The Time and the Place (4 page)

The important piece of news that the new headmaster had arrived spread through the school. She heard of it in the women teachers' common room as she was casting a final glance at the day's lessons. There was no getting away from joining the other teachers in congratulating him, and from shaking him by the hand too. A shudder passed through her body, but it was unavoidable.

“They speak highly of his ability,” said a colleague of hers. “And they talk too of his strictness.”

It had always been a possibility that might occur, and now it had. Her pretty face paled, and a staring look came to her wide black eyes.

When the time came, the teachers went in single file, decorously attired, to his open room. He stood behind his desk as he received the men and women. He was of medium height, with a tendency to portliness, and had a spherical face, hooked nose, and bulging eyes; the first thing that could be seen of him was a thick, puffed-up mustache, arched like a foam-laden wave. She advanced with her eyes fixed on his chest. Avoiding his gaze, she stretched out her hand. What was she to say? Just what the others had said? However, she kept silent, uttered not a word. What, she wondered, did his eyes express? His rough hand shook hers, and he said in a gruff voice, “Thanks.” She turned elegantly and moved off.

She forgot her worries through her daily tasks, though she did not look in good shape. Several of the girls remarked, “Miss is in a bad mood.” When she returned to her home at the beginning
of the Pyramids Road, she changed her clothes and sat down to eat with her mother. “Everything all right?” inquired her mother, looking her in the face.

“Badran, Badran Badawi,” she said briefly. “Do you remember him? He's been appointed our headmaster.”

“Really!”

Then, after a moment of silence, she said, “It's of no importance at all—it's an old and long-forgotten story.”

After eating, she took herself off to her study to rest for a while before correcting some exercise books. She had forgotten him completely. No, not completely. How could he be forgotten completely? When he had first come to give her a private lesson in mathematics, she was fourteen years of age. In fact not quite fourteen. He had been twenty-five years older, the same age as her father. She had said to her mother, “His appearance is a mess, but he explains things well.” And her mother had said, “We're not concerned with what he looks like; what's important is how he explains things.”

He was an amusing person, and she got on well with him and benefited from his knowledge. How, then, had it happened? In her innocence she had not noticed any change in his behavior to put her on her guard. Then one day he had been left on his own with her, her father having gone to her aunt's clinic. She had not the slightest doubts about a man she regarded as a second father. How, then, had it happened? Without love or desire on her part the thing had happened. She had asked in terror about what had occurred, and he had told her, “Don't be frightened or sad. Keep it to yourself and I'll come and propose to you the day you come of age.”

And he had kept his promise and had come to ask for her hand. By then she had attained a degree of maturity that gave her an understanding of the dimensions of her tragic position. She had found that she had no love or respect for him and that
he was as far as he could be from her dreams and from the ideas she had formed of what constituted an ideal and moral person. But what was to be done? Her father had passed away two years ago, and her mother had been taken aback by the forwardness of the man. However, she had said to her, “I know your attachment to your personal independence, so I leave the decision to you.”

She had been conscious of the critical position she was in. She had either to accept or to close the door forever. It was the sort of situation that could force her into something she detested. She was the rich, beautiful girl, a byword in Abbasiyya for her nobility of character, and now here she was struggling helplessly in a well-sprung trap, while he looked down at her with rapacious eyes. Just as she had hated his strength, so too did she hate her own weakness. To have abused her innocence was one thing, but for him to have the upper hand now that she was fully in possession of her faculties was something else. He had said, “So here I am, making good my promise because I love you.” He had also said, “I know of your love of teaching, and you will complete your studies at the College of Science.”

She had felt such anger as she had never felt before. She had rejected coercion in the same way as she rejected ugliness. It had meant little to her to sacrifice marriage. She had welcomed being on her own, for solitude accompanied by self-respect was not loneliness. She had also guessed he was after her money. She had told her mother quite straightforwardly, “No,” to which her mother had replied, “I am astonished you did not make this decision from the first moment.”

The man had blocked her way outside and said, “How can you refuse? Don't you realize the outcome?” And she had replied with an asperity he had not expected, “For me any outcome is preferable to being married to you.”

