It was almost midnight. When everybody else was gone, the family, the aunt, and her husband sat in the hall. For the twentieth time on that same sad day, their mother was relating how their father had died. Hussein and Hassanein were listening intently, while Hassan, with gloom on his face, was absorbed in his own thoughts.
Hassanein spoke about Ahmad Bey Yousri. As much for the presence of his aunt and her husband as for his own preference not to remember it, he did not mention the inspector’s apparent ignorance of where the family lived. Compassion for his dead father filled his heart, and he kept looking sadly toward the closed bedroom door, in his sorrow and incredulity imagining the empty bed. The mother turned to her children and told them to go to bed.
As they had spent a painful and arduous day, they obeyed her without objection, and went to their room, in which there were three small beds. They left one for their aunt’s husband, who joined them presently, and Hassanein shared Hussein’s bed. They could not sleep. Tenderly and mournfully they kept talking about their father, recalling his last days on earth and his sudden death.
“His funeral was really appropriately dignified,” said Hassanein.
“God be merciful to him. He was a great man; no wonder his funeral was great, too,” Amm Farag Soliman agreed. “The alley was full of people; they crowded the area from the house to Shubra Street.”
Hassanein disliked the man’s voice; he was annoyed by his presence. Then, remembering that the man had seen the bare grave, he said indignantly, “It’s surprising that our father, who spent so much, never thought of providing a burial place becoming to the family.”
Once more came the voice which Hassanein disliked: “How could he have ever thought of dying at this age? Your father was only fifty. In this country, lots of people marry at this age for the second or third time.” The man was silent for a while. Then he spoke again: “Don’t forget, Master Hassanein, that your father left Damietta with his grandmother for Cairo when he was your age. That’s why yours isn’t one of those Cairene families that have tombs for generations.”
“It’s true,” Hassanein retorted; “we don’t originally come from Cairo. But all ties with our relations in Damietta have been severed.”
Sadly, he remembered that his aunt was the only relative he knew. The obscure grave in the open would always remain a symbol of his family’s being shamefully lost in the big city. The presence of this uncle of his, occupying his bed, increased his annoyance, and to stop him from talking, Hassanein fell silent until sleep overcame them all.
The widow, her sister, and her daughter did not stir from their places in the hall. They never tired of talking about the departed loved one. Here, grief was deeper than in the other room. Its marks appeared on Samira’s thin oval face and burning eyes. With her short nose, pointed chin, and short slim body, she gave the impression of one who had given the best part of herself to her family. Of her old vitality nothing now remained except a firm look which bespoke patience and determination.
So deep was the change which had overtaken her with the years that it was hard to imagine how she might have looked in her youth. Nefisa, her daughter, however, who resembled her closely, was an adequate replica of what she once had been. Nefisa, too, had the same thin oval face, short, coarse nose and pointed chin. She was pale, and a little hunchbacked. She differed from her mother only in her height; she was as tall as her brother Hassanein. She was far from handsome, indeed almost ugly. It was her misfortune to resemble her mother, whereas the boys resembled their father. In grief she was completely undone, and she looked extremely ugly. Her mind was preoccupied with memories of her beloved father.
Her mother, despite her deep sorrow, was thinking of other things. She felt uneasy with her sister. She could not forget that her sister had often made her life miserable, and that she frequently enjoyed comparing their lives — declaring, in envy, that her sister had married a government employee, whereas her own husband was just a laborer working in a ginning factory; that her sister lived in Cairo, whereas she was doomed to the confinement of the country; that her sister’s sons were schoolboys, whereas her own sons were destined for laborers’ lives; that her sister’s larder was always full, whereas she had plenty in hers only at feast times. Maybe now, the widow thought, she won’t find any reason to envy me. But with her grief came resentfulness. More than anyone else, she was aware of the sad consequences of this catastrophe. Her husband was gone. She realized that she knew no one but this hopeless, useless sister. She had no relations or in-laws. The deceased had left nothing behind him. His entire salary had been consumed by the needs of the family. She did not even hope for a suitable pension. In the dead man’s wallet she had found only two pounds and seventy piasters, and that was all the money she had until matters could be straightened out.
Absentmindedly, she glanced in the direction of her sons’ room. True, two of them attended school and were exempted from fees; still, that was nothing. The third son was something of a tramp. She sighed deeply. Then she turned her eyes to Nefisa, agonizing over her condition; a girl of twenty-three, without beauty, money, or father. This was the family for whom she had now become responsible, without help from anyone. She was not the type of woman to resort to tears for relief. Her past life, now a happy bygone dream, had not always been easy, especially in the beginning when her husband had been a junior employee with a small salary. Life had taught her to struggle, but also to be patient and stoical. She was the main pillar of the home. Her attitude toward her children was probably more fatherly than motherly, while her husband possessed the tenderness and frailty of a mother. The sons themselves provided a living example of the contrast between the characters of their parents. Hassan was miserable evidence of his father’s laxity and tendency to spoil his children; while Hussein and Hassanein attested to their mother’s firmness and discipline in bringing them up. Certainly, she told herself, she would be strong as a widow, too. But at this hour of the night, she had nothing to live on but grief and worry.
SIX
Next evening no outsider remained in the house, and the family was left to itself. The furniture in the dead man’s room was piled in a corner, and the door was closed. The children gathered around their mother awaiting her comments. Samira knew that she must say something. What she had to say was clear enough to her, for she had thought about it for a long time. Perhaps nothing perplexed her more than her contradictory character with its outward firmness and strength, while her inner self held nothing but mercy and compassion for her poor afflicted family. Avoiding the waiting glances, she lowered her eyes. “Our calamity is great,” she said. “We have no one to resort to but God, who never forgets His creatures.”
She was unable to ask them: What are we to do? for she would never get an answer to it from any of those around her, not even from her eldest son, Hassan. There was not a soul in the world to whom she could appeal for help and share her worries with. She felt the void engulfing her, but she wouldn’t surrender.
“We have no relatives to depend on,” she went on. “Our dear one is dead, leaving us nothing except his pension, which will undoubtedly be far less than his salary, and that was hardly enough. Life seems to be grim, but God never forgets His creatures. Many families in the same circumstances as ours have been patient until God has led them by the hand to security.”
Nefisa’s voice was choked with tears. “No one dies of hunger in this world,” she said. “God will surely lead us by the hand. The only catastrophe for which we can never be comforted is his death. Oh, my dear father!”