Morning and Evening Talk Page 7

  Dawud wanted to make a doctor of his son, Abd al-Azim, to follow in his footsteps. However, the youth headed for law school, a school of ministers and the elite, and pursued an eminent and successful career as a lawyer. When the doctor pasha was fifty, he fell in love with a Sudanese maid and married her, prompting astonishment in the family and sparking gossip. He selected a separate house for her in al-Sayyida and set aside a grave in the family enclosure that Yazid al-Misri had erected near the tomb of Sidi Nagm al-Din, having seen it in a dream. His life extended until the Occupation. He and his brother were alive for the Urabi Revolution and supported it with their hearts, then swallowed its bitter failure. The brothers died in consecutive years early in the Occupation and were buried side by side in the grave inaugurated by Yazid al-Misri. It was not long before its female wing was occupied by Farga al-Sayyad, Ni‘ma Ata al-Murakibi, Saniya al-Warraq, and the poor maid in her special grave.

  Dalal Hamada al-Qinawi

  She was born and grew up in her parents’ house in Khan Ga‘far, the youngest child of Sadriya and Hamada al-Qinawi. Her house was a short distance from her grandfather Amr’s, and she was as close to Amr and Radia as she was to her own parents. Like all the grandchildren, she adored Radia and was enchanted by her eccentricities, especially because her grandmother continued to pass on her innate heritage, clothed in supernatural phenomena, to each generation. “Dalal is beautiful but how did this Upper Egyptian accent infiltrate your Cairene children?” Radia would ask her daughter.

  “From a mule!” Sadriya would respond scornfully, gesturing to her husband, whom she spent her life domesticating.

  Radia would laugh, “He’s as brainless as a stone, but he’s respectable.”

  As was the custom, Dalal, like Nihad and Warda, was only permitted two years of Qur’an school before Sadriya assumed control of her education and instruction. Sadriya began to review the young men in the family—the sons of her sisters, brothers, and uncle, and descendants of al-Murakibi and Dawud. However, prospective grooms would also come to al-Qinawi’s daughters from Qina and its environs in the name of the Qinawi family. A young village mayor called Zahran al-Murasini, who owned land adjacent to that of Dalal’s father and uncles, requested to marry her. “It’s destined that a train journey will come between me and my daughters,” said Sadriya.

  Dalal’s sister Warda’s tragedy delayed the marriage for a year. Then she was wedded to the village mayor in Cairo and, a week later, taken to his hometown. She settled in Karnak for good, gave birth to four daughters and three sons, and only visited Cairo on special occasions.

  Dananir Sadiq Barakat

  She was the only child of Rashwana, Amr and Surur’s older sister, and Sadiq Barakat, the flour merchant in al-Khurnfush. She was born in Bayn al-Qasrayn in the house her father owned and grew up in considerable comfort, which looked set just to get better. Rashwana did not have any more children because of a defect in her, but, luckily for the family, Sadiq Barakat had two childless marriages behind him so he thought they were equally responsible. Dananir grew up between a mother who was as pious as a shaykh and a father whose family was regarded as pioneering in terms of female education. She was quite pretty and tended to be on the large side, which was considered an advantage. She also displayed promising energy in school. She obtained the primary school certificate and enrolled in secondary school, raising the eyebrows of Rashwana’s uncle, Mahmud Bey Ata al-Murakibi.

  “Do you approve of this?” he asked Amr.

  “Her father does,” Amr answered.

  The man went to Bayn al-Qasrayn and assembled the family.

  “I didn’t let Shakira go beyond primary school,” he said.

  “Times have moved on, Mahmud Bey. The baccalaureate is appropriate nowadays,” replied Sadiq Barakat.

  “I have complete faith in my daughter’s morals,” said Rashwana.

  Mahmud Bey had a sense of humor despite his boorish manner: “Raya and Sakina’s mother probably once said the same about them.” He left exasperated.

