I saw my life as it was: childish, fugitive dreams, timidity and fear that put aspirations to death, and an utter self-centeredness that had doomed me to an isolation devoid of a single friend or companion and to an ignorance of the world and everything in it. There was no time and no place, no politics and no sports. As for the large metropolis in which I’d been born and raised, all I knew of it was a couple of streets, as though I’d been living in a cell in the desert. A heavy pall of gloom settled over me, and I mulled over my grief in a deadly, heartfelt loneliness. However, my mother didn’t abandon me for a single moment of those dark days, nor could she bear to stand opposed to me for long. Hence, it wasn’t long before she abandoned her opposition and came over to my side, pretending to be pleased and content.
One day she said to me consolingly, “The best thing lies in what God has chosen. Do we have the power to do anything for ourselves? Before long you’ll become a responsible man, and it will be your turn to pamper your mother and repay some of the debt you owe her.”
We spent long hours together in which I basked in her gentle, healing words. It was thanks to her alone that my ordeal passed, my heart was opened anew to life, and I ceased to labor under the weight of scruples, misgivings, and obsessive thoughts.
18
In his efforts to find me a job in the Ministry of War, my grandfather sought the good offices of a high-ranking army officer who had once worked as a petty lieutenant under his command in Sudan. And his efforts were crowned with success. However, the officer informed him that I might be appointed to Salloum. When my grandfather mentioned this, my mother’s face clouded over.
“Salloum!” she cried in horror. “Don’t you know that Kamil wouldn’t be able to live by himself?”
She thought that Salloum was a nearby town like Zagazig, or possibly one as far away as Tanta. When she found out that it was really next to the border with Libya, she let a nervous laugh escape, thinking it was a joke.
“Find a job for him yourself!” shouted my grandfather in frustration. “Or appoint him to work in your lap and give me a break!”
However, continuing to spare no effort on my behalf, he approached old acquaintances of his who had been born in the nineteenth century and who had worked under his command many years before. They may have been touched by his venerable age and his long, active military career, not to mention the memories he stirred up in them, so they promised to do their best. And sure enough, they found me a job in the warehousing section of the Ministry of War’s general administrative office. The ministry was only three tram stops and a ten-minute walk from our house. Hence, my mother approved and was visibly pleased. The justifications for the appointment were presented, and I was seen by the general medical committee in keeping with routine procedures. In short, I became an employee of the government. The feeling I had as I left home for the ministry for the first time was a complex one: it included an element of pride, as well as a sense of delight over being liberated from slavery to both home and school. At the same time, it wasn’t without an element of anxiety of the sort that would come over me whenever I embarked on some new venture.
My heart aflutter, I proceeded toward the stop where I would see “my beloved,” since as of this auspicious day, our paths had become one, if only for a few stops. Even if the job had involved this alone, it would have provided me with sufficient happiness and well-being. Taking precautions on behalf of my cowardly heart, I stood at the far end of the sidewalk lest I faint from being too close to her. A short while later she came along, striding by with that dignified but lively gait of hers, and my heart received her with a jubilant throb. I kept my gaze lowered, though I was in a state of elation that turned the world around me into a chorus of heavenly praises. The tram arrived and we boarded together. It was the first time we’d been in the same enclosed place together, and the feel of it coursed through my body like electricity. I wished the tram would keep on going forever without stopping. When I got off, I crossed the street hurriedly to the sidewalk, then looked back at the ladies’ compartment, where I caught a glimpse of her back as she pored over a book she was holding. As the tram began to move again, she suddenly turned and looked behind her, and her eyes fell on me. Then she turned her back to me again. A rush of excitement went through me from head to toe. Frozen in place, my eyes clung to the tram until I could no longer make out any of its features. Then I proceeded on my way, oblivious to everything around me, intoxicated by the glance that heaven had so generously bestowed. Puzzled and amazed, I wondered: Why did she turn around? What would have prompted her to do that? Indeed, what could possibly have prompted her to do so but my spirit’s unspoken invitation? A radio picks up sound over the airwaves even from inside our homes. So what would there be to prevent someone from answering the summons of another spirit charged with amorous affection and desire? Enchanted by the thought, I jubilantly embraced the belief that my spirit had an effect on hers. But, Lord have mercy, how I’d trembled under the impact of that fleeting glance! Do you suppose she recognized me as the young man who had looked at her for a moment at the tram stop three months earlier?
By this time I was approaching the ministry, and I gradually began waking from my reverie. Then, as though I were bidding farewell to this passing moment of ecstasy, I said to myself: I love her! This is love, plain and simple.
Then I exited the world of amorous love to enter the world of government. I introduced myself to the director, who introduced me in turn to my nine office mates. This was a small number by comparison to the students I’d had to deal with. Besides, they were full-grown men, so I couldn’t possibly expect them to treat me with mockery or disdain. I hoped with all my heart that I was beginning a new, rich life, and since no work had been assigned to me that day, I had some moments in which to dwell on happy thoughts. So I pondered the freedom I’d been looking forward to and which I hoped would rescue me from the prison of home and the slavery I’d known as school, as well as the enchanting look my soul had managed to wrest from the depths of the spirit by dint of its strength and potency.
* * *
Embarking on my new life full of hope, I won the first type of friendship I’d ever known in my life, namely, what they term “office friendship.” It’s a kind of compulsory friendship that’s imposed on people by virtue of being coworkers in the same office. I delighted in it at first. After all, for someone like me who’d never had a friend in his entire life, it was the only way I could have responded to being in the midst of nine men who called me by name and who received me and bade me farewell in the friendliest of ways. But alas, my severe shyness stood as an impenetrable barrier between us. Then over time, experience demonstrated to me that it was a species of friendship that isn’t worth grieving over. It starts in the morning with a greeting and pleasantries, but by noon it may have been transmuted into some unpleasant incident that ends with a warning or a punishment. And the worst thing of all was that I had no real work of my own to do. Rather, there wasn’t a single one of them who didn’t assign me to mechanical work that I would carry out in servile obedience. It wasn’t unusual for them to spend most of the day chattering, smoking, and drinking coffee while I sat bent over a stack of papers in a kind of semi-slavery. Shrewd folks that they were, they’d no doubt picked up on the fact that I was inexperienced and unsure of myself, and they took advantage of my weakness in the worst possible way. So, within a month of the time I’d begun, I’d grown weary of the new life, and I concluded with a certainty that I’d gone from the frying pan into the fire.