Khan Al-Khalili (6 page)

All this made him forget his previous thoughts. Without even being aware of it he started to doze off and, before very long, slumber invaded his eyelids and closed them tight.

N
ext morning at seven o’clock he was seated at the table eating his breakfast. It normally consisted of a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and some bread along with a few pieces of cheese and some olives. Leaving the apartment, he went out into the hall. Before he reached the stairs, he heard the soft sound of feet behind him. Looking round he saw a young girl wearing a blue school-jumper with a satchel of books under her arm. For a fleeting second their eyes met, then he looked away feeling all confused, something that always happened whenever he looked at a female. He could not decide whether it was more polite to go ahead of her or to let her pass. That made him even more confused than before, and he blushed. So here was the philosopher of the Archives Department in the Ministry of Works acting just like an immature teenager falling over himself out of sheer embarrassment. The girl looked surprised and stopped where she was, while the extent of his confusion conveyed itself to her. The only thing he could do was to stand to one side.

“After you, Miss,” he whispered in a barely audible voice.

The girl went on down the stairs, while he was left to follow her, wondering whether he had done the right thing or not. What impression did she get from his hesitation and confusion? When he reached the building’s main door, his thoughts were rudely interrupted by a loud voice shouting, “Damn the world!” Looking to his left he saw Nunu opening his store, just as he had suspected. He relaxed a bit and gave a smile, before muttering, “O God, Opener, All-Knowing!” With that he went on his way, with the girl just a short distance ahead of him. When she reached the New Road, she branched off to the left toward al-Darrasa, while he made his way to the trolley stop.

All he had seen of her was her eyes. Once he had realized she was there, he had been looking straight at them. They were large and limpid, with honey-colored irises; her lashes were so long that they looked as though she had used kohl. They managed to suggest both softness and attraction and made their way straight into his affections. The girl was obviously only just approaching the age of maturity; she could not be more than sixteen. He, on the other hand, was forty; over twenty years between them! If he had married at the age of twenty-four—that being the sensible age at which to marry—he might well be father to a young girl of her age and youthful vigor. As he got on the trolley he was still thinking about that fatherhood that had never come to pass.

The powerful impact of those two eyes soon faded, as did his nostalgic enthusiasm for fatherhood. In their place came a vicious and black feeling that beset him every time
he was near a female. And all because his love for women was the forbidden love of a middle-aged man that made him as afraid of them as a shy novice. He hated them all as a desperate old man. Every time he saw a pretty girl, he felt a strong emotional pull, a blend of love, fear, and loathing. His early childhood had had a profound effect on his peculiar instincts in this matter: he had been exposed to a father who dealt with him strictly and a mother who doted on him. The father’s strictness had regarded oppression as a sign of affection, while his mother spoiled him to such a degree that, if she had had her way, he would never have learned to walk in case he fell down. As a result he had grown up with a peculiar mélange of fear and coddling, afraid of his father, people, and the world in general, and escaping from all his fears in the affection of his mother. She had done everything for him, even the things he should have done for himself. As a result he was still a child at the age of forty, afraid of the world, going into despair at the slightest failure, and recoiling immediately from any kind of confrontation. In such cases his only weapons were the ones he had had from the start, tears or self-torture. But by now they were useless. The world did not consist of his loving mother; it didn’t care if he stopped eating, nor would it soften when he started weeping. Quite the opposite, it would turn away in disinterest and leave him to his own devices, sinking still deeper into his isolation and mulling over his own agony. Would his parents have ever imagined, one wonders, that this balding failure of a man was actually a victim of the way they had brought him up?

But in spite of all that he had left a historical record when it came to matters of the heart.

