Al-Sayyid Ahmad remarked to his son as though thinking it over by himself, "I see you're right, son, in what you say. A woman her age is an easy mark and could well be a temptation to greedy men. What can we do? Should we seek to contact that man and force him to abandon his adventure? To try to intimidate him, threatening and menacing him, runs contrary to our ethics and what people know we stand for. To attempt to entreat and persuade him would be a humiliation our honor could not bear. That leaves us only the woman herself. I'm not overlooking your break with her that she richly deserved and still does. The truth is, I'd not be comfortable about your reestablishing a link with her, if the new circumstances did not require it. Necessity has its own rules. No matter how difficult it is for you to visit her, it’s your own mother you're returning to, after all. Who knows? Perhaps your surprise appearance on her horizon will bring her back to her right mind".
Yasin looked like a hypnotist’s subject in the moments preceding the hypnotic suggestion. He was silent and dazed. His state revealed the profound impact his father had on him or indicated that this suggestion had not taken him by surprise. All the same, he stammered, "Isn't there any better solution?"
His father replied forcefully and plainly, "I think it is the best solution".
As though addressing himself, Yasin asked, "How can I go back to her? How can I force myself back into a past I fled and want more than anything to erase from my life? I have no mother… no mother at all".
Despite what Yasin appeared to be saying, his father felt he had succeeded in converting him to his opinion. He told him diplomatically, "True, but I think if you appear in front of her, after this long absence, it will have an effect. Perhaps if she sees you before her, a full-grown man, her maternal instincts will be awakened. Then she'll mend her ways and shy away from anything that might damage your honor. Who knows?"
Plunged in thought, Yasin calmed his mind, heedless of his despairing, anguished appearance. He was shuddering from fear of the scandal awaiting him. That was possibly the most heinous thing troubling him, but his fear of losing the fortune he expected to inherit one day was no less appalling. What could he do? No matter how he approached the issue he could find no better solution than the one his father had suggested. Indeed, no matter how shaky he felt, the fact that the idea came from his father lent it, in his opinion, validity and spared him a lot of worry. "So be it," he said to himself. Then, addressing his father, he said, "Just as you wish, Father".
18
When his feet brought him to al-Gamaliya Street, he was so choked up he felt he would die. He had not been there for eleven years, eleven years that had passed without his heart yearning for it once. Any memory of the area that had flashed into his mind had been surrounded by a depressing black halo and ornamented with the stuff from which nightmares are woven. The truth was that he had not simply left home but, when the opportunity arose, had fled. Angry and dejected, he had turned his back on it and avoided it completely. It was not a place he sought out or even cut across on the way to some other district.
Yet it remained exactly the way it had been when he was growing up. Nothing had changed. The street was still so narrow a handcart would almost block it when passing by. The protruding balconies of the houses almost touched each other overhead. The small shops resembled the cells of a beehive, they were so close together and crowded with patrons, so noisy and humming. The street was unpaved, with gaping holes full of mud. The boys who swarmed along the sides of the street made footprints in the dirt with their bare feet. There was the same never-ending stream of pedestrian traffic. Uncle Hasan’s snack shop and Uncle Sulayman’s restaurant too remained just as he had known them. If it had not been for the bitterness of the past and his present suffering, a tender smile, which the child in him wished to display, might well have traced itself on his lips.
The cul-de-sac known as the Palace of Desire or Qasr al-Shawq came into sight. His heart pounded so strongly it almost deafened his ears. At the corner on the right could be seen baskets of oranges and apples arranged on the ground in front of the fruit store. He bit his lip and lowered his eyes in shame. The past was stained with dishonor and buried in the muck of disgrace, constantly emitting a lament of shame and pain. Even so, the past as a whole was not nearly so heavy a burden as this one store, which was a living symbol, enduring through time. Its owner, baskets, fruit, location, and memories seemed a combination of shameless boasting and painful defeat. Since the past was composed of events and memories, by its very nature it was apt to fade away and be forgotten. This store provided physical evidence to restore what had faded and fill in what he had forgotten. With each step he took toward the cul-de-sac he moved several steps away from the present, traveling back through time, in spite of himself.
He could almost see a boy in the store looking up at the proprietor and saying, "Mama invites you to come tonight". He saw him returning home with a bag of fruit, grinning happily. There he was, pointing the man out to his mother as they walked along the street. She was pulling him away by the arm, so he would not attract attention. He was sobbing with tears at the man’s savage assault on his mother, which he re-created afresh with his current level of sophistication each time he thought about it, thus turning it into an ultimate manifestation of horror. These searing visions began to pursue him. He strove to flee from them, but no sooner would he escape from the clutches of one than he would be grabbed violently by another, stirring deep inside him a volcano of hatred and anger.
He kept on walking toward his destination but in a miserable state. "How can I enter this dead-end street when that store’s at the corner?… And the man… will he be in his usual spot? I won't look that way. What devilish force is tempting me to look? Will he recognize me if our eyes meet? If he seems to recognize me, I'll kill him. But how could he know me? Not him, not anyone in this neighborhood… eleven years. I left here a boy and return a bull… with two horns! Don't we have the power to exterminate the poisonous vermin that keep on stinging us?"
He headed into the cul-de-sac, hurrying a little. He imagined people would be looking inquisitively at him and asking, "Where and when have we seen that face?" He went along the alley, which rose unevenly uphill, forcing himself to shake the suffocating dust from his face and head, if only temporarily. To make it easier to carry through with his resolve, he distanced himself from his surroundings, which he began to study. He told himself, "Don't be impatient with this tiresome street. When you were young you really enjoyed sliding down it on a board". All the same, when he could see the wall of the house, he started wondering again, "Where am I going? To my mother!.. How amazing! I don't believe it. What will I say to her? How will she receive me?… I wish…"
He turned right, into a subsidiary cul-de-sac, and approached the first door on the left. Without the slightest doubt it was the old house. He crossed the street to it the way he did when he was young, without any hesitation or reflection, as though he had only left it the day before, but this time he stormed through the door with unaccustomed anguish. He climbed the stairs with slow, heavy steps. Despite his anxiety, he caught himself examining things carefully to compare them with what he remembered. He found the stairway a little narrower. It was worn in some places and small chips had fallen from the edges of the treads where they protruded over the risers. His memories quickly obscured the present entirely. In this state he passed the two floors that were rented out and reached the top one. He stopped for a few moments to regain his strength, his chest heaving. Then he shook his shoulders disdainfully and knocked on the door. After a minute or so, it was opened, revealing a middle-aged servant. The moment she saw that he was a stranger, she hid behind the door and asked him politely what he wanted.