"Do you remember those times?" he asked himself.
At such instantshe had shaken his head in bewilderment and wondered whether everything really was over. But he had always imagined or thought of some idea or scene that had awakened him from his slumbers and cast him, bound in fetters, to drown in the sea of passion.
"If you experience one of these moments," Kamal thought, "try to cling to it with all your might. Don't let it slip away. Then you can hope for a cure. Yes, attempt to destroy the immortality of love."
Smiling, Husayn Shaddad said, "For good luck the party began with the recitation of a Qur'an sura."
"The Qur'an!" Kamal exclaimed to himself. "How charming! Even the beautiful Parisian could not get married without an Islamic clerk and the Qur'an. Her marriage will be associated in your mind with both the Qur'an and champagne."
"Tell as the schedule for the party."
Pointing toward the house, Husayn said, "The formalities will be concluded shortly. Dinner will be served in an hour. After the banquet, the party ends. Ai'da will spend one last night in our house. Tomorrow morning she leaves for Alexandria, where she'll board the ship for Europe the following day."
"You'll be deprived of many sights that really ought to be recorded to provide sustenance for your insatiable pains," Kamal thought. "Like seeing her beautiful name inscribed on the certificate, her face waiting expectantly for the happy news, the smile with which she greets it, and then the couple meeting...Even your pain needs nourishment."
"Will the marriage contract be drawn up by a Muslim notary?"
"Naturally," Husayn answered.
But Isma'il laughed loudly. "No, a priest," he said.
"What a silly question!" Kamal scolded himself. "Ask also whether they plan to spend the night together. Isn't it sad that a man of no significance like this marriage clerk should impede the progress of your life? But a lowly worm eats the corpses of the most exalted individuals. What will your funeral be like when the time comes? Will it be an overwhelming spectacle that fills the streets or a small gathering that soon disbands?"
Then silence spread through the house. There was light but no music. Kamal felt fearful and uncomfortable. "Now, somewhere, in one room or another, the wedding's taking place," he told himself.
A long resounding shriek of joy rang out. It revived old memories for him, for it was a trill of joy like all the other oneshe had ever heard and totally un-Parisian. It was followed by a bunch of shrieking trills like sirens going off. At that time the mansion resembled any other home in Cairo. The shrieks made his heart race, and he felt out of breath. Hearing Isma'il congratulate the bride's brother, Kamal did so too. He wished he were alone but consoled himself with the thought that for days and nights to come he would be. He promised his pain limitless sustenance. The orchestra burst out playing a piece Kamal knew very well, "Your forgiveness, lordly beauty". He summoned his amazing powers of endurance and self-restraint, although every drop of his blood was tapping against the walls of his veins to announce it was all over. History itself had concluded. Life was at an end. Dreams worth more than life itself were terminated. He was faced with nothing less than a boulder studded with spikes.
Husayn Shaddad said reflectively, "A word and a trill, and one of us enters a whole new world. We'll all experience that someday."
Isma'il Latif said, "I'm going to postpone it as long as I can."
"All of us?" Kamal asked himself. "For me it's the sky or nothing."
"I'll never yield to that day," he said.
The other two did not appear interested in what he had said or at least seemed not to take it seriously. Isma'il continued: "I won't get married until I'm convinced that marriage is necessary and unavoidable."
A Nubian servant brought around glasses of fruit punch. He was trailed by another with a tray loaded with fancy containers of sweets. They were made of crystal and had four gilded legs. The dark blue glass was decorated with silver, and each box was tied with a green silk ribbon. On a crescent-shaped card attached to the knot were inscribed the initials of the couple's first names: A. H.
When Kamal received his box he felt relieved for perhaps the first time that day. The magnificent container guaranteed that his beloved was leaving behind her a memento that would be as long-lasting as his love. While he lived, this souvenir would remain a symbol of an unlikely past, a happy dream, a heavenly enchantment, and a spectacular disappointment. He was overcome by a sense of having been the victim of an atrocious assault. Conspiring against him had been fate, the law of heredity, the class system, Aida, Hasan Salim, and a mysterious, hidden force he was reluctant to name. To his eyeshe seemed a miserable wretch standing alone against these combined powers. His wound was bleeding and there was no one to bind it. The only response he could muster against this attack was a stifled rebellion he could not proclaim. In fact, circumstances obliged him to pretend to be delighted, as if congratulating those tyrannical forces for torturing him and eliminating him from the ranks of contented human beings. Por all of them he harbored an undying rancor, but he postponed the question of pinpointing and directing it. Indeed, he felt that after this decisive trill he would not be so indulgent with life. He would no longer be satisfied with what was at hand. Events would not be met with magnanimous tolerance. His way would be arduous, rough, twisting, and crammed with hardships and problems, but he did not think of backing down in face of this assault and refused to consider a truce. He issued advance warnings and threats but left it up to destiny to choose a foe for him to tackle and his weapons.
Swallowing to clear his throat of the fruit punch, Husayn Shaddad said, "Don't claim to shun marriage. I believe — if you're allowed to travel as you say that you'll find a wife who pleases you."
"As though you couldn't find anyone you'd like here," Kamal brooded. "Look for a new country, where the fair sex doesn't take offense at abnormally large heads and noses. Give me heaven or death."
Then, nodding his head as though in agreement, he said, "That's what I think."
Isma'il Latif asked sarcastically, "Do you know what it means to marry a European? In a word, you 'win' a woman from the lowest classes, one willing to submit to a man she secretly feels only fit for servitude."
"You've already experienced servitude," Kamal told himself, "in your own magnificent country, not in Europe, which you'll never see."
"You're exaggerating!" Husayn protested disapprovingly.
"See how the teachers from England treat us."
Husayn Shaddad responded with an enthusiasm that was almost pleading, "The Europeans in their countries don't act the way they do here."
Kamal asked himself, "Where can I find overwhelming power to annihilate oppression and oppressors? Lord of the universe, where's Your heavenly justice?"
Dinner was announced, and the three friends went to the reception hall and from there to a nearby room opening onto the rear parlor. A buffet dinner capable of serving at least ten was laid out there. They were joined by other young men, some relatives of the Shaddad family and others who were school friends. Even so, there were fewer than ten guests, a fact for which Kamal was deeply grateful to Husayn. They quickly set about eating with gusto and vigor, so the atmosphere became almost as lively as that of a race. They had to keep returning to the buffet to do justice to all the dishes spread out there, a small bouquet of roses separating one from another. Husayn signaled to the waiter to bring whiskey and bottles of soda.