chose to postpone the argument to another time. Smiling, Ridwan said, 'If you change your mind, you'll find me at your service.'
To show his gratitude, Ahmad raised his hand to his head. Then the maid brought in glasses of cold lemonade. During the moment of silence as they began to sip their drinks, Khadija happened to glance at Karima. She seemed to be noticing the girl for the first time since reassuring herself about Abd al-Muni'm. She asked her niece tenderly, 'How are you, Karima?'
In a melodious voice the girl replied, 'Fine, thanks, Auntie.'
Khadija was about to extol her niece's beauty, but caution restrained her. This was not the first time Zanuba had brought her daughter to visit them since the girl had been staying home after finishing her elementary certificate. Khadija told herself that there was something suspicious about it. Karima was Zanuba's daughter, but Yasin was her father. That fact made the matter a delicate one.
Abd al-Muni'm was too engrossed with his future position to give Karima the attention she deserved, although he was well acquainted with her. Moreover, he had not yet recovered from the death of his wife. And there was no space left in Ahmad'sheart.
Yasin said, 'Karima's still sorry she didn't go to secondary school.'
Frowning, Zanuba said, 'I'm even sorrier than she is.'
Ibrarrjm Shawkat commented, 'The effect the exertion of studying has on girls concerns me. Besides, a girl is going to end up at home. It's only a year or two before Karima will be married off to some lucky fellow.'
'You should have your tongue cut out,' Khadija observed silently. 'He brings up dangerous topics without paying any attention to the consequences. What a situation! Karima is Yasin's daughter and sister to Ridwan, who has done us this important favor. Perhaps there are no grounds for this anxiety, and I'm just imagining things. But why does Zanuba visit us so often, bringing Karima along with her? Yasin's too busy to think up plots, but that woman was raised in a troupe of performers….'
Zanuba responded, 'That's what people used to say. But now all girls go to school.'
Khadija said, 'In our district there are two girls who are studying for advanced degrees, but God knows they are no beauties.'
Yasin asked Ahmad, 'Aren't some of the girls in your department beautiful?'
Ahmad'sheart pounded as the image nestling in his heart appeared before his mind's eye. He answered, 'The love of learning is not restricted to ugly girls.'
Looking toward her father with a smile, Karima said, 'It's all a question of who a girl's father is.'
Yasin laughed and said, 'Bravo, daughter! That's how a good girl talks about her father. That's how your aunt used to speak to your grandfather.'
Khadija said sarcastically, 'It really does make a difference who your father is.'
Zanuba quickly replied, 'Don't blame the girl. Oh, if you could hear the way he talks to his children….'
Khadija said, 'I know.'
Yasin commented, 'I'm a man with his own ideas about child rearing. I'm their father and their friend. I wouldn't want any of my children to tremble from fear when they're with me. Even now I'm ill at ease in my father's presence.'
Ibrahim Shawkat said, 'May God strengthen him and console him for having to stay home. Al-Sayyid Ahmad is a generation all by himself. There's not another man like him.'
Khadija said critically, 'Tell him!'
As if to apologize for not being like his father, Yasin agreed, 'My father is an entire generation all by himself. Alas, he and his friends are now confined to their homes men for whom the whole world wasn't big enough.'
Ridwan said in an aside to Ahmad, 'With the entry of Italy into the war, Egypt's situation has become extremely grave.'
'Perhaps these mock air raids will turn into real ones.'
'But are the English strong enough to turn back the expected Italian advance? No doubt Hitler will leave the task of taking the Suez Canal to Mussolini.'
Abd al-Muni'm asked, 'Will America just stand by and watch?'
'Russia holds the true key to the situation.'
'But she's allied with Hitler.'
'Communism is the enemy of the Nazis, and the evil threatening the world from a German victory is greater than that from a victory by the democracies.'
'They have darkened the world,' Khadija complained. 'May God darken their lives. What are all these things we never knew before? Air-raid sirens! Anti-aircraft guns! Searchlights! These calamities could turn a man's hair white before his time.'
With mild sarcasm, Ibrahim retorted, 'At any rate, in our family nobody goes gray prematurely.'
'That's only true of you.'
Ibrahim was sixty-five now, but compared to al-Sayyid Ahmad, who was only three years his senior, he seemed decades younger.
When the visit was ending, Ridwan instructed Abd al-Muni'm: 'Come see me at the ministry.'
Once the door was closed behind the departing guests, Ahmad told Abd al-Muni'm, 'Be careful not to barge in on him unannounced. Find out how to behave when visiting a minister's secretary.'
His brother did not reply or even look his way.
144
Ahmad had little trouble finding the villa of his sociology professor, Mr. Forster, in the Cairo suburb of al- Ma'adi. On entering, he realized that he was a bit late and that many of the other students had already arrived for this party, which the professor was giving before he returned to England. Ahmad was welcomed by the host and his wife, and the professor introduced Ahmad to her as one of the best students in the department. Then the young man joined the others, who were sitting on the veranda. All levels of the sociology program were represented. As one of the small group promoted to the final year, Ahmad shared with those peers a sense of excellence and of achievement. None of the women students had appeared yet, but he was confident that they would come or at least that his 'friend' would, since she also lived in al-Ma'adi. Glancing at the garden, he saw a long table set on a grassy lawn, which was bordered on two sides by willow and palm trees. Lined up on the table were teapots, containers of milk, and platters of sweet confections and pastries.
He heard a student ask, 'Shall we observe British manners or swoop down on the table like vultures?'
Another replied rather sadly, 'Oh, if only 'Lady' Forster weren't present.'
It was late afternoon, but the weather was pleasant, June's reputation for sultriness notwithstanding. In no time at all the eagerly awaited flock was at the door. As if by design, the only four women students in the
