Naguib Mahfouz’s “Midaq Alley Chapter 25”
As he  neared the  alley, Hussein  Kersha told  himself,  "T.his is the hour  when  they all meet in the cafe, and  they'll  all see me for sure and  they'll  tell my father of  my arrival, if  he's failed to notice." The  shades  of night had fallen. The shops in the alley had shut  and  silence reigned there.  Only  in Kersha's cafe was there  noise. The boy was walking  with heavy  steps,  downcast and  grim,  followed closely by another boy of about  his age and  a girl in the prime  of life. Hussein  wore  a shirt  and  pants  and  carried a large  bag  in  his right hand, as  did  the  boy  who  walked  behind him.  The   girl,  however, walked  proudly  in a chic dress, with neither  coat nor milaya,  her gait displaying a certain handsomeness and  elegance, albeit  she  was not without the characteristic vulgarity of  her  class. Hussein  headed for the  house  of  Master Radwan  el-Husseini without glancing in  the direction of  the cafe and  entered it, followed  by his two companions. They climbed  the stairs  to the third  floor  and  the boy, glowering even more  fiercely, knocked  on the door  of the apartment and  heard foot­ steps approaching, followed by the opening of the door, behind which appeared his mother,  who  asked  in a rough  voice,  "VVho is it?" as it was too dark for her  to recognize  the figure before her. In a low voice
he replied,  "Hussein."
Scarcely  believing her ears, the woman cried out, "Hussein?  My son?" and she rushed  at him,  took him  in her arms, and kissed him, saying with emotion, "You've come  back, my son! Praise God! Praise God  for  bringing you  to  your  senses  and  protecting you  from  the devil's wiles. Come  into your house,"  (and here she laughed  excitedly) "come  in,  you faithless boy! Oh,  the  sleep  I've lost over you! You broke my heart."
The  young man entered,  yielding to her hands, his grim demeanor
none  the lighter, as though  her warm  welcome was to little effect  in dispelling  his bad  humor.  When  she  tried  to shut  the  door, he inter­ posed himself  between it and her and, making way for the girl and the boy, said,  "There  are people  with me.  Come  in,  Sayyida.  Come  in, Abduh. Mother,  this is my wife, and  this is her brother."
The  woman blanched  and a look of surprise not umnixed with dis­ quiet  appeared in  her  eyes. She looked  at the  arrivals in  amazement and  then noticed the hand extended  to her in greeting. Controlling her emotions,   she  took  it and  addressed  her  son,  almost  unconscious of what she was saying. "You got married,  Hussein? Welcome, bride! You got  married, Hussein,  without  telling  us? How  could  you  hold  your wedding without your parents  when they were still alive?"
Resentfully, he responded,  "The Devil's a crafty worker. I was angry,
upset,  furious. Anyway, it's all fate."
The  woman lifted the lamp  down from the wall and went ahead  of them  to the reception room, placing it on the sill of the closed window; and  then  stood and looked  hard  into  the face of her son's wife. In an apologetic voice, the girl said to her, "We were really sorry you couldn't be there  but there  was nothing we could  do...."
Her  brother  likewise  expressed  his regret,  and  the  woman, who still had  not  overcome  her  shock,  smiled  and  mumbled, "You're  all most  welcome."
She turned toward  her son, disquieted  by his dour  expression and his stiffness and it came to her that he had yet to utter a single pleasant word. Reproachfully she asked him, "How  could it take you so long to think of us?"
"They laid me off," Hussein answered tersely, with a gloomy shake of his head.
Taken aback by this new disappointment, the woman said disbe­lievingly, "They  laid you off?  You mean  you're unemployed now?"
Before Hussein could open his mouth, his ears were assailed by a loud banging on the door, and woman and son exchanged a mean­ ingful look. She left the room  and  the young man went after he first closing the door behind him. In the hallway, he said, "That has to be my father."
"I believe it is," she told him anxiously. "Has he seen you? I mean, did he see you all arrive?"
Instead  of answering, the boy went to the door and opened  it. Boss Kersha entered in a hurry. As soon as he saw his son, he said, eyes red­ dening and a haze of anger spreading over his face, "Is that you? They told me but I didn't believe them. Why have you come  back?"
In a low  voice,  Hussein said,  "There  are strangers  in -the house. Let's go to your room  so we can talk."
