The Beggar, the Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail (25 page)

           

T
he Bey came toward them half smiling and stayed for a short while, then called Isa away for a talk in his study, a room set far back from the street and so dark that the Bey put on the lights. Isa looked at him anxiously and read a deep concern in his eyes. He asked himself whether it had anything to with him or was merely the result of recent events: looking up, he noticed that a picture of the Bey in his judicial uniform had taken the traditional place of the King.

“How are things?” the Bey asked.

“I'll start afresh,” Isa replied, pretending to make light of things. He told the Bey about his unhappy situation, as he saw it.

The Bey thought for a while. “You won't find things easy,” he said.

“I know that, but I'm not discouraged.”

The Bey looked extremely serious. “To tell you the
truth,” he confessed, “your news didn't come to me as a surprise.”

“Did the chairman of the committee tell you, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn't it have been possible…”

“Certainly not. It's true he's a friend, but the committee's more powerful than the chairman. And everyone's afraid.”

“In any case,” Isa said bitterly, “what's happened has happened. Let's think about the future.”

“That's the best thing you can do.”

“I've spoken to Salwa about it,” said Isa, taking on the unknown.

“Salwa! Did you really tell her?”

“It was only natural.”

“Everything?” the Bey asked after a pause.

Isa looked at him warily. “Of course!” he replied, rather unnerved.

“What did she say?”

“Exactly what I would have suspected,” he replied, inwardly considering all the possible options. “She's with me at all times, good and bad.”

The Bey drummed with his fingers on the glass-covered top of the desk. “I want to be perfectly frank with you,” he said. “Marriage is now quite out of the question!”

“That's true at the moment, of course!”

The Bey shook his head, as though, in addition to what he had stated so frankly, there was something else, something that he was keeping hidden.

“I'm a political victim,” Isa said, trying to probe deeper.

The Bey raised his bushy eyebrows without saying a word.

“It's often been my privilege to be in this situation,” Isa continued, stung to anger.

“It wasn't just politics this time,” the Bey retorted.

Their eyes met and they stared at each other uneasily, while a new wave of fury came over Isa. “Explain further, please,” he asked in a quavering voice.

“You know what I mean, Isa,” the Bey replied, in a voice filled with exasperation and sorrow.

“Have you any doubts about me?” Isa barked, in a tone that seemed to make even the corners of this sedate room sit up and listen.

“I didn't say that.”

“Then what are you driving at?”

“All the evidence looks grave,” the Bey replied, frowning at Isa's tone of voice.

“It's not just grave,” Isa shouted. “It's despicable—so despicable that it takes a despicable mind to digest it!”

“Your nerves are obviously—”

“My nerves are like iron, and I mean every word I'm saying.”

“If you make me angry, you will truly regret it!”

His chances of having Salwa had been reduced to a hundred to one. “I don't care how things are,” he yelled, “or how grave the evidence is you've mentioned. I've never been an opportunist for a single day. And the ex-King had no—”

The Bey leapt to his feet, his face black with anger, and he pointed to the door with a quivering arm, wordless. Isa left the room.

In spite of this scene, Isa decided not to give in to despair before making one final effort to defend the sole corner of consolation that had not yet been destroyed for him: the last word had to come from Salwa and no one
else. Neither the strength of her character nor the depth of her love gave him great expectations, but he phoned her next day in the afternoon. “Salwa,” he pleaded, “I've got to see you immediately.”

Back came her answer like a slap in the face.

           

“T
here must be a solution to every problem!” Ibrahim declared as they sat in their corner at El Bodega. Ibrahim was so small that for his feet to touch the floor he had to sit close to the edge of his chair, with the brow of his oversized head furrowed to give him a stern and serious air and thus discourage any would-be jesters from poking fun at him. The four men had piled their coats on two adjacent chairs and sat there in the crowded, noisy café with their heads close together. Ibrahim Khairat could feel relaxed when talking about problems and how to solve them, Isa told himself; the recent earthquakes had not caused any losses in his world. He was a successful lawyer and a brilliant journalist. It was the same with Abbas Sadiq, who was secure in his job even though he'd been grabbing money from more people than Isa himself. There was no envy, resentment, or anger to disturb their firm friendship, however, or their long-standing political camaraderie.

Samir Abd al-Baqi took a handful of peanuts from a
heaped saucer. “That's all very well,” he said. “But the days keep rolling by without our finding a real solution.”

Isa looked through the window at the drizzle falling outside. “Do we start at the beginning of the road, on a typewriter?”

Abbas Sadiq began puffing at a
nargila
and blowing smoke, joining the orchestra of smokers already in the café. Smoke hung like fog around the lamps suspended from the ceiling. Isa surveyed the café, scrutinizing people's faces and their different expressions, the daydreamers looking drowsy, the people playing games with looks of fierce concentration. Why was it his fate, he asked himself in dismay, to swim against the current of history, which has been flowing for eternity? He looked out through the windowpane onto the street, inundated by rain and light, and examined with lust a woman hurrying for shelter in the dark entrance of a building. “Winter's beautiful,” he said, “but Cairo isn't ready for it.”