After finishing her studies, she had wanted something to do
to fill her spare time, so she had worked as a teacher. Chances to marry had come time after time, but she had turned her back on them all.

“Does no one please you?” her mother asked her.

“I know what I'm doing,” she had said gently.

“But time is going by.”

“Let it go as it pleases, I am content.”

Day by day she becomes older. She avoids love, fears it. With all her strength she hopes that life will pass calmly, peacefully, rather than happily. She goes on persuading herself that happiness is not confined to love and motherhood. Never has she regretted her firm decision. Who knows what the morrow holds? But she was certainly unhappy that he should again make his appearance in her life, that she would be dealing with him day after day, and that he would be making of the past a living and painful present.

Then, the first time he was alone with her in his room, he asked her, “How are you?”

She answered coldly, “I'm fine.”

He hesitated slightly before inquiring, “Have you not…I mean, did you get married?”

In the tone of someone intent on cutting short a conversation, she said, “I told you, I'm fine.”

It happened on my last night in the old house, or rather on the night that it had been agreed was to be the last. Despite being old and clearly out of place in a contemporary setting, the house possessed a character of its own. It had become, as it were, an ancient monument, and this was further accentuated by a location that gave one a view of a square born the same year as the city of Cairo itself. By virtue of having inherited the house, we had been brought up there. Then, by reason of the discord of different generations, a feeling of antipathy had grown up between us and the house, and we found ourselves aspiring to the bright new milieux, far distant from the stone walls that lay embedded in narrow alleyways.

I was sitting in the spacious living room, on a dilapidated couch, which it had been decided to dispose of, under a skylight firmly closed against the caprices of the autumn weather. I was sipping at a glass of cinnamon tea and gazing at a small brass ewer standing on a table in front of me; out of it protruded a stick of Javanese incense, slowly giving out a thread of fragrant smoke that coiled and curled under the lamplight in the silence of leave-taking. For no reason a listlessness gripped at my feeling of well-being, after which I was overcome by a mysterious sense of unease. I steeled myself to fight against it, but the whole of life piled up before my eyes in a fleeting flash, like a ball of light flung forward with cosmic speed; in no time it was extinguished, giving itself up to the unknown, submerged in its endless depths.

I told myself that I was acquainted with such tricks and that the departure tomorrow, so arbitrarily fixed, was reminding me of one's final departure, when the cameleer raises his voice to intone the very last song. I began to seek distraction from the sorrows of leave-taking by imagining the new abode in the wide street under the densely growing branches of mimosa lebbek trees, and the new life that gave promise of immeasurable sophisticated delights. No sooner had the cinnamon tea come to rest inside me than I made a sudden and gigantic leap that transferred me from one actuality into another. From deep within me rose a call that with boundless confidence invited me to open doors, to pull aside the screen, to invade space, and grab hold of approval and forgiveness from the atmosphere so fragrant with incense. Cares, anxieties, and thoughts of annihilation all faded away, drowned in a flood of energy and a sense of enchantment and ecstasy, and my heart quivered in a wonderful dance brought into being by passionate exuberance.

Within me flashed a light, which assumed the form of a person. Presenting me with a glass of wine filled to overflowing, he said to me amiably, “Accept the gift of a miracle.” I expected something to happen and it did: dissolving into nothingness, the living room was replaced by a vast courtyard that extended far into the distance until it met its boundary with the square in a thick white wall. The courtyard was covered with grassy rounds and crescents, with a well in the middle. At a short distance from the well was a lofty palm tree. I found myself wavering between two sensations: a feeling that told me I was witnessing a scene I had never viewed before, and another that told me that there was nothing strange about it, that I had both seen it and was remembering it. I made a violent movement with my head so as to bring myself back to the present, if in fact my mind had been wandering. The scene merely became clearer,
more dominating, while between the palm tree and the well a human being took shape. This person, though concealed within a black gibba and a tall green turban, was none other than myself; despite the flowing beard, the face was mine. Once again, I moved my head, but the scene merely became even clearer and sharper; the tawny light indicated that the sun was setting. There also took shape, between the well and the date palm, a middle-aged man who was dressed similarly to myself. I saw him handing me a small box and saying, “These are days of insecurity. You must hide it under the ground until you return to it in due time.”

