On his way back it occurred to him to ask himself whether this painful sensation he was feeling was actually love, the hidden passion that grows within the folds of the heart, the longing that coats one’s very breath with the soul’s essence, that heavenly ecstasy that brings delight to soul and world alike, the agony that fears any failure or return to loneliness and desolation. Wasn’t it love when that lovely, simple vision settled inside his heart and became the stuff of his dreams and the source of all his hopes and agonies? Yes indeed, this was love, and he knew it perfectly well.
He went back to the Zahra Café where he found his companions chatting and sipping tea. He noticed the young boy, Muhammad, sitting beside his father and looking around the assembled company with those same honey-colored eyes. Ahmad was delighted to see him again — the boy being the envoy of his hopes — and his heart went out to him. He took his usual spot alongside Ahmad Rashid and started listening to what Sayyid Arif was saying.
“The Germans will take advantage of the thick spring fog,” he said enthusiastically, “and attack the shores of England. Then the war will be over!”
“You mean, the same way Hesse fell?” Kamal Khalil asked jokingly, so as not to be too provocative.
Sayyid Arif chose to ignore his colleague’s sarcasm. “England with all its arrogance will be flattened before it even has a chance to recover from the attack.”
“But how can Germany invade England,” Ahmad Rashid asked, “when its troops are bogged down in the terrible fighting in Russia?”
“The Fuhrer has special forces ready for the invasion of England. It’s likely England will fall even before Russia, or at least they’ll both collapse at the same time.”
“It’s obvious you know nothing about Russia,” Ahmad Rashid replied. “Socialist Russia is not the same as Czarist Russia. People in the Soviet Union are now a solid front, united by common conviction and determination. They may have retreated a bit to recover their breath, but they’ll never lay down their arms or even contemplate surrender.”
“And what about Bunker 13?” asked Sayyid Arif.
Rubbing his hands together Boss Nunu chimed in, “That must be the place to get the pills you need.…”
“If what people say about Hitler is true,” Ahmad Akif asked, “then why wouldn’t he use the contents of Bunker 13?”
“As an act of mercy on humanity in general. The Fuhrer will never resort to using that dreadful warehouse unless he finally gives up all hope of winning by normal strategic methods — God forbid!”
At this point Boss Nunu clapped his hands, called the waiter over, and asked him to bring the domino board. “Curse the whole lot of them!” he yelled in exasperation. “The Germans aren’t our mother, and the English aren’t our father either. The devil take them all to hell!”
Boss Nunu’s intervention divided them into two groups — one to play games, the other to talk. Once again Ahmad Akif found himself sitting alone with the young lawyer. He did not feel like talking and told himself he should go home again, especially since Nawal and her mother were there. But what could he do once he arrived? He would have to stay in his room. He was still pondering these ideas when he heard the lawyer talking to the young boy, Muhammad.
“It’s time you went home, Muhammad, and did your homework.”
The boy stood up with a smile that suggested he was a bit embarrassed and immediately left. Ahmad Akif was surprised at the imperious way the lawyer had spoken to the boy and equally that the boy had responded. The tone he had used was neither one of gentle counseling nor of affection for the boy’s father.
The lawyer sensed Ahmad’s surprise. “It’s amazing how much better girls are than boys.” he said. “The boy’s sister is hardworking and obedient, but Muhammad treats his lessons like nasty medicine and finds every conceivable excuse for not studying.”
How could this creep be talking about the daughter so freely? Just then an idea occurred to him, one that made his heart leap.
“Do you tutor them privately?” he asked.
Ahmad Rashid responded that indeed he did. That aroused so much resentment in Ahmad Akif that he was forced to fabricate a smile so as not to reveal what he was really feeling. Did this creep really sit down next to his girl as a tutor? Did he teach her things, tell her to learn them, and then perhaps pretend to be serious and scold her? Didn’t he have to be alone with her sometimes? Did he ever look at her with something other than a teacher’s eyes? What did she think of him? An educated young man with a bright future. His serious mien and glass eye would not stand in the way. In fact, truth to tell, he — meaning Ahmad Akif — was no better than Ahmad Rashid, although at the same time he wasn’t any lower in status either — at least as far as the plebeians and illiterates were concerned. So should he simply give up before the battle had even started?
In situations like this he wasn’t the kind of person who could muster a great deal of fighting spirit and courage; quite the contrary in fact, he would usually shrivel up and take to his heels out of a combination of embarrassment, cowardice, and arrogance. Whenever the going was tough, he would still crave the coddling atmosphere in which he had grown up. Whenever it let him down — as it inevitably did on occasion — he would withdraw into himself with a wounded heart, licking his wounds and laying all the blame on the bad luck that dogged him. If only it were men’s role to be chased after and not to do the chasing, to be the object of desire and not the initiator of it, then things would have been that much easier and the matter of love would have worked itself out. But things were not that way, indeed they were the exact opposite. What was needed was a certain manliness, suavity, and élan. How on earth did he ever expect to be successful in love? If innate traits of character could be made subject to the will of mankind, then he would have been willing to abandon his culture and his intellectual talents — his purported talents, that is — if in return he could become a skillful lover and attractive man. But there was little chance of that, so all that remained was for him to despise love, loathe women, and learn to enjoy the pleasures of lonely seclusion.
He now avoided any further conversation with the young lawyer and pretended instead to be paying attention to the radio. Time passed, and neither of them said a word. The prevailing silence was only broken when Sulayman Bey Ata was provoked by Sayyid Arif and let out an angry yell. The frenzied thoughts preoccupying Ahmad’s silence drove him to some poisonous wells from which his traumatized imagination drank deep. He surrendered to some truly demonic and terrible desires: that some insane air raid on Cairo would drop lava that would level all its buildings and pummel its inhabitants until nothing was left standing and the entire area was reduced to rubble. Only two people would be left alive, him and the girl. She would be completely his and his alone, without fear, despair, jealousy, or effort! Before his darkened eyes he could picture the city of Cairo smashed and destroyed, with two lonely people, one of them running to the other to seek shelter and protection in his arms. The other would be content to have his companion seeking shelter with him alone, forgetting all about the dust and rubble that covered him. This strange longing on his part was provoked by an overwhelming sense of oppression and suffering.
13
It was after midnight when he returned home. He shut himself in his room, feeling annoyed. Would it not be better, he wondered, to stop opening the window and instead to lock his own heart in the face of this new emotion that was rapidly turning into agony? Surely dying in peace was better than living a life of agony and torture? But in spite of everything, by the following morning he had forgotten all about his concerns. From then on he kept his daily appointment by the windowsill every afternoon. He no longer doubted for a single moment that the girl was well aware that her new neighbor was deliberately appearing at the window every afternoon and directing that bashful, timid glance at her. What, one wonders, was her heart telling her? Was she laughing at his appearance, scoffing at his middle age? Or did his shyness and apathy merely aggravate her? The amazing thing was that, as days passed, he still kept the same appointment, adhering rigidly to the time, and feeling incapable of doing anything else until he had taken a timid glance upward to the balcony. But no sooner did their eyes meet than he would immediately look away, eyelids twitching.