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

  She replied, “Two small pillows.”

  He asked, “Do you sleep on them?”

  She said with a smile, “No, they're just for decoration.”

  He pointed at the bed and asked, “Where do you sleep?”

  Still smiling, she answered, “Inside it.”

  As though he wanted to make certain whether her husband slept with her, he asked, “What about Mr. Khalil?”

  Giving his cheek a gentle pinch, she said, “Outside.”

  Then he turned toward the chaise longue in amazement and went over to sit on it. He invited her to sit beside him and she did. He was soon lost in his memories. He had to lower his eyes to hide their uneasy look. His disquieting suspicions had been aroused by the intensity of his mother's attack on him after the wedding when he was confiding to her what he had seen through a hole in the door. He was tempted to tell Aisha his secret and ask her about it. This temptation contained an element of cruelty. Embarrassment and doubt prevented him from asking. He suppressed his desire, in spite of himself. He raised his clear eyes to look at her and smiled.

  She smiled back and leaned toward him to kiss him. Then she rose. Her face was covered by a sweet smile when she said, “I've got to fill your pockets with chocolates.”

  44

  THE BOYS massed near the door of the house and along the sidewalk by the historic cistern building were all yelling back and forth to each other. Among the screams of joy, Kamal's voice could be heard proclaiming, “I see the bride's car”. He repeated that three times. Yasin, splendidly attired in his best clothes, left the group of men waiting at the entrance to the courtyard to stand in front of the door, facing toward al-Nahhasin. He caught sight of the bridal procession, which was advancing slowly, as though on parade.

  At that hour so full of both happiness and dread, Yasin appeared steady and resolute, despite the eyes staring at him from inside the house atid out, from above and below. He was charged with manliness and virility, and one factor that helped steady him was his sensation of being the focus of attention. He wrestled courageously with his internal discomfort so people would not think him unmanly. He may also have known that his father was out of sight, having withdrawn to a spot behind the group at the entrance composed of the male members of the families of the bride and bridegroom. Thus Yasin was in full control of himself when he saw the automobile decorated with roses that was bringing him his bride. The girl had been his wife for more than a month now, although he had not set eyes on her yet. Yasin's resolve was also strengthened by the hope forged by his dreams, which were thirsty for happiness and would not be satisfied with anything transitory.

  The first automobile in the long line came to a halt in front of the house. Yasin prepared for the auspicious arrival. He hoped once more that he could see through the silk veil well enough to get a first look at the face of his bride. The door of the car was opened and out stepped a black maid in her forties. She was powerfully built and had gleaming skin and large eyes. He surmised on the basis of her confident and proud gestures that she was the servant selected to continue serving the bride in her new home. She moved aside to plant herself like a sentry and smile with pearly-white teeth before addressing Yasin in a resounding voice: “Come take your bride.”

  Yasin approached the door of the automobile and leaned partway inside. He saw the bride in her white garments sitting by two young ladies. He was greeted by the fragrance of a captivating perfume. Dazzled, he lost himself in the beautiful atmosphere. Although his eyes had not adjusted from the light outside and could scarcely discern anything, he held out his arm. The bride's shyness restrained her, and she made no movement. The girl to her right intervened to take the bride's hand and place it on his arm. She whispered merrily to her, “Take heart, Zaynab.”

  They entered the house side by side, but because of her modesty she held a large fan of ostrich feathers between them to hide her head and neck. Passing between two rows of male guests, they crossed the courtyard. They were followed by the women from her family, who let out their trilling shrieks of joy, paying no attention to the presence nearby of al-Sayyid Ahmad. Thus joyful cries rang out in this silent house for the first time, and the tyrannical master was present to hear them. If the members of his household were astonished, it was an astonishment mixed with delight and even a trace of innocent and merry malice, which revived their spirits after his stern and weighty decree that there would be no shouts of joy, no singing, and no entertainment. The wedding night of his eldest son was to be just like any other night.