The  young man  hurried to his father's room and  Boss Kersha fol­
lowed him, muttering. The  woman joined them and lit the lamp, saying to her husband beseechingly  and  warningly,  "Your son's wife and  her brother are in the other room."
The  man's heavy eyebrows  shot up in amazement. "VVhat are you saying, woman?" he exclaimed,  and then, to Hussein,  "Have you really got married?"
Hussein  was indignant that  his mother should  have  thrown  out the  news without preparing him  and  could  see no alternative but  to say, "That's  right,  Father. I got married."
Boss Kersha stood silendy for a minute,  grinding his teeth in exasperated fury, but it never occurred to him to reproach  his son for having got married without his knowledge, since reproach, in his esti­ mation, constituted a form of  affection. The  next  moment, he made up his mind to ignore the news as though he'd never heard it and said with anger and malice, "It doesn't concern me in the slightest, but let me ask: Why  did you come  home?  Why  did you show me your  face after  God  had  relieved  me of it?"
Hussein  took refuge in silence, tucking his chin into  his chest and
frowning,  while  the  mother burst  out,  as though  to propitiate him, "They laid him off, Kersha."
For the  second  time, the  youth  felt angry at his mother for  her haste. Boss Kersha grew yet more exasperated and yelled in his coarse voice (causing the woman  to shut  the door), "They laid you off? Well done! And  you think  this is a doss-house? Didn't you disown  us, you hero?  Didn't you bite  the  hand that  fed you,  you son  of  a dog?  So why come  back  now? Get  out  of  my sight.  Go back  to the good life, with  the water  and  the electricity Go!"
Umm Hussein  said gently, "Calm down,  Kersha. Say, 'Bless the
Prophet!' and  take a moment to think."
Shaking his fist at her warningly, the  man  yelled, "You'd  defend him,  you daughter of devils? You're  all spawn  of  Satan  and  deserve the whip and hellfire. What do you want, you mother of all evil? You want  me  to take  him and  his family  in? Did  someone tell you I'm  a pimp and  make  money  hand  over  fist without lifting  a finger?  Let me  tell  you  something: the  police  are  hanging about everywhere. Just yesterday they arrested four  of  my colleagues, and it's going to get worse."
The woman remained patient and  said with a gentleness  she had never  previously  shown,  "Bless the Prophet,  Boss Kersha, and say, God is one!"'
"Ask him what he's bringing with him," he shouted  at her, brutally. She   beseeched him,  "Our only  son  is  rash  and   crazy.  Satan tempted him  and   led  him  astray.  He   has  no  one  to  go  to  now but you."
"You've hit the nail on the head, you mother of evil," Boss Kersha replied in mocking exasperation. "He has no one to go to but me, me the  one  he insults when  things  are  going  well and comes begging  to when they're going badly."
Then he gave Hussein  a cruel  and  searching look and  asked him contemptuously, "Why  did they lay you off?"
The  mother  gave a deep sigh of relief, for she realized instinctively that this question, despite the harsh  tone in which it was asked, was an announcement of  the sympathy  she was hoping for. Hussein,  though, feeling the bitter injustice of it, replied in a low voice, "They let lots of others  go too. They  say the war's almost finished."
"The  war's finished in the field and now  it's going  to start over in
my house!And why didn't  you go to your wife's people?" Shamefaced, the young  man said, "All she has is her brother." "So why didn't she go and live with him?"
"They let him go too."
"Welcome!  Welcome!"  Boss Kersha jeered  at him.  "So naturally, you couldn't find  any  refuge  for  this noble  family  to whom  fate has been  so cruel  except  my  two-room abode!  Bravo! Bravo! Didn't  you save any money?"
"None,"  said the young  man,  tersely and with a sigh.
"Well done! You lived like kings, with electricity, water, and pleas­
ure domes  and  ended  up the way you started, a beggar."
Excitedly, Hussein  said, "They said the war would  never end and that  Hitler would resist for dozens of years and then counter-attack."
"But  he didn't  and  he disappeared" (even at such  a moment, he couldn't bring  himself   to  say  he'd  died),  "leaving the  Honorable Chief   Sucker  empty-handed. And  what  about the  gentleman, the good  lady's  brother?"
"Same  thing."
"Marvelous, marvelous! And  your  father's  the  one  who  has  to foot the bill. Make  ready the house for them,  Mistress Umm  Hussein, even if it be but a humble dwelling  unworthy of  their  high standing. I shall try to put things  right by introducing water  and electricity, and maybe  I'll buy Master Elwan's  carriage to place  at their  disposal."