  Dananir was delighted with her father’s decision. The baccalaureate would put her on almost the same footing as Abd al-Azim Dawud’s daughters, Fahima and Iffat. She would be way ahead of the daughters of her two uncles, Amr and Surur, and could hope for a suitable groom afterward. Rashwana took her to visit the family’s roots and branches. She found the tree was heavy with fruit—Amer, Hamid, Labib, Hasan, Ghassan, and Halim. She was as pretty as any of the girls in the family, in her mind at least. But as she was coming to the end of school, something happened which she became convinced was the greatest tragedy that could befall a person: her father fell down paralyzed in the shop. He was carried home to lie helplessly in bed until the end. His business was liquidated under the supervision of Amr, Surur, and Mahmud Bey, and he received five hundred Egyptian pounds, all that was left, to pay for his medical treatment and sustain his family. Dananir realized there was nothing to look forward to but to finish her education and find a job. The Teacher Training College for Women was the only option and, at the time, female teachers could not marry if they wanted to continue working. This course of action was confirmed after Sadiq Barakat’s death. Mahmud Bey saw things differently, however. “Let Dananir marry. I’ll be your sponsor, Rashwana,” he said. Rashwana was inclined to give her consent, but Dananir—driven by pride—refused and determined to choose her own destiny. Her decision did not make her happy; she had given up the dream of marriage she had entertained since she was a young girl. She was the most miserable person on earth, but at least she had chosen the misery herself.

  “You have sacrificed yourself for my sake,” Rashwana said.

  “No, I’ve chosen what makes me happy,” she replied firmly.

  She became a teacher and spinster forever, finding comfort in her professional skills and immoderate eating. She went through life asking: Where did my bad luck come from? The eyes of many young male relatives and strangers gazed at her hungrily, as though wondering: Does this young woman who is forbidden marriage dream of romance? Her female cousins were all settled in their marital homes, even the ugly and masculine ones, whereas glances lingered on her and left festering scars. She went to bed each night after a hard day’s work armed with a fantasy to relieve the loneliness. She persistently compensated her worries and sorrows with debauched feverish dreams, imaginary sins, and barren friendships with other dispossessed colleagues in her monastic profession. The secret life she lived in her fantasy world was utterly incongruous with her public life, which rested on earnest and praiseworthy work, a venerable commitment to religious obligations, and a sedate manner that disappointed any hopefuls but won their appreciation.

  During this period of youth and activity, her uncle’s son Labib—with his good looks, brilliant legal career, and for whom the road of conquest would have been easy were it not for his repugnant egotism—approached her. He invited her to the quiet Fish Garden and proposed an illicit relationship, which, in his mind, suited their circumstances.

  “You’re prevented from marriage and I’m avoiding it,” he said.

  She told herself angrily that he only wanted a girlfriend and did not see her as marriage material.

  “A proposition for a prostitute!” she said with resentment and scorn.

  He met the blow with the characteristic coolness he had inherited from his mother, Sitt Zaynab, while she returned to Bayn al-Qasrayn overflowing with anger at her whole family. They were wretches, rich and poor alike. They sold their souls without honor. This was how Amer married Abd al-Azim’s daughter Iffat and Hamid married Shakira despite her ugliness. If the gaze of a young man from the Murakibi or Dawud family fell on one of Amr’s or Surur’s daughters all hell broke loose and their honor was roused. Wretches … wretches.… The Murakibi family sold their souls to the Crown to safeguard their interests and the Dawud family joined the Constitutional Liberals imagining they were following the path of noble families but their real roots issued from the soil; Dawud Pasha was merely the younger
brother of Aziz, the fountain watchman! There was not a young man among them of her age, or older, who did not covet her honor, but none considered marrying her; a madman from al-Hussein was better than any of them.

  Yet this period of verdant youth was not devoid of a respectable marriage opportunity in the form of her headmaster, who suggested she resign and marry him. But although she rather liked the idea, she quickly rejected it, maintaining that her mother would live at the mercy of someone from a wretched family who worshiped money and rank and would do anything to get it. Thus, she carried on her tedious, arid life, educating other people’s daughters and preparing them for marriage, divided between illicit fantasies and a reality characterized by seriousness, piety, and respect. The tree of youth thirsted in the gloom of loneliness, the pain of deprivation, and the frivolous amusement of forbidden fantasies. Then its leaves began to fall one by one, leaving their mark in her excessive corpulence, coarsened features, flabby muscles, and overwhelming bitterness. During this time, Amr, Surur, Ahmad, and Mahmud passed away and many things changed beyond recognition. Her mother developed heart disease and took to her bed.

