What cooperation? The poor boy doesn’t understand anything; he’s too naive to comprehend the secrets of the heart even when they’re displayed right under his nose. How can he understand what his father did when he’s never seen anything but the man’s melancholy exterior? My son can make sacrifices and be as generous as his devoted heart wants to, but doesn’t he realize that he’s shutting up two adversaries together in a single prison cell? From one prison to another, from loathing to sheer hatred. There’s no hope for me, son, unless you can succeed, unless you can rescue me.
I glance at him as he works, selling peanuts, melon seeds, popcorn, and chickpeas, throwing the piastres into a half-open drawer. He wallowed so long in a life of sin that he’s probably dreaming now about going back to the habit that prison cured him of. If it weren’t for Abbas, his stipulation that we divide the earnings between us, we’d have been ruined again by now. That permanent look of melancholy he has! Except when customers come in, the gloomy mask never falls from his face. He’s aged so much he looks older than he really is, and that means I’ve aged too. The years in prison. The night of the raid when detectives kept slapping my face…Ah, the bastards, not one of them came to see us! Al-Hilaly is as big a bastard as Tariq Ramadan. Detained at the police station just one night and then released. We bore the punishment alone. Our neighbors say the law is only hard on the poor, and they accuse us and gloat over our misfortune. They do business with us, though. My only hope is that you succeed, son.
Time passes. We have nothing to say to each other. The fire of hatred is stronger than the heat of an oven. When I clean this hateful old house, or when I cook, I feel so miserable. Why am I condemned to this wretched life? I used to be pretty, all piety and decorum. Fate. Fate. Who will explain the meaning of fate to me? But God is on the side of the patient, the long-suffering. My destiny is in your hands, Abbas. I’ll never forget your visit that night, on the feast of the birthday of Sidi al-Sharany,*1 and your words, which relieved my torment and opened up the gates of heaven: “My play has been accepted at last!”
I hadn’t been so happy since he was a young boy. Even his father’s face shone with joy. What have you got to do with it? I don’t understand. You hate him just as you hate me. All right, he has grown up to be a dramatist, contrary to what you predicted. To you his idealism was stupidity, but good will always win out. His strength and energy will sweep away the dross of riffraff like you.
I don’t like autumn, except that it brings us closer to opening night. Where do they come from, these clouds that blot out the light? Isn’t it enough that the clouds cover my heart? I hear the man speaking to me:
“Look.”
I see Tariq Ramadan coming toward the shop, looking as if he were someone bringing news of an accident in the street. Has he come to congratulate us or to gloat over us?
He stands there in front of us, his greeting lost in the empty air.
“Our loyal friend, paying us a visit for the very first time,” I say.
I pay no attention to his excuses until I hear him intone, “I have bad news.”
“Bad news doesn’t mean a thing to us.”
“Even if it’s about Mr. Abbas Younis?”
My blood turns cold, but I remain as calm as I can. “His play’s been accepted,” I say proudly.
“It’s nothing but a deplorable joke. What do you know about the play!” He goes on to summarize it, citing the most important episodes, and ends by saying, “That’s it—everything!”
Hiding my anxiety with my head spinning, I reply, “What do you mean? You hate Abbas!”
“Go see the play for yourselves!”
“You’ve been blinded by hate.”
“By the crime, you mean.”
“The only criminal is you.”
“Tahiya’s murderer must be brought to justice!”
“You’re a low-down crook yourself. Why don’t you just get lost!”
“How can they say that prison teaches people manners?” he says, laughing sarcastically.
I grab a handful of chickpeas and throw them at him. He draws back jeering, then leaves.
What has Abbas written? What has he done? My son would never kill anyone or be disloyal; at least he wouldn’t betray his mother. He’s an angel.
The man and I look at each other. I must haul myself out of this unending loneliness. “Tariq is lying,” I say.
“Why should he lie?”
“He still hates my son.”
“But there’s the play, too.”
“Go and see Abbas!”
“I’ll see him, sooner or later.”
“But you aren’t making any move.”
“There’s no great rush.”
He exasperates me; like Tariq, he has no love for Abbas.
“He has to know what’s going on behind his back!” I yell.
“And if he confesses?”
“You’ll get an explanation for everything.”
“I wonder!”
“A real murderer doesn’t expose himself.”
“I don’t know.”
“Go see him, that’s the main thing!”
“Of course I’ll go.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“You haven’t got anything fit to wear.”
“Then it’s up to you to go. That crook is lying.”
“He detested the way we lived. He was so idealistic you’d think he wasn’t my son at all, but someone else’s bastard,” the man says. Then he seems to change his mind. “But he didn’t double-cross us. And why would he kill Tahiya?”
“You’re asking me?”
“I’m thinking aloud.”
“You believe what the wretch said!” I shout.
“You believe him, too.”
I press my lips together to hold back the tears. “We’ve got to hear what Abbas has to say.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t believe him.”
“You’re raving!”
“Damn you!”
“I was damned the day I got tied to you!”
“The same applies to me.”
“I used to be pretty.”