The first instance occurred during his first year in secondary school, which only need bother us for what it shows about his particular temperament. At the time he was a well turned-out and attractive young man, traits he may well have inherited from his parents. He managed to attract the attention of a pretty young Jewish girl who was the daughter of his neighbors. There was a time—it would appear—that Ahmad Akif was actually attractive! She used to play on the same street and would watch from her window for him to come home from school. Her pert femininity was abundantly evident to him and distracted him with the fires of love, and yet it was not enough to arouse in him the necessary courage and daring. His heart may have been aflame, but the only thing his timid nerve would allow him to do was to stare at her in silent longing and then retreat exhausted as soon as she stared back at him. Even though he was so bashful, he did manage to share some passionate moments with her, but it was at her instigation. She was a daring coquette; nothing could hold her back. Her brazen behavior managed to overcome his bashfulness. One afternoon she chased after him and caught up. She called out his name, and he turned round, his face pomegranate-red. She gave him a gentle smile, and he responded with an abashed one of his own.

“Let’s walk down Abbas Street!” she said.

Without uttering a single word he went with her. They walked side by side as the sun headed toward the horizon. She made a point of sidling up and gently rubbing against him. That made him move away; it was as though he were afraid she might think he was the one taking the initiative, whereas in fact he longed to brush against the person
alongside him. She now put his right arm through hers, laughing diffidently as she did so. He looked all around him.

“Are you scared?” she asked playfully.

“I’m scared that someone from your household might see us,” was his gentle reply.

“Who cares?” she retorted with a shrug of her shoulders. Seeing how shocked he looked, she went on, “Are you still scared?”

“Yes,” he replied after a little hesitation, “I’m scared someone from my own family might spot us.”

She burst into laughter. With that she took him to a garden. “Now,” she whispered, “we’re out of range of all those spies!”

They walked around in silence as the sun continued its descent and sunset shadows grew longer, erecting a pavilion to welcome the onset of night.

“I had an amazing dream,” this brazen girl now said, trying to work her way round his shyness.

“A nice one, I hope,” he said, beginning to warm to her conversation.

“I dreamed that I met you somewhere. You told me that you wanted.… Then you said a word that I’m not going to tell you. You have to say it. Can you guess?”

That made him feel even more flustered. “I d-d-d-don’t know,” he stuttered.

“Yes, you do,” she replied sweetly, “you’re just pretending! Go on, say it.…”

He swore to her that he really didn’t know.

“There’s no point in lying to me,” she said. “You’d better remember. It’s a word whose first letter is K.…”

He remained silent, heart pounding.

“The second letter is I.…”

He still said nothing and turned away.

“The third letter is S,” she went on. “So what’s the last one?”

He gave her an embarrassed smile, but still had no idea of what to say.

“If you don’t say something,” she said, squeezing his arm, “I’m never going to talk to you again!”

That threat had the desired effect, since he drew another S in the air.

“So now at last you’ve told me what it is you want,” she laughed in delight, “and I’m not going to stop you.” She leaned toward him, totally frustrated by his incredible bashfulness.

He stole a quick kiss that seemed to last for whole decades. How he longed for more of the same! But that is the way he was: intense passions but along with them desperate shyness. This pretty Jewish girl liked to poke fun at his face. He took her seriously and started hating his own face to an unnecessary degree. Now he had yet another excuse for his innate shyness, which only intensified. Had it been possible for a man to wear a veil over his face, he would have been the one to do so. It was one of the key factors in the excessive attention he paid to his personal appearance, something that transformed itself into utter neglect when despair got the better of him.

