Kamal quickly grew as tipsy as his brother and said, "Once alcohol's circulating through the body, the world certainly seems adorable."
"God bless your mouth! Now even the usual refrain of beggars in the street sounds enchanting to the ear."
"And our sorrows seem to belong to other men."
"But their women seem our own."
"It all amounts to the same thing, my father's son."
"God, God, I don't want to sober up."
"One vile aspect of life is that we can't stay drunk as long as we'd like."
"Please understand that I don't see drunkenness as just an amusement but as the heavenly goal of life on a par with knowledge and our highest ideals."
"In that case I'm a great philosopher."
"You will be, when you believe what I've said; not before."
"May God grant you a long life, Father, for you've begotten philosophers just like you."
"Why should a man be miserable when all he needs is a drink and a woman, since there are plenty of bottles and women too?"
"Why? … Why?"
"I'll tell you the answer once I've drunk one more."
"No," Yasin said in a voice that betrayed a fleeting sobriety. Then he cautioned Kamal again, "Don't overdo it. I'm your drinking partner tonight, so I'm responsible for you. What time is it?" He took out his watch and exclaimed, "Twelve-thirty! Hero, we're in trouble. We're both late. You have our father to worry about, and I've got Zanuba. Let's go."
In no time at all they had left the bar and boarded a carriage that rushed off with them toward al-Ataba, circling the fence around the Ezbekiya Garden on a road buried in darkness. Every now and then they saw a pedestrian hurry or stagger by. Whenever the carriage passed an intersection, the fresh breeze carried to them the sound of people singing. Above the buildings and the lofty trees of the Garden, vigilant stars glittered.
Yasin laughingly said, "Tonight I'll be able to swear quite confidently that I've done nothing reprehensible."
Kamal said rather anxiously, "I hope I get home before my father.'"
"Nothing's more wretched than fear. Long live the revolution!"
"Yes, long live the revolution!"
"Down with the tyrannical wife!"
"Down with the tyrannical father!"
108
Kamal knocked gently on the door until it opened to reveal the shadowy figure of Umm Hanafi. When she recognized him, she whispered, "My master's on the stairs."
Before entering, he waited to be sure his father had reached the top floor, but then a voice called down the stairs sharply, "Who knocked?"
Kamal's heart pounded. He felt obliged to step forward and reply, "Me, Papa."
By the light of the lamp that Kamal's mother was holding at the top of the stairs, his father's form was visible on the first-floor landing. Al-Sayyid Ahmad looked down over the railing and asked with astonishment, "Kamal? What's kept you outside the house till this hour?"
"The same thing that kept you," Kamal commented to himself.
He answered apprehensively, "I went to the theater to see a play that's required reading for us this year."
His father shouted angrily, "When did people start studying in theaters? Isn't it enough to read and memorize it? What disgusting nonsense! Why didn't you ask my permission?"
Kamal stopped a few steps below his father and replied apologetically, "I didn't expect it to end so late."
The man said angrily, "Find some other way to study and skip the foolish excuses". Grumbling to himself, he resumed his climb up the stairs. Some of these muttered complaints reached Kamaclass="underline" "Studying in the theaters till all hours… one a. m. …just children … curses on your author and the author of the play."
Kamal ascended to the top story and went into the sitting room, where he took the lamp from a table. Entering his bedroom with a sullen face, he deposited the lamp on his desk and stood there, resting his hands on the desk, while he asked when his father had last insulted him. He could not remember precisely but was sure his years at the Teachers College had passed without a comparable incident. For this reason the curses made a painful impact on him, even though they had not been directed at him. He turned away from his desk, removed his fez, and started to undress. Then he suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. He fled to the bathroom, where he vomited everything with bitter violence. When he returned to his room he felt exhausted and disgusted with himself, for the pain in his chest was less intense and profound than that in his spirit. He took off his clothes, extinguished the lamp, and stretched out on the bed, exhaling with nervous annoyance.
In a few minutes he heard the door open softly. Then his mother's voice reached him, asking sympathetically, "Asleep?"
Adopting a natural and contented tone to discourage her, so he could confront his ordeal alone, he said, "Yes…."
Her figure approached the bed and stopped near his head. Then she said apologetically, "Don't let it worry you. I know your father better ttian anyone."
"Of course!.. I understand."
As though expressing her own reservations, she said, "He knows how serious and upright you are. That's why he couldn't believe you'd stayed out this late."
Kamal was sufficiently enraged to ask, "If staying out late merits so mucti disapproval, why doeshe do it so persistently?"
The darkness prevented him from seeing the expression of astonished disapproval on her face, but her nasal laugh showed that she did not take his question seriously. She replied, "All men stay ou: at night. You'll be a man soon. But right now, you're a student."
He interrupted her as if he wanted to end the conversation: "I understand. Naturally. I didn't mean anything by what I said. Why did you bother to come? Go in peace."
She said tenderly, "I was afraid you were upset. I'll leave you now, but promise you'll sleep soundly and not worry about it. Recite the Qur'an sura about God's absolute and eternal nature until you fall asleep" (Sura 112).
He sensed her move away. Then he heard the door close as she said, "Good night". He exhaled deeply again and began to stroke his chest and belly as he stared into the darkness. Life had a bitter taste. What had become of the enchanting intoxication of alcohol? What was this stifling depression that had taken its place? It resembled nothing so much as the disappointment supplanting hisheavenly dreams of love. But if it had not been for his father, the enchantment would have lasted. Kamal feared the man's despotic power more than anything else. He dreaded and loved it at the same time. Why should that be? Al-Sayyid Ahmad was just a man. Except for the geniality other people attributed to him, there was nothing so special about him. Why did Kamal fear him and feel intimidated by this fear? It was all in Kamal's head, like the other fantasies that had afflicted him. But what use was logic in combating emotions?
His hands had pounded on the gate of Abdin Palace during a great demonstration in which people had defiantly challenged the king: "Sa'd or revolution!" Then the king had backed down, but Sa'd Zaghlul had resigned from the cabinet. Faced by his father, though, Kamal was reduced to nothing. The meaning and significance of everything had changed: God, Adam, al-Husayn, love, Ai'da herself, immortality.
"Did you say 'immortality'? Yes… as it applies to love and to Fahmy, that martyred brother who is annihilation's guest forever. Remember the experiment you attempted when you were twelve in hopes of discovering his unknown fate? What a sad memory! You grabbed a sparrow from its nest and strangled it. Covering it with a shroud, you dug a small grave in the courtyard near the old well and buried the victim. Days or weeks later you dug up the grave and took out the corpse. What did you see and smell? You went weeping to your mother to ask her what became of the dead … all the dead and especially Fahmy. The only way she could silence you was by bursting into tearsherself. So what's left of Fahmy after seven years? What will remain of love? What else does the revered father have to show us?"