  “I’ll never forgive myself for what has happened to you,” said Rashwana.

  “I chose what suited me,” she answered smiling and feigning cheerfulness.

  “Marry at the first opportunity,” Rashwana begged.

  “It won’t be long,” she lied, for she no longer turned anyone’s head.

  Death came to Rashwana as her daughter was bringing her her evening apple. Dananir instantly grasped what was happening. “Don’t leave me on my own,” she cried. The woman breathed her last with her head propped against her chest. Dananir burst into tears and sent the old maid to fetch Radia from Bayt al-Qadi. With her mother gone, she suffered total solitude in Bayn al-Qasrayn. She became a picture of obesity and gloom. When the July Revolution arrived she saw it as just revenge for the tyrants, the weak, and the opportunistic. She lived it with listless satisfaction, for listlessness had subsumed everything, including her secret world and barren games. She plunged alone into the whirlwinds of the revolution with the radio, then television; it fanned the coals of her listless soul but it quickly passed. She was pensioned off and took shelter in the darkest loneliness with no comfort in the world except worship and Qur’an recitation. One leader died and another assumed power. New events swept in. The infitah policy came, and she suffered rising prices besides loneliness and old age. She began to prepare for her reckoning, asking herself: Could I be destined to suffer more troubles from this life? Can the future really conceal anything worse?

  Radia Mu‘awiya al-Qalyubi

  THE FIRST CHILD OF SHAYKH MU’AWIYA al-Qalyubi and Galila al-Tarabishi, she was born and grew up in the old house in Suq al-Zalat, followed by Shahira, Sadiqa, and Baligh. Sadiqa was the most beautiful of the three sisters but Radia had the strongest personality and sharpest mind, as well as a good share of beauty. She was tall and slender and had a high forehead, straight nose, black almond eyes, and wheat-colored skin—the image of her mother. The shaykh was anxious his children should have a religious upbringing and she was the most receptive, for although in theory she only got as far as knowing the prayers, fasting, and memorizing a few of the Qur’an’s shorter suras, her heart was permeated with love of God and the family of the Prophet. Yet she learned from her father only a fraction of what she learned from her mother in the way of mysteries, supernatural phenomena, the lives and miracles of saints, magic, ifrit, the spirits that inhabit cats, birds, and reptiles, dreams and their interpretations, astrology, popular remedies, and the blessings of monasteries and holy men and women. Her faith in her mother was only enforced by the confidence her father, the Azhar scholar, had in her medical prescriptions and incantations, and the fact that he kept the amulet she gave him around his neck.

  Radia had a nervous temperament and alternated between love and antipathy dozens of times in a day. The hallway of the house—the site of the stove and well, the hub of daily life—witnessed the sway she held over her two sisters and her mother’s bias toward her, which stirred the resentment of the other two. She had barely turned fourteen when Shaykh Mu‘awiya’s friend, Aziz Yazid al-Misri, asked for her hand for his son, Amr Effendi, who worked at the ministry of education. At the time the shaykh was isolated in his house, having completed the prison term he had been sentenced to for his part in the Urabi Revolution. The joyless life he had been living under the Occupation found its first occasion to celebrate. But fate did not grant him respite, for he passed away before he could prepare his daughter’s trousseau; the bridal hamper was brought to his house the same day he died, prompting Galila to trill and wail in consecutive moments and making her a joke throughout the quarter. Radia’s wedding thus lacked the usual rejoicing. She moved to the house on Bayt al-Qadi Square that Amr had prepared for their married life.

