Classic Short Fiction: Mohammed Hussein Heikal’s ‘The Second Family’
The Second Family
By Mohammed Hussein Heikal
Translated by Amr El-Zawawy
He died at the age of fifty, at the very height of his glory. He was a distinguished scholar, a gifted writer, and a professor surrounded by students, disciples, and colleagues who held him in the highest esteem. His readers were full of boundless admiration. More than once, he had been elected dean of the Faculty of Arts. For all these reasons, an uncountable number of people followed his bier, and the things the newspapers wrote to mourn him became a source of his children’s undying pride.
And yet, despite all this, he left no fortune worth mentioning.
He was outlived by a wife and three children. His wife, Rajaʾ, was about forty, yet she didn’t look a day over thirty. She was endowed with remarkable charm: there was a sparkle to her eyes that would grab you as soon as she looked at you, so that you could find yourself gazing at her, not looking away, captivated by the sweetness of her features and the enchanting way she spoke. Her voice had a certain music to it that few daughters of Eve have ever been granted—an alluring softness that held the listener spellbound. She was well-proportioned, full without being heavy. Throughout her husband’s life, she had loved him with the deepest devotion, seeing his glory as a crown upon her head, adorning herself with it even if she wore no jewels of the sort that might make other women boast.
Her eldest was a young man of twenty-two. He had finished at university and earned his degree in arts with distinction. Yet he took greater pride in his father’s renown than in his own success. He hoped to follow in that august parent’s footsteps: to begin as a teaching assistant in the Faculty of Arts and to end, as his father had ended, as its dean.
Aziz had a sister who was five years younger, and a brother five years younger than her.
The entire family went into mourning for their breadwinner, and a deep sorrow overtook them at this irreversible loss. Rajaʾ felt the calamity more grievously than her children, for their father’s small estate and pension was barely enough to maintain the decent life to which they had grown accustomed. True, Aziz was on the verge of being appointed an assistant lecturer, and his salary would help them a bit, but this help was negligible when compared to what his father had earned from his pen, his books, and a salary that had been more than double his pension.
*
After some time had passed, and the customary season of mourning for the dead had run its course, a wealthy merchant came forward to propose marriage to Rajaʾ. His wife had died only months before, leaving him a single son. News of this proposal reached Aziz, and he went to his mother to ask whether it was true. She told him:
“Yes, it’s true. You’re a sensible young man who weighs matters carefully. You know how deeply I loved your father, how proud I was of him, and how I wished—if it had been possible—to remain faithful to his memory after his death, just as I was faithful to him in life. But you also know that he left us with scarcely any means to raise the children. I don’t want your sister and brother to live with hardship after they grew up used to comfort and ease. Also, I’m still a young woman, and I don’t want people to talk about me in any way that might harm you, your sister, or your brother.”
As Aziz listened, he could scarcely believe that this was his mother speaking. This meant that she had accepted the merchant’s proposal because of his wealth, and that she wanted her children to live off riches their father had not earned. It was as though she were offering herself for sale for the sake of her children.
He remained silent for a long time after she had finished speaking, then snapped:
“Do you know this merchant’s reputation—the man you want to take my father’s place? Haven’t you heard what people say about this Shihata, how he amassed and hoarded his wealth? As for your reputation, that’s in your hands. I never imagined you would marry after my father, not for any reason. I haven’t come here to argue with you, just to tell you this: If you go through with this marriage, you’ll never see my face again as long as you live!”
He spat out these words in a fury, sprang to his feet, and left.
But reproach had come too late. The marriage contract was scheduled for that very afternoon. Rajaʾ could not withdraw; after all, the contract was to be concluded in her own house, and Shihata would certainly come. What’s more, she didn’t find any justification for Aziz’s rage. She wanted what was good for herself and her children—good, lawful, and honorable. If her son was angry on behalf of his father’s memory, it was his duty to understand her and his siblings’ circumstances—and his own, too. He didn’t yet have a stable job. Even if he got one tomorrow and managed to live modestly on his income, he had no right to impose a deprivation upon his mother and siblings that they had not known during his father’s lifetime. Nor did he have any right to accuse her of disloyalty because she sought a decent life for her children.
*
The marriage contract was concluded at the appointed time, and, that same evening, Rajaʾ and her children moved into Shihata’s house in Zamalek. Aziz, however, spent the night in a small apartment close to his father’s. Fortune favored him: within days, he received notice of his appointment as an assistant lecturer in the Faculty of Arts. His luck went further still when the Iraqi government requested professors and teachers from Egypt. Aziz applied and was appointed to one of these posts. Within weeks, he had left for Baghdad, without seeing his mother, to assume his duties in the city of al-Rashid—thus fulfilling his warning that he would never see her if she remarried.