  Amina, Khadija, and Aisha exchanged smiling but quizzical looks. They crowded up against the peephole in the window grille overlooking the courtyard to observe al-Sayyid Ahmad's reaction. They saw him talking and laughing with Mr. Muhammad Iffat. Amina murmured, “All he can do tonight is laugh, no matter what he notices that he doesn't like.”

  Umm Hanafi seized this golden opportunity to slip her barrellike figure in among the ladies doing the trilling. She let loose with a powerful, ringing cry that drowned out all the others. With it, she sought to make up for all the opportunities for merriment and delight during the engagements of Aisha and Yasin that had been lost because of the dread house rules. She came upstairs to be with the ladies and trilled until they were dying from laughter. She told them, “Give a trill of joy even if it's the only time in your life…. He won't know tonight who's doing it.”

  After escorting his bride to the door of the women's quarters, Yasin returned and came upon Fahmy, who had an apprehensive and uneasy smile on his lips, possibly because of this forbidden but splendid racket. He was peeking furtively at his father. Then he looked back at his brother and laughed briefly in a halfhearted way. Yasin reacted indignantly and asked, “What's wrong with enlivening a wedding night with gaiety and cries of joy? How would it have harmed him to hire a female vocalist or a male singer?”

  The family had wanted to have a singer, but they had found no way to express this wish, although Yasin had encouraged Mr. Muhammad Iffat to intervene with his father. Al-Sayyid Ahmad had dec] ined. He had refused to allow any music at the wedding. The joys of the evening would be confined to a sumptuous dinner.

  Yasin continued sorrowfully: “I won't have anyone to provide music for a real bridal procession tonight. I'll never have another chance. I'll enter the bridal chamber without any send-off, songs, or tambourines. I might as well be a dancer trying to wiggle his torso without a percussion accompaniment.”

  A naughty, cheerful smile could be seen in his eyes when he added, 'There's no doubt that the only place our father can tolerate women entertainers is in their own homes.”

  Kamal remained for a time on the top floor, which had been prepared to receive the women guests. Then, in search of Yasin, he went down to the first floor, where the male guests were being entertained. He found his brother in the courtyard inspecting the mobile kitchen the caterer had set up. Kamal approached him happily, proud of having carried out the mission his brother had entrusted to him. He told him, “I did just what you said, followed the bride to her room and examined her after she removed the veil from her face.”

  Yasin took him aside and asked with a smile, “So? … How's she built?”

  “Her build's like Khadija's.”

  Yasin laughed. “Nothing wrong with that…. Did you like her as much as Aisha?”

  “Of course not…. Aisha's much prettier.”

  “A pox on your house. Do you mean to say she looks like Khadijai”

  “Of course not. She's prettier than Khadija”.“A lot prettier?” Yasin shook hishead thoughtfully and ordered the lad impatiently, “Tell me what you liked about her.”

  “Her nose is small, like Mama's…. Her eyes are like Mama's too.”

  “And then?”

  “She has a fair complexion. Her hair is black. She has a beautiful fragrance.”

  “Praise God. May our Lord be gracious to you”. Yasin imagined that the boy was struggling with a desire to say something more. He said to hi
m somewhat anxiously, “Tell everything. Don't be afraid.”

  “I saw her take out a handkerchief and blow her nose”. Kamal twisted up his lips in disgust, as though he thought it terrible that a bride at the height of her charms should do such a thing.

