Those Tender Hearts (A Story)

Mrs. Jadhibiyya Sidqi, a guest of Lebanon this summer, is the winner of the short story prize in Egypt for 1955, among 28 entrants..

She received her education at the American College and has four collections of stories: "It Is Love," "My Heart Wept," "The Kingdom of God," and "Curtain, O Night."

Mrs. Sidqi is a member of the Egyptian "Story Club" and of the "Writers' Association" headed by Dr. Taha Husayn. She keeps a literary salon that gathers circles of men of letters every Tuesday evening.

In her stories Mrs. Sidqi inclines toward analyzing the feelings of the Eastern woman and uncovering the hidden depths of her self, which still suffers repression and withdrawal.. And perhaps at times the storyteller makes swift progressive leaps that carry her beyond the bounds..

The story "Those Tender Hearts" is a living example of her stories.

Night.. night.. the darkness.. the blackness.. and the stillness, like a great mute demon carousing through the vast palace from one end to the other.. You could almost see its shadow made solid in my mother's room, and the room of "Umm Wahiba," our old nanny, and the room shared by me and my sister "Samia," and the somber dining room.. with its heavy chairs and its long table.. and that enormous mirror with its gilded frame covering the wall.. I was born.. and grew up.. and found it in that room.. Why they put it there.. I do not know. Perhaps so that the eater might see himself in it and give up some of his habits.. lighten the stuffing of his cheeks, for instance. Or not thrust out his tongue like a chameleon, wrapping it around the food while it is still on the fork..

And the great demon.. that black stillness.. slides every night down the banister of the wooden staircase covered with a plush carpet.. from the upper floor to the ground floor.. where there are rooms without number.. five of them made ready for receiving guests.. and one for taking music lessons in. For there, beside my sister's "piano," stands a porcelain table bearing the "violin" in whose embrace — or with it in mine — I forget the world and everyone in it. They also placed there a soft sofa and two chairs for our teacher..

Our darling.. that room.. we love it more than our bedroom, where our books and our toys are.. and collections upon collections of pictures of the actresses and actors we had taken a fancy to. But the music room is the apple of our eyes and the core of our hearts.. Being denied it inflamed our attachment to it, for my mother allows us no romping about the house except by a set order.. We enter the music room for one hour in the afternoon, for practice only.. But.. can that stern command suffice.. and those generous palms that rain down upon the arm of whichever of us disobeys — to hold back two little she-devils of ten and thirteen years?..

No.. by God.. Like the legend of the ghoul who allowed his captive to look through all his palace save one room he forbade her.. so she worked the impossible and opened that one too. So it was with us.. we schemed by every path, every device, every riddle.. We wait for the night, the darkness, the blackness.. and slip out of our room.. in each of our palms a slender candle, by whose light phantoms dance upon the walls, and each one's features look deathly yellow, like the dead, in her sister's eyes.. terrifying features that play and merge into one another like a picture in water.. and drops of melted wax fall upon our fingers and sting them.. and we moan in silence.. like conquering raiders enduring horrors for the sake of the raid. And we begin the descent from the upper floor.. and the old staircase groans, and its protests follow one upon another, and when its moaning alarms us.. we mount the banister and hug it with one arm while raising the candle high with the other.. then we leave it to do with us as it will. And it twists with us.. and turns.. two full turns before the three of us — I, my sister, and the banister — reach the ground floor..

And our weariness.. and we forget our terror.. at the threshold of the forbidden room, and it is not long before we merge.. one with the "piano".. and one with the "violin".. having shut the windows and the doors, and left the darkness to veil us, and the melodies to soothe the heat of our feelings and set our imagination aglow..

And in the morning.. we watch "Umm Wahiba" as she burns incense.. mastic, and benzoin, and black seed, releasing the perfumed, choking smoke into every corner and every angle.. above and below.. leaving out neither the bathroom nor the roof, and on her face are marks of dread, and terror, and meekness.. abasing herself before the music-playing demons, that they may quit the house!!..

