There was no great opposition when the time came for Mahmud to move from the Qur’an school to the secular academy. Abd al-Rahman had already paved the way, and attendance at that school was no longer a major event in the life of the household. The transfer had become something quite normal, with no worries attached nor any criticism from Hajj Muhammad’s friends or people concerned about their sons’ futures. There was nothing to encourage opposition to Mahmud’s transfer to the school; he had stayed at the Qur’an school until he was over thirteen years old, but he had not been able to memorise the Qur’an or master writing it. The jurist from the south had given up on the boy even more than Hajj Muhammad had, and could not understand how Hajj Muhammad and the family had such a weak spot for Mahmud. So the jurist seized every opportunity to wreak vengeance, insulting the boy’s honour when he was not even angry. ‘Good-for-nothing servant’s brat!’ he would say. ‘A miracle if he’s of any use at all!’
If he wanted to make an example, Mahmud’s leg, head, and back would be used to teach a lesson to any lazy, slovenly, or stupid boy, or anyone who was late arriving at the school. He did not imagine there would be any opposition from Hajj Muhammad – and in fact there was none – and he exploited this freedom to use Mahmud as the sacrificial lamb whenever the children got on his nerves or life got on top of him to such an extent that he needed to relieve his pent-up anger. He would find such relief every time he made Mahmud’s head bleed or whipped his legs.
Mahmud found no escape from his fate. Hajj Muhammad had entrusted him to the jurist with the customary pledge, ‘you do the killing, and I’ll bury him’. So Mahmud had no opportunity of recourse to his father.
In any case, he only ever saw his father occasionally, coming or going. He avoided letting Hajj Muhammad know what the jurist was doing to him, since he was well aware what his father’s response would be: ‘May God grant him good health!’
His only source of consolation was his mother, Yasmine; it was she who would salve his wounds in rueful silence. She had sympathy, but all she could do was offer some painful advice: ‘My son, do your best to memorise what’s on your tablet!’
When Mahmud tried to explain his miserable situation, he could not. The words used by his brothers and other boys in the quarter rang in his ears: ‘Nigger! Servant’s child!’
Reality brought him back to his misery, and he managed to explain it to himself through the same hateful words. The jurist was the very embodiment of those words. The children no longer uttered their aggravating and malicious remarks about him with an almost innocent grin, nor did their teacher use them as a way of coping with his own anger. However, the latter did allow the idea of them to suffuse his vicious use of the cane and the knotted rope that lifted Mahmud’s legs high off the ground until he was left resting on his neck or head. Mahmud convinced himself that this was the true rationale behind the cruelty that this teacher from the south showed towards him. The only solution that he could find was to escape to the secular academy, as his older brother had done before him.
He encountered no difficulties in joining the academy. The officials there had convinced the elite of the city that their sons needed to be enrolled in order to learn how to achieve mutual understanding with the authorities and serve as intermediaries between them and the populace on matters such as taxes, mail, and civil affairs. The parents duly complied, although some of them still felt a lingering doubt about removing their sons from the Qur’an school, where they would memorise the sacred text, and transferring them to the secular academy, where they would study that foreign language which had by now become at least a temporary necessity.
When Mahmud enrolled in the academy, most of his fellow pupils in the initial class were over thirteen years old. He kept hearing the phrase ‘sons of the elite’, and when he looked at them he could tell that they were indeed from that class, the same as in his own house, where his brothers belonged to the same group. The clothes they wore suggested luxury and care, things that by comparison he lacked. When he was at the Qur’an school or with his brothers at home, he had not noticed this lack. He had become inured to the distinctions made inside his house, and all sense of the discrimination between what his brothers were given and what he was given had been eradicated. It was only when he now found himself in a classroom with other boys from the elite that he became aware of the distinction. It was then too that he began to realise that the French teacher – just like the Qur’an-school teacher before him – regarded Mahmud through the prism of the colour of his skin and the clothes he wore. Schoolteachers were particularly attuned to their students. They had garnered information from the reports describing them in the Civil Affairs Administration. As a result, they were already aware of the distinction between boys born to wives and others born to servant-women, and made assessments of their futures based on that information.
