Free Khan Al-Khalili by Naguib Mahfouz Page B

obsequiousness. He was wearing a loose-fitting gallabiya and slippers and had left his head bare so that his peppery-colored hair stuck up all over the place. All of which made him look even more ugly; sufficiently vile, in fact, that all he needed was a prisoner’s uniform. Even though the group was fairly small, it took up a good third of the café. The café owner sat by the cash register nearby as though he too was a member of the assembled company and one of the participants in their conversation.
    Boss Nunu and Kamal Khalil extended the warmest of welcomes to Ahmad Akif, but Sulayman Ata maintained his frowning posture as though he had completely forgotten about the new arrival. Ahmad Rashid started listening to a broadcast on the radio.
    “We’ve heard that you’ve just come here from al-Sakakini,” said Kamal Khalil to open the conversation.
    “Yes, sir,” replied Ahmad lowering his head, “that’s correct.”
    “Is it true,” the man asked anxiously, “that very few people made it out of their houses?”
    “The truth of the matter is,” replied Ahmad with a laugh, “that only one house was destroyed.”
    “So much for rumors! What was it then that made sucha terrible noise, the one that sounded as though it was inside our very homes?”
    “That was in the sky!”
    At this point Ahmad Rashid turned away from the radio; he obviously had not been paying much attention to it. “Is it true that a bomb landed but didn’t explode?” he asked.
    Ahmad was delighted that the young man was now talking to him. He replied, “People say that two bombs did fall, but they were cordoned off and experts defused them.”
    “What we need,” Ahmad Rashid went on, “is that Canadian specialist whom we’ve read about in reports on war news. Apparently he’s saved whole quarters in London.”
    Sayyid Arif was an admirer of the Germans. “Are there any whole quarters of London left?” he asked with a scoff.
    Ahmad Rashid smiled. “As you can tell, our friend supports the Germans!” he said.
    “For medical reasons!” laughed Boss Nunu, completing Ahmad Rashid’s comment.
    That made Sayyid Arif blush, but Boss Nunu refused to spare him. “Our friend, Sayyid Arif believes,” he went on with one of his enormous laughs, “that German medicine can restore one’s youth.”
    Sayyid Arif frowned angrily. Obviously it was utterly inappropriate to make such a statement in the company of someone who had only just made their acquaintance. Ahmad Akif was well aware of what Boss Nunu’s motivations were in saying it, and yet he made sure that his facial expression showed no sign of having heard anything. Boss Nunu was anxious to repair any damage his remark mayhave caused, so he started telling their new guest about the new quarter he was living in, praising its virtues to the skies.
    “This quarter is the real old Cairo,” said Ahmad Rashid, commenting on Boss Nunu’s description. “Crumbling remnants of former glories, a place that stirs the imagination, arouses a real sense of nostalgia, and provokes feelings of regret. If you look at it from an intellectual perspective, all you see is filth, a filth that we’re required to preserve by sacrificing human beings. It would be much better to knock the whole thing down so we could give people the opportunity to enjoy happy and healthy lives!”
    Ahmad immediately realized that his new conversation partner had a seriousness about him that suggested that he might well be a smooth talker, and indeed someone of genuine intelligence; especially as his law degree gave him the kind of prestige that ignorant and naive people respected enormously. He was afraid that this man might outshine him, so he immediately assumed the offensive, ready to counterattack at any cost: “But old quarters do not necessarily imply filth; there are the memories of the past that are far more worthy than present-day realities, memories that can serve as the impetus for any number of qualities.