But.. truth be told.. my sister is calmer than I.. tall and slender, her figure has filled and rounded like a rose stem in a well-watered garden.. her cheeks glow with a faint blush, and her eyes glitter with a strange, fleeting spark.. with mystery in it.. as though things upon things were being unveiled to her. And I, if I noticed a smile flitting across her dreamy gaze, would climb upon her, embrace her, and implore her to let me share her thoughts.. to tell me what was occupying her.. so that we might laugh together, and dream together.. Have we not been friends all our lives?.. Sister.. sister.. I shall quarrel with you.. And she pushes me gently away, her cheeks burning. And she smooths my hair, brushing my fringe from my forehead.. as if I were a baby and not a big girl of ten with muscles in her arms stronger than her own.. thanks to exercising with the iron flatirons every morning. Then "Samia" says to me:

— There is nothing.. I am not laughing.. something merely drifted into my mind.

And I gnaw my fingertips with vexation.. Why does nothing drift into my mind.. mine too?.. Why does no fancy occupy me.. no phantom?.. And my eyes.. yes, they are bright.. my mother says of them: "a she-devil's eyes," but they are eyes that do not droop.. do not sink into a dreaming languor like my sister's, and their lashes do not flutter coquettishly, as though someone were courting her all the while.. or as though her smile were whispering some soft message to her..

And her playing has grown less.. her movements measured, her steps shortened — she who used to vie with me at climbing the bedpost like the monkeys, at leaping from window to chair, and from table to sofa.. She has come to prefer a book to me — I, her companion.. She reads in it for moments, then clasps it to her in rapture, her head thrown back on the rest of her chair. And when she hears someone calling her she hides it, like a precious treasure, between the mattresses of the bed. I do not know.. what is this that she reads?.. that she keeps reciting so.. morning and evening.. every free moment she can steal from her day?.. It must be the Quran.. What business is it of mine?

And this sister of mine bewilders me. She was natural a year ago. But now she has changed.. She forgets me while I am with her.. is blind to my glances as though I were not there. She stands for hours before the mirror, feeling an arm that is rounding.. or a thigh that is filling out.. then with a trembling hand she pulls out her hairpins and it pours down in a flood over her shoulders.. And I stand agape, watching her and marveling at her doings. She takes off her clothes piece by piece.. she truly comes out of them like a rose shedding its withered petals to burst open from its heart.. splendid, glittering. Even her shoes she kicks from her feet.. and she quivers, and goes bending with grace and dancing as the butterfly flies from a flower whose nectar it has sipped to another that it kisses lightly. Then she takes hold of the train of an imaginary gown and turns and bows and salutes people who applaud her.. whom I do not see.. but who, it seems, are forever demanding that she repeat her display. For she soon smiles winningly and answers their request with ardor.. and rises upon the tips of her slender toes in a poetic dance for a while.. then plunges, her hair streaming wild, spinning.. and spinning about herself with violence.. with.. with savagery.. She must be fevered.. or bent on wearing out her strength.. She dances and dances.. until her body beads over with drops of sweat that glisten upon it as though she wore a gown of pearl sprays.. and she keeps turning, and turning.. stamping a foot upon the floor and clapping sharply.. a frenzy.. accompanying her dances until the beads of sweat run down in fine threads. And my sister turns and turns.. until I can no longer make out her face through the flying black storm.. which is her hair.

And pity fills me and I grieve for her in my secret heart when I see her flung upon the floor, gulping the air with her open mouth as though her nose could not serve her.. like our red fish, which never wearies, in its glass bowl, of working its jaws like a bellows.. What ails this girl?.. No matter.. no playing now.. So I go to my toy corner and pull out the only sound doll of my strange collection, which includes a lame one, a blind one, and a one-armed one. I pull out my sound doll, over which we always quarrel and which I refuse every time to let my sister play with.. and I offer it to her of my own free will. But she does not sense me.. does not look my way.. rather she rises, her breath still broken, her body still glowing and hot.. and walks to the mirror and draws near to it.. and draws near until her lips cling to it and press against it, while her body contracts and twists, and she feigns refusal, pretends to slip away — from whom? from what?.. I never knew.. So I thrust my hand into my pocket and take out a piece of candy, nibbling it and gnawing it, breathing my gloom into it.. She must have gone mad.. that sister of mine..

