Palace Walk

37

Amina had no occupation during her exile other than sitting beside her mother and discussing at length anything that came to mind. They had talks about the distant and not so distant past and the present, ranging from precious memories to the current drama. Had it not been for the painful separation and the specter of divorce, she would have been content with her new life. It was like a restful holiday after the burden of her duties or a voyage to a world of memories.

When days passed with nothing happening to frighten her and when she heard about the mediation by Umm Maryam and Widow Shawkat, she felt less apprehensive and more relaxed. Moreover, the evening visits of the boys continued without interruption and breathed new hope into her breast. She got to spend almost as much time with them in the new house as in the old one. In both instances, she was separated from them until they were free to come to the evening reunion. Even so, she longed for them like an emigrant in a distant land parted by fate from her loved ones. She yearned for them, feeling deprived because she could not breathe the same air, share their memories, and supervise their workaday and leisure activities. Every inch a person’s body travels on the road of separation seems like miles to the heart.

When the old lady found her silent or sensed that her daughter’s thoughts were wandering, she would tell her, "Patience, Amina. I feel sorry for you. A mother away from her children is a stranger. She’s a stranger even if she’s staying in the house where she was born".

Yes, she was a stranger. The house might just as well not have been the only home she had known as a child. Her mother was no longer that mother she could not bear to leave for even a moment. So long as the house was her place of exile where she waited regretfully for a word of pardon from heaven, it could not be her home.

After a long interval her pardon did arrive. The boys brought it one evening. When they came, their eyes flashed like lightning. Her heart pounded so hard it shook her whole chest. She was apprehensive about giving this sign a grander interpretation than it deserved, but Kamal ran toward her and put his arms around her neck. Then, beside himself with joy, he yelled to her, "Put on your wrap and come with us".

Yasin roared with laughter and said, "It’s all over".

Then he and Fahmy together said, "Father summoned us and told us, 'Go get your mother.'"

She lowered her eyes to hide her overwhelming joy. She could not conceal the emotions rocking her soul. Her face seemed an extremely accurate mirror, registering everything that was inside her, no matter how small. She wanted so much to receive the happy news with a composure befitting her maternal role, but she was transported by joy. The features of her face laughingly expressed her childish delight. At the same time she felt ashamed, although she did not know why. She remained motionless for so long that Kamal’s patience was exhausted. He pulled her by the hand, putting his entire weight into it until she yielded and rose. She stood for a little while in a strange confusion. Before she realized what she was doing she turned and asked, "Should I go, Mother?"

This question sounded peculiar and slipped out with an inflection of confusion and embarrassment. Fahmy and Yasin smiled. Only Kamal was astonished and almost alarmed. He affirmed to her once more the news of the pardon they brought.

The grandmother had sensed everything her daughter was feeling and surmised what was going on inside her. Her heart was touched. Taking care not to appear surprised by the question, not even registering so much as a faint smile, she replied seriously, "Go to your house, and may the peace of God go with you".

Amina went to put on her wrap and bundle up her clothes, with Kamal following at her heels. The grandmother asked the young men in a critical tone softened by a tender smile, "Wouldn't it have been more appropriate for your father to come himself?"

Fahmy answered apologetically, "Grandmother, you know very well what my father’s like".

Yasin laughed and observed, "Let’s thank God for what’s happened".

The grandmother muttered something they could not understand. Then she sighed and said, as though replying to her own muttering, "In any case, al-Sayyid Ahmad’s not a man like the others".

They left the house with their grandmother’s prayers and blessings ringing in their ears. For the first time in their lives they walked along the street together. They found it an extraordinary event. Fahmy and Yasin exchanged smiling glances. Kamal remembered the day he had gone along, as he was now, holding his mother’s hand tight and leading her from alley to alley. Then there had ensued the pains and fears that were even worse than a nightmare. He marveled about it for some time but soon was able to overlook the sorrows of the past in favor of the joy of the present. He found himself wanting to jest. He laughingly suggested to his mother, "Come on, let’s sneak off to our master al-Husayn".

Yasin laughed and commented allusively, "May God be pleased with him. He’s a martyr and loves martyrs".

They could see the protruding wooden balcony of their house and two shapes moving behind the spindles of its latticework. The mother’s heart fluttered with affection and longing at the sight of her daughters. Just inside the door she found Umm Hanafi waiting to welcome her and smother her mistress’s hands with kisses. In the courtyard she met Khadija and Aisha, who clung to her like little girls.

