Respected Sir, Wedding Song, the Search

  “He didn’t bother to get in touch with me?”

  “Well, he wants to avoid being interrogated about his play; that’s what I think.”

  “Certain suspicions are being voiced, over and over. What do you think about it all?”

  “A play is a work of art, and art is a fantasy, no matter how much it borrows from the truth.”

  “But what about people’s assumptions?”

  “The audience doesn’t see anything in it. To think otherwise is idiocy, and if it weren’t for Tariq’s stupidity…”

  “He’s his enemy, damn him!” I interject.

  “Now, I want you to cheer up!”

  —

  “I heard that Karam Younis is asking for your hand?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “The damage can be repaired.”

  “No, I refuse to go along with that kind of deception.”

  “You mean you’re going to let him know the truth?”

  “I think that’s the best way.”

  “You’re a remarkable girl! So many people are without principles these days. Are you going to tell him who it was?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “It would be better not to.”

  —

  As I enter the cafeteria, Ahmad Burgal sees me and shouts, “Welcome!”

  I sit in front of him, silent, while he begins to make a sandwich and tea for me. Just two people on this earth have brought about whatever happiness we have known: Ahmad Burgal and Umm Hany. Recollections come flooding in upon me: a cup of tea, a sandwich, a little flirtation, and the music of a flute heard in hell, like clear drops of rain falling on a pile of garbage.

  Amm Ahmad says, “Abbas’s success is a good omen. It’ll make up for the past.”

  “But he’s left without a word.”

  “Don’t be upset. No one here is worried about it.”

  “And Tariq Ramadan?”

  “He’s half crazy.”

  —

  I went through a terrible new ordeal. I’d been determined to confess—I was respectable and modest and I hated deception—but at the last moment I’d been silenced by fear. Karam seemed such a commendable young man, serious and loving. Would I lose him? Fear kept me silent until the door had closed on us. My weakness appalled me, I wept. The truth now stood between us, naked, taut, ready to serve any purpose. “I am a criminal,” I whispered. “I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you beforehand.”

  The grave look in his eyes baffled me. What I’d dreaded was taking place. “I was so afraid of losing you. You must believe me: I was raped.”

  I lowered my eyes, frightened by his agitation. I said things and he said things, but our words were lost in the intense heat of our agony. His voice was engraved on my consciousness: “The past doesn’t matter to me.” I cried all the more, but some unexpected ray of hope had appeared to me. I told him that he was gallant, that I would dedicate my life to making him happy. I dried my eyes. “How easy it is for the innocent to be lost,” I whispered.

  With a heavy heart, I return to the prison cell and sit down. I’ll tell him about meeting Fuad Shalaby and nothing more. I won’t offer him any relief. He doesn’t love Abbas. He pretends to be quite disinterested in what I found out. If he only suffered as I do. The snacks we sell help other people while away the time, but our only distraction is exchanging abuses.

  —

  My letdown had continued step by step. A new vice was threatening the foundations of our home.

  “Opium is a terrible thing. It will destroy you.”

  “I’m grateful for it, at any rate.”

  “You’re running away from reality. And you’re doing it faster and faster.”

  “Again, I say thanks to it.”

  “I’m doing my utmost. And there’s Abbas to think about, your beloved son.” He takes another sip of black tea. “My salary by itself isn’t enough to keep the house going.”

  “You have the rent from Ramadan’s room.”

  “And even that’s not enough. Life is so expensive.”

  I understand you now. And I’m afraid of you. You aren’t what I thought you were at the outset of our life together. You’ve lost everything, even the potency you used to boast about. We’ve moved into separate rooms. Between us there’s neither love nor desire! You’re the only thing left, Abbas. Pay no heed to what your father says. Don’t believe him. He’s sick. It’s a good thing you’re alone most of the time. God be with you—He is our sufficiency. Be an angel. Let your friends, your books, and the theater be your teachers. Be my son and the son of other good people. You’re the only light in this old house steeped in darkness. Be unique in every way.

