factory workers. This means that in his stories the proletariat is in the spotlight.'
'But he limits himself to description and analysis. Compared to real struggle, his work is passive and negative.'
This girl was a firebrand! She appeared to be extremely serious. Where was her feminine side?
'What would you want him to write?'
'Have you read any modern Soviet literature? Have you read anything by Maxim Gorky?'
He smiled but did not reply. There was no reason for him to feel embarrassed. He was a student of sociology, not of literature. Besides, she was several years his senior. How old was she? She might be twenty-four, or older.
She said, 'This is the type of literature you should read. I'll lend you some if you want.'
'I'd be delighted.'
She smiled and said, 'But a liberated man must be more than a reader or a writer. Principles relate primarily to the will… the will above all other things.'
Even so, he was aware of her elegance. Although she did not use makeup, she was as fastidious about her appearance as any other girl and her lively breasts were as attractive and fascinating as any other ones. But not so fast… didn't the principles that he espoused distinguish him from other men?
'Our class is perverse,' he thought. 'We're unable to see women from more than one perspective.'
'I'm delighted to have met you and predict that we will have many opportunities to work together closely.'
Smiling in a way that was quite feminine, she said, 'You're too kind.'
'I really am delighted to have a chance to get to know you'. Yes, he was. But it was important that he not misinterpret his feelings, which might simply be the natural response of a young man like him.
'Be cautious,' he advised himself 'Don't create a dilemma for yourseli like that one in al-Ma'adi, for the sorrow it provoked has yet to be erased from your heart.'
150
'Good evening, aunt.'
He followed Jalila to her preferred spot in the parlor, and once they were installed on the sofa, she called her maid, whom she watched fetch the drinks, prepare the table, and then depart after finishing these tasks. Turning toward Kamal, Jalila said, 'Nephew, I swear that I no longer drink with anyone but you, when you come every Thursday night. I used to enjoy having a drink with your father in the old days. But back then I drank with many others too.'
Kamal commented to himself, 'I'm in dreadful need of alcohol. I don't know what life would be like without it'. Then he told her, 'But whiskey has disappeared from the market, Auntie, along with all other wholesome drinks. They say that one of the last German air raids on Scotland scored a direct hit on the warehouse of an internationally known distillery and that rivers of the best whiskey flowed out.'
'What I wouldn't give for a raid like that! But before you get drunk tell me how al-Sayyid Ahmad is.'
'No better and no worse. Madam Jalila, I hate to see him confined to bed. May our Lord be gracious to him.'
'I'd love to visit him. Can't you summon the courage to give him my best wishes?'
'What an idea! That's all we need to provoke Judgment Day.'
The old lady laughed and asked, 'Do you suppose that a person like al-Sayyid Ahmad is capable of thinking any man pure, especially one of his own brood?'
'Even so, most beautiful of women…. To your health.'
'And yours…. Atiya may be late, since her son is sick.'
'She didn't mention that last time.'
'No. Her son fell ill this past Saturday. The poor darling — her son is the apple of her eye. When anything happens to him, she loses her head.'
'She's a fine woman who has had rotten luck. I've long felt her character convincing evidence that only dire necessity could have forced her to enter this profession.'
In a jovial but sarcastic tone Jalila replied, 'If a man like you is embarrassed by his honorable profession, why should she find hers satisfying?'
The maid passed back through the room with an incense burner wafting a pleasant scent. The moist autumn breeze entered through a window at the rear of the parlor, and the alcohol was bitter but potent. Jalila's comment about his profession reminded him of something he might otherwise have forgotten to tell her, and he said, 'I was almost transferred to Asyut, Auntie. If the worst had happened, I would be packing my bags now to go there.'
Striking her hand against her breast, Jalila exclaimed, 'Asyut! How do you like those dates! May your worst enemy be sent there. What happened?'
'It has turned out all right, praise God.'
'Your father knows more people in the government ministries than there are ants.'
He nodded his head as if in agreement but did not comment. She stil] pictured his father in his old glory and had no way of knowing that when Kamal had informed his father of the transfer al-Sayyid Ahmad had lamented, 'No one knows us anymore. What has become of our friends?'
Before telling his father, Kamal had gone to see his old friend Fuad Jamil al-Hamzawi, thinking he might know one of the top men in the Ministry of Education. But the illustrious judge had told him, 'I'm very sorry, Kamal. Since I'm a judge, I can't ask anyone for favors.'
With enormous embarrassment, Kamal had finally contacted his nephew Ridwan, and that same day the transfer had been rescinded. What an illustrious young man he was! They were both employed by the same ministry at the same rank, but Kamal was thirty-five and Ridwan only twenty-two. But what could a teacher in an elementary school expect? It was no longer possible for him to find consolation from philosophy or from claiming to be a philosopher. A philosopher is not a parrot who merely repeats what other philosophers have said. Any current graduate of the Arts Faculty could write as well as or better than he did. He had once hoped a publis her would bring out a collection of his essays, but those didactic works were no longer of any particular value. How many books there were nowadays…. In that ocean of learning he was an invisible drop. He had grown so weary that boredom oozed from every pore. When would his carriage reach death's station? He looked at the glass in his aunt's hand and then at her face, which clearly revealed her considerable age.
He could not help marveling at her and asked, 'What does drinking do for you, Auntie?'
Displaying her gold teeth, she answered, 'Do you call what I'm doing now 'drinking'? That time has passed. Liquor no longer has any taste or effect. It's like coffee. Nothing more or less. Toward the beginning of my career I once got so drunk at a wedding party in Birguwan that the members of my troupe were forced to carry me to my carriage at the end of the evening. May our Lord spare you anything like that!'
'Liquor's still the best thing a bad world has to offer,' he reflected. Then he asked, 'Have you experienced total intoxication? I used to reach it in two glasses. Today it takes me eight. I don't know how many I'll need tomorrow. But it's an absolute necessity, Aunt. Once intoxicated, the wounded heart dances with joy.'
'Nephew, you have a sensitive heart that responds joyfully to music, even without any alcohol.'
His heart…joyful? What of his sorrow… that constant companion? What of the as hes left from the bonfire of his hopes? … As a bored man, he had no goal beyond filling himself with liquor, in either this parlor or that bedroom, once the woman tending her sick son arrived. He and his favorite prostitute had reached the same point in life that of a person whose life was not worth living.
'I'm afraid Atiya won't come.'
'She'll come. When someone's ill, there's even more need for money.'
'What a response!' he thought. But she did not give him a chance to brood about it, for, turning toward him, she examined him with interest for a time. Then she said in a low voice, 'It's only a matter of days.'
Without understanding what she actually meant, he replied, 'May God grant you a long life and never deprive me of you.'
Smiling, she said, 'I'm going to give up this life.'
