He sat in the lounge watching the old man. His trembling hand, adding up the money in his ledger. The money. Oh, if only you’d drop dead, old man. What possible joy can life offer you now? Karima’s beauty wasted on your sterile love. The only pleasure you get is watching her undress and having her rub your back so as to get you to sleep. Either you die or my father appears. He remembered his days of violence. That evening in one of the dingy cabarets. He almost killed a police officer in a fight.
“Don’t ever get involved in a fight again,” his mother had said. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you. If anyone gives you trouble, just tell me. I have means of sending him to the grave.” That’s true; she had once dispatched one of her competitors. One of her men had taken care of her and then escaped to Libya. Everyone said Basima Omran had killed her. But there was no evidence. As for you, Khalil, death won’t really make much difference to you!
Eight
“I don’t think continuing with the advertisement is much use,” said Saber to Tantawi the next morning. Tantawi agreed. “He must have seen the ad by now,” continued Saber.
“Yes, that’s almost certain,” said Tantawi.
Elham joined the conversation. “Then he is refusing to make an appearance.”
“Maybe he is out of the country,” said Saber. “In any case, there’s no sense running the advertisement any longer.”
Elham’s enthusiasm was mounting. “It really all depends on him now. Time is the only thing we can rely on. He’ll return when he wants to. We read of many similar cases.”
Little does she know that he needs his father far more than his father needs him. He needs him not only for his future but out of fear of his own dark, tainted past. A life of crime. What will happen when his money runs out anytime now? There’s no one he can turn to. The only thing driving him on is his fear of a return to the past. To stop his search will mean a plunge back into a life of crime.
These dark thoughts led him to say resignedly, “Well, let’s renew the advertisement.”
He waited for her in the café. Their daily meeting became a sacred ritual, one to be looked forward to with eager anticipation. Then the nights of lovemaking with Karima, forgetting the calm, tender moments with Elham, only to remember them again at daybreak. A pendulum-like life, swinging between animal lust and tender love, neither one overshadowing the other.
He feels attracted to and repelled by both. Each has a strong hold over him, arousing a feeling of protest within him. And yet he can’t give either up. The choice can never be made. Elham representing clear, cloudless skies, Karima thunder and rain, but also like the Alexandria skies. Beloved Alexandria. The nights he spent at home in Alexandria, drinking beneath a cloudy sky, warming himself with creatures of lust and desire. Why does she deny that she hails from his past? She who is reminiscent of those wild nights made spicy by the salty air, wild like the stormy sea. She who is so much like him, hot-blooded, passionate, angry. Elham, so much the opposite, remote on a hill, out of reach.
She remarked on his silence, so he said heavily, “When this search is over, one way or the other, there’ll no longer be any reason for me to stay.”
She cast her eyes to the floor and said, “Have you decided when you’re leaving?”
“I can’t bear the thought of life away from Cairo.”
“A lovely thought. I hope you realize it,” she said earnestly, looking straight at him.
“I think of nothing else.”
“But what about your family and your work?”
“There is always a way. Sometimes I think…” He was silent for a moment, then continued: “Sometimes I think that I didn’t come here to look for Sayed Sayed el-Reheimy at all, but rather to find you. We sometimes go chasing something, and during the chase we come across the thing we are really looking for.”
A look of tenderness and warmth crept into her eyes, and she said seriously, “In that case, I’m heavily indebted to Sayed Sayed el-Reheimy.”
The dam burst. “Elham, I love you. My love has been growing ever since I met you. You mean everything to me, the very reason for my existence. I’ve never felt like this before. Every word I’m saying I mean from the very bottom of my heart.”
Her lips moved silently.
“Isn’t it so with you?” he asked, urging her out of her silence.
“Yes, and more,” she said quietly.
He touched her hand and stroked it gently. Every fiber in him was singing; then he remembered Karima and their forthcoming meeting in a few hours. Clouds suddenly darkened his mood. He had loved more than one woman before, but now when he was with Karima, Elham pulled him, and vice versa. If only he could make them one person, one soul, one body!
“Have you ever been in love before?” he asked, trying to blot out his thoughts.
“No, never. Childhood romances maybe. I was once in love with a film star who is long since dead. No, Saber, I have never loved before. I was engaged once, but we broke up when he asked me to leave my job. My colleagues at work, they make their passes, that’s inevitable. I’ll tell you all about that later, if you promise that you won’t leave; well, at least not forget Cairo.”
“If I go to the ends of the earth, I’ll never forget Cairo.”
“That’s good to hear. Now tell me what you know about love.”
“I never knew it could be like this.”
“I know a little about life, and I feel that when I look into your eyes I see a person of great goodness.”
He quickly hid his surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Please don’t ask me to explain. You, you, it’s something in the look in your eyes. It’s reassuring, confident.”
Oh. These beautiful, blue, unseeing eyes. Me, a good person? What about the old days? Where have the wild nights gone? Have they vanished without a trace? Oh, Father, please come and save me from my predicament.