Mahmud became aware of this when he observed the way the teacher dealt with him. It was not marked by the cruelty and vengeance he had encountered with the Qur’an-school teacher, but it was definitely a new kind of discrimination that was based on a person’s birth mother. Even so, he found enough in the academy to encourage him to rid himself of the backward thinking that had characterised the Qur’an school, and he started competing with the really elite boys. He discovered that he could beat most of them and come out ahead. When this happened it had a clear effect on the teacher, who was duly surprised by Mahmud’s enthusiasm for studying. That surprise was reflected in a softening of the way he treated him; sometimes it was almost as if he were dealing with an intelligent colleague.
So Mahmud remained at the academy, observing the struggle taking place in the minds of both teacher and fellow pupils between regarding him as a second-class person on the one hand, and on the other acknowledging that he was really trying hard and was earning a place at the head of the class.
He was also witnessing another kind of struggle inside his own house. Sitting among his brothers, he regarded Abd al-Ghani as his beloved hero. Contemplating his eldest brother, he searched for the secret source of that heroism. Abd al-Ghani always talked as though he were delivering sage advice, due to his firm belief in the validity of his own personality, which derived its authority solely from the fact that he was the eldest brother. He tried to impose this authority on his younger brothers, and Mahmud had always happily acknowledged it ever since he had been a child. Even today he had no plans to disavow it, since he still regarded Abd al-Ghani as a heroic figure, the only one of his brothers who could undertake any given task.
Abd al-Ghani constantly spoke about making money and the profits from the shop as though he were some kind of great plutocrat. In this way he resembled his father, Hajj Muhammad, who – in Mahmud’s opinion – derived his forceful personality solely from the money, land, and properties he owned.
Every time Mahmud sat down with his brothers, he always observed Abd al-Ghani; he could not explain why he was so curious, except that he himself perhaps wanted to be Abd al-Ghani, with money (in amounts that he felt must be unbelievably enormous) ready at hand. He started watching Abd al-Ghani in order to glean something about the secret of this wealth, and his apparent gift of generating it. And he kept on watching…
When he looked over at Abd al-Rahman, whose personality was beginning to exert itself to the full, he could see another kind of hero, one like the teacher at the academy. He admired Abd al-Rahman’s questioning attitude. Every time his elder brother spoke, Mahmud would be awestruck – jaws agape, eyes popping out of his head, and ears on the alert. It was as though he were bringing all his senses to bear in order to discover the secret of where Abd al-Rahman got his strength, which was seen here and also inside the walls of the academy.
Abd al-Ghani talked about money and commerce, about his fellow merchants and neighbours at the Qaysariyya Market, about his deals and negotiations with customers and the way they could double his profits. His entire conversation revolved around a single topic: money. Abd al-Rahman on the other hand talked about numbers, men, and documented texts; about teachers, students, and debates; about books, notebooks, pencils, and geometric instruments. He had also started referring to the city gossip about the young men who had challenged the government by reciting the Latif in the Qarawiyin Mosque: they had been subjected to flogging and torture, but in the future they would be regarded as heroes. He also told stories about Ibn al-Baghdadi, who flogged young men with a good deal of mockery and not a little provocation.
The conflict between Abd al-Ghani and Abd al-Rahman had another aspect to it. Between the different arguments of the two elder brothers, Mahmud found himself playing the role of a perplexed arbiter, looking back and forth between the two of them, amazed at the way they each managed to best the other.
Mahmud had also followed the course of the argument between Abd al-Rahman and his father with a rare sensation of admiration. For the first time ever, he had watched as someone openly defied Hajj Muhammad; it was almost as though Abd al-Rahman were refusing to acknowledge the true extent of his father’s supreme authority. He had stood there in utter astonishment as Abd al-Rahman had emerged from the incredible confrontation with an expression on his face that managed to combine confidence, defiance, and sheer determination.
