The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street

  At first she took care not to leave him until sleep made off with him. She would tell him, “We haven't been separated the way you claim. Don't you see that we're together? We'll stay together always. Nothing but sleep will separate us. It did that even when we were in one bed.”

  Now the sorrow had sunk below the surface of his emotions. He had accepted his new life, although he would not allow her to leave until he had used up all his tricks to make her stay the longest possible 1 ime. He held her hand as avidly as a child grasping his toy when other children are trying to snatch it away. She kept on reciting verses from the Qur'an with a hand on hishead until sleep took him by surprise.

  She bade him good night with a tender smile and went to the next room. She opened the door gently and looked toward the blurred shape of the bed on the right. She asked softly, “Are you both asleep?”

  She could hear Khadija's voice reply, “How can I fall asleep when Miss Aisha's snoring fills the room?”

  Then Aisha's voice washeard, protesting sleepily, “No one has ever heard me snore. She keeps me awake with her constant chatter.”

  Their mother said critically, “Have you forgotten my advice to cease your banter when it's time to go to sleep?”

  She closed the door again and went to the study. She knocked on the door gently. Then she opened it and poked her head in to ask with a smile, “Do you need anything, sir?”

  Fahmy raised hishead from the book and thanked her, his face aglow with a charming smile. She closed the door and crossed the sitting room to the outer hall, before climbing the stairs to the top floor, where her husband's bedroom was. The Qur'an verses she was reciting preceded her.

  12

  WHEN TASIN left the house he naturally knew where he was going, since he went there every evening. He appeared, however, to have no idea where he washeading. He was always like this when walking in the street. He went along slowly in a friendly, complaisant manner. He strutted vainly and proudly, as though never forgetting for a moment his enormous body, his face radiating vitality and manliness, his elegant garments that received more than their fair share of attention, the fly whisk with its ivory handle that never left his hand winter or summer, and his tall fez tilted to the light so it almost touched his eyebrows.

  Ashe walked, he was also in the habit of lifting his eyes but not hishead to spy out what might just possibly be hiding behind the windows. By the time he got to the end of a street he would feel dizzy from moving his eyes around so much. His passion for the women lie encountered was an incurable malady. He scrutinized them as they approached and gazed after their bodies as they drew away. He would get as agitated as a raging bull and then forget himself. He could no longer conceal his intentions discreetly. In time Uncle Hasanayn, the barber, Hajj Darwish, who sold beans, al-Fuli, the milkman, al-Bayumi, the drinks vendor, Abu Sari', who roasted seeds for snacks, and others like them noticed what was happ ening. Some of them joked about it, and others criticized him. The fact that Ahmad Abd al-Jawad was a neighbor and highly regarded by them gave them a reason to close their eyes and pardon Yasin.

  The young man's vital forces were so powerful that they dominated him if he was otherwise at liberty. At no time did they grant him any relief from their proddings. He continually felt their tongues Durning against his senses and consciousness. They were like a jinni on his back, guiding him wherever it wished. All the same it was not a jinni that frightened or upset him. He did not wish to be freed from it. In fact, he might even have desired more like it.

  His jinni quickly disappeared and changed into a gentle angel when he approached his father's store. There he kept his eyes to himself and walked normally. He was polite and modest. He walked faster and did not let himself be distracted by anything. When he passed the door of the shop, he looked inside. There were many people present, but his eyes met those of his father, who sat behind his desk. He bowed respectfully and saluted his father politely. The man answered his greeting with a smile. Then Yasin continued on his way as delighted with this smile as though he had received an unparalleled boon.

  The fact was that his father's accustomed violence, even though it had undergone a noticeable change since the youth joined the corps of government employees, still remained in Yasin's opinion a form of violence moderated by civility. The bureaucrat had not freed himself from his former fear, which had filled hisheart when he was a schoolboy. He had never outgrown his feeling that he was the son and the other man the father. Huge as he was, he could not help feeling tiny in his father's presence, like a sparrow that would tremble if a pebble fell. As soon as he got past his father's store and safely out of sight, Yasin's airs returned. His eyes began to flutter about again, not discriminating between fine ladies and women who sold doum palm fruit and oranges on the street. The jinni controlling him was wild about women in general. It was unassuming and equally fond of refined and humble women. Although they resembled the ground on which they sat in their color and filth, even the women who sold doum palm fruit and oranges occasionally possessed some beautiful feature. They might have rounded breasts or eyes decorated with kohl. What more could his jinni wish for than that?

  He headed toward the Goldsmiths Bazaar and then to al-Ghur-iya. He turned into al-Sayyid Ali's coffee shop on the corner of al-Sanadiqiya. It resembed a store of medium size and had a door on al-Sanadiqiya and a window with bars overlooking al-Ghuriya. There were some padded benches arranged in the corners. Yasin took his place on the bench under the window. It had been his favorite for weeks. He ordered tea. He sat where he could look out the window easily without arousing suspicion. He could glance up whenever he wished at a small window of a house on the other side of the street. It was quite possibly the only shuttered window that had not been carefully closed. This oversight was not surprising since the window belonged to the residence of Zubayda the chanteuse. Yasin was not ready for the chanteuse herself. He would need to pass patiently and persistently through many more stages of wantonness before he could aspire to her. He was watching for Zanuba to appear. She was Zubayda's foster daughter. She played the lute and was a gleaming star in the troupe.