“Your father was a postman, but mine was employed on the Shamashirgi family estate.”
“Which means that he was only a servant.”
“I come from a family.”
“What about your mother?”
“Just like you.”
“You’re a windbag. You don’t want to go, do you?”
“I’ll go when it suits me.” Then, changing his tone, he says, “He’s most likely to be at home in the afternoon.”
Praying for patience, I surrender to his indolence, though doubt is killing me from my feet upward. What is it they say about the best people? A rose among the ruins—in a community of thieves and their victims. The man has bought me material to make a dress so I could go out, but I’ve put off making it. I’ll start cutting it out right away and then see about getting it made. The son of a whore insults me about my origins. But Abbas could never betray his mother. He may have scorned everything else, but not my love. Love is stronger than evil itself.
My happy childhood home in al-Tambakshiyya, where the sun always shone, even in the winter, even at night, the home of Halima, beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother and a father who always brought home nice things, things we liked. “Let her go on,” my mother used to say to him. “Education will give her the opportunity of a lifetime. I wish I’d had the chance.” That was before he died.
Our good cousin, Amm Ahmad Burgal, came visiting one day. “The girl’s father is dead, and keeping her on at school has become a hardship.”
Mother asked, “So what should we do, Amm Ahmad?”
“She has a certificate, and she’s clever. She must find work. They’ll be looking for a cashier at the theater.”
“Would that kind of work suit you?” asked Mother.
I answered with apprehension, “I suppose practice will make up for what I lack in experience.”
“El Shamashirgi is a friend of al-Hilaly Bey. Your father never worked for him, but he’s the biggest man in the district and he’s been our benefactor. If you mention his name when you have your interview, I’ll take care of the rest.”
And thus I was poised, the first time I set foot in the theater, to enter a different world. It was a marvelous place. It even had a special smell. Amm Ahmad shrank in stature: his work there was not very important. Summoned to meet the producer, I entered his magnificent inner sanctum in my old shoes and my simple white dress, and walked timidly, step by step, toward him. His tall frame, piercing eyes, and masterful expression made him almost awe-inspiring; and he scrutinized me at such length that I thought I’d nearly die. Finally, he gave me a sheet of paper to see how fast I could write the numbers.
“You’ll need some practice before you can take over the job,” he said in his domineering voice. “What’s your name?”
“Halima al-Kabsh,”*2 I said shyly.
“Al-Kabsh!” The name made him smile. “What of it? You’re a good deal more attractive than the actresses in our company. I’ll want to examine you after you finish your training.”
So I set to work in a burst of enthusiasm, inspired not by concern for my future, but by the wish to please that wonderful enchanter. I described him to my mother, and she said that was what the upper classes were like. If I could only win his approval, I thought, what a lucky break it would be for me.
When I stood before him, I was panting. “You’re the jewel of the company, Halima. God is beautiful and He loves beauty.” At what point did he begin to fondle me? Sunlight piercing the window shone full in my face; out in the street someone was playing a dance on a rustic flute. Gasping, I shoved his huge hand away, and said, “No, sir. I’m a respectable girl.” His laugh made my ears ring.
In the silence that ensued in that vast locked room, my protests expired. A rush of hot breath, a cunning approach, and all my determined resolutions were confounded. It was a nightmare of the kind that draws tears but wins no sympathy. In the world outside that room other people came and went. My mother died before she found out.
In the afternoon he gets a move on at last. My taut nerves relax a little. I’m clutching at a straw, but what can I expect? I’ve got to get the dress ready, just so I can do something. My son will tell his secrets to me, but not to that despicable man. What have I got left now except Abbas?
The disappointments came with—no, even before—the opium. My expectations—all dead and buried now—had been so sweet. I remember one night when he drained the dregs from his glass, leered drunkenly, pointed to the room next to the reception room, and said, “My mother used to go into that room alone with the master sergeant.”
The disclosure was so brutal it shocked me. Abbas was tucked up in his cradle, asleep. I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re drunk, Karam.”
He shook his head. “She used to warn me to stay in my own room.”
“That wasn’t right.”
He interrupted me. “I don’t like hypocrisy. You’re a hypocrite, Halima.”
“God forgive her. Do you still feel resentful toward her?”
“Why should I hold it against her?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Your husband is unrivaled among men. He doesn’t believe in any man-made lies.” What does he mean? He’s not a bad husband, but he makes fun of everything. He ridicules my faith, the things I hold sacred, my principles. Doesn’t that man respect anything at all? He’s just exposed his mother shamelessly. “And that’s lucky for both of us,” he went on, “because if it weren’t so, I’d have divorced you on our wedding night.”
I was pierced to the heart and tears welled up in my eyes. I’d just received the second cruel blow of my life.
“You can’t help it, Halima. When are you going to become liberated?”
“You’re wicked and cruel.”
“Don’t bother using words like that. They don’t mean anything.”
He told me how his mother had been madly in love with the policeman, how she’d neglected him, and how he’d grown up “liberated,” thanks to her dissipations. “I owe everything to her,” he said finally, with a drunken leer.