They climbed the stairs in a tumultuous parade with exhilarating and frenzied happiness. They came to a halt in her room. Each one tried to help her remove her wrap, that symbol of the loathsome separation, as they roared with laughter. When she sat down among them she was breathless from the impact of her emotions. Kamal wanted to tell her how happy he was. The best way he found to put it was: "Today’s dearer to me even than the procession with the holy shrine on the camel when the pilgrims leave for Mecca".

For the first time in a long while all the regulars were present at the coffee hour. They resumed their evening chat in an atmosphere of delight. Its splendor was doubled by the days of separation and dejection preceding it, just as the pleasure of a warm day is greater if it follows a frigid week. The joy of the reunion notwithstanding, the mother did not forget to ask the girls about the household affairs, progressing from the oven room all the way up to the hyacinth beans and jasmine. She also asked a lot about their father. She was delighted to learn that he had not allowed anyone to assist him with removing or putting on his clothes. Whatever rest she might have afforded him by her absence, a change had crept into the system of his life, which had without doubt imposed a burden on him that would disappear now that she was back. Her return, and that alone, would guarantee him the kind of life he was accustomed to and comfortable with.

One thing that did not occur to Amina was that some of the hearts happy at her return discovered in this return itself a reason for brooding about their sorrow and pain. Yet this is what happened. These hearts, distracted from their sorrows by their mother's, began to think again about their own worries now they were reassured about their mother’s well-being. In the same way, when we have acute but temporary intestinal pain we forget our chronic eye inflammation, but once the intestinal distress is relieved, the pain in the eyes returns.

Fahmy was telling himself, "It appears that every sorrow has an end. My mother’s affliction is over. But it seems my sorrow will never end". Aisha resumed her own reflections, to which no one else was privy. Her dreams and memories visited her, although compared with her brother she was considerably calmer and readier to forget.

Amina could not read their thoughts, and nothing disturbed her serenity. When she retired to her room that night it was clear she would not be able to sleep, her mind was so overflowing with happiness. She only dozed off a few times before she got out of bed at midnight. She went to the balcony as usual to gaze through the latticework screens at the wakeful street until the carriage bringing her husband home swayed into sight.

Her heart beat violently, and she blushed with shame and confusion. She might well have been meeting her husband for the first time. Had she not reflected about this moment for a long time… the awaited moment of reunion and how she would approach him? How would he treat her after this long separation? What could she say to him, or him to her? If only she could pretend to be asleep. But she had no talent at all for acting and could not bear for him to find her lying down when he came in. Yes, she would not be able to neglect her duty to go to the stairway with a lamp to light the way for him. Over and above all these considerations, after winning the right to return and overcoming his anger at her, she felt good. She forgave everything that had happened and assumed full responsibility for the offense, to the point of thinking that, although her husband had not taken the trouble to go to her mother’s house to reach a settlement with her, he deserved to be treated in a conciliatory fashion.

She took the lamp and went to the staircase. She held her arm out over the railing and stood there with a throbbing heart, listening to the sound of his approaching footsteps, until he made his way up to her. She greeted him with her head bowed, so she did not see his face when they met. She did not know if any change had taken place in his appearance since she last saw him. She heard him say in a normal voice that bore no trace of the painful recent past, "Good evening".

She mumbled, "Good evening, sir".

He went to his room. She trailed after him holding up the lamp. He began to remove his clothes silently. She went to assist him. She set to work, privately heaving sighs of relief. She remembered the ill-fated morning of the separation when he had risen to don his clothes and told her harshly, "I'll put my clothes on myself". The memory, though, lacked any of the feelings of pain and sorrow that had overwhelmed her at the time. As she carried out this service for him, which he had not allowed anyone else to perform, she felt she was reclaiming the dearest thing she possessed in all the world.

He took his place on the sofa and she sat cross-legged on the pallet at his feet, without either of them uttering a word. She expected him to put the painful past to rest with some word of advice or admonition. She had prepared herself for that in a thousand different ways. All he did was ask her, "How’s your mother?"

Sighing with relief, she answered, "Fine, sir. She sends you her greetings and prayers".

Another period of silence passed before he remarked with apparent disinterest, "The widow of the late Mr. Shawkat disclosed to me her wish to choose Aisha as Khalil’s wife".

Amina looked up at him in an astonishment that eloquently revealed the impact of the surprise on her. He shrugged his shoulders as though it was nothing. Fearing she might express an opinion that happened to agree with his decision, which he had kept secret from everyone, and would then suspect he had taken her advice, he quickly added, "I've thought about the matter for a long time and have decided to accept. I don't want to interfere with my daughter’s fortune any more than I have already. The matter is in God’s hands, both now and later".