"Enough, Father! Enough!" said Hussein with a gasp of exasperation.
The   man  looked   at  him  apologetically and said sarcastically,
"I'm so sorry. Have  I been  giving you a hard time? A sensitive  nature, is it? Amour  propre and social standing? 'Have  mercy on one  of  our noble men,  fallen on hard times!'? 'Have some shame, Boss Kersha, and talk to your masters in a manner befitting their iank!'? Do be so good as to divest yourselves of your clothes. And you, Mistress Umm Hussein,  open  up the  treasure chest we have hidden  in the latrine and bring up a good bushel or two for your lord and master so he can be rich and happy!"
Hussein mastered his anger and didn't utter- a word, so the storm passed over safely and the woman prayed silendy, "Keep us within Thy protection,   0 Protector!" Boss Kersha,  for all  his annoyance  and sarcasm,  could  not  have been  further  from  actually  throwing  them out. Indeed,  even at that moment  of fierceness, he was not altogeter displeased that the boy had returned, or that he'd got married. He therefore changed tack and murmured,  "It's God's will. May the Lord not hold me responsible for your sins!" Then  he resumed, asking the youth, "What do you expect to do about your future?"-
Aware that the worst was past, the youth replied, "I'll find work, God willing. And I still have my wife's jewelry."
His mother paid close attention to the word ')ewelry" and asked
him without thinking, "Did you buy it for her?"
Hussein  replied, "I gave her some of it and  her brother  bought
the rest."
He turned  to his father and added, "I shall find work, and Abduh, my brother-in-law; will look for work too. In any case, he's only going to stay with us for a few days."
Umm Hussein took advantage of the calm following the storm to tell her husband, "Come along, Boss Kersha, and say hello to your son's wife." She gave her son a surreptitious  look and winked, but the young man, with the offhandedness of those who are by nature  uncomfort­ able with affection, said, "Would you be so kind as to do the honors with my wife?"
The  man  hesitated for a moment,  then said as though  irritated,
''How   can  you  expect  me  to  acknowledge   this  marriage  that  I
haven't blessed?"
Hearing no answer, he rose, grumbling, and the woman  opened the  door  and  went  ahead  of  him  and  they  all moved  to  the  other room,  where  they shook  hands,  and  Boss Kersha bade  his son's wife and  her  brother welcome.  Each  heart  closed over its secrets,  but the faces beamed with welcome  and  complimentary words. Boss Kersha had  surrendered to the foit accompli but remained uneasy, not knowing whether he  had  done  well to surrender or  not,  and  still  harboring some   resentment and   ill-will.  Then, while  they  were  talking,  his sleepy eyes lit on  the girl's brother and  examined him carefully. In a flash,  he was seized  by an  intense  interest that  made  him  forget  all anxiety, resentment,  and meanness.  He  was a teenager  of  striking good looks and  pleasant demeanor and  as he engaged him in conver­ sation  and  gazed  at  him  with  alert  eye, his  mood  improved and  a tremor of pleasure and ardor  moved deep within  him. Thus his heart opened up  to  the  new  relatives  and  he  bade  them  welcome  once again,  but  with  a  new  awareness.  To  his  son  he  said  pleasantly, "Don't you have any furniture, Hussein?" to which Hussein replied,
"The bedroom  suite that's in storage with the neighbors." In commanding tones,   Boss  Kersha   exclaimed,   "Go  get  your  things  and  bring them here!"
Hussein  found  himself  alone  with his mother and  they sat and  talked and   made  arrangements. At  the  end,   the  woman   suddenly  cried, "Didn't you hear  what  happened? Hamida's disappeared."
"How?" asked Hussein, astonishment appearing on his face.
Making no  attempt to keep the  gloating out  of  her voice, the woman told him, "The day before yesterday she went out in the after­ noon  like she does every day but  she never came  back. Her mother went around to all her neighbors' and acquaintances' houses looking for her but it was useless. She went to the police stations in Gamaliya and Qasr el-Aini too but she was flogging a dead horse."
"What do you think  happened to her?"
Umm  Hussein  shook  her  head  suspiciously  and  said confidently, "I swear she ran away. A man  must have seduced her and sold her a bill of goods and  gone off with her. She was pretty  but she was never any good."