“Wouldn't it be best,” I asked him, “for me to have a look at it before hiding it?”

“No, no,” he said firmly, “that would cause you to be hasty in taking action before a year is up, and you would perish.”

“Have I to wait a year?”

“At least, then follow that which it enjoins.” He was silent for a while, then he continued. “These are days of insecurity,” he cautioned, “and your house is liable to be searched. You must therefore hide it deep down.” And the two of them set about digging close by the date palm. Having buried the box, they heaped earth on top of it and carefully leveled the surface. Then the middle-aged man said, “I'll leave you in the care of the Almighty. Be cautious—these are days of insecurity.”

At this the scene vanished as though it had never been. The living room of the old house returned, and there was still some of the stick of incense left. Quickly I started to awaken from my state of elation and to revert to reality in all its material solidity, though for a long time I was in a state of agitated excitement. Could it have been a figment of the imagination? This was the obvious explanation, but how could I accept that and forget the scene that had assumed such concrete form, a scene that in all
its dimensions had exuded such verisimilitude? I had lived some past reality that was no less solid than the reality of the present, and had seen myself—or one of my forebears—and part of an era that had passed away. It was not possible for me to doubt that without doubting my mind and senses. Naturally, I did not know how it had come about, but I knew for a fact that it had. One question forced itself upon me: Why had it happened? And why had it happened on this, my last night in the old house? All at once I felt that I was being required to do something, something from which there was no escape.

Could it be that “the other one” had taken out the box after the expiration of a year and had done that which he was directed to do? Had he reached the end of his patience and, acting too hastily, perished? Had his plan turned against him in those days of insecurity? How unrelentingly insistent was the desire to know! A strange thought occurred to me, which was that the past had been manifested to me only because “the other one” had been prevented from getting at the box and that I was being called upon to dig it up and to put into effect what was directed should be done, after it had been unknown, overlooked for such a long period of time. It was ordering me not to leave the old house so that I might act on some ancient command, the time for whose implementation had not yet arrived. Despite the fact that the whole situation was garbed in a wrapping woven of dreams, and wholly at odds with reason, it nonetheless took control of me with a despotic force. My heart became filled with the delights and pains of living in expectation.

That whole night I did not sleep a single moment, as my imagination went roaming through the vastness of time that comprised past, present, and future together, drunk with the intoxication that total freedom brings. The idea of departure was out of the question. I was overwhelmed by the desire to excavate
the unknown past in the hope of coming across the word of command that had so long lain dormant. Then I pondered what should be done next. By comparing the scene that had passed away with the one that lay before me, I calculated that the old site of the date palm was where the small stairway led up to the living room. Digging, therefore, must start at a short distance from it, adjacent to the living room window.

I was then faced with the difficulty of informing my brother and sister that I had changed my mind about leaving, after having agreed with them to do so. We were still at university; I was in my last year at the Faculty of Law, while my brother, a year my junior, was studying engineering, and my sister, two years younger than I, was studying medicine. Both of them protested at my sudden change of mind, finding none of my reasons convincing, while at the same time insisting on making the move on their own and expressing the hope that I would soon join them. Before leaving, they reminded me that we had agreed to put the house up for sale so as to profit from the rise in property prices, and I raised no objection. Thus we separated for the first time in our lives, having thought that only marriage or death would ever come between us.

Nothing remained but to start work. I was in truth frightened of the possibility that it would reveal nothing, but I was driven by a force that would not let me turn back, and I made up my mind to dig on my own at night in utter secrecy. I went to work with an axe, a shovel, a basket, and tireless zeal, and soon I was stained with dust and my lungs were filled with it. There lodged in my nostrils a smell full of the nostalgia of bygone days. I continued till I had dug down to a depth of my own height, helped by nothing but a feeling that I was drawing near to the truth. Then a blow from the axe gave back an unfamiliar sound that bespoke the presence of an unfamiliar substance. My heart beat so wildly that I found myself trembling all over. In the
candlelight I saw the box staring up at me with a face dusty yet alive, as though reproaching me for my long delay, rebuking me for the loss of those many years, and making plain its displeasure at having kept imprisoned a word that should have been made known. At the same time I was being presented with a truth in a concrete form that was undeniable, an embodied miracle, a victory scored against time.