  Amr was twenty years old, tall, of medium build, had a thick mustache and distinct features, and was perfectly disposed for married life. A strong conjugal love, capable of withstanding the ups and downs of life and contradictions of habit and temperament, quickly developed between the couple. At the same time, Radia made friends with Rashwana, her husband’s sister, but not Ni‘ma al-Murakibi, her mother-in-law, as though she guessed what had gone on behind her back when the two women came to propose. On the way back Ni‘ma had said to her daughter, “The younger sisters are prettier!”

  “The bride is very suitable. Thank God!” said Rashwana.

  “I’m worried she’ll be taller than Amr,” Ni‘ma said dubiously.

  “No. Amr’s definitely taller, Mama,” Rashwana replied confidently.

  In any event, Radia intuitively surmised that Ni‘ma had held back with her and from the outset was quick to jump to the defense or launch an attack if the occasion arose. Yet God always granted salvation and nothing that warranted gossip passed between the two women. The men and women of the family came to meet and make friends with Radia: her brother-in-law, Surur; her father-in-law, Aziz; Doctor Dawud, his wife, Saniya Hanem al-Warraq, and son, Abd al-Azim; Mahmud Ata al-Murakibi and Nazli Hanem; and Ahmad Ata al-Murakibi and Fawziya Hanem. She had expected to be introduced to women like herself or whom she would outshine as she did her two sisters but instead was confronted with hanems from a higher class. The hanems’ gentle natures and fine breeding and the fact that, despite appearances, they shared the same attitudes perhaps eased some of the disparity, but when she returned their visits with Amr she became increasingly conscious of the differences. She saw the doctor’s house in al-Sayyida and cried in admiration at the legendary splendor of the mansion on Khayrat Square. There she realized her trousseau was utterly worthless. How she dreamed of a bed with four legs and a wooden headboard, a mirror in the reception room with a frame adorned with ornamental flowers, and a Turkish chaise longue. How she dreamed of furniture like those dazzling objets d’art. She felt defeated. “I’ll tell you what I saw…,” she said to her mother in a tone of confession. Galila listened to her in silence, then asked with disdain whether there was among them a hero of the Urabi Revolution like Shaykh al-Mu‘awiya?

  Radia soon recovered her self-confidence and began telling the hanems about her heritage of mysteries and miracles. Thanks to the hanems’ good manners, the new relationship was perfumed with rose water, and genuine affection sprang up on all sides. Radia’s eccentricity was an added merit in this respect as it meant she always had an irresistible effect.

  A power struggle emerged between husband and wife. Amr wanted his bride to remain in the house and not cross the threshold unless accompanied by him, whereas Radia felt her hidden knowledge required her to visit the tombs of the saints and the Prophet’s family regularly and she warned Amr not to obstruct it. Amr was a member of the Sufi Dimirdashiya brotherhood and believed in her speculations and heritage. He feared the consequences of going too far, so he allowed her to move about freely, seeking goodness and blessing from it, confident of her morals, and satisfied with her
exceptional skill in running the house and absolute dedication to his well-being. Things ran smoothly and no dispute between them ever lasted more than a few hours; when Amr was angry she was soothing, and when her nerves erupted Amr was forbearing and tolerant. Her standing among the upper branches of the family was well established even before it was reinforced with marriage ties. She assisted Saniya al-Warraq in arranging Abd al-Azim’s engagement and Ni‘ma al-Murakibi in arranging Surur Effendi’s. As the days went by, she gave birth to Sadriya, Amer, Matariya, Samira, Habiba, Hamid, and, lastly, Qasim. She never stopped disseminating her superstitions among her children, as well as the branches of the family and neighbors, and became known as the quarter’s Lady of Mysteries. She was known too for her pride in her father’s heroism, owing to which she turned Urabi and his revolution into a legend of miracles and supernatural phenomena, intermeshed with miracles of the Bedouin, Abul Abbas, Abul Sa‘d, and al-Sha‘rani, and blended with Antara, Diyab, ifrit, magic, charms, amulets, incense, and spells. She had no qualms about speaking frankly to Dawud Pasha. “This medicine of yours is useless and no good,” she would say, or, “There is one doctor with no equal and that’s God the Almighty.”