The Beginning and the End

  ELEVEN

  Hassan left early in the morning immediately after his brothers’ departure for school. There was no need for him to go out so early, but he wanted to avoid friction with his mother so as to spare her a quarrel which, in her grim and unfortunate circumstances, she could very well do without. He left Nasr Allah behind, and walked on aimlessly and hopelessly. “Find yourself a job.” That’s what she is telling me all the time. Where am I to find that job? As an apprentice in a grocery? But that will end in a quarrel, an ambulance, and the police. Yet, he did not feel as hopeless as he should have. He was too self-confident and optimistic for that. He could not, however, ignore his precarious position and he kept talking to himself: Your father (God be merciful to him) is dead now. You’ve lost your shelter. True, you’ve always made your living through quarrels and rows, and you had to put up with insults and abuse, but, anyhow, that was a sure living. Even this suit you’re wearing, which makes you look not too bad an Effendi, comes with his money. Yes, at first he refused to buy it for you, but you threatened him that you would walk along the streets in your underwear, and burst almost naked into the palace of Ahmad Bey Yousri, where he usually spent his time, and so he gave in and instructed the tailor to make this suit. Now, if you go around completely naked, nobody will mind except the police!

  The suit was nice, though slightly stained at the knees. He put on a bow tie, which showed off his dilapidated shirt. His hair was the most peculiar feature of his appearance, for he had let it grow so long, thick, and frizzy that it looked almost like a second head set upon his real one. His face was as handsome as the faces of his brothers, and besides, his body was tall and muscular with broad bones. He went on his way with these thoughts until suddenly he regained his self-confidence and said to himself: Don’t worry; only fools worry. You will live long and experience life, be it sweet or bitter. I’ve never heard of any man who died of hunger. There is always plenty of food, and you’re not greedy; all that you need are some morsels of bread, clothing, a few glasses of cognac, some hashish to smoke, and a few women to sleep with. And all these are available in more abundance than one can ever conceive of. Well, my boy, depend on God and stop worrying. He wasn’t penniless, for he had managed his father’s funeral and in the process garnered forty piasters which no one knew about. He wondered whether to give the money to his mother. Oh no! Mother will not make much use of it, whereas there is no doubt that losing this money would be a great setback to me. I don’t know when I shall ever find so much money again. With his sharp eyes, he saw the Al Gamal café and he hurried to reach it. It was a café of no distinction, but it overlooked the street. At that early hour, there were only two people there, sitting at a table placed on the pavement, basking in the sun and drinking coffee. Inside, in a corner, sat three youths whose appearance and bemused looks indicated idleness and desperation. It was not strange, then, that the young man should walk up to them and join their group. Presently, one of them asked for a pack of cards, and they all got ready to play. Each one of them hoped to win his bread for the day from his friends; five piasters would be more than enough. Hassan was often the winner, for he was clever at cards and quick with his hands and eyes. Thus before they started to deal, one of them said, “No cheating.”

  “Of course not,” answered Hassan.

  The young man said, “Let’s recite the opening Exordium of the Koran.”

  They all recited Al Fatihat audibly; it was possible that Hassan had learned it at that gambling table. They played for an hour. After paying half a piaster for his cup of coffee, Hassan’s net profit was four and a half piasters. One of the players suggested that they continue. But just then a young man entered the coffeehouse. No sooner had Hassan seen him than he stood up and approached him, addressing him with warmth and respect.

  “Good morning, Master Sabri!”

  The newcomer self-importantly stretched forth his hand. “Good morning.”

  They sat face to face at a table. Hassan succumbed to a sudden generous impulse. He summoned the waiter and ordered coffee for Master Ali Sabri. Before the waiter went away, Master Ali Sabri added, “And bring a nargileh, too.”

  Hassan’s heart sank. He was afraid he would also have to pay for the nargileh and lose all that he had won at cards with his luck and quick hands and eyes. But soon he forgot his worries and watched his visitor’s face. Ali Sabri was about twenty-five, of medium height, slim, and with delicate features. His hair was very much like Hassan’s, with whiskers that crept down to the middle of his cheeks. His general appearance showed how bad his condition was, but he covered it up with unlimited false pomp and self-conceit. Searching his face, Hassan said with regret, “We haven’t heard your voice for a long time.”

