The Beginning and the End

SIXTY-SEVEN

He had no appointment with his classmates as he had pretended. He entered the cinema alone a few minutes after the beginning of the show. He was shown to his seat in the darkness. Half attentive, half reminiscing about Bahia and his fraudulent departure, he watched the newsreel. He remembered how Bahia tenderly pressed his hand as she bade him farewell. It was a pleasurable pressure which caused a quiver in his heart and made him forget whatever offenses she might have committed! Now, he thought, my dream can come true. I’d have realized my cherished desire a long time ago if, instead of humble entreaties, I’d shown some self-restraint. She wouldn’t have refused if I’d repeatedly frowned upon her. How foolish of me! Then I’ll not be content with just a kiss. I’ll crush her to my breast until her bones snap under my arms, but far from the critical eyes of those who admire a girl for her good looks, elegance, and fashion. But even after marrying her, should I hide her away from the public view? Why pay attention to other people and their critical remarks? No. This is an evil thing which I can’t possibly put aside. It’s my nature. He found relief from his thoughts as he focused his attention on the screen to watch Hitler receiving the ambassadors on his birthday. A cartoon followed, then an intermission, and the lights went on. Turning his head, he examined the faces around him. His eyes were arrested by a colossal, disgustingly obese woman conversing with her husband beside her. He could not help admiring this man’s courage and complete indifference to society in escorting such a woman.

A glimpse to his left revealed a charming girl in a gray jacket and skirt occupying the next seat. It occurred to him that he had seen this face before. He searched deep in the recesses of his memory to identify her. Meanwhile, his eyes fell on a woman next to her, then on a man at the sight of whom his heart beat violently. Springing to his feet, Hassanein courteously extended his hand in greeting. “Good evening, Your Excellency.”

The man, no less than Ahmad Bey Yousri himself, looked at him and greeted him with a smile. He introduced the young man to his wife and daughter as “the son of the late Kamel Effendi Ali.” Having saluted them most politely, Hassanein withdrew to his seat, still feeling the touch of the girl’s hand. The Bey asked him about his progress at the College and he offered his thanks as he answered. Then silence fell between the two men, each keeping to himself. Staring straight ahead, Hassanein was relieved to have been able to maintain his composure when he was introduced for the first time in his life to two distinguished ladies of the upper classes. A waiter passed by carrying a variety of chocolates and refreshments. He wished he had enough money to order some of these for the Bey’s family. But with only a few piasters in his pocket, he became indignant at missing such an opportunity, detesting his poverty more than ever before. The lights went down and the cinema screen came back to life. Absorbed in his thoughts and giving rein to his heated imagination, Hassanein was unable to concentrate on the film. Now he was convinced it was not the first time he had seen this charming face. He remembered the naked leg revealed by the pedaling of a bicycle in the garden of the Bey’s villa. He wondered what impression he had left upon her, what impression, too, had been made by Ahmad Bey’s words of introduction, “the son of the late Kamel Effendi Ali.”

Obviously, his father had been a minor employee. Moreover, the two women undoubtedly knew of the Bey’s efforts to help his family, first by interceding to find a job for Hussein, later by assisting Hassanein to enroll in the War College. Again, it was impossible that they were unaware of his true social status. Perhaps the girl considered his career the result of her father’s benefaction. Perhaps she thought that without her father he would not be wearing this red-striped uniform. All this was quite possible, even certain. Hassanein’s forehead was hot with shame and discontent.

I’ve seen your leg on the bicycle, he thought, lovely and ivory-colored, but not miraculous. There are no miracles in this world. Don’t you go to bed the same way any other girl does? Don’t you fly into raptures in sexual intercourse like any other woman? And become pregnant like the servant we dismissed because of our poverty, and, like a bitch, groan when overcome by the pangs of childbirth? Suddenly he rubbed his nose with his forefinger, which still bore traces of the lovely perfume on her hand. It had an exciting, almost magical effect on him and penetrated his heart. Quieting, contenting, and intoxicating, its fragrance purged his breast of the impurities of anger and pain. Observing her lovely, fairylike figure, he guessed that her arms were folded on her breast. He wished that, placing her hand on the arm of the seat, she would casually touch his. He formed a mental image of her face, the face of which he had had a glimpse when he had shaken hands with her: long and full, with two black eyes expressing vitality and vivacity, a circle of deep black hair and a mole on her left cheek which added beauty to her white complexion. Conjuring up Bahia’s image and comparing the two, he became convinced that this girl was no more beautiful than his girl. But at the same time he found Bahia’s beauty cold, like a statue’s, while that of the other girl was full of blood, inflaming the imagination and infusing warmth into the soul. Furthermore, to his ambitious spirit she appeared as a living symbol of the socially privileged, to which he desperately looked forward to joining. He regarded her not so much as a girl as a representative of a certain class and a certain mode of life. But his momentary ecstasy did not blind him to his true feelings, and he did not delude himself that she penetrated his heart as Bahia did. Totally passive though she was, Bahia was in possession of the very roots of his instincts and nerves, while the other appealed to his unlimited ambition. Perhaps this other girl enabled him to discover an enigmatic part of himself, his heart’s basic preference for ambition over happiness and security. Suddenly his passions cooled down.

I’m swept away by foolish dreams, he thought. But don’t I have the right to resort to dreams for relief? Don’t we all dream what we dream? Yes, but our dreams are disturbed only by the illusion that they are real. Some time passed before he could concentrate his attention again on the cinema screen. But, his energy exhausted by thought, the scenes of the film bored and tired him, and he sat through them by an effort of will until the lights were turned on. As his eyes met those of Ahmad Bey’s family, he greeted them with a nod before he dissolved into the crowd streaming out of the cinema. At last, separating himself from the crowd, he wandered for an hour in the streets before he took the tram for Shubra.

As he approached the quarter where he lived, Nasr Allah alley appeared to him more sordid than ever. As he crossed it, grudgingly and with downcast eyes, his nostrils were filled with the smell of dust mingled with smoke and grease.