Rajaʾ moved into her new home. It was a house that was almost palatial in construction, if not in spaciousness. Shihata had built it only a few years earlier, after a lifetime of struggle and deprivation. He had lived in an old house in the Sikkakini quarter, leaving it early every morning for his shop, spending the whole day there, and returning home at night. He rarely left home except to go to work. Now that he was nearing sixty, and God had expanded his provision through good fortune, the man felt entitled—for himself, his wife, and his child—to live the remainder of his years in comfort befitting his wealth, compensating him for past hardships and lifting him above the miserliness and sharp dealings for which he had once been known.
Aziz’s stance toward his mother that day left her deeply angry, but it did not extinguish her love for him. From the moment she entered her new home, she gave herself entirely to her husband and hoped that, within nine months, she would bear him a child. Aziz’s words had wounded her pride, arousing in her resentment toward a young man who imagined himself grown. She forgot that she was his mother—more experienced, wiser, and more discerning than he. Out of spite, she withheld nothing from Shihata, angered by a son who had respected neither her status as his mother nor God’s injunction to be kind to one’s parents.
Days and weeks passed, and Rajaʾ began to feel the vast difference between her first husband and her second. The house she now lived was so much more beautiful than the apartment she had shared with her first husband! This luxurious car that waited for her every morning, carrying her wherever she wished—she had owned nothing like it before. Her open accounts at shops allowed her any manner of extravagance. Yet for all this, she did not feel the inner happiness she had once known. Her material wealth back then had been less, yes. But it had been sufficient, placing her on an equal footing with ladies of luxury. And she had possessed another source of nourishment that other women lacked: her husband, whose mind and heart poured out a light and love that lifted her into the heavens of emotion. She had shared in his glory, which clothed her in a majesty before which diamonds and jewels paled, for she saw in people’s eyes that she was a partner in that glory.
By contrast, her second husband made her feel that he traded in emotions, since he was a trader by profession. He wanted her to feel he had sold her something in exchange for something else—selling her comfort and her children’s ease in return for her love and presence. Life, in his eyes, was a matter of give and take. No one gave of their self or heart without compensation.
In time, she resigned herself to her fate. She was pregnant, and, in a few months, she would share a child with Shihata.
A child is a sacred bond—even if it is made of gold—a bond that ties parents hand to hand and heart to heart, concentrating all their feelings upon that innocent being. The mother clings most fiercely to this golden bond, using it to bind the father to her child. And the fetus in Rajaʾ’s womb seemed to call to her from within, urging her to silence every grievance against her husband for the sake of this living thing that was forming into a human being.
Thus, she showed her merchant husband what she did not wholly feel as she waited for the day when this man, proud of his wealth, would become the servant of her child—the day she would take pride in its birth.
Rajaʾ’s position with her husband was more painful than that of any other expectant mother. From the moment she learned that Aziz had traveled to Iraq, anxieties began to torment her. He had abandoned his homeland in anger at her remarriage. How was he now in that self-imposed exile? Was he doing well because his salary had doubled in Baghdad? Or was he tormented by longing for his homeland and yearning for his siblings? Or had he forgotten homeland, siblings, and mother alike, drowning his cares in drink and pleasure, or in the arms of some loose woman who toyed with him and spared neither his youth nor his innocence? Would he even answer her letters so she knew he was all right? Let him do what he pleased—so long as he remained safe and well!
Months rolled by, and Rajaʾ gave birth to a daughter, lovely in her grace and delicate in her gentleness. Through her, she captured Shihata’s heart more than she ever had through her own charms, since he had longed for a daughter to be a sister to his son by his first wife, a daughter whose tenderness would comfort his age and whose youth would console both his own advancing years and her mother’s maturity.
Rajaʾ rejoiced in the child, though her birth did not console her for Aziz’s stubborn refusal to answer her letters. He persisted until she despaired of him and gave up writing, contenting herself with asking anyone who came from Baghdad for his news.
Years passed. Aziz’s younger brother completed his secondary education and was ready for university. He wanted to follow the path of his father and brother by studying arts, so that the faculty might not forget the father who had brought glory to the department.