  The period of his employment with the government was a time full of memories and came to him after the long, obligatory asceticism he had endured out of respect for his father and the irighten: ng shadow he cast on his life. Thereafter, he had plunged into the Ezbekiya entertainment district like water down the falls, in spite of the harassment of the soldiers brought to Cairo by the winds of war. Then the Australians appeared on the field, and Yasin had been obliged to forsake his places of amusement to escape their brutality. He had been at his wits' end and had begun to roam the alleys of his neighborhood like a madman. The greatest pleasure he could hope for was a woman selling oranges or a gypsy fortune-teller.

  Then one day he had seen Zanuba and, dumbfounded, had followed her home. He had confronted her time after time but had almost nothing to show for it. She was a woman, and to him every woman was desirable. Moreover, she was beautiful and so he was wild about her. Even when his eyes were wide open, love for him was nothing but blind desire. It was the most elevated form of love he knew.

  He looked out between the bars at the empty window with such apprehension and anxiety that he forgot what he was doing and drank hot tea without waiting for it to cool. He swallowed some and burned himself. He started to breathe out and put the glass back on the brass tray. He glanced about at the other patrons as though implying that their loud voices had disturbed him so much they were responsible for his accident and the reason that Zanuba had not appeared at the window.

  “Where could that cursed woman be?” he wondered. “Is she hiding en purpose? She must certainly know I'm here. She may even have seen me arrive. If she continues to play the coquette right to the very end she'll make today one more day of torture.”

  He resumed his stealthy looks at the other men sitting there to see whether any of them had noticed. He found they were all immersed in their endless conversations. He
was relieved and looked back at his targeted site, but the train of his thoughts was interrupted by memories of the troubleshe had encountered during the day at school. The headmaster had questioned the honesty of a meat distributor and had undertaken an investigation in which Yasin, as school secretary, had participated. Then he had appeared a little slack in his work, and the headmaster had scolded him. That had spoiled the remainder of the day for him and made him think of complaining about the man to his father, for the two men were old friends. The only problem washe feared his father might be rougher on him than his boss.

  “Get rid of these stupid ideas,” he advised himself. “We're done with the school and the headmaster, curses on them. What I'm being put through by that smart-ass bitch, who's too stingy to let me see her, is enough for now.”

  Dreams of naked women began to swarm through his mind. Such visions frequently played on the stage of his imagination when he was looking at a woman or trying to remember her. They were created by a rash emotion that stripped bodies of their coverings and revealed them naked the way God created them. This emotion did not make an exception for his body either. His visions would progress through all types of fun and games with nothing held back.

  He had just sunk into these dreams when the voice of a driver crying “whoa” to his donkey roused him. He looked in that direction and saw a donkey cart standing in front of the singer's house. He asked himself if the wagon might have come to carry the members of the troupe to some wedding. He summoned the waiter and paid him to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. Time passed while he waited and watched.

  Then the door of the house opened and one of the women from the troupe emerged, leading a blind man. He was wearing a long shirt, an overcoat, and dark glasses and carried a zitherlike qanun under his arm. The woman climbed into the cart and took the qanun. She grasped the blind man's hand while the driver helped him from the other side till he reached the woman. They sat next to each other at the front of the wagon. They were followed immediately by a second woman carrying a tambourine and a third with a parcel under her arm. The women were concealed in their wraps but their faces were visible. In place of long veils they were wearing short ones embellished with brilliant colors that made them look like the candy bride dolls sold at festivals. And then what? … With yearning eyes and throbbing heart he saw the lute emerging from the door in its red case.

  Finally Zanuba appeared. The edge of her wrap was placed far back on her head to reveal a crimson kerchief with little tassels. Beneath it there gleamed laughing black eyes with glances full of merriment and deviltry. She approached the wagon and held out the lute to a woman who took it. Zanuba raised a foot over the wheel. Yasin craned his neck and gulped. He caught a glimpse of her stocking, where it was fastened above her knee, and of a stretch of her tare leg. The pleasantly clear skin showed through the fringes of an orange dress.

  “If only this bench would sink into the ground with me about a meter. My Lord, her face is brown, but where it doesn't show, her skin is white, really white. So what do her thighs look like? And her belly? Oh my goodness…”

  Zanuba placed her hands on the top of the wagon and braced herself so she could get her knees on the edge. Then she began crawling onto the wagon on all fours.

  “Good God, good gracious… Oh, if only I were at the door of her house or even in the shop of Muhammad the fez maker. Look at that son of a bitch staring at her ass with both eyes. After today he oughi: to call himself Muhammad the Conqueror. O God… O Deliverer.”

