The Beginning and the End Read Online Free Page B

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