Free The Beggar, the Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail by Naguib Mahfouz Page A

she wept. “Twenty years without knowing your filth,” she said in a choked voice.
    He said insanely, “So, let it be the end.”
    “I’ll wander around aimlessly.”
    “No, this is your home; so stay. I’ll go.”
    You threw yourself on a chair in the living room, your eyes closed with pain. Hearing a noise, you raised your head and found Buthayna standing before you, pale-faced and still drowsy-eyed with sleep.
    The atmosphere was charged with guilt and reproach as you gazed at each other in silence. You remembered the disgraceful lie, and in all your life had never felt so ashamed.
    “I’m sorry, Buthayna, for upsetting you.”
    The compressed lips revealed her wounded pride. “There’s no use talking,” she said, then reverted to silence, succumbing to the burden which had fallen upon her.
    “Your mother will remain in the house, provided with every comfort.”
    He prayed to God that she wouldn’t cry. “It’s distressing,” he murmured, “but I’m ridding my soul of something more serious.”
    She looked sadly into his eyes. “But you told me there was nothing.”
    His face burning, he sighed. “The truth was inappropriate.”
    “Why?”
    “Let’s preserve what love there is between us.”
    You left, unable to meet her glance again until she pardons you.
    Warda commented, “You’ll regret your decision.”
    “No, I can’t stand the hypocrisy anymore.”
    She said anxiously, “I’m so afraid that I’ll fail to make you happy.”
    “But I am happy, really.”
    And so he applied himself to happiness and shunned all disturbing thoughts. Anticipating resistance from Mustapha, he accosted him. “I’m happy. Does that displease you? I even feel some poetic stirrings.”
    He also became more receptive to work, though he was still reluctant to accept cases. His work breaks were spent talking to her on the phone, and at the end of the day, he would rush back to his nest and she would welcome him with a shining face. They usually stayed in the Oriental room, but sometimes they’d go out to the distant parts of Cairo, to the rendezvous of lovers; sometimes they’d takenight excursions to Fayum or to the rest house on the Desert Road. When she learned that his poetical aspirations of the past were again seeking expression, she encouraged him with superb recitations of her own. As a student at the Drama Institute, she’d memorized Shawki’s plays, and many love poems as well.
    He said to her admiringly, “Your love of poetry is wonderful.”
    She urged him to start writing again, but he was reluctant. “Isn’t it better to live poetry than to write it?”
    One day she remarked, “You haven’t asked me about my past.”
    Giving her a kiss, he answered, “When we’re in love, we accept everything on faith. There’s no need to ask questions.”
    But she wanted to talk about her past. “My father was an English teacher, a wonderful teacher, the sort that students never forget. If he’d been alive when I decided to enter the Drama Institute, he would have given me his blessings and encouragement. But my mother’s a very pious, narrow-minded woman. I entered the Institute against her wishes, and when I decided to take up dancing, she was furious. So were my uncles, on both sides. It ended in our cutting off relations. I deserted my family.”
    “And how did you manage on your own?”
    “I lived in the house of one of my actress friends.”
    He fondled her soft hand and asked, “Have you always loved dancing?”
    “Yes, I loved to dance, but I had aspirations of being an actress. I tried, and failed, and so ended up as I started, as a dancer.”
    He asked, disturbed, “Did Yazbeck bully you?”
    “Actually, he’s kinder than the others, and I knew what working in a nightclub entailed.”
    “You’re my first and last love,” he said fervently, pressing her to him in gratitude. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you return to your mother after you’d failed in acting?”
    “It was too