And the day there descended upon us.. thus suddenly.. an aunt of ours named "Nabawiyya," from Zagazig.. that too was a day of wonders..

It was after luncheon, always a quiet spell in our house, because my mother likes to sleep then, and my sister and I must take ourselves off and refrain from clamor and din. We were sitting in God's peace.. in our room.. I sprawled on the floor, absorbed in mending a tin automobile.. a toy.. whose "brakes" had broken, and my sister, rosy-cheeked, reclining on a sofa after one of her famous dances, dressed in a white frock, her hair adorned with a drowsy flower, and in her hands her ancient book.. devouring what it confided to her.. then lifting her face to the ceiling for moments.. digesting what she had read — I have seen the chickens do that when they eat and the morsels crowd in their throats.. Is my sister choking on her thoughts?..

Umm Wahiba burst in upon us in our room.. at that noonday hour, and fell to stammering and faltering.. all aflutter, announcing the arrival of guests: our aunt Nabawiyya and.. and Salah.. her son. What was to be done, with the great lady asleep?..

And I love people by nature.. I rejoice in their visits, and in their bright faces new to us, and in the news and tales they bring that breathe life into the air.. as though we had opened the window to a free breeze renewing the stagnant air of our house. So I cried out joyfully, leaping:

— Welcome!.. Hello.. a thousand welcomes..

And I turned to run and greet the guests, when Umm Wahiba threw herself upon me, clutching my shoulder:

— Come here, girl.. Where to, looking like that? Your face all spots of grease and oil.. and trousers.. boys' trousers, and a shirt open upon a bare chest all muscles, like a street tough..

And she struck palm against palm in despair, looking up to our Lord:

— Thy wisdom, O Wise One..

And she dragged me by the arm to the bathroom, where she thrust my head with its short hair into the basin and turned the water on it, and went scrubbing, and rubbing, and muttering:

— Was our Lord going to create you a boy, and then changed His mind at the last minute?..

And she cleaned me, and put me into a silk frock, and imprisoned my feet in stockings and shining shoes. And she worked the stiff brush through my hair until it clung to my skull, and slipped into my hand a clean handkerchief with a dog embroidered in red thread in one corner, and then let me loose.

And I rushed at the guests, hanging upon their necks and lavishing kisses on them as if I had known them all my life, though it was the first time we had ever seen this aunt of ours..

As for my sister.. the delicate white rose.. she came swaying in and stood smiling gently before my aunt and her son.. and the two of them stared at her, dazzled, while my aunt cried out, shoving me to one side and opening her arms to fold them about Samia:

— The Prophet's blessing.. the Prophet's blessing.. welcome to my son's bride!..

And Salah's face reddened with sheer delight and he cast down his eyes.. stealing joyful glances at his bride, who threw him a look from the corner of her two sweet eyes.. a brief look with coquetry in it, but with cunning in it too.. I caught it, watching her, not a flicker of her eye escaping me.. a look that took him all in.. measuring him from his golden hair to his shoes..

Now this aunt of ours had been angered by the marriages of my elder sisters, because she had sons with a better right to their uncle's daughters than strangers; so when none remained but Samia and me.. she hastened to reserve Samia for her youngest son before sending him to Europe to complete his studies..

And in vain did my mother try to free herself from that pledge.. that bond.. Neither her tact nor her courtesy availed her.. The girl is still young.. a child, in truth.. No.. no.. by God.. a child? Who says so? God's name upon her — a bride.. a moon at the full.. And my son will be away five years, in which she will grow up, my lady.. we shall be patient.. Never — impossible.. Why? The girl is my girl.. and the boy is my son. And in any case the two of them are your children, Hanim.. Then our aunt cleared her throat and shifted in her chair: That is, if you have any inclination.. of course.. since the death of my brother, God rest his soul, there is no longer any regard.. we are not equal to the station..

