A Tale of Heart and Conscience

"Zahiya" shut the door of the house violently behind her and wiped away tears that hid the road from her sight. She tried to fix her thoughts on the material of the new lesson she was to explain to her pupils, but her thoughts rebelled stubbornly and leapt back to the house, where the cruelty of life knotted thick clouds of the smoke of pain, choking the soul and burning the eyes!

Why had the years of happiness she had enjoyed as a child and a young girl with her mother and her sister fled suddenly, at one small stroke from the hand of fate? Why had that ill-omened night bared its fangs — the night that beloved sister fell from the stairs and the earth received her on its hard breast, a shattered body? Why had fate not stepped in to mend what it had spoiled, working unseen with the surgeon's scalpel to restore to Malak the blessing of walking and jumping and playing? And why was it not content even with that, but exchanged one soul for another and one person for another? It took the tormented young woman of today — she is "Malak," the laughing, playful child of yesterday — carrying the misery of the days on her two palms, climbing the stairway of life under a heavy load of bitterness and deprivation. Where had that clear look gone from the drowsy eyes? Had it dried up with the tears and settled upon the surface of the eye, a fixed and bitter shadow? Yes — for ever since Malak came back from the hospital and settled in the house in a wheeled chair, she has very often spoken the language of silence. The mother and the sister tried to bring consolation to her soul and to divert her with all the effort and patience their two souls contained; Zahiya sacrificed her days to fill for her sister the emptiness of a bewildered, drifting life that was neither life nor death. But after two years had passed, she came to know that what she had done for her sister's sake had been a medicine that spilled and was lost, watering the ground instead of healing a parched soul wrung dry by the hand that bore it. Then she came back to herself and remembered that she had a life of her own that demanded solace and release, and she turned the rudder of her activity toward the teaching profession she loved — having found it futile to summon even one passing smile to the lips of "Malak," who had raised between herself and her sister and mother an impregnable barrier of coldness and withdrawal. With the days her rancorous, envious glances at her sister grew longer, and her treatment of her took on the image of harshness and coarseness; "Zahiya" met all this with silent, sorrowful looks and with words of tenderness and care that only increased the crippled girl's resentment and hatred. The atmosphere of the house became an unbearable hell, forever charged with dry, bitter exchanges!...

Her thoughts having carried her that far, she arrived at the school street and stopped, waiting for a speeding car to pass so that she might cross — when suddenly a small child, not past his second year, came running by, trying to cross the road. She cried out, calling to him as she ran after him, and caught him just in time, before the car could catch hold of the edges of his life; she carried him back to the sidewalk, trying to soften his crying. Sensing someone drawing near, she turned quickly and saw a handsome young man, violent agitation showing on the features of his face, running toward them. She said to him quickly, smiling:

"Don't be afraid — he is quite all right."

"I nearly went mad with terror, seeing him about to be run down. How can I express to you, Miss, the depth of my gratitude for this kindness of yours?"

His words shook her heart! The child was his son, no doubt — the piece of his very heart. She bowed her head and answered:

"Could anyone stand with folded arms before a scene like that? I am happy that I was able to return your boy to you."

For some hidden reason her heart wished he would say that the child was not his son but his sister's boy, or the neighbors' — but he answered, smiling:

Yes, he is my son, and all that I possess... Then he went on: "Our car is close by, and I should be glad if you would allow me to take you wherever you are going." She shook her head, trying to take a picture of the face that would vanish from her life as quickly as it had appeared:

"Thank you — I am going to the school, and it is on this street. Good day to you, and may God keep your only child for you."

*

She did not know why, in the classroom, she could not fix her mind on the new lesson once more. Her thoughts leapt back to the sidewalk where she had left the father and his son. And what of his wife? Was she beautiful? Was she happy? She was ashamed of herself and of the strangeness of these questions. When she came out of the school in the afternoon and found him in the car waiting for her, she could do nothing but accept his invitation to drive her home. A long conversation passed between them, from which she learned that he had lost his wife, who had died after giving birth to the child; that he lived with his mother and the boy, and worked as manager of a commercial house. Zahiya in her turn told him of her work at the school and of her mother and her sister — at which she bent her head slowly and closed her lips upon a stubborn silence.