  On several occasions he had broadcast songs for private companies, and it had seemed as though fortune was beginning to smile upon him. But when these private stations were closed down and an official national broadcasting station established, his performances came to a standstill, and his attempts to renew them failed. Hassan was a member of his unemployed band. Naturally, he earned no more than a few piasters from that kind of work; but he loved it and preferred it to a serious job, which, from his point of view, was hard, degrading labor, in which he had never achieved much success.

  “I’ll be starting new work very soon,” said the master.

  Hassan’s heart beat hard. “We are your men,” he replied, “always at your service.”

  The master nodded with satisfaction, for he was never treated with dignity except when he was addressed by one of the tramps who constituted his band—especially the fierce and tyrannical Hassan, who turned into a gentle flatterer when he was speaking to him.

  “Of course, of course. You’re good at singing refrains, and your voice is not bad,” came the answer.

  Hassan’s face lit up. “I have memorized a lot of popular songs,” he said.

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as ‘He Who Loved You,’ ‘Why Are You Unjust to Me?’ and ‘When I Was Burnt with the Fire of Love.’ ”

  Belittlingly, the master shrugged his shoulders. “Chanting and Laiali are the cornerstone of true art,” he replied. “But what do we hear on the wireless nowadays? Nothing of value. Just yelling, not singing. If the station were really aware of art, I should stand next to Um Kalthum and Abdul Wahab. Even Abdul Wahab himself is often afraid that his voice might fail him. So he avoids the kind of singing that requires long breath, and, under the guise of innovation, divides up what he is singing into short parts. Then he uses musical instruments to camouflage the weaknesses of his voice. Here is how he sang ‘Ya Lil’ in his last performance.”

  He coughed before he started to imitate Abdul Wahab’s singing of “Ya Lil.” When the waiter came with the nargileh and coffee, he was busy singing. So he held the sucking pipe of the nargileh, and did not stop singing until he was done.

  When he finished, Hassan’s companions cheered. He inhaled a puff of smoke from the nargileh without paying attention to them. Then he whispered to Hassan, “They admire my voice and not my art. Now, listen to the same Laiali as it should be sung.”

  His singing filled the small café. The proprietor raised his head from the till, half smiling, half objecting. Master Ali Sabri finished singing and returned to his nargileh. This time he intended to thank the company for admiring his singing. But silence prevailed, interrupted only by the gurgling water in the phial of the nargileh. The master frowned.

  “This,” he said confidently, “is the way of true art.”

  “No doubt about that,” said Hassan enthusiastically.

  “Train your voice and continue practicing. Sing more Laiali and never stop sucking candy,” was the man’s advice.

  “You don’t say!”

  “That’s very useful. It is also advisable that you wake up at dawn and chant the summons to prayers. This is the best practice for the throat. It’s what the great singer Salama Hijazi used to do.”

  Hassan laughed and
said, “But usually I sleep just before dawn.”

  “Then do Al Aza’n before you sleep.”

  “In a mosque?”

  “It does not matter where; in a mosque or a tavern. What matters is Al Aza’n itself at this early hour.”

  “Excuse me. But if one is under the effect of alcohol or hashish?”

  “So much the better, for when you become sober you can make sure that you will do much better than when you are unconscious.”

  “We must occasionally meet so that God will help us to earn our living.”

  He turned to the three comrades and asked them, “What were you doing?”

  “Playing cards—a game of komi.”

  The master Ali Sabri said with interest, “Let’s try our luck.”

  The company got up and moved toward them without any hesitation. They sat around the table; their hearts filled with greed. However, Hassan was worried and uneasy about the possible consequences of such a game. He thought: What can I do with this son of a bitch! If I win, I shall antagonize him, and if I lose, then my day has been wasted.

