The Beginning and the End

TWO

They left the school and walked along Shubra Street, groping their way through their tears. Hassanein was the first to weep. Nervous, Hussein wanted to scold him, but his own tears gushed forth, his voice was choked with sobs, and he kept silent. They crossed to the other side of the street and quickened their pace toward the blind alley, Nasr Allah, a few minutes’ walk from the school.

“How did he die?” Hassanein asked his brother as if he were looking to him for help. Stunned, Hussein shook his head. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I can’t imagine how it could have happened. He had his breakfast with us and we left him in good health. I don’t know how it happened…”

Hassanein tried to recall the details of this morning’s events. The first time he saw his father, he remembered, was when he came out of the bathroom. As usual, he said good morning to his father. Smiling, his father replied, “Good morning. Isn’t your brother up yet?” Then they gathered around the breakfast table. His father asked their mother to share their meal; saying that she didn’t feel like eating, she excused herself. “Join us and you’ll have an appetite,” the man said, but she insisted. Shelling an egg, he said indifferently, “Do as you like.” Hassanein couldn’t recall having heard him again, except for a brief cough. His last sight of his father was the man’s back as he went into his bedroom, wiping his hands with his towel. Now he was gone! Dead! What a horrible word. Secretly casting a fearful glance, Hassanein saw his brother’s sad, grief-stricken face, set hard as though he had suddenly grown old. Memories returned to him in painful anguish. I don’t believe he’s dead. I can’t believe it! What is death? No, I can’t believe it! Gone! Had I known that this would be his last day on earth, I would never have left the house. But how could I have known? Does a man die while he’s eating and laughing? I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Hassanein was recalled from his thoughts as his brother pulled him by the arm toward Nasr Allah, which in his distraction he had almost passed by. They walked along the narrow alley, lined on both sides with old houses and small shops and cluttered with paraffin oil and vegetable and fruit carts. Their eyes sought their three-storied house with its huge dusty yard. Then they heard the wailings and screams. Distinguishing the voices of their mother and elder sister, they were so deeply moved that they burst out crying. They ran on heedlessly, climbing the stairs two at a time until they reached the second floor. They found the door of their flat open and rushed in, crossed the hall to their father’s bedroom at the far end, and entered it, panting. Their eyes fixed on the bed, the form of a dead body apparent under the coverlet. They approached the edge of the bed and, weeping hysterically, flung themselves upon it. Their mother and sister ceased their wailing and two strange women in the room departed. Their mother, dressed in black, her eyes red with weeping, her nose and cheeks swollen, composed herself to help her sons in their pent-up grief. Their sister threw herself on the sofa, hiding her face in its back. Her body was shaking with sobs. Hussein was weeping, mechanically reciting short verses from the Koran asking for God’s mercy to fall on his dead father. Fear-stricken, distracted, and incredulous, Hassanein was crying, too. He stood in the presence of death, protesting and rebellious, yet helpless and frightened. This cannot be my father. My father would never have heard all this crying without stirring. Oh, my God, why is he so still? They are wailing, as resigned, helpless people do. I had never conceived of this; and I still don’t. Didn’t I see him only two hours ago walking in this very room? No, this is not my father, this is not life. Waiting seemed endless. Then, Samira, the mother of the two young men, moved toward them. “That’s enough. Hussein,” she said, leaning forward. “Get up and take your brother outside.”

She kept repeating the same words until Hussein got up and pulled his brother to his feet. But they did not leave the room; instead they stood there, staring through misty, streaming eyes at the body laid out upon the bed. Hussein couldn’t resist a mysterious inner urge. He bent over the body and lifted the cover from the face, not heeding the movement which his mother made. He looked upon the strange countenance, frightfully blue, mute evidence of the extinction of every living thing. An unearthly stillness hovered over it, as deep and infinite as nothingness itself. His limbs shuddered. Neither brother had seen a dead man before. They were frightened as well as sad. Deep within them, they experienced a piercing, all-conquering sorrow which they had never known before. Bending over the dead body, Hussein kissed the forehead; and once more he shuddered. Hassanein also bent over it, and, almost in a trance, kissed it. The mother pulled the bedcover back over the dead face; standing between them and the bed, she firmly said to her sons, “Go out.”

They took two steps backward. Suddenly obstinate, Hassanein stopped. Emboldened by his brother, Hussein did the same. In a semi-trance, their eyes roved about the room, as if expecting a mysterious transformation to change it all. Yet they found it exactly the same. At the right of the entrance stood the bed; the wardrobe in front, the peg next to it. At the left was the sofa upon which their sister had flung herself. A lute lay against the edge of the sofa, the quill in place between the strings. Surprised and disturbed, their eyes focused on the lute. Their father’s fingers had often played upon those very strings; often delighted friends had gathered around him, begging him to repeat the same tune — as he always did. How thin is the line between joy and sorrow, even thinner than the strings of the lute! Their wandering eyes fell upon the dead man’s watch, still softly ticking as it lay on a table near the bed. On its face, the dead man might have read the date of his departure from this world and of his sons’ initiation as orphans. Perspiration stains on the collar, his shirt still hung on its peg. They looked at it with profound tenderness. At that moment, it seemed to them that a man’s sweat was more lasting than his life, however great. The mother watched them in silence, uninterested in the thoughts crossing their minds, for she realized the full impact of the catastrophe which had befallen them — and that her sons were not yet completely aware of all that it would mean. A deep sigh escaped from Hassanein, catching his brother’s attention. Hussein placed his hand upon his brother’s shoulder.

“Let’s go,” he whispered. The two young men cast farewell glances at the dead body, sharing the traditional belief that, even in death, their father’s eyes could still see them. Lest they hurt his feelings, they avoided turning their backs to him. With a warm parting greeting, they retreated backward to the door and left the room. Hassanein noted the profound sadness on his brother’s face, and his heart quivered in compassion and a pressing need for mutual sympathy.