“I don’t want to praise myself, but my love for you, Elham, proves to me that I’m a better person than I thought I was,” he said, half believing himself.
“You’re better than that. Look at the relentless way you are looking for your brother. Did you ever know him?”
“No.”
“And yet you are searching for him as though you knew him all your life. This alone proves to me what a noble person you are.”
Damn! All my lying. Elham’s words are as empty as a silence.
“I’ve only been asked to look for him, just like any other task.”
“No. Even if you find him, that won’t be to your advantage, at least materially; don’t deny your good qualities.”
Karima, like him, had been rubbed in the dirt for a long time. They had that in common. They could communicate, even at a distance. At the climax of their lovemaking she would whisper, “When will the obstacle to our love vanish?” That would fill him with fear, a fear compounded in the dark love nest, a darkness that could easily lead to crime.
Karima wouldn’t imagine that he could kill just to avenge another woman. Yet he had done so before. He had blood on his hands; it was not a new experience for him.
The old man’s clinging to life had no meaning except to drive him to an inevitable end. Elham, you have fallen in love with a criminal. I’ll go mad if I continue lying to you.
The thought of murder fills your mind. You’ve done it before. Confess…Confess that you are worthless and poor, and that Reheimy is your father, not your brother. Confess that without him you are not worth a fistful of dust. Confess your past. She’ll scream with fright and pain. The light in her eyes will go out. Then she’ll discover the truth. If your mother had brought you up properly, you would have been a successful pimp by now. But no…she protected you in her golden cage, and now you suffer eternal torture. She resurrected your father and thus took away from you the comforts of despair and hopelessness.
“My mother thinks you should start a business in Cairo. She knows a lot about you,” said Elham, interrupting his thoughts.
r /> Mother! He feared mothers. Like his mother, she might find out the truth. She wouldn’t be fooled by the look in his eyes.
“What kind of business?”
“That depends on what you can do.”
Drinking, dancing, fighting, and lovemaking.
“Real estate management is the only thing I know.”
“I don’t know anything about your schooling.”
He remembered that transient phase in his life. His brief sojourns in Arabic and foreign schools.
“My father didn’t give me the chance to finish my education. He needed me to help him, especially when he fell ill.”
“Think of some business. I’ve got some friends who can help you.”
“All right. But I must first consult my father.”
They got up to leave. “I wish I could kiss you, Elham, but it’s impossible here.”
His senses all screamed out: Leave Elham. She’s like your father, full of promise but only a dream. Karima is just an extension of your mother. She represents pleasure and crime. Go back to Alexandria. Pimp for your enemies. Kill. Take Karima; take her money. Draw Reheimy out of the darkness. Marry Elham. Cairo winters are cruel. Streets are crowded, a marketplace of humanity. There you are lost in a fruitless search. You can have any woman you choose, offering a life of pleasure and no worries. But instead you choose Reheimy. Maybe he’s just a charlatan who convinced your mother he was somebody.
You must have seen your father a thousand times every day while scanning the countless faces in the Cairo streets. He rejects you, or perhaps fears you. Maybe he’s dead? Winter speeds up the darkness. It springs upon you suddenly and closes over you like the waves, drawing you in.
The porter of the hotel had told him of a soothsayer; perhaps he might help. He had gone to him, only to find that he had been arrested as a humbug. Since when was that a crime? The hotel became his prison. The lounge was filled with people, smoke, and noise. The faces changed, but the conversation always remained the same. He heard a man ask, “But doesn’t that mean the end of the world?”
“To hell with it,” said another.
Laughter and smoke filled the room. A man asked him, “Are you for the East or the West?”
“Neither,” he replied disinterestedly. Then he remembered his plight and said, “I am for war…”
Nine
Karima didn’t come that night. He lay on his bed in an alcoholic stupor imagining the absent lovemaking, trying to quench his lust. It was past midnight and still no Karima. She had never missed a night in his arms before. He kept a constant vigil all night, gradually losing all hope of her turning up. The dawn prayer announced the end of his hopeless wait. He slept for a few hours and woke up at ten.
As Saber breakfasted in the lounge, he watched the old man chat with the doorman. When will he wake up and find the old man not at his desk? How was he going to ask Karima about her absence last night? A heated argument broke out between two of the residents. He watched the vigorous gesticulations and the empty threats. Intensely annoyed, he got up and walked out of the hotel.
At lunch Elham looked serious. He felt much better than he had earlier. He always did when he saw her. “Our meeting every day is the only meaningful thing in my life,” he told her with happiness clearly ringing in his voice.
“I don’t cease to think about us,” she said, looking at him with love and tenderness in her eyes.
He felt a tightness in his chest at her innocent attempts to capture him. He felt annoyed at the nightly defeats Elham suffered at the hands of her powerful enemy. “I’m glad to hear that. Me, too, I think of nothing else.”
“Tell me, then,” she said coyly.
“I think of work, and marriage.”
“So you’re finally convinced by my suggestion?”
