The lecherous nanny goat was standing guard at the corner of an alley; she cast a languorous glance at Teymour, started to come toward him, then stopped, hesitant.
Without turning to his companion, Medhat asked:
“Have you met that goat?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure, but she followed me for a while on her own initiative. I had a hard time chasing her away.”
“Congratulations.”
“For what?”
“She’s our neighborhood whore. And you’ve already won her heart. She must have been very impressed by your lovely attire. Careful she doesn’t graze on your raincoat. She adores imported fabric.”
This first allusion to his stay abroad devastated Teymour; besides the facile irony, he perceived in it a note of contemptuous antagonism. Medhat seemed extremely amused by his helplessness and distress. He was pulling him along faster and faster as if they were threatened by some danger. The nanny goat dawdled at a distance.
They crossed the bridge at top speed and once again Teymour saw the square with its horrid houses and the peasant woman standing on her pedestal, arm stretched their way as if exposing them to public condemnation. Nothing had budged. Yet Teymour was no longer gripped by the anguish he had felt in the early morning when he had sat alone at the café terrace; it was as if Medhat’s presence had brought a tiny hint of optimism to his vision, a glimmer of faint joy. The square had lost its frightening appearance; in his eyes it had become simply mediocre, just like when he was young and he and Medhat had wandered through the city streets driven by their appetite for bawdy adventures without any concern for the setting of their exploits. It seemed to Teymour that he could breathe more easily, and that the immense weight bearing down on his chest had lifted for good, leaving behind a kind of touching curiosity about this city slumbering beneath its ugliness. And, oddly, he suddenly had a premonition of everything that was hidden beneath these despicable surfaces; for the first time he looked around him at the square, the houses, and the ridiculous statue with the delighted fascination of a man contemplating treasures once lost, now found again.
This abrupt change in his state of mind gave him the courage to stop and pull his arm from Medhat’s grip. Medhat turned and stared at him in amazement.
“What’s the matter? Come on, let’s go. We’re very late.”
“Late for what?”
“You’ll see. I don’t have time to explain. It’s a very important matter.”
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”
“To The Awakening. That’s all. What did you think?”
Teymour nodded and, resigned, followed Medhat to the café terrace. Almost all the tables were now occupied by lively customers in the middle of pointless, never-ending discussions, their laughter and colorful profanities audible all around. Teymour was very surprised by this; then he recalled that it was after noon and as a result the city’s residents could, without demeaning themselves, respond to the statue’s call. So, there was an hour of the day when the nation awoke. Teymour took comfort in this thought, and with the pitiful smile of someone recovering from a coma, but not yet fully conscious, on seeing his loved ones for the first time, he turned confidently toward his companion.
Once he had carefully inspected the terrace, Medhat exclaimed with a hint of scorn:
“The wretch! He’s not here yet! Come on, let’s sit down.”
They sat at an empty table at the terrace edge and ordered coffee without sugar as if they were at a wake. Medhat remained silent, but he was visibly irritated and continually shot furious glances toward a corner of the square where the mysterious character for whom he was waiting was no doubt expected to appear. He seemed to be paying no attention whatsoever to Teymour who, although burning to ask questions, refrained from doing so, knowing it was futile to try such a tactic with his friend. He had to bide his time and allow Medhat to reveal his secret when he tired of playing the conspirator. With the detachment of a disillusioned reveler (a most striking attitude, which he had perfected abroad), Teymour too began to watch that corner of the square. The importance Medhat attached to his meeting seemed huge, given the way he had raced here and his disappointment on not seeing the person he was looking for. What kind of man was he waiting for then, and for what reasons? Without knowing why, Teymour began to grow anxious about the unknown person’s tardiness.
What if this meeting were a prelude to a real conspiracy? There was nothing implausible about this rather absurd hypothesis. Teymour had learned from his father about the rumors surrounding Medhat because of his contacts with the sugar refinery workers. People claimed that it was at Medhat’s secret directives that the majority of the strikes were being fomented. Marrying the daughter of a worker had given these rumors serious foundation; it was intimated that there were political motives behind Medhat’s having married beneath his station. All this small-town gossip seemed terribly overblown to Teymour. He thought he knew Medhat well enough to ignore all this nonsense. But what was happening at the moment confused and distressed him. Could it be that Medhat, by sheer chance, had discovered a new form of amusement in eminently dangerous intrigues? It wasn’t impossible. Once he started down the path of some entertaining adventure, Medhat could not be stopped, even if that path led to troubles of the worst kind. The problem, however, was that Teymour did not envision himself having returned to his home town to stir up strikes. He hadn’t foreseen the possibility of such a calamity.
These thoughts led him to observe his friend’s behavior with suspicion. Medhat still seemed in the grip of some inner agitation, but the nature of his feverishness had changed; now it was like the impatience of a lover worried about his mistress’s delay. With furtive gestures he smoothed his eyebrows, straightened his tie, ran his hands through his hair like a common womanizer getting ready to pounce on his prey. Once he’d finished this perfunctory primping, he sat bolt upright in his chair and struck a flattering pose, legs crossed, head thrown back, a vague, love-struck look in his eyes. While Teymour was wondering about the meaning of this little game, he saw a group of young schoolgirls file in front of the terrace, one uglier than the next, decked out in yellow canvas smocks with their schoolbags slung across their shoulders like beggars’ pouches. They made up a pathetic cross-section of the female race, and Teymour wondered in horror if it were to dazzle these ugly young girls that Medhat had pulled out his full bag of seducer’s tricks. He was in the process of being highly offended by this patent lack of taste when suddenly Medhat seemed ready to leap from his chair; he gripped Teymour’s arm and whispered in an overexcited voice:
“Look! Here they come!”
“They” were two splendid fifteen or sixteen year-old girls, braids rolled on top of their heads like tiaras, their dignified style and bearing in sharp contrast to the abject esthetic of their peers. Their schoolbooks wedged under their arms, holding each other’s hands with fingers interlaced, they walked with slow, studied steps and the obvious desire not to be confused with the rest of the herd. The harmonious lines of their lithe, slender bodies could be seen clearly beneath the rough cloth of their stylishly cut smocks. Laughing and talking to each other in hushed voices, the girls passed in front of the terrace without deigning even to glance their way, despite Medhat’s clever gesticulations to attract their attention.
“Did you see that?” cried Medhat when the girls had gone by. “Oh, if only that son of a bitch had been here!”