  —

  He steals a furtive glance at me now and again, hoping I might divulge what I know. Never. I’ll challenge him to hate me more.

  “Winter’s coming. How can we stay in this open shop?” he says.

  “When Abbas succeeds, our luck will change,” I answer confidently.

  “When Abbas succeeds!” he retorts, bitterness in every syllable.

  “I’ll go live with him,” I say defiantly, “and he won’t begrudge you an overcoat or a woolen cloak!”

  —

  The red cafeteria was always the same; it laughed at the shifts and changes in its patronage, hearing most of what was said, but believing no one. “Here’s your sandwich. I’ll get your tea ready,” Amm Ahmad Burgal said.

  A young man came and sat on the stool next to me. He ordered beans and a sandwich. He was one of the theater people, it appeared, but he wasn’t one of the actors. A young man, attractive except for his large head and nose. Amm Ahmad asked me, “Any news about a flat, Miss Halima?”

  In front of the stranger, I answered somewhat diffidently, “Searching for gold is easier.”

  “Are you looking for a flat?” the young man said abruptly.

  I replied that I was, and Amm Ahmad introduced us.

  “Getting married?” the young man went on to ask boldly.

  Ah, the seduction’s begun: Here in this theater it gets off the ground quickly and does not stop short of violence. The quarry is brought down to the accompaniment of a native flute.

  “I own an old house that has two floors.”

  “Is each floor an apartment?”

  “No. It isn’t divided into flats.”

  Amm Ahmad asked him if I could have one floor to myself, and he said I could.

  “Won’t that inconvenience the family?” I asked.

  “I live there alone,” he declared.

  When I turned away from him, indignant at his boldness, he went on cunningly: “You and your family would find yourselves quite safe there.”

  I thanked him and said no more. He hadn’t made a bad impression on me. What did he want? He knew nothing about my tragedy, my love, or my distrust of mankind.

  I say that I’m going to Umm Hany’s small flat in al-Imam, where Tariq Ramadan is staying. She receives me warmly, but I have to wait until Tariq gets up. He comes out of his room with his hair standing on end, looking like the devil.

  “Welcome,” he remarks, with unseemly sarcasm.

  I ask him right off the bat, “I believe you went to see Abbas before he left?”

  “Right.”

  “It’s not far-fetched to suggest that you said things that made him leave.”

  “He felt trapped, so he skipped out.”

  His insolence brings tears of fury to my eyes.

  “Don’t you know the meaning of mercy?” screams Umm Hany. “What’s all this talk that’s been going around? I watched Tahiya dying; I saw Abbas crazy with grief!”

  Her words astonish me, and I want to know if the talk that’s being spread around fits with what she saw.

  “There’s nothing to it!”

  “He wouldn’t kill her before your very eyes, you idiot,” says Tariq.

  “To suggest Abbas is a murderer is lunacy.”

  “His confession is being played out on the st
age night after night.”

  “Thanks to him you’ve become an actor that audiences applaud even more than Ismail,” says Umm Hany.

  “Thanks to his crime—the crime that made him run away.”

  “He’s staying in a quiet place,” I say stubbornly, “to finish his new play.”

  “His new play! Don’t fool yourself, Umm Abbas!”

  Ah—in those days he was reasonable and obliging in spite of everything.

  “What do you think, Halima? Tariq Ramadan wants to rent a room from us.”

  I objected. “No. No. Let him stay where he is.”

  “He’s had a row with Umm Hany and has to leave her place. He’s wandering around with no place to go, and things get more expensive every day.”

  “It won’t be very pleasant having a stranger in the house.”

  “He needs us. And we need the money.”

  “He’s no better than a tramp.”

  “He’d hoped we’d be kindhearted, especially you. We’ve got enough empty rooms to house an army.”

  Grudgingly I gave my consent. I had no use for him at all—a no-good actor living off the sweat of women. But I never imagined he’d do what he did to us.

