Cairo Modern Read Free Page B

overcast. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it passionately. Then turning toward her he calmly helped himself to a sweet kiss from her full, tender lips. When he noticed that she closed her eyelids in response to the kiss, his powerful body trembled and sparks of delight shot through his spirit. Swallowing, he said, “How sweet you are … how beautiful!”
    A delicious moment of delectable magic flitted past. Then he sighed and said somewhat regretfully, “I only have a few short months before the final exam. How about you?”
    She replied, “The baccalaureate is in June. Where do you think I should study?”
    The youth said enthusiastically, “My faculty.”
    Although straitened circumstances forced her to complete her education, she would have liked him to say, for example, “You’ve studied enough. Let’s make a nest for ourselves.” She asked him with a certain reserve, “Why should I choose your department?”
    “So we can become a single mind with an identical craft and career.”
    “The same career?”
    He said with undiminished enthusiasm, “Yes, darling. A woman’s job is far more important than being a homemaker. It’s impossible for me to betray my principles or for me to consent to deprive society of a beautiful and useful contributor like you.”
    She knew he was right on the one hand, because financial need dictated that she should choose a career some day, although his enthusiasm for his own opinion—for some reason—annoyed her. She would have preferred to be the one who forced him to accept this idea over his hesitation and objections.
    They continued along the deserted street, drawing inspiration for their conversation, which was punctuated by kisses, from their dreams.
    Ihsan Shihata was supremely conscious of two things: her beauty and her poverty. Her beauty was astounding. The hostel’s residents had fallen prey to it, and the rooms’ inhabitants had begun to broadcast the fervor of their souls, which all focused on the small, dilapidated house’s balcony, where they abandoned themselves at the feet of the beautiful, vainglorious girl. Her home lacked a mirror that could truly reflect this graceful beauty, however, because poverty was an equally conspicuous reality. Her seven young brothers strengthened her consciousness of it, especially since they all depended on the income from the cigarette store, which was only one meter square, with a clientele composed predominantly of students. She had long feared the consequences of poverty’s outrages, including poor nutrition, on her beauty. As a matter of fact, had it not been for the recipes of her mother, who before she married Master Shihata Turki hadbeen one of the singers based on Muhammad Ali Street, she would have grown skinny and her rump, which a poet from the College of Medicine had celebrated in a resounding ode, would have withered. When she met Ali Taha, her heart had chosen him out of all the residents of the student hostel. His youth, good looks, noble pedigree, and promising future excited her admiration. Two important matters, however, contended for control of her heart from the word go: her romantic life and her family life. Put another way, the struggle was between Ali Taha and her seven young brothers. Before Ali Taha, a wealthy young law student had courted her. Sensing from his conduct that he sought amusement for his heart and entertainment for his youth, she had remained on guard with him. Her parents were fully informed about all the secrets of her life, and the only thing that alarmed her was her mother’s prodding and her father’s greedy concern with the young man’s fortune. Thus she came face-to-face with the bitter realities of her life and its grievous truths. As a matter of fact, her parents had no moral scruples. Before evolving into marriage, their relationship had been a passionate affair. Her father had made a living from his good looks and impudence until her mother married him and gave