With the days their friendship grew and ripened, and became a deep, mutual love that wiped the shadows from Zahiya's life and lit her face with the light of happiness. One day "Karim" asked for her hand in marriage, and she gave her consent in one small word she murmured with lowered head and burning cheeks, and asked him to repeat his request in her mother's hearing; her mother smiled the smile of a happy mother and blessed the engagement. But "Zahiya" did not miss the gasp that came from the direction of the motionless chair; she ran to her sister and said, embracing her:

"Malak," I am happy — congratulate me, sister!

The crippled girl brought her lips near her sister's forehead and barely brushed it — and that fleeting, cold kiss sent a shudder through Zahiya's body. She stared at her sister, who quickly turned her face away, clenching her fist in violence and agitation! How much hatred and loathing and envy the eyes of "Malak" carried! And if "Karim" saw all this, he made no remark and said nothing. A dreadful silence spread its wings above their heads; the mother withdrew slowly and feebly, and "Karim" took his leave. Zahiya followed him to the door, and when she came back she stood looking at her sister, contemplating the look of victory and triumph that glittered in her eyes. She said, her voice trembling with anger:

"Why do you torment yourself and torment us, 'Malak'? Do you not wish me happiness? In any case, these ways of yours will not succeed in wrecking my happiness — I shall drink its cup to the very dregs!...

She hurried to her room and threw herself upon the bed, moaning a stifled moan...

*

"Zahiya" hurried home after a full day of examinations at the school, which had kept her past her usual hour of return. She smiled shyly, thinking of "Karim," who was waiting for her at home with a small shining ring, with which he would bind her to himself by a sacred bond of gold! On entering the house she was surprised to find neither "Karim" nor her mother, and she asked "Malak" in astonishment:

Did Karim not come here today?

Malak laughed a short, strained laugh and answered: "He was here, and he left, and I think... he will not come back..."

Zahiya looked at her questioningly and asked in exasperation: "What are these riddles? Why did he not wait for me?"

She answered, her eyes gleaming with a strange gleam: "I told you — he will not come back, not tomorrow and not in a year. He charged me to convey to you his words of farewell, and he left you this ring as a keepsake!" And she added, laughing: "How quickly it has shattered — the cup of happiness you were going to drink to the very dregs!"

Black circles swam before Zahiya's sight, filling the space of the room. She seized her sister's arms harshly and hard, and her voice rose high as she said: "Speak, you foolish girl, and tell me what you have done! I can read the truth in those two glittering eyes, and I want it plain and naked."

"Malak" screamed in pain, trying to break loose from her sister's grip, and an overwhelming feeling of pity for that frail body swept over Zahiya's heart as she all but crushed the two weak arms in her grasp. She loosened her hands and covered her face with them and said in a whisper: "Malak, speak — do not prolong my torment"...

Malak drew Zahiya's hands away from her wet face and gripped them hard, as though she wanted a rope by which to lift herself out of a bottomless abyss!

"I lied to him, Zahiya — a great lie, to drive him away from our house and from you." And a shadow of immense despair darkened her face as she cried out, weeping:

"Death is easier for me than to see you sweeping about in a wedding gown and drinking the cups of happiness to the dregs, Zahiya. I cannot bear to see you tender over a husband and embracing children the like of whom I shall never be able to embrace. I cannot bear to see you love and be happy!"...

