Khan Al-Khalili

18

Rushdi had not slept very much the previous night on the train, so he now simply surrendered himself to his bed and slept soundly. He did not wake up until four the next afternoon. As he sat on his bed yawning and gradually opening his eyes, he was aware that, for the first time in a year, he was actually waking up to the laughing light of Cairo. He remembered the order to relocate from Asyut, and that made him feel happy and relaxed. His room was shrouded in darkness, so he went over and opened the window. Instantly, he thought of the pretty girl and looked up at her window, but it was closed. He left his room and went out into the hall. His father was asleep, and his mother was preparing a fish for frying. For a while he stood by the kitchen door chatting to her, then he went to his brother’s room. He found Ahmad standing by the window. When he was aware that Rushdi had come in, he quickly looked away — although Rushdi had no idea quite how much that had cost him. He gave his younger brother a gentle smile, and they both sat down, Ahmad on the mattress and Rushdi on the chair.

They started chatting, just the way you would expect with two affectionate brothers who had been separated for a while. Rushdi remembered the way his brother had always been fond of writing.

“Haven’t you started writing things yet?” he asked.

The question stung Ahmad a bit, but he didn’t dwell on it. “I’ve a head stuffed full of knowledge,” he replied, “but what should I select and what should I leave out? Truth to tell, if I really wanted to write, I could fill up an entire library! But what’s the point? Do the Egyptian people really deserve writing in the true sense of the word? Can they really digest such material? Or is it a question of one set of rabble reading another?”

Rushdi was always prepared to accept whatever his brother said. “It’s a shame that your valuable ideas should go to waste.”

Ahmad, too, believed in what he was saying, forgetting the arguments he had been having with Ahmad Rashid. “I’m ahead of my time,” he said, “so there’s no hope at all of my reaching some form of mutual understanding with these people. Everything in life has its faults, even absorbing oneself in research and knowledge.”

“But, my dear brother, how can you be happy if all the effort you’ve made comes to nothing and has no impact on people?”

That comment pleased Ahmad a lot; in fact, it made him happy enough to compensate for having had to look away from the window a short while ago. “Who knows, Rushdi? Maybe one day I’ll be able to change my mind about people and respect them more.”

They kept on talking until the cannon was fired to announce the breaking of the fast. With that, the family sat down to its final Ramadan meal. The traditional platters of fish were served, and they all ate and drank their fill. As soon as coffee had been served, Rushdi put on his coat and left the house without any further ado. He wanted to get to the Ghamra casino at the right time; in other words, he needed to get there before all his friends — who regularly gathered at the casino every evening to drink and play cards — took over the gaming table. For anyone who knew as much about such things as he did, there was wisdom in getting there early. It was not just a matter of getting a place at the gaming table, but the fact that once the players involved were engrossed in the game they would not bother to greet any late arrivals, even if they had been away for a full year! The best one could hope for was a terse greeting, while eyes would remain glued to the cards. If out of some reluctant sense of politeness they were forced to actually stop the game, it was no boon for the new arrival. Everyone would invoke all manner of mute curses under their breath. Furthermore, latecomers who interrupted the players in the middle of the game would be considered good luck for the winners and the opposite for the losers; as a result, one group of players would always be staring daggers at the new arrival.

Some of his companions had suffered a string of really bad luck and had acquired bad reputations. One of them was a young lawyer whose friends believed him to be a jinx — as long as he was anywhere close to the people playing, they were bound to lose; none of them had any hope of winning. Gamblers are very superstitious and prone to rumor mongering, believing in omens and worshiping the notion of chance.

