Umm Hanafi remarked, "The movement has tired him, but with some rest he'll recover his strength."
Yasin leaned over his father to say, "You need to sleep. How do you feel now?"
The man gazed with dull eyes at his eldest son and mumbled, "Praise God. My left side doesn't feel good."
Yasin asked, "Should I call a doctor for you?"
The father waved his hand testily and then whispered, "No. It's better if I sleep."
Starting to retreat, Yasin gestured for the family to leave the room, and the man raised his scrawny hand again. They walked out, one after the other, leaving only Amina. Once they were assembled in the sitting room, Abd al-Muni'm asked his uncle Kamal, 'What did you do? We hurried down to the reception room in the courtyard."
Yasin volunteered, "We went downstairs to our neighbors' apartment on the ground floor."
Kamal said anxiously, "Fatigue has sapped Papa's strength."
Yasin asserted, "But he'll regain hishealth by sleeping."
"What can we do if there's another raid?"
No one answered, and there was a heavy silence, until Ahmad complained, "Our houses are ancient. They won't stand up to these raids."
Wishing to dissipate the lingering cloud of despair, since it was upsetting him, Kamal coaxed a smile from his lips and said, "If our houses are destroyed, they'll have the honor of being demolished by the most advanced inventions of modern science."
152
Kamal had barely reached the stairway door after showing out the last visitors of the evening when an alarming din reached his ears from above. His nerves were still on edge, and he feared the worst as he bounded up the steps. The sitting room was empty, but through the closed door of his father's chamber he could hear the loud voices of several people, who were all speaking at once. Rushing to the door, he opened it and entered, expecting something unpleasant but refusing to think what it might be.
His mother's hoarse voice was exclaiming, "Master!"
Aisha was calling curtly for "Papa!"
Mumbling to herself, Umm Hanafi stood riveted to her spot by the head of the bed. When Kamal looked in that direction, he was overcome by desperate alarm and mournful resignation, for he saw that the bottom half of his father's body lay on the bed while the upper half rested on Amina's breast. The man's chest washeaving up and down mechanically as he emitted a strange rattling sound not of this world. His eyes had a new blind look, which suggested that they could not see anything or express the man's internal struggle. Kamal, near the end of the bed, felt that his feet were glued to the floor, that he had lost the ability to speak, and that his eyes had turned to glass. He could think of nothing to say or to do and had an overwhelming sense of being utterly impotent, forlorn, and insignificant. Although aware that his father was bidding farewell to life, Kamal was in all other respects as good as unconscious.
Glancing away from her father's face long enough to look at Kamal, Aisha cried out, "Father! Here's Kamal. He wants to talk to you."
Umm Hanafi abandoned her murmured refrain to say in a choking voice, "Get the doctor."
With angry sorrow, the mother groaned, "What doctor, you fool?"
The father moved as if trying to sit up, and the convulsions of his chest increased. He stretched out the forefinger of his right hand and then that of the left. When Amina saw this, her face contracted with pain. She bent down toward his ear and recited in an audible voice, "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God". She kept repeating these words until his hand became still. Kamal understood that his father, no longer able to speak, had asked Amina to recite the Muslim credo on his behalf and that the inner meaning of this final hour would never be revealed. To describe it as pain, terror, or a swoon would have been a pointless conjecture. At any rate it could not last long, for it was too momentous and significant to be part of ordinary life. Although his nerves were devastated by this scene, Kamal was ashamed to find himself snatching a few moments to analyze and study it, as if his father's death was a subject for his reflections and a source of information for him. This doubled his grief and his pain.
The contractions of the man's chest intensified and the rattling sound grew louder. "What is this?" Kamal wondered. "Ishe trying to get up? Or attempting to speak? Or addressing something we can't see? Ishe in pain? Or terrified?… Oh…". The father emitted a deep groan, and then his head fell on his breast.
With every ounce of her being Aisha screamed, "Father!.. Na'ima!.. Uthman!.. Muhammad!" Umm Hanafi rushed to her and gently shoved her out of the room. The mother raised a pale face to look at Kamal and gestured for him to leave, but he did not budge.
She whispered to him desperately, "Let me perform my last duty to your father."
He turned and exited to the sitting room, where Aisha, who had flung herself across the sofa, was howling. He took a seat on the sofa opposite hers, while Umm Hanafi went back into the bedroom to assist her mistress, closing the door behind her. But Aisha's weeping was unbearable, and rising again, Kamal began to pace back and forth, without addressing any comment to her. From time to time he would glance at the closed door and then press his lips together.
"Why does death seem so alien to us?" he wondered. Once his thoughts were collected enough for him to reflect on the situation, he immediately lost his concentration again, as emotion got the better of him. Even when no longer able to leave the bedroom, alt Sayyid Ahmad had defined the life of the household. It would come as no surprise if on the morrow Kamal found the house to be quite a different place and its life transformed. Indeed, from this moment on, he would have to accustom himself to a new role. Aisha's wails made him feel all the more distraught. He considered trying to silence her but then refrained. He was amazed to see her give vent to her emotions after she had appeared for so long to be impassive and oblivious to everything. Kamal thought again of his father's disappearance from their lives. It seemed almost inconceivable. Remembering his father's condition in the final days, he felt sorrow tear at hisheartstrings. When he reviewed the image of their father at the height of his powers and glory, Kamal felt a profound pity for all living creatures. But when would Aisha ever stop wailing? Why could she not weep tearlessly like her brother?
The door of the bedroom opened, and Umm Hanafi emerged. During the moment before it was shut again, he could hear his mother':; lamentations. He gathered that she had finished performing her final duty to his father and was now free to cry. Umm Hanafi approached Aisha and told her brusquely, "That's enough weeping, my lady". Turning toward Kamal, she remarked, "Dawn is breaking, master. Sleep, if only a little, for you have a hard day ahead of you."
Then she suddenly started crying. As she left the room, she said in a sobbing voice, "I'll go to Sugar Street and Palace of Desire Alley to announce the dreadful news."
Yasin rushed in, followed by Zanuba and Ridwan. Then the silence of the street was rent by the cries of Khadija, whose arrival caused the household's fires of grief to burn at fever pitch, as wails mixed with screams and sobs. It would not have been appropriate for the men to mourn on the first floor, and they went up to the study on the top floor. They sat there despondently, overwhelmed by a gloomy silence, until Ibrahim Shawkat remarked, "The only power and strength is God's. The raid finished him off. May God be most compassionate to him. He was an extraordinary man."
Unable to control himself, Yasin started crying. Then Kamal burst into tears too. Ibrahim Shawkat said, "Proclaim that there is only one God. He did not leave you until you were grown men."