46
Autumn rolled around with its pleasant weather and its wispy clouds, and the schools embarked on a new year. My wife and I would go out together in the morning and take the same tram, and memories would wash over my heart in a blend of ecstasy and agony.
One time I said to her, “It was during days like this that I’d come rushing to the tram stop, dying just to catch a glimpse of your face.”
She smiled gently and said, “And I was dying to see yours!”
Ah, my beloved! Never in my life had I seen anyone so loving, content, and happy. She was cheerful and attentive without affectation or hypocrisy. Had she suffered in the beginning, then overcome her sufferings thanks to her loving, pure-hearted disposition? How could I possibly know what was going on deep inside her, or the thoughts she was thinking about me and her life? She seemed happy, caring, and sincere. After all, what reason would there be for her to pretend constantly to be happy if she was really miserable or didn’t love me? Nor did I have any reason to doubt her maturity as a woman or the depth of her feelings. She was the farthest thing from being frivolous and capricious. On the contrary, her heart was filled with vitality, fervor, and empathy. So, I thought, maybe she’s living her life inspired by the same hope that I cling to with such patience and endurance. However, the fact of the matter was that I was so preoccupied with my own worries, I had little time to concern myself with those of other people. This may have been due, first and foremost, to my innate self-centeredness. My ignorance also had a part to play in it. I may well have viewed myself as the primary, if not sole, victim of this tragedy.
In the early days of that autumn we were invited by Gabr Bey and Madame Nazli to a lunch banquet that they were hosting for family members and relatives in honor of Rabab’s brother Muhammad, who had recovered from a serious illness.
My wife went to the banquet, while my mother stayed home, saying she had to follow the new diet the doctor had prescribed for her. I went, feeling awkward and uncomfortable as usual, since for me a lunch banquet was a fate worse than illness, and because, like other gatherings of its type, it brought back memories of the orator’s podium at the Faculty of Law. I made certain that we went early so that we could arrive before all the other guests, since this way, I wouldn’t be subjected to people’s stares when I walked into the reception room. My plan worked; when we arrived, no one was there but the family, which was my family as well. I loved them all, though I’d come to be deathly afraid of Madame Nazli. Then the guests began to arrive: Rabab’s three paternal uncles and her four maternal uncles came with their wives and children. Her two maternal aunts also came, one of them with her husband and the other, a widow, with her eldest daughter.
Madame Nazli excused herself to receive a new guest, to whom I heard her say, “Why are you late, Amin?” The newcomer apologized to her in a low voice that sounded familiar to me, so I looked over toward the door with interest. As the new guest came into the room, I recognized him instantly. Before me stood the doctor I’d visited two months earlier and to whom I’d confided the secret of my misery! At first all I could do was stare at him, terrified, though I quickly got hold of myself. However, although I was capable of concealing what was going on inside me, there was nothing I could do to keep my heart from racing and nearly pounding its way out of my chest. Gripped with fright and deadly shyness, my heart was weighed down by an anguish so heavy, it was as though I’d fallen into a bottomless pit.
Then before I knew it, Madame Nazli was introducing him to me, saying, “This is a relative of mine whom I haven’t had the pleasure of introducing to you before. He just recently returned from Europe, and he rarely honors us with a visit. This is my nephew, Dr. Amin Rida.”
We shook hands as custom dictates and as we did so, our eyes met for a brief moment. However, I discerned nothing in his eyes but an expression of welcome, and there was nothing to indicate that he remembered me. Instead, he maintained his pompous, dispassionate bearing. When he’d finished shaking hands with seated family members, he sat down beside Gabr Bey and the two of them began to talk while I lost myself in frightened, distracted thoughts. Does he remember me? I wondered. Maybe, like doctors who are accustomed to encountering as many faces as there are minutes in the day, he’s forgotten me. On the other hand, he’s a new doctor, with only a few patients. Yet despite this fact, he didn’t appear to remember me in the least. Or, I wondered: Perhaps he does recognize me but is mercifully pretending not to. If only I could find a way to confirm this point! Supposing he does recognize me, might he possibly divulge my secret to his relative, Madame Nazli?
It seemed a far-fetched possibility. Nonetheless, I was about as far as one could get from peace of mind. I was already drowning in a fathomless sea of obsessive thoughts and fears. Did I really need any more?
We were invited to the table, so I left my thoughts behind, though their effects lingered the way the smell of smoke clings to someone coming out of a fire. Once we’d sat down, Madame Nazli turned and said with a smile, “I know you’re shy, Kamil, but beware, since banquets have no mercy on the shy!”
Some of them commented on what she’d said, which caused me to feel resentful toward her and even more distressed than before. However, it wasn’t long before they’d all become too engrossed in the delectable food to pay any attention to me. I hardly felt the discomfort that usually assails me in such circles, so distracted was I by matters of greater moment. After all, the only cure for discomfort is more discomfort. Then we went back to the reception room and coffee was served. I took the cup and brought it to my lips, and as I did so, my thoughts were suddenly transported to the old pub on Alfi Bey Street, and in my mind’s eye I saw a glass of liquor. How had the memory come back to me, and what had occasioned it? I was truly amazed, yet I also felt an extraordinary relief, like the delight you feel when you see a long-lost friend. Liquor … intoxication … bliss.… Ah, how badly I needed an escape! It was a strange, unexpected thought. But it was powerful, nay, irresistible. Cautiously and fearfully, I turned my attention back to my immediate surroundings. I glanced over in the direction of the doctor and found him engrossed in conversation, saying what he had to say with confidence, eloquence, and disdain while many of those present were jumping into the discussion with interest and delight. The conversation came around to the subject of life in Britain, and the doctor said that since his studies had taken up most of his time, he’d only rarely enjoyed his life there as a tourist. Nevertheless, he’d been able to observe first-hand the firm foundations on which the structure of political life there rested, people’s high standard of living, and the wide-ranging freedom they enjoyed in all spheres.
“So,” Gabr Bey said to him, “you seem to have continued to be interested there in the same things that interested you here before you went abroad.”
Laughing, one of the guests chimed in, “That’s right, Gabr Bey. Remind him of the days of the Faculty of Medicine and the nationalist revolution!”