  TWELVE

  “I will not pay one millieme more than three pounds,” said the furniture dealer, casting a last look on the bed of the deceased. Samira’s bargaining became futile. She had decided to sell the bed and its accessories because of the grief its presence provoked and because she was desperately in need of money. She had hoped for a higher price, which would meet her urgent needs; however, she had no choice but to accept the price the man offered. She said to the dealer, “You have been too sharp; God forgive you. But I have to accept.” Swearing that it was she who had been too clever, the dealer paid her the three pounds and ordered two of his men to carry away the bed.

  The family assembled in the hall to cast a farewell look on the bed of their beloved father. The deceased vividly appeared before their eyes, and Nefisa was overcome by grief and burst into tears. Samira tightened her lips, subduing her pain, controlling her tears before her children lest their own grief be revived. As the only person in this world the whole family could rely upon, she had to behave stoically. Had there been another person to depend upon, she could have found refuge in tears, as other women do. She felt it was incumbent upon her to be solid and patient. Besides, the worries and burdens of their new life allowed her no opportunity to give vent to her grief. She found that for the most part she had to forget her own anguish to combat the menace of poverty that confronted the family. My dear dead husband and master, she thought, it grieves me that I don’t have even the time to mourn for you. But what is to be done? To us poor folk grief is a luxury we cannot afford. It had never occurred to Hassanein that they would dispose of his father’s belongings, but he did not think of objecting. In fact, the family’s difficult condition had become known to everybody. The dealer left, taking the bed with him, and the door was closed behind him. An unspoken sadness fell upon them. Hoping to dispel this hovering sorrow, Samira told her two younger sons, “Go to your room and study your lessons.”

  Before they could make a move to depart, Nefisa was overcome by emotion. “Never,” she said, “will I let anyone touch my father’s clothes.”

  Hassan agreed. “Selling them would be of no use.”

  They were silent for a while. He continued as though there had been no quiet interval of silence. “Furthermore, it won’t be long before we need these clothes!”

  “Is it possible,” Nefisa asked in fright, “that you would wear my father’s clothes?”

  No one dared to object. Samira’s heart softened and she spoke tenderly. “There is no harm in that…nothing to offend the memory of the deceased. He himself would approve of it. But I shall keep these clothes myself until they are really needed.”

  Encouraged by her words, Hassan said with relief, “You spoke wisely. May I remind you that I am the only one who is almost exactly my father’s height and breadth.”

  His two brothers forgot their grief. Hassanein protested, “Sure, I’m taller than you, but the trouser hems can be unfolded and extended.”

  “Or they can be folded again to make them shorter,” Hussein said.

  The mother was annoyed. “No need to wrangle,” she said. “There is more than one suit in good condition, and I shall distribute them according to need.”

  A knock at the door interrupted their conversation. Nefisa hurried to open it. The servant of Farid Effendi Mohammed entered carrying a basket with a white cover and placed it on the table.

  “My mistress sends you her regards, madam,” she said, “and she sends you mourning pastry.”

  The mother accepted the basket from the servant and sent her back to her mistress with greetings and thanks. Hassan went up to the basket and uncovered it. The pastry appeared in its rosy colors, its delicious aroma filling their nostrils. Because of the mother’s caution and determination to economize, the family had not tasted such delicious food for the past two weeks. Temptation was reflected in the brothers’ eyes, but grim thoughts crossed their mother’s mind. In fact, these days had nothing good in store for her. Even the little good that came to her was not free from disappointments. Thoughts formed wrinkles on her face.

  “We are most thankful for this present,” she said, “but we have to return its equivalent when we come back from our visit to the graveyard. What are we to do, then?”

  The brothers felt disappointed. Hussein wanted to comfort his mother. “Let’s thank them and send it back to them,” he suggested.

  Their mother was perplexed. “Such an act,” she said, “would be considered disgraceful and unfriendly.”

  “It might even be considered an act of hostility,” said Hassan, enthusiastically supporting his mother.