Mahmud found himself considering these different models and the disagreements that emerged from them as he carried on his own life between academy, home, and street. At the academy he now began to attain a sense of his own self. The part of his life that involved the Qur’an school and the jurist from the south was over. Now the lessons were easy, and the path was open for him to excel. He was no longer inferior to boys born in wedlock, and his feet, head, and back were no longer a field where the jurist’s cane and ropes could besport themselves to their heart’s content. All the walls separating him from his fellow students, the sons of the elite, had now collapsed.
He listened as Abd al-Rahman made his preparations for the next day’s class, finding it all easy to understand, because that world was no longer strange to him. He now sat there, mouth agape in sheer admiration for Abd al-Rahman as he did his homework. He had the impression that he too was following the same path as Abd al-Rahman, with very little difference.
One evening, these thoughts preoccupied his mind as he sat as usual with his brother and watched him assiduously, mouth agape as he had done when he was much younger. He carefully observed Abd al-Rahman – his face, his head, his build, his complexion, and the book he held in his hands.
‘So, how is he different from me?’ Mahmud asked himself. ‘We have the same father and mother… No, his mother is not mine. That’s right, his mother isn’t mine. But how is his mother different from mine? I don’t have a light complexion like his, but who’s to say that that’s better and more refined? The other boys keep calling me “maidservant’s child”, but that’s just talk. Their children’s logic has remained with them. Abd al-Rahman’s mother, Khaduj, hates me, but my own mother, Yasmine, loves him… He used to hate me too, but I love him. Now he doesn’t hate me any more; he treats me like a little brother. At least there’s that: he no longer feels about me the way he feels about the Qur’an school, the teacher, and the children there. Ever since I enrolled in the academy, he’s started to respect me. I ask him about the things in my book and my notepad, and he tells me… Sometimes he’s angry, other times he’s supercilious, but he responds like a young teacher. The book he’s holding no longer scares me; I have a book to hold as well. Abd al-Rahman is my brother, no more and no less.’
Mahmud perked up, as though he were about to express an opinion or respond to an objection. But, grabbing his notepad and pencil, he buried his head deep into his book, just as Abd al-Rahman was doing. The book, pencil, and notepad allowed him to avoid staring vacantly at his brother as his beloved hero.
The only thing that disturbed him was Abd al-Ghani, who slouched into the room in his normal fashion. His vacuous expression was that of a minor figure incapable of becoming a major one. He threw himself over the table like a sack of flour falling from an aged camel, then dug his knees into the couch, again like a camel on a mound of sand where it cannot get down if it does not first sink to its knees. He let out a sigh like an old sage sitting down to rest his weary body from the burden of time. Abd al-Rahman looked up for a moment in disapproval, then quickly went back to reading his book, as though to say, ‘This void in Abd al-Ghani’s life, with his increasingly flabby body, is almost killing him. What is he doing to himself ? Once he’s closed up his shop and taken the money he’s made, his day is over. That’s a life destined to be both short and limited. Why doesn’t he pick up a book, a piece of paper, or a pencil? If he felt like it, he could record his shop business on paper at least, in numbers.’ Scissors and chit-chat were all Abd al-Ghani thought about, along with the old woman who used to buy a few metres of cloth, the poor man who used to haggle over the price, and the flirtatious girl who would visit the Qaysariyya Market to quench her thirst by staring at the men and sharing lewd conversations with them.