As he got on the trolley to al-Azhar, his memory took him back to the days when he had first started indulging in gambling. It had been during his first year at the School of Commerce. He had been invited to join a game on the pretext that it was an innocent way to kill time. At the time they had bet milliemes — but with no thought of making a profit. After all, the millieme was such a small unit of currency, and the idea had been simply to lend a bit of excitement to the game and give the activity a serious aspect. Fairly soon, however, the amounts had gone up, until the entire contents of their pockets were involved. Gradually, their passion for the game became so overwhelming that it completely obliterated all thought of time, duty, and the future. After all, gambling is a fairly risky pastime; it’s a masochistic form of pleasure, a manic compulsion. You are playing with the unseen and jockeying with chance; pounding on the door of the unknown and crunching together the clashing instincts of fear, aggression, curiosity, recklessness, and greed. Beyond all that, it’s an echo of that feeling we all have, that aspect of our daily struggle, which derives from the energy and calculation we use in order to deal with life; the way we handle the powers of fate that control us, the requests we make of chance and the particular circumstances that envelop us, and the gains and losses we suffer as a consequence. How often had Rushdi devoutly wished that he would never have to leave the gaming table! What was remarkable about his behavior is that after an exhausting evening of playing he never once got up from the table without asking God’s forgiveness for his folly. And yet, no sooner did the appointed time approach on the next day than he was rushing off to the casino without bothering about anything else.

Thus did this chronic disease grab hold of them all, turning people who were trying to kill time into victims. Rushdi became a hard-core gambler who worshipped chance and submitted to the dictates of omens. When he opened the window in the morning, he might say something like, “If I happen to meet two passersby, then I’ll have good luck; if only one, then today I’ll be a loser.” Or on his way to breakfast he might mutter to himself, “If there’s beans in ghee for breakfast, then today’ll be a winner; but if they’re in oil, then too bad!”

All these thoughts were interrupted when he got off the trolley, and took the number 10 that would take him back to the quarter where they had lived before. His nostalgia began to make itself felt now. As al-Sakakini drew close, he began to feel a deep sense of pain and powerful emotion. Getting off the trolley he made his way to the casino. He spotted his friends in their usual place in the garden outside, or rather he saw their silhouettes, because by now it was completely dark. All of which made him realize that he had arrived at just the right time, before everyone went into the gaming hall. He made his way over with a broad smile on his face and placed himself in the middle of the group. They all recognized him and yelled in unison, “Rushdi Akif! Welcome back, Lionheart!”

He was delighted to hear his nickname, one that they had given him because of the reckless way he used to gamble. They all embraced each other warmly. Like him, they were all in their mid-thirties. Some of them had gone to school with him, while others had grown up with him in al-Sakakini. But, where crazy and anti-social behavior and flagrantly reckless decisions were concerned, they were all of one stripe.

“So that’s the way things are, is it?” one of them said. “We were inseparable day and night, and now you only show up at feast time?”

Rushdi took his seat. “From now on,” he replied with a laugh, “you’re going to be seeing me every day, or, to be more precise, every night!”

“How can that be?” one of the others asked.

“I’ve been transferred back to Cairo,” he replied.

“You’re not going back to Asyut ever again?”

“No!”

“May God so will it!”

“How did you manage to survive a whole year without playing cards?” another friend asked. “We’ve certainly missed seeing your cash!”

“Oh, there are gaming tables in Asyut as well,” Rushdi replied. “As for the rest, the feeling is reciprocal.”

They started talking about Asyut, until Rushdi asked, “How do you plan to spend the time tonight?”

“The way we’ve spent all the others. We’re going into the gaming hall pretty soon.”

“That’s fine. But what about two or three glasses of cognac?”

“How about four or five?”

“Or six or seven?”

At this point someone else made a different suggestion. “Look,” he said, “tomorrow’s the Eid. Let’s postpone getting plastered until tomorrow.”

“Never postpone today’s work until tomorrow!”

“What’s the sex life in Asyut like?” someone else asked him.

“Don’t even ask. Involuntary celibacy!”

“Here it’s almost as bad as in the provinces now. The allied armies are devouring meat, fruit, and women as well.”

“At long last,” another friend commented, “Jewish girls have discovered the virtues of knowing English.”

“You can easily spot them, all decked out in silk. If you block their path, they stare daggers at you and tell you in a genuine Scottish accent to please behave like a gentleman!”

“My dear Rushdi, all the servant women have broken their contracts and gone to work in the cabarets.”

