Naguib Mahfouz - Midaq Alley (Chapter 20) lyrics

Chapter 20 From that night on, he was a constant visitor to the alley. He would come toward the end of the afternoon and take his chosen seat, pa**ing the time smoking a water pipe and drinking tea. His appearance out of nowhere, with all his distinction and elegance, at first created a stir in the cafe, but familiarity soon drew over him the mantle of indifference. It wasdt such a miracle that an effendi such as he should come to a cafe that was open to all. He did, however, put Boss Kersha to a lot of trouble with the large-denomi­ nation banknotes that he'd present when he paid and which on many occasions went as high as a whole pound. At the same time, he made Sunqur happy with the tips he gave him, which exceeded any he had ever known. Hamida watched out for his arrival every day with wide eyes and bounding heart. Nevertheless, she refrained, at first, from tak­ ing her daily stroll because her clothes were so flimsy and tawdry. In the end, however, she became fed up with the house and decided that her reluctance to go out was cowardice of a kind that her bold nature could not permit. It hurt her that any creature could impose on her any obligation that she hated and a new battle broke out in that breast of hers that never rested from its batdes. She had noted the banknotes, which he habitually proffered to Sunqur in such a way as to make sure she saw them. Naturally, she understood straight away the message they were intended to convey. Anywhere else this might have been considered a vulgar form of communication; in Midaq Alley, however, it was elo­ quent and infallible. Similarly, even though the man was very careful to not give any sign of the real reason for his visiting the cafe, he never overlooked an opportunity to steal glances at the shutters or put the mouthpiece of his water pipe to his mouth without pursing his lips as though kissing it and then expelling the smoke upward as though launching the kiss into the air toward her half-hidden shape, motionless at the window. She noted this with interest, and copflicting sensations that were neither completely pleasurable nor completely displeasing ran through her. She made up her mind to dismiss her fears and make her outing, telling herself that if he made so bold as to accost her (as she had no doubt he would), she would confront him with all the gen­ uine insolence she knew herself to possess and deal his own a devastat­ ing defeat, giving him a tongue-lashing he would remember for the rest of his days. That would be the best punishment for his unfounded pride, his triumphant smile, and his impudent provocativeness. Damn him! What made him put on this show of victory and domination? No one could put up with such a thing without wanting to rub his face in the dirt. If only she owned a decent milaya and a new pair of slippers! He had crossed her path at a moment when she was suffering bit­ ter despair. Master Salim Elwan had fallen into a state between life and d**h after tempting her, for litde more than a day, with the vision of the larger life of which she dreamed, and then, after she'd expelled Abbas el-Helw and his very name from those same dreams, she'd dis­ covered that there was no hope left for the dreamt-of marriage, and so had gone back to being, despite herself, el-Helw's fiancee, a state of affairs that only increased her contempt for and aversion to him. She had refused to give in to her bad luck and had upbraided her mother, whom she accused of having envied her and having had covetous designs on the man's money, which would explain why God had dashed her hopes. Such was her condition when the new man appeared on her horizon. His appearance had stirred up within her a riptide of emotions that set all her hidden instincts in motion. His pride infuriated her, his provocativeness annoyed her, his distin­ guished manner seduced her, and his manliness and beauty awakened her. A hidden power exerted by those buried instincts drove her toward him, and she found in him qualities that were not to be found together in any other man she knew, namely power, money, and love of combat. With no clear and unambiguous awareness of her own feelings and no knowledge of her own complex needs, she could not decide between her attraction to him and her burning desire to seize him by the lapels. The idea of leaving the house offered her an escape from both her prison and her confusion, and the open street a field in which she could put herself and her instincts to the test. In the street, he would probably accost her, providing her One afternoon, then, she made herself up, wrapped her rnilaya about her, and left the apartment as though she couldn't care less. She was in the street in under a minute and then walked the length of the alley, looking straight ahead. As she turned onto Boxmakers Street, though, a thought occurred to her: might he not get the wrong idea about her leaving the house? Might he not be so conceited as to think that she'd left it precisely so as to find herself face to face with him on the street, especially as he was quite unaware of her habit of taking a daily walk? He'd come several days in a row now and never seen her leave the bouse, so he'd certainly walk behind her and accost her in the street. In the end, she decided to pay no attention to what he might think, welcomed whatever his conceit might make him do, and looked for ward to the encounter (at which, she promised herself, she'd wipe that stupid smile of triumph off his lips) with a soul that burned for challenge and combat. ***** Irked by being in the house, she wrapped herself in her milaya and left, without paying as much attention to her appearance as she had the day before. The cool air of the street caressed her face, the stimula­ tion bringing back to her the anxiety and worry that she had suffered the day before. Angrily she murmured, "I must be crazy. How could I have tormented myself like that? He can go to hell!" and she hastened her steps to catch up with her girlfriends, then returned with them. They warned her that they would soon be losing one of their number, who was going to marry Zunful who worked on the taamiya stand at Sidhum and one of the girls remarked, "You got engaged before her but she's going to get married before you." The words upset her andshe responded angrily and proudly, "My fiance's busy preparing a wonderful future for us." Despite herself, she found herself feeling proud of el-Helw. Then, sighing, she recalled Master Salim Elwan-God damn him and every­ thing else that was of no use to her-and her heart felt a spasm of pain that left her in a gloomy mood the rest of the way. She felt life was out to frustrate her and trick her and was the one enemy she didn't yet know how to grab by the front of its gallabiya. She accompanied the girls to the end of Darrasa Road, where she bade the last of them good­ bye, turned round to go back the way she had come, and saw him, her man and no other, a few yards away, standing on the sidewalk as though waiting. She stared at him for a few moments, shocked