Palace Walk

41

Yasin was quite intoxicated when he retired to the bedroom. Since Kamal had fallen sound asleep the moment his head touched the pillow, Yasin was alone with Fahmy. Free at last from parental supervision, he felt in the mood for a noisy row as a release from the nervous strain he had been under all evening, especially on the way home when he had struggled to control himself and act right. Since the room was too cramped for rowdiness, he felt like relieving his tensions by talking. He looked at Fahmy, who was getting undressed, and said sarcastically, "Compared with our brilliant father, we're failures. He’s truly some man".

Although this statement revived Fahmy’s pain and anxiety, he was content to answer with a bitter smile, "You've been blessed too. What an excellent son!"

"Are you sad our father’s one of the great skirt chasers?"

"I wish there had been no change in the ideal picture I've had in my soul".

Rubbing his hands merrily, Yasin said, "The real picture is even more splendid and delightful. He’s more than a father. He’s the ultimate. Oh, if you had only seen him grasping the tambourine, with a glass shining in front of him. Bravo… bravo, al-Sayyid Ahmad!"

Fahmy asked uneasily, "What about his prudence and piety?"

Yasin frowned in order to concentrate on the question, but he found it easier to merge opposites than to reconcile them. Motivated by nothing but admiration, he replied, "There’s absolutely no problem there at all. Your cowardly intellect’s just creating the problem from nothing. My father’s prudent, a Muslim, and loves women. It’s as simple and clear as one plus one equals two. Perhaps I'm the one who most resembles him, because I'm a Muslim believer and love women, although I'm not too prudent. You yourself are a believer, prudent, and love women, but you base your acts on faith and prudence while shying away from the third alternative: women". He laughed. "It’s the third that lasts".

Yasin’s final statement was only remotely linked to his admiration for his father that had started him rattling on and was only superficially in defense of him. It was really an expression of a burning feeling Yasin’s intoxication had aroused. Once the guardians he respected were out of the way, he experienced a raging lust incited by an imagination charged with alcohol. His body felt a mad craving for love, and his willpower was unable to bridle it or coax it away. But where could he find what he wanted? Did he have enough time?… Zanuba?… What was keeping him from her? It wasn't far. It wouldn't take long to make love with her. Then he could come home and sleep deeply and calmly. He was delighted by these visions and seemed not to have a brain to make him think twice. He was in a rush to bring them to pass with no further delay. He quickly told his brother, "It’s hot. I'm going up to the roof to enjoy the moist night air".

He left the room for the outer hall and groped his way down the steps in total darkness, being extremely careful not to make a sound. How could he get in touch with Zanuba at this hour of the night? Should he knock on the door? Who would open it? What could he say when the person asked him what he wanted? What if no one woke up to answer the door? What if the night watchman, with his knack for arriving at the wrong time, should catch him? These thoughts floated on the surface of his brain like bubbles and then were carried off by the swift current of the wine. They did not seem obstacles with consequences to be taken seriously. They were little jokes to make him smile during this lonely adventure. His imagination flew past them to Zanuba’s room overlooking the intersection of al-Ghuriya and al-Sanadiqiya streets.

He pictured her in a diaphanous white nightgown that curved obediently around her breasts and buttocks, with the bottom pulled up to reveal rosy legs with gold bangles. He went wild and would have leapt down the steps had it not been so dark. In the courtyard it was brighter because of the faint light from the stars. After the total darkness of the stairway it appeared almost light. When he had taken two steps toward the outer door at the end of the courtyard, he noticed a feeble glow, which came from a lamp sitting on a meat block in front of the oven room. He looked at it in surprise until he spotted nearby a body flung down on the ground, illuminated by its light. He recognized Umm Hanafi, who had evidently chosen to sleep out in the open to escape the stifling atmosphere of the oven room. He started to continue on his way, but something made him stop. He turned his head once more toward the sleeping woman no more than a few meters away, whom he could see with unexpected clarity from where he stood. He saw her stretched out on her back. Her right leg was bent, creating a pyramid in the air with the edge of her dress, which clung to her knee. At the same time, the bare skin of a section of her left thigh near the knee was revealed. The opening that was formed where her dress stretched between her raised knee and the other leg, extended on the ground, was drowned in darkness.

Although Yasin’s feeling of being pressed for time and in a rush to get what he wanted had not diminished, he kept looking at the supine body, apparently unable to tear his eyes away. He was unwittingly drawn into observing it with an interest evident in the alertness of his bloodshot eyes and the way his full lips spread open. As he examined the fleshy form, which occupied as much space as a plump female water buffalo, the alertness of his eyes turned into unnerving desire. They came to rest on the dark opening between the raised leg and the extended one. There was a change of course for the current raging through his veins, and its momentum directed him toward the oven room. He seemed to have discovered for the first time the woman with whom he had rubbed shoulders for years.

