“Don’t let her go up,” said Galal, crushed with astonishment. “Kill her if you have to. Rafik, my brother, I haven’t time to do anything about this. But I have faith in you. I beg you, deliver us from this menace. A woman in the house! What a ghastly thought!”
“Don’t worry, I’m here,” said Rafik.
He looked at Hoda:
“And you, you bitch, if you ever let her in here, I’ll strangle you.”
“You really pass all limits,” said the uncle. “Rafik, I tell you again, this affair is none of your business.”
“Do you know,” Rafik continued, “what this worthless Haga Zohra is hawking all over town? She’s telling everyone our father has diabetes!”
“Diabetes!” said Serag. “But why?”
“Yes, why?” asked Galal, alarmed by this new misfortune.
“I’ll explain it to you,” said Rafik. “You’re too naïve to understand. According to this ignorant woman’s powers of reason, it would seem that a man with diabetes is a man who’s eaten many sweets in his life. And if a man’s eaten many sweets in his life, it doesn’t matter who he is. He must be a man of high social rank. Now do you understand?”
Galal burst out with a dull laugh, but stopped at once. He understood that it was no laughing matter, but rather a tragic turn of events.
“But the woman’s a fool,” said Serag.
“She isn’t a fool,” said Rafik. “She’s an admirable go-between. What parents, pray tell, wouldn’t be proud to give their daughter to a man who’s got such a glorious disease? At least it proves that he hasn’t eaten only bread and bad cheese.”
“Once more, my dear Rafik, save us from this misery,” said Galal. “I count on you and name you guardian of our sleep. Show us what you’re worth. You’ve studied — you’re almost an engineer.”
“I don’t have to be an engineer to know how to slice Haga Zohra into a thousand little pieces. You can count on me.”
“You’re a brave man!” said Galal, reassured.
“My children,” said Uncle Mustapha, “don’t interfere in this. Your father is master here. If he decides on something, it’s his own business.”
“Uncle Mustapha, it’s not possible. You want to kill us!” said Galal. “A woman in the house! As if this girl weren’t bad enough.”
During this discussion, Hoda had prudently remained silent. Old Hafez’s marriage had given rise to endless disputes, and she hadn’t managed to escape the consequences. She was worried about the future. She got up silently, gathered the dirty plates, and carried them to the kitchen.
Uncle Mustapha didn’t speak, but he was busy thinking. Not able to make himself respected, he was careful to defend his brother’s decisions. Old Hafez’s permanent absence gave him a right to authority. Unfortunately, he used it badly and had become the constant butt of his nephews. Uncle Mustapha suffered to find himself reduced to this subordinate role. But he couldn’t do anything to change his situation. Actually, he was very fond of this quiet house and found himself strangely at home there. He now slept as much as the others. Only sometimes he remembered his old happy bachelor’s existence and was seized with regret. He gave vent to several sighs of unexpected feeling and looked vaguely around him. These sighs of Uncle Mustapha always gave the impression of an unjust and terrible fate that darkened his existence past the limits of mere weariness.
“Uncle Mustapha,” said Rafik, “you should go on the radio. Then your sighs would be heard around the world. I like your sighs; it’s as if the world should be bored along with you.”
“I don’t understand your insolence. What’s this new idea?”
“Simply,” said Rafik, “I think it’s a shame that such beautiful sighs should be lost to strangers. I’m sure the radio would pay you well.”
Uncle Mustapha, in reply to this flippancy, gave several more of his singular sighs and became silent.
“You’re right to sigh, Uncle Mustapha,” said Galal. “It’s horrible to wait like this. Where did that girl go?”
“What are you waiting for?” asked Rafik.
“I’m waiting for dessert. And I haven’t time.”
“You’re in a hurry?”
“Yes, I’m in a hurry,” said Galal.
After a minute, Hoda came back with a plate filled with oranges and put it on the table.
“I’ll take mine with me,” said Galal. “I’ll eat it in bed. I guess I’ll take two: one for dinner, too. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat with you tonight. I’ve wasted enough time in this dining room.”
He got up and went toward the door. Suddenly he came back.
“I don’t have to tell you not to make any noise. Come to bed. What are you doing here awake? On my honor, you’re all vicious. Goodbye!”
“Adieu,” said Rafik. “And don’t forget to write. We’re always anxious to hear from you.”
IV
It was the sacred hour of siesta; the house was silent as though it were buried at the very depth of silence. Sometimes, a noise of dishes, imperceptible, muffled, laid itself upon the motionless air, like a cry lost in crossing the heaviness of sleep. Rafik, stretched on his bed, was not asleep. His eyes wide open in the gloom, he kept awake with meticulous care, exhausting himself in the unequal struggle against drowsiness. He was waiting for Haga Zohra, the go-between whose intrigues threatened to throw the house into irreparable chaos. He had decided that his father’s marriage must not take place; because of this, he hadn’t slept for several days. It was an act of daring, almost of folly, and Rafik was afraid of succumbing to his fatigue, of failing at the crucial moment. Sweat dripped from his forehead as he fought the pernicious languor that was taking hold of his limbs, this heavy inertia that crept through him. Already, he had begun to suffer. He was getting stiff and raised himself on his elbows, panting. He heard his own breathing and was alarmed; he had almost awakened Galal who slept in the next bed, his face turned toward the wall, completely shrouded in his quilt. Not a breath marred his sleep that seemed like death. Rafik admired this tremendous anesthesia that no anxiety could disturb. It was almost a comatose state, a stupor. Galal had had no choice; his sleep was not a desire to escape from a world that didn’t please him. He even ignored that there was a world outside, full of unhappiness, menacing and greedy. He abandoned himself to sleep naturally, without cares, as to a simple and joyous thing.
Rafik, on the contrary, always had with him the vision of a world of degradation and misery, and had chosen sleep as a refuge. He could feel at peace only behind the shelter of these walls, barricaded against the fatal presence of other beings and things. Around the house ranged a multitude of wrecks with human faces; their nearness was horrible to him. He recalled with terror the times when he used to go out, those chance contacts with the world of men; they were all murderers. He had an unbelievable hatred for them. When still very young he had learned to appreciate the value of the monotonous but sublime existence that his father’s house offered. This security, rid of all contingencies, he owed to old Hafez, who had always maintained an atmosphere of passivity around him. Rafik always respected his father for the one noble idea he had found in life, and when, at a certain period, old Hafez had forced him to sacrifice his love of a woman, Rafik had not hesitated, in spite of the suffering it had cost him, to obey his father’s will. Old Hafez had been right. Rafik was grateful and blessed him for saving him in time. But now it was his father who was about to ruin this security so painfully acquired by many generations. Rafik rebelled; he felt offended and betrayed.
The woman whom Rafik had loved, at the time when he went out in the world, was a young prostitute who lived in an old dilapidated house near the highway. The quarter referred to her as “Imtissal, the students’ friend,” because she only recruited her admirers among the youth of the universities. A whole clientele, scarcely past puberty, crowded to her door. Rafik had sometimes visited her with the other students. In the beginning, Imtissal had scarcely paid any attention to him; he was a customer like the others. Then came a day when she began to treat him differently and refused the money he gave her. Rafik thereupon conceived a certain pride that led him to believe he was an extraordinary being. Imtissal seemed to find a strange pleasure in making love to him. Rafik was never able to forget this time of discovery of the savageness of the flesh. Imtissal began to love him with incredible passion that was almost hysteria. She no longer received her numerous admirers, passing the days waiting for him; she became devouringly faithful. After a few months of this violent love Rafik decided he would marry Imtissal and bring her to live, with him at the house.