  Yasin could not keep himself from laughing. He said, “Up to this point, everything's great. May our Lord make everything that follows good too”. He cast a despairing look at the courtyard, which was empty except for the caterer and his assistants and a few children. He thought there should have been some decorations and a tent where musicians could perform for the guests. Who had decreed it should be this way? His father… the man who devoted his energies to buffoonery, rowdiness, and music. What a strange man he was to sanction forbidden forms of entertainment for himself while denying his family legitimate enjoyments. Yasin began to imagine his father the way he had seen him in Zubayda's room, with his glass of wine and the lute. Before he knew it, a strange thought jumped into his mind. Although it was extremely clear to him now, it had never occurred to him before. He saw a similarity between his father's character and that of his own mother. Both of them were sensual and pleasure-seeking. They recklessly ignored conventions. Perhaps if his mother had been a man she would have been just as enamored of wine and music as his father. The relationship between them had ended quickly, because a man like him could not stand a woman like her, and vice versa. In fact, married life would have been impossible for his father, if he had not happened upon his current wife. Yasin laughed, but his dismay at this strange idea robbed his laughter of any delight. “I know now who I am. I'm nothing but the son of these two sensual people. It wouldn't have been possible for me to turn out any other way.”

  The next moment he asked himself whether he had been mistaken when he neglected to invite his mother to the wedding. He wondered about it, even though he remained convinced he had done the right thing. His father had probably been trying to ease his conscience when he offered a few nights before the wedding: “I think you ought to inform your mother. If you want to, you can invite her to the wedding party”. Yasin assumed he had spoken with his tongue, not hisheart. He could not imagine that his father would want him to go to the residence inhabited by that miserable man his mother had married after all her many other spouses. He would not want Yasin to try to ingratiate himself with her, inviting her to his wedding while that man watched. Neither the wedding nor any other happiness lie could attain in this world would make him reestablish the link that had been severed between him and that woman… that scandal… that disgraceful memory.

  At the time he had merely replied to his father, “If I truly had a mother she would be the first person I would invite to my wedding.”

  Yasin suddenly noticed that the children in the courtyard were staring at him and whispering to each other. He singled out some of the little girls and asked them in a jovial but loud voice, “Are you already dreaming of marriage, girls?”

  He headed for the door of the women's quarters and remembered Khadija's mocking words from the day before: “Don't let embarrassment get the better of you tomorrow when you're with the guests. Otherwise, they'll realize the bitter truth that it's your father who's paying your wedding costs, your dowry, and all the expenses of the party. Keep circulating and don't stop. Move from room to room among your guests. Laugh with this one and talk to that one. Go upstairs and come back down. Inspect the kitchen. Yell and shout. Perhaps you'll make people think you're really the man of the evening and its master.”

  Yasin laughed as he went on his way. He intended to follow her sarcastic advice. He strutted among the guests with his tall and massive body. He was exceptionally elegant, attractive, good-looking, and in the prime of his youth. He went back and forth and up and down, even if there was no need for it. All this activity dispelled any doubtshe might have had. His soul became immersed in the charms of the evening.

  When Yasin thought about his bride, a bestial tremor passed through his body. Then he remembered the last night, a month before, that he had spent with the lute player Zanuba. He had informed her of his impending marriage and told her he was saying goodbye to her.

  She had screamed in a sham rage, “You son of a bitch!… You kept the news secret until you got what you wanted. The boat you're leaving on is better than the one coming here. You deserve to be beaten a thousand times with a slipper, you bastard”. Zanuba no longer meant anything to him, nor did any other woman. He had lowered the curtain on that side of his life forever. He might return to drinking, because he thought his desire for that would not die, but as for women, he could not imagine his eyes straying when he had a beauty at his disposal. His bride was a renewable resource and a spring of water for the wild thirst that had troubled his existence so frequently.

  Yasin went on to imagine what life had in store for him that night and the following ones, for the next month and the next year, for the rest of his life. His face was radiant with delight at his good fortune. Fahmy noticed that with an eye filled with curiosity, calm happiness, and not a little regret.

  Kamal, who had been into everything, suddenly appeared. With joy at the good news visible in his face, he informed Yasin, “The caterer told me that there's more dessert than will be needed for the guests. There'll be lots left over.”