I brought the box up to the surface, then hurried off to the living room, carrying with me the evidence that had ferried me across from a state of dreaming to that of reality and had made a mockery of all accepted concepts. I brushed away the dust, opened the box, and found inside a letter folded up in a wrapping of ragged linen. I spread it out carefully and proceeded to read.

O my son
,
may God Almighty protect you
.

The year has gone by and each has come to know his path
.

Leave not your house for it is the most beautiful in Cairo, besides which
,
the Believers know no other house
,
no other safe refuge
.

The time has come for you to meet the Guardian of the Sanctuary
,
our Master Arif al-Baqallani
,
so go to his house
,
which is the third one to the right as you enter Aram Gour Alley, and mention to him the password, which is: If I am absent He appears, and if He appears He will cause me to be absent
.

Thus will you discharge your duty, and fortune will smile upon you, and you will obtain that which the Believers wish for you, also that which you wish for yourself
.

I read the letter so many times that the reading became mechanical and meaningless. As for my old associate, I had no knowledge as to what his fate had been. I was nevertheless certain that the house was no longer the most beautiful in Cairo, nor a safe refuge for the Believers, and that Arif al-Baqallani, Guardian of the Sanctuary, no longer existed. Wherefore, then,
the vision? And wherefore the labor? Was it possible that a miracle of such magnitude could occur for no reason? Was it not conceivable that it was demanding that I go to the third house in Aram Gour Alley so that something might be bestowed upon me that I had not foreseen? Did I have it in me to stop myself from going there, drawn as I was by an avid curiosity and a longing that rejected the idea of my unique miracle ending in a futile jest? Under cover of night I set off, several hundred years late for my appointment. I found the alley lying supine under a darkness from whose depths showed the glimmer of a lamp. Except for a few individuals who quickly crossed to the main road, I saw no sign of human life. I passed by the first house and reached the second. At the third I came to a stop. I turned toward it like someone walking in a dream. I perceived that it possessed a small courtyard lying behind a low wall and that there were indistinct human forms. Before I was able to back away, the door was opened and two tall men in European dress came out. With a quickly executed flanking movement, they barred my path. Then one of them said, “Go inside and meet the person you've come to meet.”

Taken by surprise, I said, “I didn't come to meet anyone, but I'd be glad to know the name of the person living in the house.”

“Really! And why?”

Pushing aside a feeling of apprehension, I said, “I'd like to know if the person living here is from the al-Baqallani family.”

“Enough of al-Baqallani—just continue your journey to its end.”

It occurred to me that the two of them were security men, and I was seized with alarm and confusion. “There's no journey, no meeting,” I said.

“You'll change your mind.”

Each seized me by an arm, and despite my struggles, herded
me inside. Torn from a dream, I was thrust into a nightmare. I was taken into a lighted reception room in the center of which stood a person in a white galabeya, handcuffed. Round about the room I saw several men of the same type as the two who had herded me inside. One of the two men said, “He was coming to meet his friend.”

A man—I guessed him to be the leader of the group—turned to the man under arrest. “One of your comrades?” he asked him.

“I've not seen him before,” answered the young man sullenly.

Looking toward me, the leader asked, “Are you going to repeat the same story, or will you save yourself and us the trouble and confess?”

“I swear by Almighty God,” I exclaimed vehemently, “that I have no connection with anything you may suspect.”

He stretched out his hand. “Your identity card.” I gave him the card. He read it, then asked me, “What brought you here?”

I pointed to the two men and said in an aggrieved tone, “They brought me here by force.”

“They hunted you out from off the streets?”

“I came to the alley to ask about the al-Baqallani family.”

“And what should cause you to ask about them?”

Utterly confused, I was conscious of the wariness inevitably felt by anyone under questioning. “I read about them in a history,” I said, “I read that they used to live in the third house to the right as you enter this alley.”