She was intrigued. "What part is that, exactly?"
"She is a bedouin girl who loves a wily fisherman — one of those men who make a game out of love. He scorns her at first, but she tames him eventually. By the end he is wrapped around her little finger."
"Could I really play that?"
"I am talking about an artistic instinct," Ragab replied. "One that producers and distributors alike believe in. Just a minute — pucker your lips. Show me how you kiss. Beware of being embarrassed. Embarrassment is the enemy of the art of acting. Now, in front of everyone, a real kiss, real in every sense of the word. A kiss after which the international situation must surely improve…"
He put his long, strong arms around her, and their lips met with force and warmth, in a silence unbroken even by the gurgling of the pipe. Then Mustafa Rashid cried: "That was a glimpse of the Absolute I've been wearing myself out trying to find!"
"Maestro and maestra!" Khalid gushed. "My congratulations! Indeed, we must all congratulate ourselves; we must salute this splendid moment of civilization. Now we can say that Fascism has been completely routed! That Euclid's axioms have been demolished! Sana — no surnames from now on — please accept my sincere acclaim…"
Layla smiled. "For goodness' sake," she said, "let someone else speak."
"Jealousy is not an instinct, as the ignorant maintain," Khalid said ruefully. "It is the legacy of feudalism."
_I am not a whore._ Damnation! Oh, smell of the Nile, heavy with the scent of a dusty, exhausting journey. There is an ancient tree in Brazil that stood on the earth before the Pyramids existed. Am I alone among these drugged minds to laugh in the face of this unstoppable turn in history's tide? Am I alone when it whispers in my ear that forty knocks on the door will make the impossible come true? When will I play football with the planets? One day long ago I was forced into a bloody battle, and I alone am keeping the adversaries apart…
Outside, beyond the balcony, a bat sped past like a bullet. Anis contemplated the decorations on the brass tray, interlinking circles separated by gold and silver spangles, now veiled by ash and scraps of tobacco. For a while he dozed, insensible, where he sat, and when he opened his eyes he found that Mustafa Rashid and Ahmad Nasr had gone. The door of the room overlooking the garden was closed on Layla and Khalid; and Saniya and Ali were in the middle room. As for Ragab and Sana, they were standing out on the balcony, murmuring to each other. The only room left empty was his own, and more than likely his door as well would be shut in his face that night.
The lovers were talking.
"Certainly not!"
"'Certainly not'? That's not a very suitable reply, considering the age we live in."
"I should be studying with a girlfriend."
"Well, let it be study with a boyfriend."
Anis stretched out his leg and knocked against the water pipe. It toppled over, and the black spittle poured out and spread toward the threshold of the balcony.
There was no importance to anything. Even rest had no meaning. And Man had invented nothing more sincere than farce.
Then Amm Abduh's great height was blocking the light from the midge-surrounded lamp.
"Is it time?" the old man asked.
"Yes."
Amm Abduh began to collect the things and sweep up the scraps with great care. Then he looked at Anis. "When will you go to your room?"
"There is a new bride in there…"
"Ah!"
"Don't you like it?"
Amm Abduh laughed. "The street girls are nicer — and cheaper."
Anis roared with laughter. His voice rang out over the surface of the Nile. "You ignorant old man," he said. "Do you think these women are like those girls?"
"Have they got more legs, then?"
"Of course not, but they are respectable ladies!"
"Ah!"
"They don't sell themselves. They give and take, just like men."
"Ah!"
"Ah!" Anis mimicked.
"So will you sleep out on the balcony until the dew comes to wash your face?" Amm Abduh asked; and he saluted him as he left, announcing that he was going to give the call to the dawn prayer.
Anis looked at the stars. He began to count as many as he could. The counting exhausted him… and then a breeze came scented from the palace gardens. The Caliph Harun al-Rashid was sitting on a couch under an apricot tree, and the courtesans were dallying around him. You were pouring him some wine from a golden jug. The Caliph, the Commander of the Faithful, became finer and finer until he was more transparent than the wind. "Bring me what you have there!" he said to you.
But you had nothing with you, so you said that you were already dead. But then the servant girl plucked the strings of her lute and sang:
_"I recall the days of love's fever,
Bent o'er my heart for fear it will break
Gone are love's evenings forever,
Let the tears then fall from your eyes…"_
Harun al-Rashid was so transported that he tapped his hands and feet, and you said: Now is your chance, and slipped lightly away; but the giant guard saw you and came toward you; and you ran, and he ran after you, unsheathing his sword, and you screamed, calling for help to the Family of the Prophet; and he swore that they would put you in the prison of the palace…
5
Refreshed by a cold shower, Anis gave himself up to the sunset. A somnolent, all-pervasive calm reigned. Flocks of pigeons made a white horizon over the Nile. If he could only invite the Director General to the houseboat, then he would be guaranteed a life as peaceful as the sunset, free of its present rankling thorns. He sipped the last of the bitter black coffee. He had mixed a little magic into it, and now he licked out the dregs with his tongue.
The friends arrived all together — as did Ragab and Sana. They had been inseparable all week, and Sana had finally become acquainted with the water pipe — at which Ahmad Nasr had whispered in Ragab's ear, "She's a minor!" And Ragab had whispered back, propping his elbow on Anis' knee: "I'm not the first artist in her life!" And Layla Zaydan had pronounced: "Woe betide those who respect love in an age when love has no respect!"
Ahmad found no one to whom he could expound his conservative ideas — save the peaceable Anis, to whom he said, leaning toward him: "Wonderful, the way yesterday's whore becomes today's philosopher!"
"That," replied Anis, "is the way it usually goes with philosophy."
Then Ali al-Sayyid snapped his fingers, causing heads to turn toward him. "By the way," he began in a serious tone, "I have a message to relay, before you all become too addled."
When he had the attention of some of the company, he continued in a clear voice: "Samara Bahgat wishes to visit the houseboat!"
Now the interest was universal. All eyes were fixed upon him, including those of Anis, though he continued to minister to the water pipe.
"The journalist?"
"The same. My beautiful and renowned colleague."
A silence fell while this news was digested. Unreadable glances were exchanged. "But why does she want to visit us?" Ahmad inquired finally.
"I am the one who has made her interested in you. We've had many long conversations about the houseboat."
"You've got a loose tongue," Ragab remarked. "But does your friend _like_ houseboats?"
"It's not so much whether she does or not — more that she knows, or has heard, about more than one person here. Myself, being a colleague and friend, and Khalid Azzuz because of his stories, and you from your films — "
"Does she have any idea of what goes on here?"
"I think so. She is not completely unfamiliar with our world, because of her work, and her general experience of life."
"If we are to judge her on the strength of what she writes, then she is an alarmingly serious person," Ragab said.