“This is my daughter Ihsan. Since I consider you one of my children, I saw no harm in her bringing the tea to us,” he said in a low voice.
Hussein moved his lips as if speaking, but did not utter a single word. Hassan Effendi poured the tea.
“A girl is a great blessing to the home,” he said. “Her sisters are married, one in Cairo and two in Damanhour. She’s the only one not yet married.”
“May God give you joy in her marriage,” Hussein muttered in confusion.
They continued to sip their tea in silence. Hussein’s confusion was beginning to disappear, leaving behind it a sense of embarrassment which he could not clearly account for. Perhaps he was escaping the cause and deliberately ignoring it. Furthermore, he was conscious that he was still affected by the memory, vague though it was, of the girl’s image. He knew this was typical of the effect a female presence had upon him. It had no particular significance; it was the usual reaction of chaste young men. This time, his excitement, occurring not as usual in the street or on a tramcar but in a home, had put him into a deep mood of perplexed delight. Away from Cairo, it was inevitable that he should think of matters more remote. Fear and weariness filled his heart. Hassan Effendi was watching him quietly, growing fed up with the young man’s silence.
“Drink your tea,” he ordered, “and get ready for the next round. You’ve fallen into my clutches and you have no chance of escaping.”
FIFTY-TWO
She was pretty enough to stir his emotions. Later on he saw her in the street accompanied by her mother, and he observed her in her home more than once. Fortunately, she inherited only her father’s protruding cheeks, which, however, instead of making her ugly, gave her a special attractiveness. He readily recognized that Hassan Effendi’s flat was becoming a source of strong attraction to him, not to be explained merely by his desire for entertainment. He was full of youthful vigor and vitality. His heart seemed to be waiting to admit the first girl who would knock at its door. Soon a passion combining desire, admiration, and affection flared up in his breast. In her he sought a solace for his lonely life and a quenching of his thirst for companionship. From the very beginning, he was clearly aware of how critical his situation was. He understood his dilemma, and it never occurred to him to relax in carrying out his obligations to his family. Yet he was not firm enough with himself. This was beyond his control. He had to choose one of two alternatives: either to disregard his circumstances or to live a parched, lonely, and secluded life, cheerless and barren. As his perplexity increased, he thought several times of inventing some pretext or other to return to the hotel. But he remained where he was. Surrendering to fate, he allowed matters to take their natural course. Life continued its march without producing any novelty. Though he seldom saw the girl, her image was indelibly imprinted on his mind. Hassan Effendi kept on chattering as usual, ignoring the whole matter.
In the meantime, Hassanein’s meticulously detailed letters kept Hussein as well informed about his family as if he were still living among them and sharing all their feelings. Hassanein told him that their mother had decided to use the money he was sending them to buy clothes, that he himself had managed to wring a new jacket from her to wear over his old trousers, and that their mother, so that she could do without woolen clothes and still keep warm, had bought herself a new dressing gown to wear over her light dresses. The allocation of Hussein’s money to clothing, though necessary, made it impossible for the family to make use of it to improve their diet, which continued to be bad. As for Nefisa, Hassanein said that she was making only little progress and that their mother had ceased to take the bulk of her earnings as she had done before Hussein began sending them money. Thus Nefisa spent what little money she could spare on her clothes to keep up an appearance appropriate to the family’s reputation. It seemed that there was no room in Hassan’s mind for his family, since his new life absorbed him totally. Or perhaps he thought that with Hussein’s appointment to the government service they were no longer in need of him. In any case, he had completely ceased paying visits to his family. Hassanein informed his brother about his own preparation for the baccalaureate exams at the end of the year, telling him how he was striving to pass them, knowing what it meant to fail.
Seeking in his last letter to ingratiate himself more firmly with his brother, Hassanein mentioned at the close that his new jacket lost its attractiveness when worn with his thin, shabby trousers. Would it be possible, he inquired, for Hussein to come up with the price of new trousers over the next three months? Hussein paused thoughtfully, uncertain as to whether he could comply with his brother’s request without jeopardizing his own savings. Yet he already knew that hesitation was futile, for he could not fail to respond to any appeal from Hassanein. Had he been at home with his brother he might have scolded him. But the distance separating them softened his heart and made his longing for his family irresistible. His devotion to careful economizing made him dislike squandering his money. But in the interest of sacrifices for his family, he found it only a little difficult to relax his carefulness. To please Hassanein, it would do him no serious harm if he tightened his belt for another three months. Knowing his brother well, Hussein realized that Hassanein thought that the others had an obligation to be kind and helpful to him, and that if Hussein failed to buy him the trousers, he would indignantly forget the real favor of buying him the jacket. Furthermore, he was driven by a mysterious urge to shower his brother with favors and good turns, for he believed there was a dazzling future in store for this young man. He had sacrificed his own career for the sake of Hassanein and his sacrifice should be complete. Again, with a mixture of sadness and delight, he saw himself as a sacrificial goat, patient and stoical in facing the grim fate of his family, shielding them from its blows. This feeling gave him strength and pleasure and lent a superb moral significance to his life.
Then the unexpected happened, or so he thought, since he was not quite frank with himself. One day as he sat conversing with Hassan Effendi, the man asked him, “Haven’t you thought of marriage?”
The young man became confused and a bit frightened. “No,” he muttered.
The man raised his eyebrows in disapproval. “Then what are you thinking of?” he asked. “Why do you live? Do you think that a man, especially after securing a job, has any end in life other than marriage?”
Hussein hesitated for a moment. “I have other responsibilities which demand priority,” he said.
He proceeded to confide to the man the difficult circumstances of his family, sometimes exaggerating them to strengthen his position. The man listened with interest until he finished, but he did not appear to be convinced. He was not prepared to be convinced of anything that got in the way of realizing his hopes. He shook his bald head with indifference.
“I see that you are exaggerating the seriousness of the situation,” he said. “Just be patient until your brother obtains the baccalaureate. Then you’ll be free from your obligations, and he, in turn, will have to find a job for himself. Nahas Pasha himself got married. Do you think that your responsibilities outweigh his?”
Confused, Hussein laughed. “But my brother is determined to continue his education,” he said.
“Listen,” the man continued. “If you have goals in life such as the restoration of the 1923 Constitution, for example, it would be better for you to put off your marriage! You must marry at the end of this year, as soon as your brother finds a job. But if he insists on completing his education, your mother, who approves his plan, has no right to object to your marriage. She has no right to pamper one son if it means depriving the other of his elemental rights in life.”