Khan Al-Khalili

24

Once back in his room, he was so distraught that he could barely see straight. He threw the cigarette on his bed, then went over to the window and looked up. He could see the balcony just as she had left it, open and empty. He lowered his gaze with a frown and closed the window so loudly that it made the glass rattle. Going back to his bed, he sat down on the edge.

“I didn’t realize,” he muttered to himself, “that there was another window in her apartment that looked out directly onto his just like this balcony. I honestly didn’t realize.”

By now his blood had turned into oil, sending tongues of flame to his heart. Hadn’t he seen her moving backward in shock when he had appeared in his brother’s room? Was it a feeling that she was doing something wrong that shocked her? If not, then what had made her go to the window when she had convinced him that she was going to take a nap? It could only mean one thing, and it was not pleasant: the girl had been deliberately deceitful, and that meant an end to all his futile hopes. The amazing thing was this younger brother had only come home ten days ago, and in that short time everything had changed — the very idea hit him like a slap on the face. From now on his heart would declare all his passions to be invalid; any smiles of welcome were simply examples of hypocrisy and outright deceit. How could these changes happen so fast, he wondered. Could it be this easy and noncommittal, almost a victimless process? Or was there bound to be an appropriate level of reluctance and pain? Was the girl toying with both of them? Behind that sweet smile could there really be a thoroughly nasty and cunning little vixen? Why had she exchanged greetings with him just a few minutes ago? Did she feel awkward and shy, or was it more a matter of sheer cunning?

His younger brother was blameless; he was totally unaware of the circumstances involved. Rushdi had set eyes on her and found her attractive, so he had started flirting with her (as he usually did with girls). He had managed to attract her attention, and she had fallen for him. With a single glance and gesture she had forgotten all about the elder brother. That was all there was to it! She had forgotten the older man, with his balding pate. He had only himself to blame. Did he not know enough by now about his own hard luck and his negative view of the world in general and women in particular to steer well clear of false hopes and glimpses of happiness?

As he stood up, his expression was one of profound sadness and utter despair. He started pacing back and forth in his room between bed and desk until he began to feel dizzy. He went back to sit down on the bed. Was there any point, he asked himself, in engaging in a contest with his own brother? The very thought aroused his innate arrogance. No, it was out of the question for him to lower himself so far as to engage in any rivalry with another human being; genuine rivalry could only take place between equals. It was also out of the question to let his younger brother know about his secret love. Ahmad’s sense of his own self-importance made it absolutely impossible for him to even contemplate begging for happiness or love. No, someone like him should rather stand aloof from such trivialities — love, the girl, and whoever wins her. He was far above all that. But what about the agony he was feeling? Why did this dreadful pain not appreciate his genuine worth and simply disappear? Jealousy kept stinging his heart like a scorpion bite. And what was the point of all this pain and grief? Truth to tell, he had stretched out his hand to unveil his bride, but, when the embroidered veil had been taken off, what was beneath it turned out to be a skull. In his imagination he could see a picture of the two of them together: Rushdi in the prime of his youth, and she with her lovely, honey-colored eyes. The very idea was painful and only managed to make him feel even more disdainful and supercilious.

How was it that Rushdi always managed to interfere with his happiness, he wondered; especially since Ahmad loved no one else to the same extent as he did his brother? It was his younger brother who had forced him — twenty years ago now — to sacrifice his own future in order to devote himself to his brother’s education. Now here was Rushdi plucking the fruits of the happiness that should have been his and trampling all over his hopes with hobnail boots.

At this point raw anger got the better of him, and he surrendered totally to an erupting volcano of hatred. Even so, he could not find it within himself, even for a single instant, to hate his own brother, even though he was the focus of his towering rage. The love he felt for his brother certainly suffered a kind of spasm during which it was unconscious; but while it may have fainted for a short while, it didn’t actually die. Not only that, but he did not feel any hatred toward Nawal either, even though she was guilty enough. It seemed as though his anger could go on forever, but, as it turned out, his temper calmed down remarkably quickly; indeed, it was a total surprise to see how soon it disappeared. The anger, malice, and superciliousness all disappeared, to be replaced by a profound sadness, despair, and sense of failure, all of which lingered and refused to go away. He recalled the happiness he had felt just the day before, but, instead of feeling any sense of regret or sorrow, he was contemptuous and not a little embarrassed.

“The time for deceit is long past,” he told himself in a muted, sad voice, as though addressing someone else. “There’s no escaping the bitter truth. You’re an unlucky man. In fact, that’s by no means all that’s involved. You’re actually someone set up by fate to be the target for arrows of frustration and failure. You’ve been assigned to a foul and devilish power, one that makes sure that every good opportunity or happy chance that comes your way is removed. You imagine that the only thing separating you from hope is a single word that needs to be said or a hand to be extended. But no sooner do you extend your apron to catch the fruit off the tree than some bird of ill omen comes down, grabs it in its claws, and flies away with it. No sooner do you reach the top of a pyramid in your endeavors than the entire thing collapses and you find yourself in a deep pit. Your horizons glow with the flares of false hopes; your position on the earth is dark and gloomy. Does there exist in this world any other man who is beset by such stubborn ill fortune?

“As people go about their daily lives with smiling faces, they all have the benefits of good health, a nice family life, a satisfactory station in life, and enough money. But what about you? You don’t have a single one of them! Early on it was your father’s fall from grace that first broke your back, then your genuine affection for your younger brother shattered all your aspirations, and finally the entire boorish environment in which you were living crippled your undoubted intellectual gifts. What dreams remain in this rotten world of yours? By now youth is long gone. All it managed to produce was a beautiful memory seeking shade from the midday heat of time’s inexorable march. And now here comes middle age, poking you in the ribs as you relentlessly broach the ranks of the elderly. How on earth can you stand this foul existence? Any man can divorce his loyal wife if he finds out that she’s barren. So how can you stand a world that is not merely barren but that only brings you pain and grief? Why do you exist at all? Is there no end to this ongoing torture and stultifying boredom? Beyond all that, what use has your mind ever been to you? All that knowledge you have?

“In the name of all these pains put together,” he told himself, “I hereby swear that I intend to close books forever and burn this pesky library. It’s a much better idea to become addicted to some drug that will dull the brain enough for an even more powerful stupor to take over. Life is one extended tragedy, and this world is merely a tedious drama. The amazing part of it all is that the actual plot is really disturbing and yet the actors are all clowns. The entire purpose is to make people feel sad — not because it is intrinsically distressing — but because it is supposed to be very serious. What it produces is the ultimate in farce. Since we find ourselves unable most of the time to laugh at our own failures, we end up in tears, and our tears only succeed in deceiving us about the truth. We imagine that the plot involves tragedy, whereas in fact it’s one gigantic farce.”

He paused for a moment, frowning and disconsolate, then stood up abruptly. “Very well then,” he muttered angrily, “to the dark cave it is, the cave of loneliness and desolation; the cold grave, the grave of despair and disillusion. The world, the low world that is, has kicked me enough, so now I in turn will kick it back from a loftier position. Eunuchs have no need of women. If I choose to deprive myself of all false hopes in that direction, then I can use despair to block out the world entirely. So then, to the cave of lonely desolation. From its darkness we can supply a curtain to shield our eyes against life’s never-ending perfidy!”

With that he turned toward the window — Nawal’s window — that was now firmly locked. “Closed forever,” he said angrily, “closed forever!”