him. She works with him at that ill-omened magazine. Perhaps she put something in his coffee or water when he wasn't looking. Go and see her yourselves. You be the judge. I've met my match. I returned from the visit scarcely able to see the road because of my chagrin and sorrow.'
'You're making me angry. I won't forgive you for saying such things.'
'Sorry!' Then, quoting the title of a wedding song, she continued: ' 'Sorry, sovereign beauty!' I'm in the wrong! All my life I've been overly critical of other people, and now our Lord has afflicted me with children who suffer from every known defect. I ask the forgiveness of God Almighty.'
'No matter what allegations you make about her family, unlike you they don't make false accusations about other people.'
'Tomorrow, after it's too late, when you've heard everything,' you'll utiderstand that I was right. May God forgive you for insulting, me.'
'You're the one who has done an outstanding job of humiliating me.'
'She's after your money. If she had not come upon a failure like you, the most she could have hoped for would have been a newspaper vendor.'
'She's an editor at the magazine with a salary twice the size of mine.'
'So she's a journalist too! God's will be done! What kind of girl works outside the home except an old maid, a hag, or a woman who apes men?'
'God forgive you.'
'And may He forgive you, too, for all the suffering you're causing us.'
Yasin, who had followed the conversation attentively while twisting his mustache, said at this point, 'Listen, sister. There's no reason to squabble. Let's give Ahmad the candid advice he needs, but arguing won't help matters.'
Ahmad stood up angrily, saying, 'Please excuse me. I'm going to get dressed and go to work.'
Once he was out of the room, Yasin went to sit beside his sister and, leaning toward her, said, 'Quarreling won't do you any good. We can't rule our children. They think they are better and cleverer, than we are. If there's no way to avert the marriage, let him get married. If he's not happy with her, it will be entirely his fault. As you know, I was never able to settle down until I married Zanuba. It's just possible that he has made a wise choice. Besides, we gain understanding from experience not from words'. Then he laughed and corrected himself: 'Although I haven't been enlightened by either words or experience.'
Kamal agreed with Yasin. 'My brother's right.'
Giving him a reproachful look, Khadija asked, 'Is this all you have to say, Kamal? He loves you. If you would talk to him in private….'
Kamal answered, 'I'll leave when he does and have a word with him. But we've had enough quarreling. He's a free man. He has a right to marry any woman he wants. Can you stop him? Are you planning to break off relations with him?'
Smiling, Yasin said, 'The matter's quite simple, sister. He'll get married today and divorced tomorrow. We're Muslims, not Catholics.'
Narrowing her small eyes and speaking through half-closed lips, Khadija said, 'Of course. What attorney doeshe need to defend him besides you? Whoever said that the son takes after his maternal uncle was right.'
Yasin roared out his mighty laugh and said. 'God forgive you. If women were left at the mercy of other females, no girl would ever get married.'
Pointing to her husband, she observed, 'His mother, God rest her soul, chose me for him herself.'
Sighing cheerfully, Ibrahim said, 'And I've paid the price… may God have mercy on her and pardon her.'
Khadija ignored his comment and continued regretfully: 'If only she were pretty! He's blind!'
Laughing, Ibrahim remarked, 'Like his father!'
She turned toward him angrily and snapped, 'You're an ingrate, like all men.'
The man replied calmly, 'No, we're just patient, and paradise belongs to us.'
She shouted at him, 'If you ever enter it, that will be thanks to me, because I taught you your religion.'
Kamal and Ahmad left Sugar Street together. The uncle was skeptical and undecided about this proposed marriage. He could not fault himself for adherence to foolish traditions or for indifference to the principles of equality and human dignity, but still the hideous social reality, which he could not change, was a fact a person could not ignore. In the past he had been infatuated with Qamar, the daughter of Abu Sari', who sold grilled snacks. Despite her charms, she had almost repulsed him with the disagreeable odor of her body. Kamal admired the young man, envying Ahmad's courage, decisiveness, and other qualities that he himself lacked — particularly belief, diligence, and a will to marry. Ahmad could almost have been awarded to the family in compensation for Kamal's stolid negativism. Why did marriage seem so significant to him while for other people it was a normal part of everyday life like saying 'Hello'?
'Where are you going, my boy?'
'To the magazine, Uncle. What about you?'
'Al-Fkr magazine to meet Riyad Qaldas…. Won't you think a little more before taking this step?'
'What step, Uncle? I'm already married.'
'Is that true?'
'It's true. And I'm going to live on the first floor of our house … because of the housing crisis.'
'How provocative!'
'Yes, but she won't get home until after my mother has gone to bed.'
After recovering from the impact of the news, Kamal asked his nephew jovially, 'Did you marry in the manner prescribed by God and His Messenger?'
Ahmad laughed too and replied, 'Of course. We marry and bury according to the precepts of our former religion, but we live according to the Marxist faith'. Then, as they parted, he added, 'You'll like her a lot, Uncle. Once you see her, you can judge for yourself. She's a wonderful personality, in every sense of the word.'
160
What appalling indecisiveness…. It might just as well have been a chronic disease. Every issue seemed to present a multitude of equivalent sides, making it almost impossible to choose between them. Neither metaphysical questions nor the simple operations of daily life were exempt. Perplexity and hesitation posed an obstacle everywhere. Should he marry or not? He needed to make up his mind but fluctuated so much that he felt dizzy. The normal balance between his spirit, intellect, and senses became disrupted. When the maelstrom finally calmed down, no progress would have been made, and the question — to marry or not would still lack an answer. Occasionally he felt distressed by his freedom and by his loneliness or resented a life spent in the company of dreary mental phantoms. Then he would yearn for a companion, and the loving family instincts imprisoned inside him would groan for release. He would picture himself a husband, cured of his introspective isolation, his fantasies dissipated… but also preoccupied by his children, wholly absorbed in earning a living, and oppressed by all the concerns of everyday life. Then, dreadfully alarmed, he would decide to stay single, no matter how much tormented loneliness he suffered. But indecision would soon rear its head again as he started to wonder about marriage once more, and so on and so forth. How could he make up his mind?
Budur really was a wonderful girl. The fact that she rode the streetcar today did not detract from her charms, for she had been born and raised in the paradise of those angels who had inflamed his heart in the old days. She was a meteor that had fallen from the sky, a truly outstanding girl, and an educated beauty of good character. She would not be difficult to obtain. If he chose to proceed, she would be a promising bride in every respect. All he had to do was to get on with it.
In addition to these considerations, he had to admit that she occupied a central place in his consciousness. Hers was the last image of life he saw on falling asleep and the first he greeted on waking. During the day, she was rarely far from his thoughts. The moment he saw her, the rusty strings of his heart began to vibrate with poignant songs. His world of lonely and confused suffering had been transformed. Breaths of fresh air had penetrated it, and the water of life flowed through it. If this was not love, what was it? For the last two monthshe had sought out Ibn Zaydun Street late each afternoon, traversing it slowly and training his eyes on the balcony until they met hers.
