Palace of Desire

108

Kamal knocked gently on the door until it opened to reveal the shadowy figure of Umm Hanafi. When she recognized him, she whispered, "My master's on the stairs."

Before entering, he waited to be sure his father had reached the top floor, but then a voice called down the stairs sharply, "Who knocked?"

Kamal's heart pounded. He felt obliged to step forward and reply, "Me, Papa."

By the light of the lamp that Kamal's mother was holding at the top of the stairs, his father's form was visible on the first-floor landing. Al-Sayyid Ahmad looked down over the railing and asked with astonishment, "Kamal? What's kept you outside the house till this hour?"

"The same thing that kept you," Kamal commented to himself.

He answered apprehensively, "I went to the theater to see a play that's required reading for us this year."

His father shouted angrily, "When did people start studying in theaters? Isn't it enough to read and memorize it? What disgusting nonsense! Why didn't you ask my permission?"

Kamal stopped a few steps below his father and replied apologetically, "I didn't expect it to end so late."

The man said angrily, "Find some other way to study and skip the foolish excuses". Grumbling to himself, he resumed his climb up the stairs. Some of these muttered complaints reached Kamal: "Studying in the theaters till all hours… one a. m. …just children … curses on your author and the author of the play."

Kamal ascended to the top story and went into the sitting room, where he took the lamp from a table. Entering his bedroom with a sullen face, he deposited the lamp on his desk and stood there, resting his hands on the desk, while he asked when his father had last insulted him. He could not remember precisely but was sure his years at the Teachers College had passed without a comparable incident. For this reason the curses made a painful impact on him, even though they had not been directed at him. He turned away from his desk, removed his fez, and started to undress. Then he suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. He fled to the bathroom, where he vomited everything with bitter violence. When he returned to his room he felt exhausted and disgusted with himself, for the pain in his chest was less intense and profound than that in his spirit. He took off his clothes, extinguished the lamp, and stretched out on the bed, exhaling with nervous annoyance.

In a few minutes he heard the door open softly. Then his mother's voice reached him, asking sympathetically, "Asleep?"

Adopting a natural and contented tone to discourage her, so he could confront his ordeal alone, he said, "Yes…."

Her figure approached the bed and stopped near his head. Then she said apologetically, "Don't let it worry you. I know your father better ttian anyone."

"Of course!.. I understand."

As though expressing her own reservations, she said, "He knows how serious and upright you are. That's why he couldn't believe you'd stayed out this late."

Kamal was sufficiently enraged to ask, "If staying out late merits so mucti disapproval, why doeshe do it so persistently?"

The darkness prevented him from seeing the expression of astonished disapproval on her face, but her nasal laugh showed that she did not take his question seriously. She replied, "All men stay ou: at night. You'll be a man soon. But right now, you're a student."

He interrupted her as if he wanted to end the conversation: "I understand. Naturally. I didn't mean anything by what I said. Why did you bother to come? Go in peace."

She said tenderly, "I was afraid you were upset. I'll leave you now, but promise you'll sleep soundly and not worry about it. Recite the Qur'an sura about God's absolute and eternal nature until you fall asleep" (Sura 112).

He sensed her move away. Then he heard the door close as she said, "Good night". He exhaled deeply again and began to stroke his chest and belly as he stared into the darkness. Life had a bitter taste. What had become of the enchanting intoxication of alcohol? What was this stifling depression that had taken its place? It resembled nothing so much as the disappointment supplanting hisheavenly dreams of love. But if it had not been for his father, the enchantment would have lasted. Kamal feared the man's despotic power more than anything else. He dreaded and loved it at the same time. Why should that be? Al-Sayyid Ahmad was just a man. Except for the geniality other people attributed to him, there was nothing so special about him. Why did Kamal fear him and feel intimidated by this fear? It was all in Kamal's head, like the other fantasies that had afflicted him. But what use was logic in combating emotions?

His hands had pounded on the gate of Abdin Palace during a great demonstration in which people had defiantly challenged the king: "Sa'd or revolution!" Then the king had backed down, but Sa'd Zaghlul had resigned from the cabinet. Faced by his father, though, Kamal was reduced to nothing. The meaning and significance of everything had changed: God, Adam, al-Husayn, love, Ai'da herself, immortality.

"Did you say 'immortality'? Yes… as it applies to love and to Fahmy, that martyred brother who is annihilation's guest forever. Remember the experiment you attempted when you were twelve in hopes of discovering his unknown fate? What a sad memory! You grabbed a sparrow from its nest and strangled it. Covering it with a shroud, you dug a small grave in the courtyard near the old well and buried the victim. Days or weeks later you dug up the grave and took out the corpse. What did you see and smell? You went weeping to your mother to ask her what became of the dead … all the dead and especially Fahmy. The only way she could silence you was by bursting into tearsherself. So what's left of Fahmy after seven years? What will remain of love? What else does the revered father have to show us?"