“Yes, but first I must finish my mission here, one way or the other; then I’ll leave and make arrangements with my father.” He despised himself for his lies. How he wished he could confess all, come what may. The dilemma was something totally novel to him, a constant torment. “Let’s go to the cinema,” he said almost desperately.
They held hands in the dark. Always in the dark. But he felt at peace and kissed her hand; the gentle, intoxicating whiff of her perfume stirred his passions. He remembered the torture that lay in store for him at night. Karima. Desperately he tried to obliterate the thoughts.
“How cruel,” whispered Elham, referring to the scene from the film.
He wasn’t following, so he quickly said, “One moment away from you is far more cruel.”
He watched the scene unfolding on the screen. A man was abusing a girl. The dialogue to him was disjointed and meaningless. Just like watching people’s lives out of context, detached, disinterested. We laugh when tears are called for and cry when we are supposed to laugh. Your search for your father, for example, must appear amusing to people reading the advertisement. Will Karima come tonight? Is it going to be another night of agony and torture? He watched Elham’s face; she was following the film intently. He tried slipping his hand out of hers, but she clung tightly to it.
They walked to the bus stop; she got on, and he stood for a moment watching the bus disappear around the corner. He walked to the grocer next to the hotel, ordered a sardine and pastrami sandwich, and washed it down with half a bottle of brandy. The vigil in his room began shortly after midnight. Oh, the humiliation he suffered. Never before had he felt like this. A hungry fear, fear of futile search, fear of fear itself. The night passed slowly and no Karima.
There she was the following afternoon. Sitting next to her husband. Just as he had seen her the first time. She avoided his long, hungry look as he sat in the lounge. She didn’t know the madness of his passion, or she wouldn’t provoke him so. She got up and went upstairs. As their eyes met for a moment, there was a clear warning in her glance. What does her look mean? The old man hadn’t changed in his behavior toward her. He was too old to hide his emotions. Saber thought of following her, but as though she had read his thoughts, she raced up the stairs.
His money was running out. The search had become nothing more than a meaningless farce. The nights followed in the same monotonous pattern. A meal and heavy drinking. Hope by midnight. Waiting in the dark, night after night.
“Someone called you today,” said the doorman one evening as Saber returned, drunk as usual. The telephone. Its ring lacked the excitement and anticipation it had had previously. But still a miracle could always occur.
“A woman’s voice,” continued the doorman, noticing Saber’s indifference.
“Concerning the advertisement?”
“No. She just asked if you were here.”
Elham. He had not seen her for a couple of days. His mood was such…He lay in the dark. A knock on the door. He jumped up like a maniac, opened the door, and dragged her violently inside.
“You!” he almost screamed out. He pulled her savagely toward the bed, unable to contain his passion. “You, damn you, you devil!”
“You’re tearing my skin,” she cried.
“You tore my nerves.”
“What about me! Don’t you know how I felt?”
He tried to tear off her gown, but she struggled.
“No, no don’t. It’s dangerous. I’ve got to tell you something, then I must leave.”
“The devil himself can’t save you now,” he snarled.
“Shut up! You’re drunk. One false move, and you’ll spoil everything.”
He sat her down on the bed. “What happened?”
“When I returned to my flat the last time I was here, he was awake. I made the usual excuses for being out of the room. But I think Aly Seriakous, the porter, saw me. I’m not sure, but I’m very scared.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Perhaps. And perhaps not. We can’t risk it. We’ll lose everything. Love, hope, our future. One word from him will condemn us to eternal poverty and misery. Don’t you ever forget that.” She sighed heavily, then con
tinued: “That’s why I stopped coming to you. I obviously couldn’t explain to you before. I imagined your torture through mine. But my husband has given me all his wealth only on the condition that I’m absolutely faithful to him. He told me I’m his hands, eyes, daughter, wife; in fact, everything. I must be true to him during his few remaining days.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“I must stop coming here.”
“But this is madness!” he growled.
“This is the only sane thing to do.”
“How long must I wait? Till when?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed.
“My money will run out, and I’ll have to leave.”
“I can give you some to keep you here as long as possible.”
“That won’t change the inevitable.”
“I know. But what can we do? I’m suffering just as you are.”
“My plight is worse. I’m threatened with torture and poverty.”
“I’m suffering for both of us. Why can’t you realize this?”
“When will the old man die?” he muttered to himself.
“Do you think I know? I’m not a clairvoyant.”
“Then what are you?” he snapped.
“An unhappy woman. Unhappier than you can imagine.”
“Maybe death will answer our call, and he’ll die suddenly.”
“Maybe.”
“He’s an old man; he can’t live forever.”
“He might die tonight or in twenty years’ time. His elder sister died two years ago,” she said with a sigh. Dawn, the cock crowing, the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. “There’s nothing we can do. I must go.”
“I won’t see you unless he dies?”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
“There is,” he said forcefully. The silence was deafening. He continued: “We’ve so far spoken in riddles, in the dark. We are going to speak frankly now. I must kill him!”
Her body trembled and so did her voice. “You don’t really believe what you’re saying. I’m not cruel or savage. My only fault is that I love you beyond measure. We must wait.”