Umm Hanafi had not been favored with a single attribute of beauty. Her gloomy face made her look older than her forty years. Even her treasure of flesh and fat, because it lacked proportion or harmony, seemed a bloated swelling. Perhaps also because she was hidden away in the oven room so much of the time and because he had lived with her since he was a boy, he had never paid any attention to her.

Yasin was in such turmoil that he was unable to reason clearly. He was blinded by lust. What kind of lust was it? A lust kindled by a woman simply because she was a woman, not because of any of her qualities or associations. It was a lust that loved beauty but would not turn away from ugliness. In these crises, everything was equivalent. He was like a dog that eagerly devours whatever scraps it finds.

At this juncture, Yasin’s first choice for an escapade-Zanuba-seemed surrounded by obstacles with unknown consequences. He no longer considered going to her at this hour of the night, knocking on the door, thinking of something to say when the door was opened, and avoiding the night watchman to be laughing matters. They were real impediments and enough to cause him to shy away from her.

With his mouth hanging open, he advanced gently and cautiously. He was oblivious to everything except the mountain of flesh spread at his feet. To his greedy eyes this body appeared to be preparing itself to receive him. He hesitated before her legs. Then, almost unconscious of what he was doing, little by little he leaned down over her, driven by urgent internal and external stimuli. Before he knew it, he was sprawled out on top of her. He had perhaps not intended to go this far all at once. Perhaps he had intended to indulge in some of the foreplay that ought to precede the final violent motions, but the body on top of which he was sprawled began to heave with terror, and a resounding scream escaped, before his hand could stifle it. The pervasive silence was shattered and his brain was dealt a blow that brought him back to his senses. He put his hand over her mouth as he whispered anxiously and fearfully in her ear, "It’s me. Yasin. It’s Yasin, Umm Hanafi. Don't be afraid".

He kept repeating these words until he was certain she understood who he was. Then he removed his hand, but the woman, who had never stopped resisting, was finally able to push him off. She sat up straight, panting from her exertion and emotion, and asked him in a voice that was loud enough to alarm him, "What do you want, Mr. Yasin?"

Whispering, he entreated her, "Don't raise your voice like that. I told you not to be afraid. There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of".

Although she lowered her voice a little, she asked sternly, "What brings you?"

He began to caress her hand affectionately and sighed with anxious relief, since he saw in the lowering of her voice an encouraging sign. He asked, "Why are you angry? I didn't mean to hurt you". Then he said amiably, "Come into the oven room".

In a troubled but decisive manner, she replied, "Certainly not, sir. Go to your room. Go. God’s curse on Satan…"

Umm Hanafi was not able to weigh her words carefully. They escaped from her in reaction to the situation. Perhaps they did not express her wishes so much as her surprise at a proposition that had not been preceded by any hint but had pounced on her while she slept like a predatory kite swooping down on a chicken. She rejected the young man and scolded him without taking time to think whether she wanted to.

He took her words the wrong way and was filled with resentment. Ideas raged through his head. What’s to be done with this bitch? I can't retreat after revealing my intentions and going far enough to cause a scandal. I must get what I want even if I have to resort to force".

He thought quickly about the best way to overcome any resistance she might display, but before he could reach a decision he heard an unexpected sound, perhaps footsteps, coming from the door of the stairway. He jumped to his feet, totally overcome by panic. He swallowed his lust the way a thief swallows a stolen diamond when caught unawares in his hideout. He turned toward the door anxiously and saw his father crossing the threshold, holding his arm out with a lamp. Yasin stayed nailed to the spot, pale with fear, resigned, stunned, and desperate. He realized at once that Umm Hanafi’s scream had not been in vain. The rear window of his father’s room had served as an observatory. But what use was hindsight? He had fallen into a snare set by divine decree and destiny.

Trembling with rage, al-Sayyid Ahmad began to examine Yasin’s face grimly and silently, dragging out the silence. Without taking his pitiless eyes off Yasin, he pointed with his hand to the door, ordering him inside. Although at that moment disappearing would have been dearer to Yasin than even life itself, he was paralyzed by fear and confusion. The father was outraged, and his scowl showed he was about to explode. His eyes seemed to shoot off sparks as they reflected the light of the lamp, which trembled as the hand holding it shook. He rebuked him loudly, "Go upstairs, you criminal. You son of a bitch".

Yasin became even more paralyzed. Then al-Sayyid Ahmad fell upon him. He grabbed Yasin’s right arm roughly and yanked him toward the door. Yasin yielded to this extraordinary force and almost fell on his face. Regaining his balance, he turned around in terror. He fled for his life, leaping up the stairs, heedless of the darkness.