Since his conversation with Hoda, his face betrayed a strong annoyance that he tried to control but which shone through each of his words. He got up from the couch and took his place opposite Uncle Mustapha.
Hoda came back from the kitchen with the pot of lentils and placed them in the middle of the table.
“Help yourselves,” she said. “I have to wake Galal.”
“Have you served the bey?” asked Uncle Mustapha.
“The bey!” Rafik exclaimed. “What a sense of humour! Since when, Uncle Mustapha, is my father a bey?”
Uncle Mustapha reflected but didn’t answer. He wanted to find some ingenious formula to safeguard his dignity.
“Your father’s a bey,” he said. “And I too am a bey. If you weren’t so disrespectful, that’s what you’d call me. You above all, Rafik. You forget I was a rich man.”
“I haven’t forgotten a thing,” said Rafik. “Uncle Mustapha, you’re really quite a man. You should have been a minister of state.”
Uncle Mustapha sensed his helplessness and held back his irritation. He began to serve himself some lentils, then said with a detached air:
“You’re only a bad boy. Anyhow, I’m not going to talk to you anymore.”
“Oh, this is terrible. You’re not going to talk to me anymore! What’ll I do? Uncle Mustapha, answer me; it isn’t true — you’re not angry with me?”
Rafik put on a tragic face and fixed imploring eyes on Uncle Mustapha. But Uncle Mustapha didn’t budge. He kept silent and began to eat tranquilly, absentmindedly. Serag helped himself too; he was eating hungrily. The visit to the factory had made him ravenous. The suffering he felt outside was gone; he appreciated this peaceful security where there were no catastrophes. Rafik’s harangues with Uncle Mustapha created an atmosphere of complicity around him, a familiar warmth that enchanted him.
Silence reigned everywhere in the room. No one spoke. In the middle of the table the pot of lentils gave off steam that rose toward the ceiling in vaporous white clouds. Old Hafez, gloomy and smeared, disappeared little by little under the mist that filmed the glass of the picture. Finally, he disappeared altogether.
“Why are you awake?”
Galal, who had just asked this anguished question, was standing in the doorway with the frightened look of someone who has just awakened with a start. His eyes were still half closed; he yawned till he twisted his jaw. His disheveled hair fell on his forehead, and his face had a cadaverous pallor. He wore a large nightgown; foully dirty and stained with sweat, it clung to his skin. Obviously, he hadn’t changed it for months. Leaning against the wall, he stood without moving, blinking his eyes swollen with sleep, as if he wanted to take in everything in the scene.
“If we’re awake, my dear Galal, it’s only to eat,” said Rafik. “I swear it on my honor. Don’t think anything else.”
“I thought there must have been a fire!” said Galal with a gasp.
He came forward unsteadily and slipped into a free place at the table. He waited a moment, to take up consciousness again, to realize fully his state of being awake. He seemed very unhappy to be in action and obliged to move. His timid manners and mechanical gestures were like acts of daring revived each day. He served himself, sniffed his plate before putting it down in front of him and became motionless again. He still felt the remains of sleep — of a particular savor — and he wanted to make it last as long as possible. But soon he began to eat.
“Tell me, are the lentils good?” he asked.
“They’re rotten,” replied Rafik. “What else do you expect from this girl?”
“This is no life,” said Galal. “All day long we’re upset by worries.”
“You’re wrong to be bothered,” said Rafik. “You could easily give up eating. Try it, you’ll see it’s not so bad.”
“I’ll try,” said Galal, “when you’re all dead.”
“O shame!” cried Uncle Mustapha. “Is that how you insult your father?”
“Who insulted my father?” asked Galal, disturbed.
“You just said, a second ago, ‘when you’re all dead.’ You Galal, you, the oldest — you’re a bad example to your brothers.”
Galal began to eat, indifferent to his uncle’s reproaches. Everything that happened around him was only illusion, vile conspiracies against the splendid web of sleep. He lived in the midst of his family completely immune to its quibbling. They were after him all the time with their little intrigues, but he always knew how to escape. Actually they were only weak novices who knew nothing of the delights of this drug like oblivion. Galal was several years ahead of them. Uncle Mustapha was still the most obtuse. He had only been living in the house for three years. What could he understand? When he was living alone in the city, he must have spent his time seeing people, going out every night, enjoying the company of easy women — an intemperate existence, without repose. At first, he used to come often to gossip with Galal. What did he take him for? Galal slept on and didn’t answer. It took Uncle Mustapha a long time to understand. Now, he didn’t disturb Galal except on grave occasions.
Hoda came back from the kitchen and sat down at the table near Serag. She always ate with the family. She was the daughter of one of old Hafez’s distant relatives, a miserable widow who had no one but her in the world. Old Hafez had hired her for practically nothing. She came every day to clean the house, fix the meals, and then returned in the evening to her mother, who lived in the neighborhood. She was considered as a member of the family, and not as a servant.
“Have you taken lunch up to the bey?” asked Uncle Mustapha.
“Yes,” said Hoda. “I just did.”
“Uncle Mustapha,” said Rafik, “if you keep calling my father bey, I’m going to lose my temper and do something you won’t like.”
“But why, my son?”
“Because I don’t like privilege.”
“What insolence!” said Uncle Mustapha. “And besides, I’m not talking to you.”
“All the more,” Rafik continued, “since the bey in question is getting ready to be married. On my honor, that’s going to be a beautiful wedding!”
“Be quiet!” said Uncle Mustapha. “That’s none of your business. By Allah! Have you ever seen such an insolent boy?”
“That’s why you’ve been calling him bey lately! You want to raise his prestige. The parents of the young lady must know he’s a boy. You might also call him pasha. What’s to stop you?”
“Why are you making so much noise?” asked Galal, very disturbed.
“My dear Galal,” said Rafik, “the day your father marries there will be no more sleep for you. I just want to give you a warning.”
At this news, Galal started as though he’d been bitten by a snake.
“My father going to marry!” he cried. “This is horrible. But how? He’s way up in his room; he never goes out.”
“He doesn’t have to go out. It’s Haga Zohra, that daughter of a whore, who’s managing the whole affair. She’s been visiting him continually”