The child threw down the empty cookie box and began to moan softly, waving his hands in Medhat’s direction as if to remind him of his paternal responsibilities. But Medhat, who was still preoccupied with the unexpected return of his friend Teymour, appeared to take no notice. The fact that Teymour had stayed away for six years, parading around foreign capitals, seemed as unexceptional to Medhat as if he had been living all that time in a neighboring village. He couldn’t imagine showing the slightest consideration to someone because of a mere question of distance; this would have been like rewarding ignorance. From the very outset Medhat had been stunned by Teymour’s departure; he saw the move as a childish, almost infantile, defect. What was it Teymour had hoped to find by going away? His leaving was not only a betrayal of Medhat, it was also the negation of their shared idea of pleasure, which consisted of enjoying life in all its most basic and ludicrous manifestations. And where on earth were such ingredients more numerous and more obvious than in this very city where at every step the bizarre and the humdrum seemed spontaneously to cross paths? Such a coalition of fundamental absurdities and vain idiocies was not to be found elsewhere. At times Medhat wondered if these enigmatic human beings, these creatures with their unsuspected ways of thinking who moved around him, were part of a living reality or an imagined one — so easily did their actions attain a kind of outrageous lunacy. He had always had the foresight to be at the center of a mysterious and unfathomable universe, more captivating than any other. Having no ambitions of the material sort, thumbing his nose at money and honors, he had found a way to lead a life that cost him little but was rich in leisure, allowing him to increase his already profound knowledge of his city. His contributions to the local newspaper were reduced to one or two articles a month on the destitution of the sugar refinery workers, written in a satiric, provocative tone for which he had acquired a reputation as a subversive. He was not unaware that he was being monitored by the chief of police, who took him for a fearsome conspirator. He reveled in the ineffable absurdity of the authorities’ distrust, for if Medhat did any conspiring whatsoever, it was not with a political aim, but rather always in the hope of creating an amusement of some sort. At the very moment the chief of police was suspecting him of concocting the most horrid plots against the government, Medhat was using every marvel of ingenuity and patience with the aim of debauching a girl whose parents kept her on a very short leash. He could often be found whispering in his friends’ ears, running around the city with a dubious purpose and a secretive air, or stopping for hours beneath a porte-cochère staring at a window in a house across the way. His every move was noted in high places as if its aim were to bring down the regime. Medhat had been fueling this misunderstanding for years, and he got extraordinary satisfaction from it, the likes of which Teymour could never have known abroad. But no doubt that fool was now impervious to the humor of such a situation and was luxuriating in an exorbitant melancholy that could interfere with their future relations. For this reason, Medhat was determined to take away Teymour’s martyr’s crown by refusing to listen to his grievances. He was yanked from his daydreams when Nuri entered the bedroom.
“Lunch is ready,” she said.
Nuri seemed hardly to have outgrown childhood. Dressed becomingly in a cotton shift with a pattern of bright yellow flowers, her hair concealed beneath a black net kerchief, she was wearing with remarkable dignity an array of fake gold and colored-glass jewelry which gave her the appearance of a young sultana who had magically materialized inside a poor man’s home to bring it affluence and prosperity. All these trinkets were scarcely worth a few piasters and were gifts from Medhat, who loved to see her thus adorned with mock riches. She remained motionless, in an attitude of total submission, with her eyes lowered as if gratitude forbade her from looking her husband in the face. This behavior annoyed Medhat who had not yet managed to free her from the sense of her sin and her feeling of indebtedness to him. No matter how often he repeated that she owed him nothing, that he had married her because he was madly in love with her, she remained obstinate in her noxious gratitude. Medhat jumped to the foot of the bed, took the child in his arms and lifted him in the air several times. The child stopped moaning and smiled contentedly.
“I’m going to make him into a monkey trainer,” he said to the young woman. “What do you think of that?”
“Whatever you like,” answered Nuri. “You are the master.”
Medhat placed the child on the floor; then, as if he had just realized he was late for an important rendezvous, he raced toward the door.
“I’ve got to go,” he cried to the young woman. “Don’t wait lunch for me.”
He was practically running as he left the house. He had lost all this time waiting for Teymour, and now because of that renegade he would probably be too late for his meeting. He was hurrying, full of rancor against his childhood friend, when he saw him zigzagging along the alleyway, looking dazed, as if trying to find his way through a maze. The sight made Medhat’s heart skip a beat and for a second he stopped, wonderfully dumbfounded. All his love for Teymour came bursting forth at once. Teymour had not yet recognized him; he was coming toward Medhat, groping about like a blind man. Medhat took a deep breath and feigned total nonchalance. He went up to Teymour as if he had seen him the previous day, and, taking his arm and pulling him along, said:
“Ah, here you are at last! We will just make it!”
This cavalier greeting flabbergasted Teymour. He let himself be carried along by Medhat, appalled by his monstrous indifference. Medhat had not seen him in six years, and yet he was greeting him as if he had never left the country, not asking about his health, not even seeming surprised to see him again. Such behavior was insulting at the very least, but Teymour felt no anger whatsoever, so outrageous did this conduct seem.
“Where are you dragging me?”
“You’ll see,” answered Medhat. “We have to hurry. We’ll be late.”
Medhat had a mischievous smile and the feverishness of someone about to miss an extraordinary event. He wasn’t looking at Teymour. He was pulling him by the arm while guiding him across potholes and puddles. Teymour was too stunned to react to this pressure, this haste toward an unknown goal. He followed Medhat without the slightest resistance, his spirit obeying a kind of imperious fatalism. Medhat’s strange behavior made Teymour suspicious but, at the same time, it was somehow reassuring. Medhat had not changed in the least. He had always had a penchant for mystery and conspiracy — but still, what was keeping him from showing a minimum of civility toward a friend whom he was seeing again after such a long absence? This was the only thing that remained incomprehensible to Teymour, and he was angry at Medhat for having transformed a happy reunion into this ridiculous race through horrid back streets full of refuse and waste of all sorts.