For a moment Mahmud was taken up with his numbers again, and he forgot about Abd al-Ghani, almost as though he were not even there. But then his thoughts turned away from the book and back to his eldest brother. As he stared once again at his brother’s face, his physique, and his ever-widening bulk, he was distracted by further thoughts: ‘My dear elder brother – and that’s what he actually is – has become a man who can conduct himself as he pleases. Every morning he sets out for his shop. Once there, he deals with money, selling things and making more money. He counts it all and stares at the dirhams with a steady gaze; his eyes wander as he puts the money in a drawer, one coin on top of another, clinking as they come into contact. From morning till sunset the money grows. He’s wealthy, rich; he can feel the money in his hands, how pure it is and how it jingles. He’s free to spend it and can buy things. His shoes are brand new, and his jallaba is fresh, clean, and pristine. He even buys halva and laudanum. If he needs a notebook, a pencil, or a book, he doesn’t have to send intermediaries to ask his father. He can use a key to open a box that he owns himself and feel the coins in his hands. He can take out whatever he wants, reclose the box, and spend the money as he wishes.’
When Mahmud came to himself again, Abd al-Rahman was asking him what he was supposed to be doing. Mahmud found that he was staring at Abd al-Ghani, his mouth agape, with a smile on his lips that managed to combine admiration, awe, and curiosity. He snapped out of it, reminding himself of what Abd al-Rahman would ask him from time to time: ‘Why is your mouth gaping open like an idiot? Have you discovered something new about him you haven’t seen before?’
He tried to concentrate on his notepad again, but that word ‘new’ made him look at Abd al-Ghani again. Before today he had not felt the need to think about how rich his brother was. What motivated this line of thinking was that Mahmud could only purchase the notepads, pencils, and books he needed in school if he managed to persuade Abd al-Rahman to act as his intermediary, or if Khaduj was willing to ask Hajj Muhammad for the cost of them.
Once again he made up his mind to rid himself of this infantile sense of awe with which he enveloped Abd al-Ghani, like a kind of halo whose light was reflected upon his own ambitious soul with all its naive innocence.
‘So, who is Abd al-Ghani?’ he asked himself. ‘Isn’t he Khaduj’s son, not Yasmine’s? Khaduj and Yasmine – two names that never stop cropping up in our family life, like some sort of fate that’s preoccupied with organising our world for us. No, no, I’m approaching manhood now. So be it: Khaduj isn’t my mother, and Yasmine is. And I am Hajj Muhammad al-Tihami’s son. From now on, nobody’s going to ask me about my mother. In school, on the street, with students and teachers, with books, notepads, and pencils, this thing in my life about ‘Yasmine or Khaduj’ is over and done with – a household matter perhaps, but street- and school-life will have nothing to do with the household. Isn’t it your complexion that makes you different from your brothers?’
This question lingered deep down in his consciousness. What wrenched him out of his internal monologue was the sound of Khaduj’s voice yelling to Yasmine.
‘Bring in the dinner! It’s time for your master to come home.’
Khaduj would be sitting in her usual indolent fashion, wearing her favourite clothes and staving off the boredom which coloured her entire life by repairing some of her children’s clothes as a diversion. Yasmine, meanwhile, would be buzzing like a bee in her non-stop activity, running between different rooms and the kitchen to set everything up for dinner. She would continuously clean things and wait for instructions from Khaduj, like any maid who devotes her life to service, obedience, and accepting orders from someone else.
Only when he heard one giving orders to the other did Mahmud gain a sense of the differences that separated one woman living a life of idle luxury and another living for work and service. It was his new awareness of his own self and its essence that made him sensitive to the issue. Now his eyes were open to the realities of the household, with a mistress and a servant-woman.
He went on living his usual life in the household without asking any questions – almost in spite of himself, as though some new element had entered the picture, or he had gone through a transformation that was forcing him to think in a new way, in which the words ‘Khaduj’ and ‘Yasmine’ weighed heavily, with all their import, difference, and distinction.
The entire issue continued to nag at him, and he dearly wished to respond to it by changing the situation. Instead, he found himself still unable even to get the notepad and pencil he needed, unless he won Khaduj’s affectionate sympathy and she managed to convince Hajj Muhammad to give him some money to buy them. He made an effort to find something else to think about, but the only solution was to bury himself once again in the notepad he was holding.