And my mother hastened to cut her short:

— Do not say that. The blood is one

and the stock is one..
And our aunt smiled..

And the betrothal of Samia and Salah was concluded..
And the three months of summer passed over us beautiful.. splendid.. every minute of them a great entertainment in itself.. parties, and receptions, and guests, and well-wishers; of all the many members of our family one troop arrives and one troop departs; and roses, and gifts.. and gifts, and roses.. and drinks poured out.. and sugared almonds passed round, and trills of joy pealing.. And Salah.. Salah of the seventeen years seizes a chance and presses Samia's hand.. and Samia, glittering with a new radiance, returns his greeting with a kiss from her eyes. And I.. I notice and see.. and I thrill and quiver..

And the school year drew on, and the whole household traveled with our aunt and Salah to Alexandria to see him off at the harbor, and of course they took Samia with them.. with her gold ring.. her betrothal ring.. turning it and turning it upon her finger, or talking with her eye upon it, or setting her hand so as to show people that small golden circle which held within its narrow round all her hopes, her dreams, and her affections..

And they left me in the vast house with Umm Wahiba. And on that day, as I waved to them all before the car sped off with them, in that moment I felt that I was no longer I; and I dragged my feet, walking slowly, and threw myself down dazed on a sofa in a dark corner. I was feeling.. feeling — what was I feeling? Strange new things that vexed me.. troubled me, as though tribes upon dense tribes of ants were crawling with their hairy legs across my chest, tickling me.. stirring me. Until I thought there must be a flea in my clothes, and I took them off and put on clean ones instead, to no avail. The same creeping.. the same tickling; so I shuddered.. quivered, and when I could bear no more I hurried to our bedroom and locked myself in. Then, before the mirror, for the first time in an age.. I stood contemplating myself..

I was all but thunderstruck; I was like one gazing at a stranger — I even opened my eyes and shut them once.. and twice, nay three times.. The earth spun with me, and a lightness enfolded me, as though I were dreaming or walking on air. For my eyes.. my staring, bold eyes — their sharpness was broken now, and, wonder of wonders, they were clothed with that look of the dreaming gazelle.. And my ears filled with soft.. intoxicating melodies, welling up from my depths as though my senses were playing them.. And my mouth.. its two rosy lips had parted like a fruit ripened and split open. And I saw, breathless with amazement — and what a wonder was what I saw — I saw the muscles of my arms, which I had toiled to raise night and day with violent athletic exercises, and lifting Umm Wahiba's iron flatirons, and climbing the bedposts and hanging from them, dangling by my legs like the monkeys — these muscles of mine had melted quite away, and the skin over them had grown soft.. and rounded..

And another thing drove me out of my wits. It was my chemise.. my chemise, as though.. as though two small lemons had been hidden beneath it.. My first feeling toward them was shame.. a harsh shame.. bitter. It shook me to the roots, and I fell upon them, pressing them, that they might go in again.. might vanish; and my attempt did not succeed, of course.. The blood mounted to my head, and a thousand questions, a thousand problems, went leaping before me like frogs.. Umm Wahiba — would she still come into the bath with me to help me? Impossible. Impossible.. And then the piercing, penetrating glances all around me — how should I bear them.. and above all my mother.. my mother, whose gaze bores through my clothes, and my skin, and my flesh, and my bones to my very entrails, even from her calm seat? And then if I fell ill, and our old doctor Bernard came to examine me — how.. how.. what should I do then?.. And then.. and then.

And my problems gathered together, and danced before me like the demons, taunting me, bewildering me.. tightening the noose about me. And I flung myself upon my bed and burst out weeping.. and weeping..

(The End)