  45

  WITH THE addition of Zaynab, the coffee hour acquired a new face, one glowing with youth and the joy of being married. The three rooms adjoining the parents' bedroom on the top floor had been outfitted with the bride's furniture. Otherwise, Yasin's marriage brought little change to the general organization of the house in terms of either domestic politics or household management. The resident:; remained subservient in every sense of the word to the authority and will of al-Sayyid Ahmad. Housekeeping remained a subsidiaiy department under the direction of the mother, just as it had been before the marriage. The real change was emotional and mental, and it was easily observable. It would have been hard for Zaynab to occupy the position of wife of the eldest son, or for her and her husband to unite together with the other members of the family in a single household, unless there had been a significant development of the family's emotions and sentiments.

  The mother regarded Zaynab with a mixture of hope and caution. What sort of person was this girl who was destined to live with her for a long time, possibly for the rest of her life? What was she hiding behind her tender smile? On the whole, she welcomed the girl the way a landlord greets a new tenant, warily hoping for the best.

  Khadija, notwithstanding the flattering comments she and Zaynab excianged, began to focus on Zaynab her penetrating eyes, which were naturally inclined toward sarcasm and suspicion. She probed for defects and shortcomings with an eagerness inspired by her resentment and hidden annoyance against Zaynab for joining the household and marrying her brother. When Zaynab stayed in her chambers the first few days after the marriage, Khadija asked her mother in the oven room, “Do you suppose the oven room isn't good enough for her?”

  Although her mother found some relief for her own anxious thoughts in Khadija's attack on Zaynab, she defended the girl and replied, “Be patient. She's still a bride starting out on a new life.”

  In a tone revealing her disapproval, Khadija asked, “Who decreed that we should be servants for brides?”

  Her mother asked, as though putting the question to herself, “Would you prefer her to have her own kitchen?”

  Khadija cried out in protest, “If the money were her father's and not my father's, that would be all right. But I think she ought to work with us.”

  A week after the wedding when Zaynab decided to assume some of the tasks in the oven room, Khadija'sheart did not welcome this step toward cooperation. She began to observe the bride's work with critical attention to detail and told her mother, “She hasn't come to assist you but to exercise what she may claim is her right”. Khadija would remark sarcastically, “We hear so frequently about the Iffat family and how elite they are. They don't eat what other people do….
Have you found anything extraordinary about her cooking?”

  One day Zaynab suggested that she would make a “Circassian” chicken dish with hazelnut sauce, since it was a favorite at her father's table. That was the first time this Circassian dish was served in al-Sayyid Ahmad's home, where it garnered everyone's admiration, and most especially Yasin's. Their mother felt a twinge of jealousy. Khadija became frantic and made fun of it: “They said, ‘Circassian,’ and we said, ‘The longer a teacher lives, the more he learns,’ but what did we see? Rice and sauce strategically arranged and a taste that's neither here nor there. It's like a bride who's shown to the bridegroom in her wedding procession, splendidly attired, with glittering je weis, but when she takes off her gown, she's just an ordinary girl predictably composed of flesh, bones, and blood.”

  Scarcely two weeks after the wedding Khadija said in the hearing of her mother, Fahmy, and Kamal that although the bride had a fair complexion and a moderate share of good looks, she was just as dull as her Circassian chicken. She said that even though she was then mastering the dish with her customary proficiency.

  Some comments escaped from Zaynab - innocently, since the time for malice had not yet arrived - that stirred up their thoughts and cast a shadow of doubt over her. Whenever an opportunity arose she bragged about her Turkish origin, although she did so politely and graciously. She also enjoyed telling them what she had seen when she rode in her father's carriage and accompanied him to the gardens or other places of innocent recreation. All this talk startled and alarmed the mother. She was amazed by that kind of life, which she washearing about for the first time. She had not thought such things possible and privately disapproved of this strange freedom more than words could tell. Zaynab's pride in her Turkish origin, no matter how polite and innocent, displeased Amina a great deal, because despite her humble and unobtrusive character, she was very proud of her father and her husband. She felt that because of them she had attained the highest possible rank, but she suppressed her reactions. Zaynab always received her full attention and a polite smile.