  Umm Hany pays us a surprise visit in the shop the day after I visited her. She evidently wants to apologize for the rude way her man had treated me. Like Tariq, she’s in her fifties, but she’s still buxom, not bad-looking, and has money.

  “They’re all talking about the success of the play,” she remarks. “It’s the biggest hit the theater’s ever had.”

  “But the playwright doesn’t want to show himself,” I say sadly.

  “He’ll show up when he finishes his new play.” The woman is silent for a while, then says, “What’s being said is really absurd. But then Tariq is crazy!”

  “Wouldn’t it have been better for him to kill his mother?” Karam says sarcastically.

  I have always had a liking for Umm Hany, and the fact that she is related to my husband hasn’t lessened my affection for her.

  The house in al-Tambakshiyya, crowded with people, smelling of rubber, as though it were a bus. My aunt cleared a corner to receive Amm Ahmad Burgal.

  “Don’t forget the provisions, because next to God it’s them we depend on.”

  “I came for something more important than that!” he said, more serious than usual.

  “Open the bag, you snake charmer.”

  “It’s about Halima.”

  My aunt looked at him and then at me, while the blood mounted in my cheeks.

  “What! A husband?”

  “That just about sums it up.”

  She looked at him inquiringly, and he said, “Karam Younis.”

  “And who’s Karam Younis?” asked my aunt.

  “He’s the company prompter.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s a respectable employee of the theater.”

  “Do you think he’s suitable, Amm Ahmad?”

  “Yes, I do. But the important thing is what the bride thinks.”

  “The bride is a real beauty, as you know. But we are poor, Amm Ahmad.”

  It was my turn to speak. I’d been absolutely shattered by the bloody secret I was harboring; I didn’t love the bridegroom, but I had no aversion toward him—a presentable young man. Perhaps he’d give me peace of mind, even happiness. Beleaguered by my aunt’s stare, I mumbled, “I don’t know anything about him worth mentioning.”

  “He has a job, he owns a house, and has a good reputation.”

  “By the goodness of God!” cried my aunt. Although she loved me, she’d be glad to be rid of me. As for me, I wanted to escape from that overcrowded house; and since Sirhan al-Hilaly was so rotten, there was no hope for me in that direction.

  —

  Life was unbearable, and hunger was knocking at the door.

  “I’ve found the way to shut you up,” he said, eyeing me disdainfully.

  “Have you finally been cured of that hell of a drug?”

  “Al-Hilaly has agreed to hold their soirees in our old house!” I didn’t grasp his meaning, so he added, “We’ll prepare a room for them to play cards in, and then we’ll be on easy street.”

  “A gambling den?” I said, dismayed.

  “You always describe things in the worst way. What would it be except a gathering of friends?” I protested, but he interrupted: “Don’t you want a good life?”

  “Yes, and a clean one, too!”

  “If it’s good, it will be clean. The only unclean thing is hypocrisy.”

  “And there’s Abbas to think about,” I murmured uneasily.

  “I own this house, not Abbas. Your son is crazy. But surely you care whether he has enough to eat and clothes to wear!” he shouted.

  —

  The sun is hidden so often this autumn that I am grounded in melancholy. This narrow street sees at least one funeral going to Sidi al-Sharany every day. Whenever the man is not occupied with customers he starts talking to himself. I daydream of the things Abbas will do for me, but he has nothing to dream about.

  —

  Why don’t we keep track of the happy moments, so that afterward we will believe them? Is he the same man? Was he really sincere? Is he the one who said, “I am indebted to Amm Ahmad Burgal for a joy that is almost more than a man can bear”?

  I moved my head coquettishly. “Don’t exaggerate!”

  “Halima, who can be happier than a man whose heart has not beaten in vain?” He said it in a tone of voice that has vanished forever. Although I didn’t love him, I loved his words, and their fervor warmed me.