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could make out the shapes of the desk, the clothes rack, the chair, and the wardrobe. The silence itself receded enough to grant indistinct sounds a hearing. He was troubled by feverish insomnia as the taste of life seemed to grow increasingly bitter. He wondered whether Yasin was sound asleep. How had Zanuba received her husband? Had Husayn retired to his Parisian bed? On which side was Aida sleeping now? Was her belly round and swollen? What were they doing on the far side of the world where the sun was perched in the center of the sky? What of those luminous planets — were the creatures inhabiting them free of human misery? Could Kamal's faint moan be heard in that infinite orchestra of existence?

"Father! Let me tell you what's on my mind. I'm not angry about what I've learned of your character, because I like the newly discovered side better than the familiar one. I admire your charm, grace, impudence, rowdiness, and adventuresome spirit. That's your gentle side, the one all your acquaintances love. If it shows anything, it reveals your vitality and your enthusiasm for life and people. But I'd like to ask why you choose to show us this frightening and gruff mask? Don't appeal to the principles of child rearing, for you know less about that than anyone. The clearest proof is what you do and don't see of Yasin's conduct and mine. What have you done besides hurt and punish us with an ignorance your good intentions do nothing to excuse? Don't be upset, for I still love and admire you. I'll always feel that way, sincerely. But my soul can't help blaming you for all the pain you've inflicted on me. We've never known you as a friend the way outsiders do. We've known you as a tyrannical dictator, a petulant despot.

"The saying 'An intelligent enemy's better than an ignorant friend' might well have been coined for you. For this reason, I hate ignorance more than any other evil in life. It spoils everything, even the sacred bond of fatherhood. A father with half your ignorance and half your love would be far better for your children. I vow ttiat if I'm ever a father I'll be more a friend to my children than a disciplinarian. All the same, I still love and admire you, even after the godlike qualities my enchanted eyes once associated with you have faded away. Yes, your power lingers on only as a legend. You're not a superior court judge like Salim Bey, rich like Shaddad Bey, a leader like Sa'd Zaghlul, a crafty politician like Tharwat, or a nobleman like Adli, but you're a beloved friend, and that suffices It's no small accomplishment. If you just wouldn't begrudge us your friendship.

"But you're not the only one whose image has changed. God Himself's no longer the god I used to worship. I'm sifting His essential attributes to rid them of tyranny, despotism, dictatorship, compulsion, and similar human traits. I don't know at what point I ought to limit my thought or whether it's right to limit it at all. In fact, my soul tells me I'll never stop and that debate, no matter how painful, is better than resignation and slumber. This may interest you less than learning that I've decided to limit your tyranny, which envelops me like this all-embracing darkness and torments me like this cursed sleeplessness. I won't drink alcohol again, because it has betrayed me, alas. If alcohol's a deceitful illusion too, then what's left for man? I tell you I've decided to limit your despotism not by defying you or rebelling, for you're too dear for that — but by fleeing. Yes, I'll surely leave your house as soon as I'm able to support myself. There's plenty of room in the districts of Cairo for all the victims of oppression.

"Do you know what other consequences there were to loving you despite your tyranny? I loved another tyrant who was unfair to me for a long time, both to my face and behind my back. She oppressed me without ever loving me. In spite of all that, I worshipped her from the depths of my heart and still do. You're as responsible for my love and torment as anyone else. I wonder if there's any truth to this idea. I'm not satisfied with it or overly enthusiastic about it. Whatever the reality of love may be, there's no doubt that it's attributable to causes more directly linked to the soul. Let's allow this to ride until we can study it later. In any case, Father, you're the one who made it easy for me to accept oppression through your continual tyranny.

"And you, Mother, don't stare at me with disapproval or ask me what I've done wrong when I've harmed no one. Ignorance is your crime, ignorance … ignorance … ignorance. My father's the manifestation of ignorant harshness and you of ignorant tenderness. As long as I live, I'll remain the victim of these two opposites. It's your ignorance, too, that filled my spirit with legends. You're my link to the Stone Age. How miserable I am now as I try to liberate myself from your influence. And I'll be just as miserable in the future when I free myself from my father.

"It would have been far better if you had spared me such exhausting effort. For this reason, I propose — with the darkness of this room as my witness that the family be abolished, for it's nothing but a pit in which brackish water collects, and that fatherhood and motherhood cease. Indeed, grant me a nation with no history and a life without a past. Let's look in the mirror now. What will we see? This enormous nose and huge head…. You mercilessly gave me your nose, Father, without consulting me and thus treated me unjustly even before I was born. On your face it has an august majesty, but its shape and size look ludicrous on a narrow one like mine, where it stands out like an English soldier at a gathering of Sufi mystics. Even stranger than that's my head, because it's of a different type than either yours or my mother's. What distant grandfather bequeathed it to me? I'll continue to hold both of you responsible until I learn its true origin.

"Just before we go to sleep we ought to say, 'Farewell,' because we may never wake up. I love life, despite what it's done to me, just as I love you, Father. There are things about life worth loving, and its page is covered with question marks that evoke our wildest affection. But what's useful in life is to no avail in love. And what's most useful in love is still of little importance.

"I probably won't drink again. Say, 'Farewell, alcohol.' But not so fast! Remember the night you left Ayusha's house fully determined never to go near a woman again as long as you lived? Then afterwards you became her favorite customer. It seems to me that all mankind is moaning from hangovers and nausea. So pray they'll have a speedy recovery."