“Don't forget,” Ibrahim Khairat said to Abbas Sadiq, “that our men are scattered around on the boards of directors of several companies.”

Here he was talking about them and saying “our men” while at the same time writing articles attacking parties and partisanship and trying to rub out the old days altogether. Loathing reaches a very low ebb when it leads to utter disgust, but then disgust itself is an important element in loathing. The confusing exception was his own past life—and theirs—which had been marked by affection and magnanimity.

“Tell me what your feelings are,” Isa asked, “when you read your articles in the newspapers?”

“I ask myself why God willed Adam to appear on the
earth!” Ibrahim Khairat answered quite calmly, ignoring everyone's grins.

Abbas Sadiq raised his head from the mouthpiece of the
nargila
. He was pudgy, white-faced, his protruding eyes gleamed like a symptom of disease, and he was completely bald, with an overall appearance that would have led you to believe he was at least ten years older than he actually was. “We'll all be unhappy,” he said, “till we see you both installed in two important posts with a decent company.”

Trying to penetrate into the minds of these people who were clustered for no apparent reason in this café, Isa let his own mind wander through past millennia, questioning their meaning, and was at first perplexed, then alarmed. He turned again toward the window. A beggar was standing outside, giving him an imploring look. The rain had stopped. “Just imagine,” Isa said to his friends, “these human beings are originally descended from fish!”

“But aren't there still millions and millions of fish crowding the oceans?”

“That's the real cause of our tragedy,” he replied firmly, dismissing the beggar with a wave of his hand. “Sometimes,” he continued, “it gives me great comfort to see myself as a Messiah carrying the sins of a community of sinners.”

“Are you sure of the historical facts?” Abbas Sadiq asked.

He'd been sure enough, he told himself, when that telephone was slammed down.

“This would be a good time for some brandy!” said Ibrahim Khairat.

With a little water, Samir Abd al-Baqi washed down a mouthful of peanuts. “Even supposing we did do wrong,”
he said, “Couldn't they find anything in our past records to compensate for our conduct?”

Isa closed his eyes to hear the past, its living heartbeats, the seemingly endless roar of glory, the rocket-like hiss and crack of soldiers' truncheons. There had been self-destructive enthusiasm, then sedition sapping at aspirations, with apathy creeping forward like a disease, followed by earthquakes without even the uneasy howl of a dog's warning. And the hollow-hearted search for consolation. And finally the buzz of the telephone line, the source of a void.

“We were the vanguard of a revolution,” Samir Abd al-Baqi said, “and now we're the debris of one!”

“I say we should keep up with the procession,” said Ibrahim Khairat, as though in a general way he was trying to justify his own position.

A sorrowful look appeared in Samir Abd al-Baqi's green eyes. “We're fated to die twice,” he said.

“That's true,” said Isa, endorsing his view, “and that's why we're fed on fish!”

They noticed the shoeshine man banging his box on the floor alongside them and resorted to silence till he had gone, when Samir Abd al-Baqi aroused their curiosity by laughing out loud. “I remember I once almost joined the military college!” he said.

They all laughed.

“How do you think I can feel so cheerful,” quipped Ibrahim Khairat, “when things are getting darker and darker?”

Offering condolences, Isa told himself, is not the same thing as being bereaved yourself. Leaving the café at about ten in the evening, wrapping his coat around him, he
looked up at the sky and saw thousands of stars; he could smell winter in the clear air after the rain. The pavement looked washed and gleamed with grayish reflection. An invigorating wind, as cold as a gibe, brushed his face in staccato gusts. He felt very strange again and kept himself calm with the thought of the two years' full salary and the remainder of the
umdas'
gifts in the bank.

In Groppi's,
¹⁸
he sat down alongside Abd al-Halim Shukri and Shaikh Abd as-Sattar as-Salhubi, who was in the process of whispering the latest joke. They both asked him, perfunctorily, about the latest news. He expected the Pasha to disclose the results of the efforts he'd made to find him a job.

“Are you still happy the treaty was annulled?” the Shaikh asked ironically.

He realized that the Shaikh had an obsession with the question of the annulled treaty. All the calamities that had fallen on them stemmed from it alone.

“Events are striking our colleagues down like thunderbolts,” Abd al-Halim Shukri said, and then asked, “Is our turn coming?”

Isa sipped his tea and looked at the faces of people around him enjoying food and drink. Suddenly Abd al-Halim Shukri leaned toward him. “Anticipation is better than doubt,” he said.