“This war’s provided a wonderful occasion for them to discover their hidden artistic talents.”

Rushdi seemed perplexed. “So what’s to be done then?” he asked with a smile “Are we supposed to start thinking about getting married?”

“If this war goes on and things get worse and worse, you and I are going to be the only bachelors around!”

“Friends, you’re not being entirely fair to either the Jewish girls or the servants. The truth of the situation is that they’ve been alarmed by the lack of any involvement in the war on our part. That’s why they’ve decided to use their own honor as a way of participating in the Allies’ cause.”

“Women now have become more expensive than fertilizer!”

“Even harder to get than coal.”

“What if the war were to come to an end tomorrow? What are all those women going to do?”

“They’ll become even cheaper than a Japanese woman!”

“And love-making will take place in groups. Any young man will be able to find three women in a single night: one for kissing, one for chatting, and a third for fondling, and so on.”

“Unless the government intervenes, of course, in order to maintain the normal prices!”

Rushdi’s laugh was that of someone who had been deprived of their company for a whole year. They all continued drinking and chatting until nine o’clock, at which point they got up to go into their beloved gaming hall.

That night Rushdi made a lot of money, at least by their reckoning: his total winnings before midnight were three pounds, added to which was the sum of thirty piasters as midnight itself approached — that being the agreed time to close the session. They then all got up from the table. Rushdi had seemed absolutely delighted during the game itself, being someone whose emotions are clearly visible on their face. He had started singing quietly as though humming a serenade and only stopped when one of his companions who was losing badly yelled at him, “For heaven’s sake, stop singing. You’re getting on my nerves!”

When they were out on the street, one of them suggested that they continue the game at his house.

“So be it!” they all responded in unison.

“What about you?” he asked Rushdi.

“I agree,” Rushdi replied with a laugh, “but only on condition that you let me sing!”

They all made their way to their host’s house on Abu Khudha Street. Once they had prepared the gaming table, they started playing again with an insatiable relish. The windows in the room were closed, and the heat came from their own breath. Alcohol had inflamed their innards, and they were pouring sweat. At two o’clock in the morning, someone said, “Enough! If we don’t stop now, we’ll be spending the whole Eid day asleep!”

With that they stopped playing. By this time, Rushdi had lost everything he had earned and the thirty piasters as well.

One of them joked with him, “That license we gave you to sing didn’t get you very far, did it?”

They all laughed. Rushdi managed to keep his anger under control and laughed along with them. With that he said goodnight and headed for Abbasiya, but all public transport had long since stopped. He set out for the al-Husayn quarter where the family now lived and found the road totally empty; there was total silence, and the darkness was all-encompassing. He felt hot all over and was plastered with sweat; his throat felt dry as well. He felt as though he were being swallowed by the thick humidity that fall always provides in profusion, especially in the very early morning. Before long a shiver of cold ran through his body, wracking his chest and clogging his nostrils. Being the last night of the lunar month, everything was pitch-black. What made him even angrier was that it was cloudy, and so the stars were hidden. On both sides of the road the old mansions looked like ghosts sitting cross-legged as they dozed. He started talking to himself. “It would have been a much better idea not to go to the house with them. But fat chance of that ever happening!” Unfortunately, his regret was just as weak as his will. Die-hard gamblers usually accept their losses fairly calmly; the principle being that you accept the losses of one day in the hope of gains on the next.

He noticed how long and filthy the road was, and sighed in anger and frustration. When he got to the entrance to Khan al-Khalili, he remembered what his brother had told him: second alley on the right, and third door on the left. He felt his way in the darkness until he reached the apartment building and managed to make his way up to his room quietly. He turned the light on. No sooner did he spot the closed window than he remembered the other window that overlooked it. His face broke into the first smile it had formed since midnight. In his mind’s eye he surveyed that lovely face with its olive complexion. The troubles of the night made him feel sad. “The way things had gone badly tonight were painful, true enough. But there were good things about it as well.” After changing his clothes, he went over to his desk and took out his diary. He sat there recording his thoughts before falling asleep.