But Shihata held another view. He believed the boy should stop his studies and join him in trade. His argument was that practical life shaped character more powerfully than theoretical study. When Rajaʾ resisted, he insisted instead on the Faculty of Commerce, claiming that trade made gold grow from stone, that its gains were plentiful and lawful. What value was there to glory, he argued, when the boy’s father had left this world with no estate to speak of? Shihata was determined that this tragedy must not be repeated.
Rajaʾ could not oppose him, living as she did under his protection with her children. Thus, the boy enrolled in the Faculty of Commerce, where his intelligence enabled him to excel.
Just as Shihata had planned for the younger brother’s future through trade, he also planned to marry his own son to Rajaʾ’s daughter, thereby securing lasting comfort and prosperity for the entire family.
Some years later, Aziz’s contract in Iraq ended, and Cairo University required him return to his post. He longed to come back to Egypt, and yet he remained resolute in his refusal to see his mother. He had been promoted, had saved enough from his salary to live decently in Cairo, and was determined to earn the academic degrees his father had once attained—degrees that led to a professorship and deanship that could not be pursued in Iraq.
He returned to Cairo, where he lodged in a modest hotel, and resumed his work at the Faculty of Arts. His mother learned of his return and sent his brother to invite him over. Aziz’s brother spoke gently, telling him of his progress in the Faculty of Commerce, and conveyed their mother’s desire to see him.
Aziz replied with bitter irony: “Does she expect me to visit her at Shihata’s house? Never! Go back and tell her that I still stand by what I said the last day I saw her.”
“She understands that you don’t want to come to our house. She’s ready to meet you wherever you wish—even here at this hotel.”
“Tell her that this place isn’t fit for someone as used to luxury as she is,” Aziz said. “In any case, I remain bound by my vow not to see her after she remarried.”
All attempts to change his mind failed. As his brother was about to leave, Aziz seized his arm and asked, “How is our sister? Has anyone proposed to her?”
The boy faltered, then confessed that they were discussing her marriage to Shihata’s son. Aziz flew into a rage: “She marries Shihata’s son—and you say nothing? Have you become like our mother, one of them, no longer our father’s son? Go and tell her that this marriage will never happen. I am my sister’s legal guardian, and she will not marry without my consent!”
The boy returned to his mother and told her everything. She was shaken to the core. She had hoped to unite the two families into one; if God called her to Him, she would leave behind a single, secure household. Now Aziz threatened to ruin all her plans. What was she to do? What stance could she take toward her eldest son, who had placed her in an unenviable position of choosing between him and her husband?
She spent the night in anxious deliberation. In the morning, she told Shihata that her heart demanded that she see Aziz. “That’s your affair,” he said. “Do as you wish. I have no objection to your meeting him wherever you like—if he permits it. I have no authority over him.”
She then burst into tears and said, “But he’s threatened to block my daughter’s marriage to your son, claiming he is her legal guardian and must consent.”
Shihata was stunned. “Childish talk. We must conclude the marriage contract as soon as possible.”
Her distress deepened. Shihata left for work. The next morning, a court messenger delivered a formal notice from Aziz: as his sister’s legal guardian, he opposed her marriage to Shihata’s son on the grounds of incompatibility—for the ignorant son of an ignorant man is no match for the daughter of a great scholar.
*
This notice was no scrap of paper to be ignored; it was a declaration of open war between Aziz and his mother and her husband. Shihata learned of it at lunchtime and exploded in rage, declaring that the marriage must take place that very week.
After he returned to work, Rajaʾ could bear it no longer. She took a taxi to her son’s house and entered his room. When he saw her, he stepped back, stunned by the unexpected encounter. She rushed to him, threw herself upon him, and kissed him through her tears, crying, “You refuse even to see me, Aziz? You refuse to see your mother? If I made a mistake, I beg your forgiveness. Forgive me. You can’t know how much your silence pained me when you were in Iraq. I hoped, when you came home, that I could see you and that we’d understand each other. But if you insist on this, I submit to your will. I place our fate in your hands. Judge us, for you stand among us in your father’s place.”
Deeply moved, Aziz kissed her hands. “It is I who must beg your forgiveness, Mother. But I will never agree to my sister marrying this young man for the sake of his father’s wealth. Our father’s name is nobler than any fortune. I can’t bear to even hear Shihata’s name—the man who took you from me and drove me into exile for all these years.”
She lowered her eyes and said quietly, “But I have a daughter by him—your sister.”
“That only deepens my resentment and hatred.”