Furiously disappointed, Isa reminded himself that in the old days all these people had come to see him with some favor they wanted done. Why on earth were they snubbing him now? As he was leaving, foxy laughter burst from the mouth of a beautiful woman, as sexy as a suggestive song. In the street, the sorrows that had bent him double when the telephone was slammed down suddenly overwhelmed him again and, in spite of the cold, he almost melted away.
He had loved her without once doubting that she was worthy of his love. It was true that each had accepted the other at the very beginning on the basis of other attractions which had nothing to do with love, but he had loved her quite genuinely afterwards. She had been very quick to slam the phone down in his face. Perhaps he was lucky to have suffered this blow to the heart at the same time as the blow to his political career; it could not monopolize his feelings.

His anger over all this had begun to get so out of hand that there was no room in his mind for anything of value. How can you imagine, he asked himself, that you really want to work, as you've made these other people think? Work is the very last thing you want. Who cares if these drunkards know it? Why not tell them? But before you do that, at least start looking for distractions. Let yourself enjoy a lengthy convalescence—longer than death itself. And let whatever happens happen.

           

H
is cousin Hasan came to visit him. Isa told himself that no one doing well in the world ever comes to see someone who has been left behind. So why had Hasan come? At the thought of Hasan's sister anger rose up in him, but a supreme effort enabled him to be welcoming. Their relationship alone brought them together, and he wanted to hide like a criminal, but he succeeded in putting on a happy front in spite of his nervous exhaustion. Hasan's vitality, on the other hand, seemed at its peak, and his handsome, distinctive features were flushed with confidence and success. No longer the carping defeatist, he would soon, no doubt, be generously offering sympathy!

Some instinct in Isa's mother made her take an interest in Hasan's visit, and she stopped muttering her prayers so that she could hear every word being spoken. Hasan sipped his tea, smacking his lips, then asked Isa how things were. Isa answered by laughing, but said nothing. Hasan repeated his question.

“Can't you see,” Isa replied, “that I'm living like a notable?”
²⁷

“It's time you got a job,” Hasan said earnestly.

Isa's mother blinked and looked hopeful; she agreed with what Hasan was saying. Isa was annoyed at her hasty reaction and asked himself suspiciously what the real reason for the visit might be, vowing that he would never agree to marry Hasan's sister even if it meant dying of hunger. “I could find work if I wanted,” he replied with a false air of confidence.

“Why don't you want to?” Hasan asked, with what seemed an air of brotherly concern.

“I want a long rest, something like two years or more.”

“You're joking, of course!”

“No,” Isa replied. “I see no need to hurry,” he went on in an irate tone of voice, “especially as my engagement has been broken off.”

Hasan looked at the tree standing motionless outside the window, avoiding his friend's gaze. He said nothing.

“Had you heard the news?” Isa asked anxiously.

“Yes,” Hasan replied, in a voice that showed he did not like the subject. “I heard about it. During a conversation I had in passing with Ali Bey. A most regrettable situation!” The last words sounded critical.

“I taught him a lesson he won't forget!” Isa snapped.

“I gathered as much from our conversation, although the Bey didn't mention it in so many words. But let's change the subject. Maybe the best thing is to accept the choice God has made.” He looked affectionately at Isa. “I've got a job for you with a respectable company,” he said.

The sudden frown on Isa's face showed Hasan that something was troubling him.

“A company that produces and distributes films,” Hasan continued. “I've been chosen as deputy director, but we need a qualified accounting supervisor.”

“Hasan,” Isa's mother exclaimed, “that's very good of you!”

Now the picture was becoming very clear, Isa told himself. I'm to be a civil servant with him as my boss, and a husband for his sister as well. If that's the case, then death take me whenever it wishes!

“I both congratulate and thank you!” he said carefully, and then smiled apologetically. “But I must decline.”

Disappointment was written all over Hasan's face and seemed to dampen momentarily its overflowing vitality. “Won't you think about it?” he asked.

“I thank you once more, but no!”

Hasan looked at him and then at his stupefied mother. “It's a very respectable job,” he said.

“I'm sure it is, but I'm determined to have a long vacation.”

Hasan paused for a moment. “It's not just a job,” he said. “It's also an opportunity to involve yourself in the new system. Our aim in creating this new company is to serve the government's interests.”

“At the moment,” Isa replied firmly, “rest is more important to me than any interest.”

From junior civil servant to deputy director of a company! Isa's desire to boycott work entirely grew suddenly stronger. He knew it was insane, yet he felt even more self-destructive. He stood his ground resolutely while Hasan tried other ways to persuade him. Eventually he departed without any positive result, which left Isa with a feeling of blind joy over a momentary victory.

“I don't understand anything,” his mother sighed.

“Nor do I,” he replied sarcastically.

“You don't like your cousin Hasan, do you?” she asked.

“He doesn't like me either!”

“But he didn't forget his family ties at the right moment!”

“He didn't do it for nothing!”

“So what?” she retorted insistently. “His sister is better than Salwa. Have you forgotten? I wish you'd think about it.”

Isa looked fixedly through the tree branches at the clouds bunched up on the horizon.

“I'm really thinking of leaving Cairo,” he said vaguely.