And she laughed a frightening, hysterical laugh and shouted, tightening her grip on the edge of the chair:

"Do not stare into my face like that, as if I were an escaped madwoman. You will never understand anything, because you are whole and sound. Do you know, Zahiya, what it means to be deprived of life while you are alive? Do you hear the voices of human beings coming from a world you imagine to be far away, while you are in it? Do you dream, wide awake and resentful, that you are walking upon a great blessing called the earth, and looking up at a great mercy called the sky? Do you read of love and happiness from a corner that has room only for a sick body that will never move and a fettered heart that will never be freed? Do you wake every day to a harsh, hideous truth, wishing it might become a phantom that fades with the sun at the end of the day? Go to your fiancé and tell him this! Then tell him that you are pure as a lily, deserving the spotless wedding gown — not as I painted you, and how ugly I made the picture — and then, together, call down the curses of heaven upon me."

Then her face softened, and a touch of aching sorrow appeared upon it; she clung to the mountain of life once more and said:

"My misery will kill me soon, Zahiya, so wait until the killer strikes his blow. Do not leave me alone, and do not let your happiness paralyze what little remains of my body! Do you hear?

Zahiya searched her sister's despairing, weeping face as if she were seeing it for the first time! Had the flame of thirst for life seared the soul of her one beloved sister to such a degree, without her ever feeling the scorch of the blaze? How many handfuls of torment had this poor creature swallowed and choked down, watching herself take refuge in herself, trying to escape the watchful eye of her lively, vigorous sister, and finding no road of escape?

Remorse mingled with a crying tenderness overwhelmed her, and she rushed to her sister and embraced her. How could she have enjoyed the springtime of love while her sister, in frailty and weakness, fended off the winds of life and their cold? Her conscience saw one road before it and no other upon the horizon — let her speak then, and let her promise, before the voice of conscience was strangled!...

"Have pity on yourself, Malak, and be at peace: I shall not leave you alone. I shall not marry 'Karim.' I am yours before I am his. But promise me — a true promise — that you will try to soften your hatred of life; then you will be happy, and you will give happiness." Her voice dwindled until it was near a whisper: "The sacrifice will be great, sister, but I shall make it gladly for your sake, and I pray God will inspire you to value it and to make use of your days, which you are scattering though they are too precious to be scattered. I shall build you a new life, 'Malak,' upon the ruins of a love whose edifice I shall not try to raise again — only be my best help in this!"...

"Is it true, what you say, Zahiya? Forgive me — for your forgiveness is like the forgiveness of my Lord. Oh, my sister! I shall try to live, though I shall need no short time to gather the scattered pieces of my soul together again."

Zahiya gazed at the setting sun; she pressed one hand to her breast, and with the other wiped the tears of eyes withered by staring into the faces of the happy...

★

When, a week later, she saw "Karim" waiting outside the gates of the school, she knew that the hour of farewell had crept up. She stopped walking; her eyes clung to his kind, handsome face, and for a moment her heart clung to a thin thread of hope that quickly snapped as the face of "Malak" loomed before her. They walked side by side, and he said with an eagerness he tried to conceal:

"Zahiya," I will believe nothing but that you are among the most honorable of girls and the purest. Say that what "Malak" said was mere invention — and if it was true, say nothing...

She wanted to laugh and laugh — and the worst of calamities is the one that makes you laugh — and she wanted to weep and weep, for in weeping there is release!

"Yes, Karim, it was mere invention. And I beg you to spare me the explanation, for it would only make the matter more tangled in your eyes. I have found that my happiness matters less than the life of a person which I want to grow long and to blossom; she has had enough of the pricking of thorns."

He cried out in pain: "Can you mean 'Malak,' Zahiya? She is selfish, to shatter our lives in this way."

The torment of the moment was more than her heart could bear; she gave him a wilting look and whispered:

"I told you that you would not understand, however much I explained, 'Karim.' I shall wear your ring when she is ready to place your hand in mine with her own hand." And she added in a faint voice:

"That is — if you choose to wait."

And when he made no answer, she said in a broken voice: "Farewell, Karim. I shall remember our love as the loveliest dream my eyes ever saw," and she hurried past him...

Karim called out, as the space widened between them and carried his voice to her like the whisper of the breeze:

"Zahiya — I shall wait"...