Yasin asked ironically, "Wouldn't you be satisfied if they were as important as the politicians Adli Yeken Pasha and Abdel Khaliq Sarwat Pasha?"
As though seeking refuge with God, she shouted back, 'Traitors? My sons won't be the kind of politicians people chant about night and day to get them removed from office."
Ibrahim took out a handkerchief from his trousers and wiped his face, which had turned a deeper red from the heat and from the perspiration caused by drinking cold water and hot coffee. As He dried his face he said, "If a mother's severity is a factor in the creation of great men, then you can already announce the glory awaiting your sons."
"Would you want me to let them do anything they wish?"
Aisha remarked gently, "I don't remember Mother ever scold-iug any of us, let alone striking us. Do you?"
Khadija replied sorrowfully, "Mother never resorted to violence because Papa was there. A mention of him was enough to ensure that his commands were obeyed. But at my house — and yours is just the same the father is present only in name". She laughed when she made this last comment. "What can I do when the situation's like that? If the father's a mother, then the mother must be a father."
Yasin said with delight, "I'm sure you're successful in your paternity. You a father! I've felt this for a long time without being able to put it into words."
Khadija pretended to be complimented and retorted, "Thank you, Miss Bamba Kashar, you seductive songstress."
"Khadija and Aisha," Kamal thought. "What different types…. Consider them carefully. Which do you think better suited to be a model for your beloved? … Ask God's forgiveness! No one can be a model for my beloved. I can't picture her as a housewife. How impossible it is to imagine that!" His beloved in a housecoat, restraining a child, or supervising a kitchen? "How alarming! How disgusting! She ought to be at ease, oblivious, promenading in a splendid gown through a garden or a park, riding in a car, an angel on a happy, impromptu visit to earth, a unique exemplar of her species, itself unlike any other and known only to my heart. If she is referred to by the same term as these women, it's simply because I don't know the correct one. If her beauty is called by the same name as Aisha's and all the other varieties, that's because I don't know the real name for it. Here is my life, which I consecrate to learning about you. What other thirst for understanding is there beyond that?"
"What do you suppose Maryam's news is?" Aisha asked when she happened to think of her former friend. The name made visibly different impressions on the various people sitting there. Amina's expression changed to reveal her intense annoyance. Yasin pretended not to have heard the question and busied himself with an inspection of his fingernails. Kamal's head swarmed with disturbing memories. It was Khadija who replied coldly, "What do you expect? She's divorced and has returned to her mother."
After it was too late, Aisha realized that she had inadvertently tumbled into an abyss and hurt her mother through a slip of the tongue. Her mother had long believed that Maryam and her mother had not been sincere in their grief for Fahmy and might have actually gloated over the family's misfortune, because of al-Sayyid Ahmad's opposition to the proposed engagement between Maryam and his late son. Khadija had been the first to suggest the idea, and her mother had not hesitated to embrace it uncritically. Amina's feelings toward her longtime neighbor had quickly changed in a way that had led to an estrangement and then a break.
Attempting to apologize for her question, Aisha said nervously, "I don't know what made me ask about her."
With obvious emotion, Amina said, "You shouldn't think about her."
When suspicions had first been voiced about her friend, Aisha had questioned their accuracy. She had argued that the engagement proposal had been kept secret and could not have reached Maryam's home. Thus the girl and her family would have had no reason to rejoice at their sorrow. Her mother had refused to see it that way, on the grounds that it was impossible for an important matter like an engagement to be kept from leaking to the interested parties. Aisha had not insisted on her opinion for long, fearing she would be accused of partiality for Maryam or indifference toward her late brother.
Confronted by her mother's passion, Aisha found herself forced to make up for her slip. She remarked, "No one save God knows the truth, Mother. Perhaps she's innocent". Contrary to her daughter's expectations, Amina's displeasure grew more intense. There were visible warning signs of anger that seemed out of character for her, since she was known for her calm and self-restraint. In a trembling voice she said, "Don't talk about Mary am., Aisha."
Khadija, who shared her mother's feelings, shouted, "Let's not have anything to do with Maryam and her goings-on."
Aisha smiled in confusion but said nothing. Yasin continued to be engrossed with his fingernails until this violent conversation was concluded. Encouraged by Aisha's statement, "No one save God knows the truth, Mother," he had been on the point of joining in, but had been silenced by Amina's quick answer in that unusual, trembling voice. Yes, he kept his peace and inwardly expressed his thanks for the blessing of silence.
Kamal had followed the conversation with concern, although his face did not betray his feelings. The period during which his love had weathered delicate and adverse conditions had imparted to him enough of an ability to act so that he could conceal his emotions and, if necessary, make people think he felt quite the opposite way. He remembered what he had heard about the alleged gloating of Maryam's family. Although he had never taken the accusation seriously, he recalled the secret message he had conv eyed to Maryam and the answer he had brought back to Fahmy. He had kept that old secret, continuing to guard it to honor his promise to his brother, out of respect for Fahmy's wishes. Kamal was amused and astonished that he had only recently grasped the meaning of that message as its ideas took on a new life within him. He had been a stone with obscure inscriptions carved on it, until love had come and solved the riddle.
He did not fail to notice his mother's anger. It was a new phenomenon, to which she had not been subject before the calamity. She was no longer the same. The change was not dramatic or constant, but from time to time she succumbed to angry spells she had never experienced or at least had never yielded to before. What could he say about that? It must be the wounded heart of a mother, about which he knew nothing except for some few insightshe had come across in his reading. He felt intense pain for her. But what explained Aisha's conduct or Khadija's? Was it fair to accuse Aisha of insensitivity toward the memory of Fahmy? He coulc not imagine or admit that. She was a benevolent person with a heart disposed to friendship and affection. Not without reason, she was inclined to think Maryam innocent. Perhaps since her heart was open to everyone, she felt nostalgic for the time when the girl had been her friend. Khadija had been swallowed up by married life. Her interests were limited to being a mother and housewife. She had no need for Maryam or anyone else. The only part of the past that meant anything to her was her attachment to her family and especially to her mother, in whose footsteps she was following. There was nothing strange in that.
"What about you, Mr. Yasin? How long will you remain a bachelor?" Ibrahim Shawkat asked, motivated by a sincere desire to clear the air.
Yasin jestingly replied, "My youth has left me. It's too late for that now."
In a serious tone, which showed he had not understood that Yasin was joking, Khalil Shawkat said, "I got married when I was about your age. Aren't you twenty-eight?"
Khadija was upset by the reference to Yasin's age, for it indirectly revealed how old she was. She addressed Yasin sharply: "Won't you get married and spare people having to talk about your bachelorhood?"