Sensing that her son was softening, Rajaʾ changed the subject, asking about Iraq and his life there. They spoke at length, time slipping away until evening came, as she could not bring herself to leave his side. Then the door opened and Shihata entered, his eyes flashing with fury.
He had allowed his wife to see her son before this humiliating notice had arrived. Now that it had, her visit was an act of collusion and an insult to him. If she wished to return to his house, she must leave at once—and never see Aziz again.
The words struck her like a thunderbolt. She looked from husband to son and threw herself between them, crying, “Have mercy on me, a wretched, miserable mother! Aziz is my son, and your innocent little daughter is also my child. I am mother to both. Spare me! It’s cruel to torment me so!”
But Shihata’s anger knew no bounds. He shouted, “Choose between me and your son!”
Through sobs, she answered, “I have no choice. Death would be better than such a choice.”
His fury intensified. “Get up, you fool! Are you comparing me to this young man? Do you think he can feed and clothe you if you leave my protection? Choose—me, or him?”
Aziz, his blood boiling, lunged toward Shihata with a raised fist, crying, “Do you think that you’ve bought her with your dirty money?”
Shihata paled. He stood a moment, then turned away, muttering, “God curse the devil.” At the door, he turned back and said, “Come home now—or never show your face again.”
Rajaʾ looked weakly at Aziz and followed her husband, saying, “Until we meet again, my son.”
“Goodbye, Mother,” Aziz replied.
“No—until we meet again,” she said.
Shihata spent a sleepless night, worn down by his thoughts. By morning, he was too exhausted to go to his shop. By evening, fever had seized him, and pain struck his left chest and shoulder. The family doctor diagnosed a sudden heart attack, not necessarily fatal if he could rest completely and if violent emotions did not affect his brain. Cardiologists were summoned, and they attended him tirelessly.
But every term has its limit. Four days after the violent confrontation, Shihata breathed his last, despite all medical care and the devotion of his wife and son. His funeral and memorial were conducted in a manner befitting his vast wealth.
His death resolved the cruel choice he had imposed upon Rajaʾ. Mother and son met at his grave. His estate gave Rajaʾ and her young daughter—and thus, the entire family—a dignified livelihood.
Shihata’s son assumed control of the business on behalf of them all, even as Aziz went on refusing to give his sister to him in marriage.
Mohammed Hussein Heikal (August 20, 1888- December 8, 1956) was a prominent Egyptian writer, journalist, and politician who held several ministerial positions, most notably serving as Minister of Education. Heikal was born in Kafr Ghannam, near Mansoura, in the Ad Daqahliyah Governorate in 1888. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Law in 1909, followed by a PhD from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1912. During his studies in Paris, he wrote Zaynab, widely regarded as the first genuinely Egyptian novel. Upon his return to Egypt, he practiced law for a decade before turning to journalism. He contributed articles to Al-Jarida and later co-founded Al-Siyasa, the official newspaper of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party, where he served as an adviser and was elected editor-in-chief. In 1937, he was appointed Minister of State at the Ministry of the Interior in Muhammad Mahmoud Pasha’s second cabinet. In November 1940, he assumed the post of Minister of Education in the government led by Hussein Sirri Pasha.
Amr El-Zawawy is Professor of Linguistics and Translation, Faculty of Education, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt. He has also practiced written and simultaneous translation for more than 20 years now. He contributed important articles to different international scholarly journals, including but not limited to Babel (John Benjamins), Journal of Psycholinguistics, California Linguistic Notes and Advances in Language and Literary Studies. He published a number of books and translations, including Studies in Contrastive Linguistics and Stylistics (Novika, USA), Exploring the Cognitive Processes of Simultaneous Interpreting (Lexington Books, USA), Seminal Studies in Linguistics and Translation (Cambridge Scholars, UK), and Selections from Arabic Poetry (Kindle, Amazon).
Other stories in the Classic Short Fiction series, curated by Amr El-Zawawy:
Ibrahim Abdelkader Al-Mazni’s ‘On New Year’s Eve’
Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani‘s ‘The Last Bullet’
Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani’s ‘My Secret Picture’
Ibrahim Al-Mazni’s ‘Eve and the Viper’
Muhammed Taymour’s ‘The Eid Whistle’
Muhammad Taymour’s ‘A Boy Who Became a Man’
Marouan Abboud’s ‘Among the Problems of the Village’
Mahmud Taymour’s ‘The Grand Funeral’
Ibrahim Abdelkader Al-Mazni’s ‘Mimi’