by the surprise and overwhelmed by a loss of composure that she would regret when it was too late, and then resumed her progress as though in a trance. She hadn't been prepared for this encounter and had no doubt that he had been trailing her the whole time. And so it always would be-he quietly in control, she always off guard and stunned. She began to summon her scattered forces and call up her reserves of savagery. She was mortified that she hadn't paid as much attention to her appearance as she should have and this caused her no small anxiety. The sky lay submissively under the duskiness of twilight, the place was deserted, and the man waited calmly for her to approach, his face gentle with no trace of that provocative look or that smile of tri­ umph. Swinging into step beside her, he addressed her in a quiet voice, saying, "He Who endures the bitterness of patience reaches the ..." She didn't hear the rest of the sentence because he said it too quietly. Fixing him with an angry look, she said nothing but kept on walking. He kept pace with her and said in his calm, deep voice, "Hi. I almost went mad yesterday because I couldn't run after you in case someone saw. I'd been waiting for you to go out like that for days and then when the opportunity came and I couldn't do anything about it I went crazy." He was looking at her with a gentle expression, quite unlike the one that had made her so angry. There was no challenge, no triumph, and his words were more like a plaint, an expression of suffering, or an excuse. She had girded her loins for something different, so what was she to do? Should she ignore him, walk faster, and put an end to everything? She could do so if she wanted, but she found no support for the idea in her heart. It was as though she'd been waiting for this encounter since the first day, so she kept walking, feeling like a woman to whom modesty was an utter stranger. The man, for his part, was playing his role with sk** and weaving a cunning lie. It wasn't fear that had made him stay put the day before but lively intelligence and exceptional experience, which had told him that it would be better to stay where he was than to do anything in a hurry, just as, today, they had told him to don this mask of false polite­ ness and mildness. Gendy he added, "Slow down a litde. I have ..." She turned to him and cut him off angrily. "Where do you get the nerve to talk to me? Do you know me, whoever you are?" "How could I not?" he replied in that falsely polite manner. "We're old friends. Over the past few days I've seen you more often than your neighbors have over the past few years. And I've thought about you more than those closest to you have in the whole of their lives. How could I not know you after all that?" He spoke gently but without a stammer or a quaver to his voice. She started to pay more attention to what he was saying, growing keener to enter the joust. A feeling of recklessness-the only weapon she possessed to brandish in the face of life's obduracy-came over her. At the same time, she didn't want to abandon the role of "artifice and playacting" that she was playing, so she said angrily but taking care not to raise her voice and expose even his thick skin to public disgrace, "Why are you following me?" "Why am I following you?" said the man in surprise, smiling. "Why am I neglecting my business and spending all my time in the cafe under your window? Why have I abandoned the whole world and taken up residence in Midaq Alley? And why have I been waiting all this time?" She frowned and said contemptuously, "I didn't ask you so that you could answer me with drivel like that. I forbid you to follow me or talk to me." In a new, more confident and suaver tone, he responded, "The real reason is that we are bound to follow a beautiful woman wherever she goes. That's where it all starts, because if she went and no one followed, that would be the real abomination or, to put it differently, if you went and no one followed you, the end of the world would be nigh." They were pa**ing Awarga Lane, where some of her girlfriends lived. She hoped they'd see this effendi flirting with her. Then she caught sight of the mosque square not far away. She remonstrated with him, "Go away! They know me in this quarter." He examined her with a piercing look and ascertained that she was unconsciously or perhaps consciously opening a dialog with him, and a smile traced itself on his lips which, had she seen it, would have stirred up bitter memories. "This isn't your quarter," he told her, "and these aren't your people. You're different. You're a stranger here." His words struck a chord in her heart and gave her more pleas­ ure than anything that had ever been said to her before. As though in indignation, the man continued, "How can you walk in your milaya with those girls? They're nothing compared to you. A princess in a milaya, while her subjects strut about in new clothes?" ''What business is that of yours?" she said, angrily. "Go away." "I will never go away," he protested. "What do you want?" she asked him angrily. With amazing bold­ ness, he replied, "I want you, and nothing but you.'' "Tough." "God forgive you. Why are you angry? Weren't you put on this earth to be had? I'm the one who's going to have you." They were pa**ing some stores, and she scolded him, "One more step and I'll . . ." "You'll what?" he said, smiling. "Beat me up?" "You got it!" she said, heart racing, eyes shining. With a wicked smile, he said, "We'll see. I'm going to leave you now even though I don't want to, but I'll wait for you every day. I won't go back to the cafe so I don't raise suspicions in the alley, but I'll wait for you every day. Every day. Farewell, you most beautiful of creatures that walk this earth." She kept on walking, her face transformed by an expression of delight, pleasure, and conceit. "You're different." Yes! And then what had he said? "You're a stranger here. ... Weren't you put on this earth to be had? I'm the one who's going to have you." And what else? "Beat me up?" Feelings of insane pleasure and wild happiness swept over her. She walked the rest of the way almost blind to her surround­ ings and, on finding herself once more in the sanctuary of her room and recovering her breath, recalled with wonder and pride that she'd been able to hold her own with a strange man and converse with him without shyness or embarra**ment, that she'd been able to do what she wanted without thinking twice-and was swept by a wave of arro­ gance and recklessness so implacable that a loud laugh escaped her. Then she remembered that she'd resolved to grab him by his lapels and was briefly plunged into gloom, excusing herself, however, on the grounds that he hadn't shown her that brazenly provocative face. On the contrary, he'd spoken to her gently and politely, though not out of any natural submissiveness: her heart told her that he was a tiger, waiting for the right time to jump, so she would wait. She would wait for him to reveal his true self, and then.... And once again that insane pleasure and that wild happiness flooded through her.