He laughed, in a way that dispensed with a reply. "Our friends pay the rent on the boat, and the expenses of our evening parties, but…"
"It is rare that someone is actually dismissed."
"He will tell every living person that I am a degenerate. A drug addict!"
"How dreadful! One catastrophe after another."
They withdrew into themselves.
And then the houseboat shook, again and again. The friends all came in together, and their faces were strange.
They fear trouble from Samara, Anis thought. Ragab asked him, pointing to the water pipe, why it was not filled and lit, and he replied that there was nothing to put in it. He thought: He's trying to make light of it, but in vain. It seemed that they all knew about the newspaper report, and it was not long before they also learned of his downfall at the hands of the Director General. "What disasters!" sighed Ali.
"We must get rid of the pipe immediately," said Ahmad earnestly.
They glared at him.
"The Director General could well organize a raid on the houseboat!" he argued; and then and there he rose to his feet, and hurled the pipe and the tobacco into the Nile. Then he threw himself down on a mattress. "We should consider this place a danger zone until things clear up," he said.
They looked at each other in undisguised misery. "Paradise has gone," said Anis.
And when no one replied, he spoke again. "That trip was doomed from the start. Why did you think of going out?"
"We must forget what is past," Ragab said sharply.
Samara snorted. "How can we forget, when there is a murdered man behind us!"
"That is why we must forget!" said Ragab harshly.
"It's beyond the bounds of possibility."
Ragab looked at her for a long time. No one knows what is going on in his head; no one knows about the trials of love. Could things get even worse than they already are? Ragab looked at everyone in turn. "I guessed what would happen here before I came," he said. "Now that we are at a distance from the event and at liberty to think calmly, we must declare our positions."
"I thought we had decided that it was all over!" said Ali in annoyance.
"It seems that Samara has another opinion!"
"Please don't go over all that again," said Saniya anxiously. "I'm completely broken down already."
"I spent a hellish night," added Layla. "We have a lot of suffering ahead of us. That is enough, surely."
Ragab said again: "But it seems, as I said, that Samara is of a different opinion."
Ali turned to Samara. The tone of his voice was grave and sad. "Samara," he said, "tell me what you think. We are all grief-stricken — agonized. None of us has had a wink of sleep. There is not one of us who likes murder, or could even imagine committing it. We share in your feelings, and the news has cut us to the quick. A poor man — perhaps migrating from the country. A stranger with no family. There is no way that we can right the wrong. How could there be? If it turns out that he has a family, then we will find a way of compensating them, but what can we do now?"
She did not utter a word; nor did she raise her eyes to his.
"Perhaps you are saying to yourself that our duty is clear," he continued. "Theoretically, that is true. We should have stopped, not fled; and when we were sure that he was dead, we should have gone to the nearest police station and made our statements of guilt, and then gone through the courts and paid the full price — is that not so?"
"Which in my case would be prison without doubt!" said Ragab.
"And appalling disgrace for everyone, including you!" added Ali.
"And even then the man would not rise from the dead, or benefit from our sacrifices in any way!" said Mustafa.
Ali spoke again. "I know you better than the others do," he went on. "You are an exemplary girl in every sense, but a little adaptability is essential if we are not to collapse under the burdens of life. This is an unfortunate accident, not a matter where country or principle is at stake. The question is simple. An unknown man was killed by mistake; and there is a responsibility which I do not deny. The stupidity of it is obvious. I wish to God it had not happened! But are we all of so little importance to you? Do you really wish to sacrifice our happiness and honor — and let me add, yours as well — for the sake of nothing?"
"I shall be good for nothing after this!" she murmured, sighing.
"That is a groundless fear. Thousands are killed every day without reason, and the world does not grind to a halt. You will always find opportunities for work, and a tolerant attitude toward us won't make you any less keen, or clever, or stop you from getting to the bottom of things — or anything else you care to name! Perhaps it will make you redouble your efforts."
"As do feelings of sin sometimes?" she said.
"But it is not your sin, at any rate; and these situations are apt to compel us to think about everything. Ragab has really developed, because of you, at least in his attitude toward women. Think on that. Be kind."
And she said, with great bitterness: "So I am going to certain death, then!"
"We are all going to our deaths," said Khalid.
"I mean a more appalling death."
"There is nothing more appalling than death."
"There is the death that seizes you when you are still alive."
"No, no! I will not allow us to be sacrificed because of a metaphor!" protested Khalid.
And at that point Ragab shouted in great agitation: "The newspapers will report that you were in the company of men with a bad reputation, out in the dead of night, involved in criminality, in murder! Doesn't that mean anything to you at all?"
His harshness enraged her, and she cried vehemently: "No, it does not!"
Now he became incensed. "This courage is a bluff! You know that we will all stand against you!"
"Lies!"
"Then off to the police station with us!" Ragab cried — and Mustafa bellowed furiously at him: "Everything we have just tried to do, would you, with your stupidity, destroy in one second?"
Saniya rose and went over to Ragab. She touched his hand to calm him down, and kissed his forehead. Then she stood in front of Samara. "Do you really mean to sacrifice yourself and us?" she asked calmly.
"Yes," Samara persisted, still angry.
"So be it," Saniya replied. "Do with us what you will."
But before Samara could say a word, Amm Abduh entered. Everyone was silent.
He gave Anis a small package. "I nearly wore myself out getting that," he said.
"Get rid of it at once," Ahmad told Anis.
"No."
"Well, I've had my say!" Ahmad said.
"There's nothing easier than throwing it into the water if we have to."
"What has happened?" asked Amm Abduh.
Anis gave it back to Amm Abduh for him to make a cup of coffee with it. The old man took it away. His arrival had subtly altered the atmosphere.
Silence reigned. Then Mustafa said sadly: "The evil eye is upon us."
"Let's roll a joint with it — who knows…"
Ali's face shone with a sudden optimism. "I bet that Ragab will have children!"
And then Anis laughed. He laughed in spite of his tense nerves. "You've made a mountain out of a molehill," he said.
And when no one paid him any attention, he continued: "Samara is a girl of principles, but she is also a woman with a heart."
They looked at him warningly, in open displeasure, but he continued to speak. "We are indebted to love."
More than one voice implored him to be quiet, but he concluded: "For it is love that has rescued us from the judgment of principles!"
Samara, irritated, muttered: "For heaven's sake!" and then burst into a storm of crying, as if her nerves had been suddenly ravaged. Ali approached her, moved by her distress, to calm her. As for Ragab, he had thrown himself at Anis, yelling: "You! You!"