The pretty Jewess suddenly disappeared from his life. No sooner did a young man from her own community become engaged to her than she abandoned her playful ways and adopted a more serious lifestyle, entirely oblivious to the bloody wound she was leaving behind in a tender
heart. But then tender hearts can salve their wounds very quickly. So it happened that in the final phase of his time at secondary school the proximity of neighbors brought him into contact with the pretty and youngest daughter of a widow who was one of his mother’s friends. An affection developed between the two young people, duly encouraged by their two mothers who were soon referring to them as the “bride and groom.” This second relationship was not like the earlier one that had served as a wake-up call to a heart that was now ready for sentimental education. However, this girl by contrast possessed strength of character and determination. As a result, when she fell through his fingers, he regretted it bitterly. Afterward he would often tell himself that if he had followed his and her mother’s advice and married that girl, he would have enjoyed a married life of unparalleled happiness. However, no sooner had he obtained his high school diploma than his family was struck by disaster. His father was pensioned off, and it was now up to him—Ahmad—to face the dire consequences. Cruelly snatched from the gentle havens of hope, he found himself instead cast into the sheer hell of despair. If this girl was willing to stay with him, she would have to wait for at least ten years until his younger brother had completed his education. It became obvious that her mother was not going to encourage such a sacrifice since it would involve a long wait. In fact, it was the girl herself who made the decision to ignore her feelings; she cut off the relationship, and all their dreams came to nought. From then on Ahmad lost all faith in love and women, just as he had already done with the world as a whole. The love that in the presence of the Jewish girl had filled his heart
was nothing but a false illusion, a teenage disease just like teething in babies. Harsh reality had imposed its own severe sentence on someone who had decided to rely on a woman’s word; it didn’t matter whether she was like his fiancée when it came to both intelligence and virtue, or whether she was like the Jewish girl who had flirted with him to her heart’s content and then left him, like a guest at a hotel on Station Square leaving his room.

Now twenty years had gone by and his heart was still a void. He continued to endure a life of poverty filled with a variety of concerns that augured little hope for the future. If only he had managed to control his rage, he might have been able to be successful at something. In fact he still nourished a hope—after all, life cannot be without any hope at all, can it?—that one day he might find some happiness. Even though he had eventually despaired of ever gaining any prestige or authority, he could still aspire to be happy.

He tried getting engaged to the daughter of a merchant who lived in Ghamra, but her father rejected his offer in the nicest possible way. The middle-aged Ahmad learned that the girl’s mother had noted that he was of a certain age and yet his salary was small. This blow to his pride left him reeling, and he went into a towering rage. It was more than he could tolerate to be rejected by some woman or other, when he was the genius against whom the entire world was conspiring. What’s more, she had rejected him because he was insignificant! How could anyone say he was insignificant? So who exactly was supposed to be significant? With sparks flashing from his eyes he clenched his fist and vowed dire vengeance on the world. Only yesterday his
beloved had rejected him because he was still young and had few prospects, where today another girl was rejecting him because he was too old and still had no prospects! So when exactly was he supposed to have prospects? Had his life been wasted? All glory was past, happiness was lost, everything was finished; was that it?

Thereafter he developed a habit of criticizing women and accusing them of every kind of shortcoming. They were cunning creatures, using ambition, lies, and sheer stupidity to work their wiles. Soulless bodies, sources of pain for man, and grief for humanity in general. Their superficial interest in science and art was merely a sham they could hide behind whenever victims fell into their clutches. But for the wicked lust implanted in our instincts they would win neither hope nor love. They … they.…

“I’ve made myself a solemn vow, thank God,” he would often tell his friends, “that I’m never going to get married however many chances I may have to do so. I totally refuse to be taken over by some dirty creature with neither mind nor soul!”

If his complete failure to achieve anything turned him into an enemy of the entire world, then his failure with women made him their enemy too. Even so, deep inside him there still lurked rapacious illicit desires and emotions.

The way that a passing girl affected him, as had happened today, stirred up some of those latent feelings and immediately brought to mind his previous experiences with women. It annoyed him, and provoked that profound and familiar sensation that combined love, fear, and hate. In the sheer relish he felt for his self-sacrifice and doing what was necessary he found a certain consolation for all
his failed hopes, but this time his anger stubbornly refused to soften. He still felt angry, peevish, and full of hate. After all, anyone who has become used to having sacrificial offerings come to him to be slaughtered is never going to be willing to be the sacrificial lamb himself. He decided to wallow in his own misery and the life of a recluse; as though, after allowing his heartstrings to play sweet melodies, he was now throwing it all down a fetid well where it would languish. He now lived his life without hope, without anyone to love, without a heart, refusing to stay in touch with life or enjoy the pleasures it could offer.