Everyone’s eyes are fixed on him. The turbaned sheikh is there in his jubbah and caftan. So is Refaat Effendi with a copy of today’s Al-Masri folded up in his hand. Father asks again: “How are things?” Maged Effendi thinks for a second, then says: “Like any marriage.” Abdel ’Alim cries out: “Are you kidding? Tell us all about it. But first, what are you drinking?” “Fenugreek tea, with milk.” Abdel ’Alim calls to Abbas, who is standing on the porch of the shop and tells him to bring fenugreek.
Maged Effendi says that she was the one who had asked him to marry her, but on the condition that he never take a second wife and that he never eat garlic or onion at night. Father comments: “She’s right on that point.” Maged Effendi keeps going and says that he has to admit she has her good points. She helps him out with money when he’s short and when he comes back home at the end of the day, she has dinner ready for him, including all kinds of fruit, even if they’re not in season. The house stays clean, and his clothes are always washed.
“So what are you mad about?”
He says he cannot control her, that she pops up whenever he thinks of her, then just as suddenly, disappears whenever she feels like it. She reads his mind before he even has a thought, making it impossible to keep any kind of secret from her.
The fenugreek tea arrives and he takes a sip. Abdel ’Alim leans over and whispers in his ear. He answers back: “Beyond your wildest dreams.” Then he turns to everyone and says: “She does whatever it takes to make me happy and keep me from getting tired of her.” Some nights, she even asks him what type of woman he wants, then she takes that shape on to herself. This time a blonde foreigner in a bikini, that time a belly dancer that looks just like Tahia Karioka, and the next time in a short tartan skirt, like a student just back from school.
Silence surrounds the group. A woman comes in wearing a black wrap. She turns her back to us and asks Saleem for 50 dirham worth of halva. Everyone turns around to look at her. Her wrap clings tightly around her and the lower part of her leg shows from underneath it. Father’s look fixes on her full, bare calf. He loosens his coat and puts his hand in the watch pocket of his waistcoat. He lifts his left hand to his mouth and brushes his finger across his moustache as he exchanges a smile with Hajj Abdel ’Alim.
Maged Effendi pushes himself to his feet: “Pardon me, everyone. I have to go before she calls me.” He leaves the shop in a hurry. I take back my chair. The turbaned sheikh says: “Real girls can’t find husbands anywhere, and he goes and marries a genie.” Refaat unfolds his copy of Al-Masri. He flips through its pages, then sees something and stops. “Listen to what Duriya Shafiq is writing: ‘The danger of spinsterhood is haunting the young women of Egypt because its men are on strike against marriage.’ ” The sheikh says: “That woman has gone too far. Ladies are crowding men out of jobs. The last straw is that girls from good families are being hired as airline stewardesses.”
Hajj Abdel ’Alim leans over to father and whispers something. Father answers back: “She just won’t do. The whole time she sits on the balcony holding a Coutarelli cigarette. She can’t cook or clean. She gets a jar of water and throws it on the floor and that’s that. She thinks she’s still out in the countryside, throwing water around to get the dust to settle.” A minute later, he adds: “Today I yelled at her. She sat there jabbering all day. I couldn’t understand a damn thing.”
Abdel ’Alim suggests we all go outside because the shop has become stuffy. Abbas takes our chairs and lines them up on the pavement near the entrance. The light thrown across from the chemist’s shop sparkles around us. I get a half-piastre from father and go over to the shop to buy a Robson, a round piece of liquorice-flavored sweet with a blue chickpea in the middle.
When I get back, I find Dr. Aziz in my seat. His huge belly hangs over the top of his trousers. I stand between father’s knees. The doctor asks me about school. Father complains to him that I’m a picky eater. The doctor suggests that I drink Ovaltine and take vitamins. Father says: “I’m sick too. I have dizzy spells and I can’t get up from the bed.”
“Come by my clinic and I’ll take your blood pressure.”
Father asks Hajj Abdel ’Alim about the landlord’s promise to unlock the public toilet and let people use it. Abdel ’Alim says that he has spoken with them but it hasn’t done any good. He adds: “Why don’t you go use the hammam in Al Husseiniya?” The turbaned sheikh shakes his head: “Respectable people don’t go there. Don’t all of you know about what goes on there?”
A fat priest wearing black robes comes up and joins us. His head is covered with something that looks like a plate with dark cloth wrapped tightly around it. He asks Refaat: “Has anyone read the new poem by al-Aqqad?” Father asks: “What’s it about?” “He sings the praises of the lips of the actress Camilia, the one that Akhbar al-Youm calls ‘the warm mouth.’ ” Dr. Aziz says that she has become the king’s mistress. Hajj Abdel ’Alim says: “Poor Queen Fareeda.” Refaat says that there was a watermelon seller calling out to the passers-by: “Royal watermelons!” Someone buys one, and the seller splits it open for him, it turns out to be a pumpkin, at which the seller explains: “Royal — King Farouk — watermelons.” Everyone laughs and I realize that it’s a joke.
I leave my place and turn around so that I’m behind Dr. Aziz. I look down at the newspaper in his hand. There’s a picture of an open police van with several young men inside being guarded by soldiers. The van is moving down the middle of the street. A Sawaris car being pulled by two donkeys tilts to the side. Refaat Effendi says: “The trials of Hussein Tawfiq and Anwar Sadat are almost over. After that, it’ll be the communist’s turn.”
He reads one of the headlines on the side columns: “The Egyptian Government Takes over the al-Qantara to Haifa Rail Line from the English.” I pull my head away when he folds up the newspaper. I peek inside the upper pocket of his suit coat where he keeps a white handkerchief. He has an uncovered fountain pen in it and there’s a huge ink spot on the end of the handkerchief. He says in an annoyed tone of voice: “The Jews are getting ready to fight, and we’re in our own little world. The government goes on its winter break then starts planning for summer vacation, and the leaders keep talking about something they call ‘positive steps,’ but none of us has a clue what ‘positive steps’ means in the first place.”
Hajj Abdel ‘Alim lets out an “ahem.” He says that people have lost trust in the political parties and their leaders.
Refaat Effendi gets ready to defend the Wafd Party and its leader, Mustafa al-Nahas. Father turns to him and says that he wrote a letter of complaint about the way social security payments were disbursed and sent it to Al Ahram, but they didn’t publish it. He explains that he took a big advance from his retirement money under a plan in which he could pay back the advance in monthly payments. Now the advance is all paid back and they’re still taking the payments. “It’s worse than usury. I’m thinking about suing the government.” The lawyer asks him: “When you asked for the advance, did you know that they’d keep taking payments out forever?” Father says that he needed the money badly at the time. Then the lawyer speaks in a decisive voice: “It’s a contractual agreement between you and the government. You agreed to their conditions. The contract is legitimized by the parties.” He crosses his legs, then adds: “Anyway, we can make a claim on the basis that the contract is punitive.”
Father turns to the priest: “Tell us, your holiness, when do we get out the Ouija board?” They sit around rocks made into a circle on the ground. Inside, there are triangles, squares, and strange words. The priest reads in a raised voice from a book as they watch the shapes. Father passes dishes of rice pudding around.