He was like some frightful object hung around my neck. I was living with a force that had no principles. On what basis, then, was I to deal with him? The letdown came before the opium. The opium found no spirit left to crush.
When I catch sight of him coming back, my heart leaps in spite of its aversion. He looks even older in the street than he does in the shop. He sits down without looking at me and I can’t help asking, “What did he say to you?”
“He left the flat with a suitcase, and no one knows where he went,” he says without emotion.
Ah! What instant trepidation, instant torment! Is there no end to calamity?
“Why didn’t he let us know?”
“He doesn’t think about us.”
Pointing to the four corners of the shop, I say, “He treated us better than we deserve.”
“He wants to forget us now.”
“You should have gone to see al-Hilaly.”
He answers me with a look full of scorn and disgust, and I, to provoke him, tell him he doesn’t know how to act.
“I’d like to bash your head in!”
“Have you gone back on opium?”
“Only government ministers can afford it these days.” He lowers his voice. “Al-Hilaly doesn’t know where he is either.”
“You visited him?” I ask anxiously.
“He has no idea where he is.”
“My God! Did he move out of his flat?”
“No.”
“Maybe there’s a woman involved.”
“That’s what a woman like you would think.”
“What can I say to someone like you? You don’t care about him at all.”
My misery is too much for me. I weep bitter tears.
Wearing my new dress, an old shawl around my shoulders, and without any hope, I go to Abbas’s building, where my despair is confirmed when I question the doorman.
“You must know something about what happened?”
“Nothing at all.”
I don’t have the courage to go to the theater. My reluctant footsteps direct me homeward. I stop on the way and visit Sidi al-Sharany to seek his miraculous help, then come back to my prison cell to find the man joking and laughing with a customer, quite unconcerned. I sit down defeated, my spirits at lowest ebb, my endurance gone. “Do something,” I manage to say to him. “Don’t you have any plan in mind?”
“I’d like to kill you; someday I will kill you!”
“Go and see al-Hilaly again.”
“Go yourself,” he interrupts. “He gives special attention to his slave girls.”
“The truth is, I’m your mother’s victim! My torture comes from her grave. She’s the one who made you such a brute!”
“Compared with you, she was a decent woman.”
—
This theater—where I’d been raped and no one held out a helping hand—was the backdrop of my torment and my love. While its lofty dome echoed with admirable sentiments, phrased in the sweetest way, my blood spilled on its comfortable seats, the blood of my secret, strangling me. I was lost, lost. He wasn’t even aware of my adoration. Nothing mattered to him. He probably even forgot my name.
“You’re avoiding me! I can’t take any more. I have to see you.”
“Is there anything you need?”
“What? Have you forgotten? I’ve lost everything!”
“Don’t exaggerate. I don’t like it. What happened isn’t worth troubling your head over.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “No,” he said, “no. Nothing that goes on in this theater should ever be taken to heart.”
“But what about me? Don’t you see what it means to me? Don’t leave me!”
“The whole thing is much simpler than you imagine. No harm done. Cheer up—for the sake of your work and y
our future. Forget what happened. It’s no use asking me to keep remembering it.”
He was as hard as granite. My aversion for him was as strong as my love had been. Abandoned, alone, in torment. Someday my aunt would guess the secret of my suffering. What could I expect from a world that knows no God?
—
Late in the afternoon I go to the actors’ coffeehouse, where I catch sight of Fuad Shalaby smoking a narghile and make a beeline for him. I may be the last person he’s expecting to see, but he stands to welcome me and pulls up a seat for me.
“I should have come to visit you. Damn all the work!”
I ignore his words. “Nobody’s visited us. Not that it makes any difference. I’m so upset over Abbas’s disappearance that I had to come.”
“There’s no need to get upset.” He smiles. “It’s quite obvious he left to get away from spongers. It’s a good thing he did. He’s probably working on his next play.”
“But he should have told me.”
“Try to overlook his negligence. Don’t worry. You’re still as pretty as ever, Halima. How is Karam?”
“He’s alive and active, pursuing his hobby of making mankind miserable.”
He laughs, in a way that gets on my nerves, so much so that I get up and leave the coffeehouse.
This time I have the courage and the determination to go to the theater. I ask to see the producer and enter the room, the selfsame room—same leather couch, same man.
No, he’s different: there’s nothing left of the old self but the depravity, which seems to have aged him more than prison has us. Which of us two is more to blame for my unhappiness? He rises to greet me. “Welcome, welcome! I’m delighted to see you looking so well,” he exclaims.
“Well?” I retort as I take a seat.
“As befits the mother of a successful playwright.”
“At the moment, he’s the cause of my suffering.”
“That’s suffering for no reason whatsoever. I have good news: He’s contacted me by phone.”
I interrupt, aflame with joy, “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. That’s his secret; let him keep it if he wants to. The important thing is that he’s busy on a new play.”
“Has he left his job?”
“Yes. It’s a risk—but he’s sure of himself, and I’m confident, too.”