  Her back started to straighten and she stood up on the wagon. She opened her wrap and, taking the two ends in her hands, shook it repeatedly as though she were a bird flapping its wings. She draped the black cloth around her skillfully to reveal the details of her body's features and articulations. It especially highlighted her full, gleaming rump. Then she sat down at the rear of the wagon. Under die pressure of her weight, her buttocks were compressed and ballooned out to the right and left, making a fine cushion.

  Yasin rose and left the coffee shop. He found that the wagon had moved off. He followed after it slowly, gasping and clenching his teeth in his excitement. The wagon proceeded on its way haltingly, dragging and swaying. The women on board were rocking back and forth. The young man trained his eyes on the lute player's cushion. He followed her motions so closely that after a while he imagined she was dancing. Darkness was engulfing the narrow street. Many of the shops had begun to close their doors. Most of the people in the street were workers returning to their homes, drained of strength. Between the weary crowds and the darkness Yasin found ample opportunity to devote himself to looking and dreaming in peace and quiet.

  “O God, may this street never end. May this dancing movement never cease. What a royal rump combining both arrogance and graciousness. A wretch like me can almost feel its softness and its firmness both, merely by looking. This wonderful crack separating the two halves - you can almost hear the cloth covering it talk about it. And what can't be seen is even better… Now I understand why some men pray four prostrations before bedding a bride. Isn't this a dome? Why, yes, and under the dome lies the shaykh in his tomb. I'm certainly a devotee of this shaykh. Hear me, Shaykh Adawi!”

  Yasin cleared his throat as the wagon approached Mutawalli Gate, known as Bab al-Zuwayla. Zanuba turned around. He saw her, and she saw him. It seemed to him he could detect the hint of a smile on her lips when she turned her head away. Hisheart beat violently, and an intoxicating, fiery pleasure penetrated his consciousness. The wagon went through Mutawalli Gate and then turned left. At that point the young man was forced to stop, since nearby he saw telltale decorations, lights, and a cheering crowd. He drew back a little, his eyes never leaving the lute player. He watched her avidly as she descended to the ground. She tossed a playful look his way and headed for the wedding party. She disappeared through the door in a clamor of joyous ululation. He sighed passionately and was overcome by a furious perplexity. He seemed anxious, as though he did not know which way to turn.

  “God curse the Australians! Where are you, Ezbekiya, for me to disperse my care and sorrow in you and draw a little patience from you?”

  He turned on hisheels, muttering, “To the only consolation left… to Costaki”. No sooner had he mentioned the name of the Greek grocer than hishead began to perspire, longing for the intoxication of drink. Wine and women in his life were inseparable and complementary. It was in the company of a woman that he had first gotten a taste for wine. By force of habit it had become one of the valued ingredients and sources of pleasure for him. All the same, it was not always granted that the two, wine and women, came together. Many nights were devoid of women, and he had no choice but to relieve his anguish with drink. Over the course oftime as the habit became established he seemed almost to have fallen in love with wine for its own sake.

  He returned by the route he had come and made his way to the grocery store of Costaki at the head of New Street. It was a large saloon. The front was a grocery store and the inner room a bar; a small door connected the two. He stopped at the entrance, mixing with the customers, while examining the street to see if his father was in the vicinity. Then he headed for the small interior door, but he had scarcely taken a step when he noticed in front of him a man standing by the scales while Mr. Costaki himself weighed a large parcel for him. Involuntarily he turned hishead toward the man. Yasiri's face immediately became gloomy. A rude tremor shot through his body, making hisheart contract with fear and disgust. There was nothing in the man's appearance to inspire these hostile emotions. He was in his sixth decade and was wearing a loose gown and a turban. His mustache was white and gave him a noble, gentle look. Yasin, however, proceeded on in consternation, as though fl eeing before the man's eyes could fall on him. He pushed open the door of the bar rather forcefully and went in, as the earth seemed to sway beneath his feet.

  13

  YASIN THREW himself down on the first chair he found. His strength seemed to have given out and he looked so
mber. He called the waiter and ordered a carafe of cognac in a tone that showed his patience was exhausted. The bar was just a room with a large lantern hanging from the ceiling. Wooden tables with rattan chairs were lined up along the sides. The patrons sitting there included rustic types, workers, and gentlemen. In the center of the room directly under the lantern, pots of carnations were grouped together.

  It was strange that he had not forgotten the man and had recognized him at first glance. When was the last time he had seen him? He could not be sure, but most probably he had set eyes on him only twice during the past twelve years, the second time being the encounter that had just shaken him. The man had changed. There was no doubt about it. He had turned into a dignified, sedate old man. If God had only forbidden the blind coincidence that had brought them together… His lips curled in disgust and resentment. He felt he was swallowing a bitter humiliation. How degrading and demeaning! He would hardly recover, with pain and perseverance, from his anguish before it was resurrected by some repressed memory or cursed chance encounter like today's. Once again he would be abased, broken… lost. In spite of himself, he thought back over the odious past, with all the force of the strife lying behind it.