When the July Revolution came, Ibrahim al-Aswani was sure his political life was over. He retired to his land and devoted himself to farming. His sons, Surur and Muhammad, had joined the air force, but this branch of the family was destined for irrevocable extinction: Ibrahim al-Aswani was killed in a train crash in 1955 when he was fifty-five and Gamila only fifty; Surur’s plane was hit in the war of 1956 and he perished; and his brother, Muhammad, followed in the war of 1967. Gamila was delivered from her loneliness and sadness in 1970, dying of stomach cancer at the age of sixty-three. At the time of her death she resembled a branch without shoots on a family tree.
Ḥa’
Hazim Surur Aziz
FROM THE VERY BEGINNING he was antisocial and reclusive. He would stand in front of the house, away from his brothers and sisters and cousins, and watch people coming and going from the alleys off the square. He never once entered his uncle Amr’s house. Amr would laugh and say to Surur, “Your son Hazim hates mankind.” He was good looking like his mother, small like Bahiga, and nearsighted to the point of blindness in his left eye. He was never seen laughing or excited. His brilliance became clear in Qur’an school and he was near to repeating the success story of his older brother Labib. He kept to himself and had no goal in life other than to succeed; his relatives from Ata and Dawud’s families did not even know he existed. His outstanding achievements meant his father did not spend a millieme on his education and he entered the faculty of engineering with a remission of fees fully deserved. It was clear to his brother Amir that he did not know the prime minister’s name, read the papers, or connect emotionally with any wave in the sea of events stirring the nation. “Do you think the world is just about study?” Amir asked him. But no one could draw him into a discussion. When Amir was martyred in his jihad, Hazim was perplexed, silent, and dejected. But he did not utter a word or shed a tear and it was not long before he resumed life as usual.
He graduated as an engineer in 1938 but, because of his disability, did not head for the civil service. Instead, he found a better job at the building contractors of Dr. Muhammad Salama, who had been one of his teachers at school. The engineering professor was impressed by him and liked him. He regarded him as a model of intelligence and action, who steered clear of trouble. He would visit his teacher at his villa in Dokki and carry out various tasks, and there got to know Samiha, his daughter. Samiha was acceptable looking, but more importantly she was the daughter of his manager and teacher. He noticed the bey encouraged the acquaintance and this surprised him, given the man knew his humble origins and poverty. Nevertheless, he let vanity get the better of him until they were married and he had taken up residence in one of the apartments in a building the doctor owned and reckoned himself king of the world. The truth then began to emerge and he faced a situation that bespoke trouble: the bride’s nervous side. She soon revealed a personality that was impossible to get along with. She was a hurricane that blew up and spread for the feeblest reasons, sometimes no reason whatsoever. He had a constitution that naturally deflected lightning bolts, inherited from his mother, Sitt Zaynab. He lived by his head, not his heart. Thus, seated in his living room, wrapped in navy blue silk robes and submerged in an armchair, he said to himself: So be it. The marriage is equitable at any rate. It promised him a future free of the need to dream while he possessed the intelligence and ambition to exploit what advantages there might be. If Samiha had been a perfect bride, or even just average, she would have married someone from the upper class to which she belonged, or a diplomat. Her father had given her to him after much thought and deliberation and he must accept the gift with similar thought and deliberation. He also said to himself: If she’s the patient then I’m the doctor. And so he was.
The major deaths in Surur and Amr’s families came in succession shortly before the Second World War: first Amr, then Surur, then Zaynab. Samiha tired of visiting Hazim’s mother, father, and siblings and decided in a moment of madness not to take part in the mourning ceremonies.
He looked at her pleadingly. “But.…”
His tone was loaded with meaning but she shot back vehemently, “I’m not going anywhere near that vermin-infested square. Nor do I want anyone from it coming to me.”
He did not get angry and his face gave nothing away. Relations between him and his family were soon severed and he merged into her family, becoming a shadow of it and forgetting his roots. Yet his blind obedience did not guarantee him peace. Once, when he and his wife were alone after an evening in his apartment with his mother-in-law, her sister, and some of her relatives, she said to him, “I’m not impressed. You were too quiet. What few words escaped you were meaningless.”
“Too much talking gives me a headache and no interesting subjects came up,” he apologized with the utmost decorum and delicacy.
“So if we’re not talking about engineering it’s nonsense?” she bellowed.
He obliged her with a smile but she flew into a rage and roared the cruelest insults. She grabbed an expensive vase and hurled it at the wall. It shattered and the shards showered onto the embroidered sofa cover. He looked at her and smiled apprehensively then said affectionately, “Nothing in the world is worth you getting this angry about.”
But the apartment also witnessed embraces and parenthood, and she gave birth to Husni and Adham. Hazim rose through the company, relying on perseverance and aptitude, and Muhammad Bey Salama relied on him increasingly as the days passed. Then, after the bey’s death, he took his place as Samiha’s proxy. He added to the capital with his own savings and, under him, the company prospered even more than it had previously. He built a villa in Dokki and his family moved there. He digested all Samiha’s outbursts with extraordinary heroism, though some were difficult to stomach. For instance, Muhammad Bey Salama had been a member of the Wafd party whereas Hazim was indifferent to politics but, confronted with Samiha’s zeal, would profess Wafdism in the home at least. His cool announcements were not, however, enough. He returned to the apartment one day to find a picture of al-Nahhas hanging in place of the picture of his father, Surur Effendi. He looked in silence without daring to comment. “I’m superstitious about pictures of the dead. This is a picture of the nation’s leader,” Samiha said. He said nothing, even when Muhammad Bey Salama and al-Nahhas died and their pictures remained in their places. On the day the family moved to the new villa she laughed loudly and said, “Praise be to God, you fool. We’ve raised you from the bottom to the top.”
“Praise God for everything,” he said submissively.
She frowned. “Don’t forget the gratitude you owe me.”
“You are generous and blessed,” he replied with usual cool.
When the July Revolution came he worried his feigned Wafdism had spread beyond the walls of the house, but he was not exposed to any trouble. He assiduously applauded the revolution in the workplace while berating it at home in front of Samiha, his eyes scrutinizing his surroundings and seeking refuge in God. “Have you heard of a country ruled by a group of constables?” she would say in exasperation at every opportunity.
He would interrupt and whisper in her ear, “Be careful of the servants … the walls … the air.…”