  —

  On the appointed day waves of joy and fear roll over me. I go to the Indian bath, Umm Hany supplies me with a dress, a coat, and a pair of shoes, and I return from the hairdresser with a glorious halo, newly created from hair that had been neglected for a long time. The man looks at me disdainfully. “So you still have that weakness for playing the whore. Why don’t you exploit it—in these illustriously dissolute days?”

  I am determined at any cost not to ruffle the serenity of the evening. We go to the theater, where we are received with the respect we deserve. Sirhan al-Hilaly fixes me with an admiring stare.

  “How is it that I don’t see the playwright?” I say.

  “He hasn’t come, but I’ve told you enough about it.”

  My first hopes are shattered; and the internal radiance I’d been building up all day through a sense of renewed youth is extinguished. We go to see Amm Ahmad, who gives us tea and a sandwich as he always did. “It’s like the old days,” he remarks, laughing.

  What are you talking about, Amm Ahmad? I wish it had never been. Even the one comforting result of it is absent. This place sets my nerves on edge and intensifies my sadness. At the proper time, though, we enter the theater and I am suddenly delighted to find it packed. “It’s a success!”

  I don’t listen to his replies. The curtain is being raised on the old house. Events unfold one after another, and my agonies come to life before my eyes; now nothing is left of them except the memory of heaving sighs. Once more I find myself in hell. I condemn myself more than I ever have before. That’s when I should have left him, I say to myself, that’s when I should have refused. I am no longer the victim I thought I was.

  But what is all this new damnation, this flood of crimes that nobody was aware of, this strange way I am being portrayed. Is it what he really thinks of me? What is this, son? You misunderstand your mother more than your father does and are even more unjust. Did I object to your marrying Tahiya out of jealousy and selfishness? What jealousy, what selfishness? No, no. This is hell itself. You almost make your father my victim. He was never the victim of anything except his mother. Do you see me as a prostitute, a madam? Do you think I’m the pimp who drove your wife to the tourist, greedy for his money? Is this a fantasy or is it hell? You are killing me, Abbas. You have made me the villain of your play. And the people are clapping—they’re clapping!

&nbs
p; The life has been knocked out of me. We’re invited to the party in the cafeteria. “Shall we join them or leave?” the man asks. Feeling that he is trying to provoke and ridicule me, I challenge back: “Why shouldn’t we join the party?”

  But in spirit I cannot. I’m in a burning stupor; my head resounds with brawling voices as strange faces undulate before my eyes, shouting and laughing for no apparent reason. My head is going to burst. The end of the world is approaching. Let the day of judgment come. I’ll never obtain a fair judgment except before God. You murdered and betrayed and committed suicide! When will I see you? Will I ever see you again?

  We reach the old house at dawn. Throwing myself on the couch in the hall while he lights the heater, I hear him ask, “Did you like the play?”

  “The audience liked it,” I say lukewarmly.

  “And the subject?”

  “It’s a powerful plot.”

  “Weren’t we depicted as we really are?”

  “Don’t start thinking like that spiteful Tariq Ramadan.”

  “It’s even more true than the real facts.”

  “There’s no connection between the way I appear in that play and the real facts,” I retort angrily. He lets off a repulsive laugh, while I suppress my anguish. “It’s just a fantasy!” I say.

  “All of them just as we know them in real life.”

  “It’s largely imagination and very little actual fact.”

  “Then why did he portray you as he did?”

  “That’s his business.”

  “I thought that he loved and respected you.”

  “There’s no doubt about that.”

  “You give yourself away with that bitchy look of yours.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  “Even Tariq! I never imagined you’d sink to such depths.”

  “Spare me your filthy thoughts!” I shout.

  “That’s the boy who threw us into prison.”

  “He wasn’t describing himself, he was describing you!”

  “How virtuous he made himself out to be!”

  Fighting down my despair, I burst out, “When he comes back I’m going to leave this damn house and live with him!” and rush to my room. Behind the closed door my own tears strike me dumb. How is it you don’t understand your mother, Abbas?

  —