  He took a pie, smelled it, and then said lightly, “Don’t worry. This kind of present is to be returned on certain occasions. When, after a long life, Farid Effendi passes away, we can present his family with a basket of pastries. We shall be able to afford to do so, by God’s will.”

  Hassan started to devour the pie. Exchanging a look, his two brothers stretched their hands to the basket. Even Nefisa, hearing them chewing, could no longer resist.

  THIRTEEN

  Bent over the sewing machine, Nefisa sat on the sofa in the room in which she slept with her mother, the floor littered with scattered scraps of cloth. Her mother was working in the kitchen, the two younger brothers were in school, and nobody knew where Hassan was. In her innermost heart, the girl bitterly blamed her elder brother; had he taken a job she would have been spared this situation. Nobody believed that he was serious in his protestations that he was searching for a job. He was away from home all day long, returning at midnight as penniless as ever. Now only misfortunes were to be expected. Today her mother had been forced to dispense with the servant to economize on her wages. Under the circumstances, two daily duties devolved upon Nefisa: to do the shopping for the house in the absence of the servant and, then, to devote most of the daylight hours to her work at the sewing machine. Two days earlier Samira had personally seen to it that her daughter was provided with work. Addressing the landlady, who came to her with a piece of cloth to be tailored, she said, “Do you mind paying Nefisa for her work?”

  Without hesitation the woman replied, “Not in the least, Umm Hassan; to be fair, this is her due. We cannot possibly repay our debt to Miss Nefisa.”

  The echo of these two sentences still resounded in her ears. Never before in all her life had she found herself in such a situation. Her pallid face turned red as blood gushed to it, and she felt as though she were tumbling down from great heights, and that she had become a different person. The demarcation line between dignity and humiliation is easily crossed. She had been a respectable girl but now she had become a dressmaker. Curiously enough, there was nothing new in the work she performed. She had made dresses on many occasions for the landlady, for Farid Effendi’s wife and her daughter, and for other neighbors as well. Dressmaking to her was a hobby in which she distinguished herself, so much so that h
er neighbors and friends often asked her to make dresses for them. But now how tremendously her feelings changed! She was overcome by shame, humiliation, and degradation. Her sorrow over the death of her father doubled. She wept bitterly for him and in so doing she was actually weeping for herself. Now her dear father was dead, and with his death the dearest part of her ceased to be.

  Depression overwhelmed her while she sewed, and she neither laughed nor sang as she had in the past. Now she awaited the landlady, who would arrive at any moment. She would make her some underwear with the cloth she had received that morning. The cloth had reached her only two days after her mother’s conversation with the landlady. This made Nefisa think that the landlady sent it out of charity. She confided her thoughts to her mother, who chidingly silenced her. “Do not allow such fancies to clutter your mind; otherwise all that we are striving for will be frustrated.”

  She dared not object to her mother, for lately she had begun to feel an inward pity for her. How stupid I am, she thought, to imagine that my mother is pleased about my condition. She is undergoing a murderous kind of bewilderment, and, of all of us, she is the one who really deserves pity. Misery pierces our flesh as a needle pierces a piece of cloth. Had my father been alive, he would not have allowed anything like this to happen. But where is he now? My sorrow over his death increases day after day, not only because of its injury to us but also because this injury fell on the heads of those he loved and wished well. I feel his pain. He must be suffering for us now. To think how much he loved me, as if he anticipated intuitively the misery in store for me. He used to say to me whenever he heard my ringing laughter, “Laugh, my girl! How dear your laugh is to my heart!” He also told me that a sweet temper was more precious than beauty, as though he sought to console me for my ugliness. Oh God! How nice, how sweet he was, and he among men was powerless. Alas! Now he is dead, dead. Until I die I shall never forget him motioning to his chest as he lay on the sofa. Poor father, asking for help, and nobody there to help him. Let mountains fall and destroy the earth. What an abhorrent and tragic thing life is. Father dead and I a dressmaker! Soon the landlady will arrive, not a guest as she used to be, but a customer. How should I receive her? Enough. Enough. My head spins!