“What do you want?” Zaki Bey accosted him with distaste in a warning growl. But something exceptional and quite certain gave Abaskharon an unaccustomed confidence and he came up to his master and bent down and whispered, “Excellency, my brother Malak and I have something to talk about.”
“What kind of thing?”
“Something about you, Excellency, as it were.”
“Speak out, you donkey! I’m in no mood for your nonsense. What is it?”
At this Abaskharon leaned over him and whispered, “We have a seccaterry for Your Excellency. A very nice young girl. Excuse the boldness, but Your Excellency in these bad circumstances is in need of a seccaterry to take care of Your Excellency.”
Zaki started paying attention and directed a deep, penetrating look at Abaskharon as though he had received a special coded message or heard a sentence in a secret language that he understood. He answered quickly, “And why not? Am I to see her?”
In response to the desire to torture his master a little, Abaskharon at first said nothing. Then he said slowly, “Your Excellency would like to see her?”
The Bey nodded his head quickly and pretended to look at the street to hide his excitement. In the manner of a conjurer revealing his surprise at the end of the trick, Abaskharon turned around, moved away banging the floor with his crutch, and disappeared for ten minutes. Then he came back with her.
This is the moment Zaki will never forget — when he saw her for the first time. She was wearing a white dress covered with large green flowers that clung to her body and revealed its details, her plump, soft arms emerging from the short sleeves. Abaskharon led her forward by the hand and said, “Miss Busayna el Sayed. Her late father was a good man and he lived with us here on the roof. God have mercy on him, he was more than a brother to me and Malak.”
Busayna advanced with her small, swinging, undulating steps. Then she smiled, her face lighting up in a way that stole Zaki’s heart, and said, “Good morning, Excellency.”
Those who knew Taha el Shazli in the past might have difficulty in recognizing him now. He has changed totally, as though he had swapped his former self for another, new one. It isn’t just a matter of the Islamic dress that he has adopted in place of his Western clothes, nor of his beard, which he has let grow and which gives him a dignified and impressive appearance greater than his real age, nor of the small space for prayer that he has set up next to the elevator in the lobby of the building, where he takes turns in giving the call to prayer with another bearded brother who is an engineering student and lives on the fifth floor. All these are changes in appearance. Inside, however, he has been possessed by a new, powerful, bounding spirit. He has taken to walking, sitting, and speaking to people in the building in a new way. Gone forever are the old cringing timidity and meekness before the residents. Now he faces them with self-confidence. He no longer cares a hoot for what they think, and he won’t put up with the least reproach or slight from them. He’s no longer interested in those small banknotes that they used to give him and which he used to save in order to buy his new things, in the first place because of his firm faith that God will provide for him and secondly because Sheikh Shakir has got him involved in the sale of religious books — small errands that he undertakes in his spare time and which bring him in a reasonable amount.
He is now training himself to love or hate people “in God.” He has learned from the sheikh that men are too despicable and lowly to be loved or hated for their this-worldly characteristics. On the contrary, our feelings toward them should be determined by the degree to which they observe God’s Law. This has changed the way he looks at many things. He used to like a number of the residents because they were good to him and gave generously. Now he has started to hate them “in God” because they don’t pray and some of them drink alcohol. He has come to love his brethren in the Gamaa Islamiya so much that he would sacrifice his life for them. All his old, worldly standards have crumbled like an ancient fragile building and their place has been taken by a true, Islamic evaluation of people and things. The power of faith has filled his heart and made him into a new being, liberated from fear and evil. He no longer fears death or holds any created being in awe, no matter what its strength or influence. He no longer fears anything whatsoever in his life except that he disobey God and merit His anger.
The credit for this is due to God, Great and Glorious, and next to God, to Sheikh Shakir who has provided him whenever they meet with increased faith in God and knowledge of Islam. Taha has come to love him and cling to him and has become one of those who are so close to him that after a while the sheikh granted him permission to visit him at his home at any time, an intimate status the sheikh grants to only his most trusted associates.
Only one thing remains of the old dispensation in Taha’s soul — his love for Busayna. He has tried hard to subject his feelings for her to his new way of thinking, and failed. He has striven to convince her of the need to follow God’s Law. He took her the book Dress Modestly Lest Ye Be Judged and pressured her to read it and kept on at her until he got her to accompany him to the Anas ibn Malik mosque, where she listened with him to Sheikh Shakir’s sermon. To his astonishment and disappointment, however, she was not impressed. Indeed she told him frankly that it was boring, which led to a quarrel. They have started quarreling a lot when they meet, with her always provoking him so that he gets angry and goes away each time determined to make a final break with her, seeing in his mind’s eye the calm, beaming smile that Sheikh Shakir gives him whenever he speaks to him of Busayna, and of his words, “My boy, you will never guide to righteousness those whom you love, but God will guide to righteousness those whom He wills.” The sheikh’s words reverberate in his thoughts and he promises himself never to see her again, then he goes back on his word after a few days, distressed and yearning for her. But every time he comes back to make up with her after a quarrel, her coldness toward him increases.
Today, though, he did not go to the university, specifically so that he could see her. He waited for her at the entrance to the building as she came out in the morning and accosted her, saying, “Good morning, Busayna. I want a word with you, please.”
“I’m busy.”
Such was her uncivil answer as she ignored him and proceeded for a few steps. He, however, could not control himself and pulled her by the hand, though she resisted for a moment before yielding and whispering in panic, “Let go of my hand! No scenes!” The two then walked silently and warily among the people in the street till they got to their favorite place in Tawfikiya Square. As soon as they sat down, she burst out angrily, “What do you want from me? Do you have to make problems every day?”
Strangely, his own anger disappeared rapidly, as though it had never been, and he waited for a moment. Then he said in a voice that he tried hard to make calm, as though he wanted to conciliate her, “I beg you, Busayna, don’t be angry with me!”
“I’m asking you, what do you want from me?”
“I want to confirm something I heard.”
“Confirmed.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning everything you’ve heard is true.”
She was challenging him and pushing the conversation to the edge.
“You’ve left Talal’s store?”