Ahmad's face twisted in pain and the words burst out of him.
But what? I don't want to be another fool lost in the past. What could I possibly talk about that would be of interest to you? To anyone? What?
Ahmad buried his huge fists in his lap.
Do you realize, he whispered, that the adventures of my life are now limited to forays up the street to the greengrocer's? That I actually have to plan my daily trip to buy vegetables and prepare myself for whatever contingencies may turn up? And that when I'm home again safely, I say a little prayer of thanksgiving because no harm came to me? And that when I wash and chop and cook my little pile of fresh vegetables for the evening meal, those vegetables represent the sum total of my accomplishments for another day?
Ahmad stared at his lap.
Greengrocery espionage, you might call it. And if the accomplishment seems meager, I can only say that for some of us even a trip to the vegetable stand is a dangerous journey to make in daylight, a torturous undertaking which requires every bit of courage we possess.
Ahmad shook his massive head.
For the same reasons I only venture downtown at night to do my forgeries. Because the streets are deserted then and I can slip through the shadows unseen by the failures that crowd my life.
Ahmad made a small sound deep in his throat.
But I'm sure you understand my situation by now. And with everything the way it is, what can I possibly talk about that would be of any interest to you?
Well there were those times back before the last war, said Joe. That's a whole world that's gone now, just as there's another world ebbing away at this very moment, and that's always been intriguing to me, how things change and why. Couldn't you tell me a little about that? About those times you used to have with Stern?
Ahmad shrugged.
I guess I could, if it really interests you. . Actually there were three of us who were always together back then in the beginning. Three of us who were the nucleus, but even then Stern used to drop out of sight from time to time. For a day or two you'd notice him growing restless, then one morning he'd be gone. Where's Stern? someone would ask, and the answer was always the same. He's off to the desert but he'll be back. And like the night and the day, Stern always did come back. Another morning or another evening and there he'd be at one of the tables in our little café, smiling and laughing and carrying on in his usual outrageous manner.
Ahmad paused.
That was before he became so involved with political ideals, you understand. Before he began to travel in connection with his political work. This period I'm talking about was back when he was still a student, when he'd just arrived from the Yemen, where he grew up.
But he used to talk to you about these sudden disappearances? asked Joe.
Oh yes, because we were so close, and also because of my little retreat out on the edge of the desert. He used to ask me if he could stay there sometimes, during the week, when I wasn't using it, and of course I was more than happy to have him there. He didn't have much money in those days and it was the least I could do for a friend.
In those days? mused Ahmad. The truth is Stern has never had any money, he can't abide it. When a little comes his way he spends it at once on friends, he's always been like that.
Ahmad smiled, gazing into the distance.
Empty hands and eyes whispering of hope, as Cohen used to say. And Stern never slept in my cottage when he went there. Instead he'd tramp off over the dunes and camp out in the wilderness like a bedouin, taking almost nothing with him. But still, there's never been anything simple about Stern. People used to think they understood him when they didn't, because there are things in Stern that won't mix. It's always been that way. .
Once more Ahmad paused, and this time he seemed to falter, as if he was afraid he was losing himself in the past. He even sneaked a timid glance at Joe, who smiled, trying to encourage him.
And that was Stern, said Joe. And who was the second member of your inner circle?
Ahmad nodded eagerly.
Well that was Cohen of course. Not the one of my father's generation, not the one who went for midnight sails on the Nile with the Sisters and my father, but his son. He was Stern's age more or less.
And what was he like?
Oh he was a colorful rascal. Very elegant and witty and a great favorite of the ladies, they couldn't resist those long dark eyelashes of his. He was a very gifted painter too, a trifle morose on occasion but that only made him more appealing to the ladies. The handsome and moody young artist, you know.
And then there was you, said Joe.
Yes, lastly there was me. Much clumsier than them in almost every respect, in everything save for music really, yet somehow I was able to provide a certain rawboned paste to their mysterious leaven. And mysterious it was, magical even, when the three of us were together. Everyone remarked upon it and we were always mentioned in the same breath, because we did seem inseparable. And oh how we carried on in the grand tradition, roaming the boulevards with a word here and a smile there, the three of us in swirling cloaks and cocked hats in the dramatic manner of Verdi, our eyes afire for whatever mischief might suddenly leap into being in front of us, whatever gaiety might swoop our way on the amazing sidewalks of life.
Ahmad smiled gently.
Later Cohen dropped out of our group to get married and raise a family. Odd, but the men in his line always seemed to be doing that.
Ahmad laughed, rubbing his knees with pleasure.
And what a line it was, those infamous Cairo Cohens. . But see here, what kind of a host am I today?
Where is your aperitif and where is our music? Forgive me, I seem to have forgotten myself.
Ahmad jumped to his feet, laughing. He dug behind a stack of newspapers and came up with a dusty bottle of banana liqueur, to all appearances as old as the newspapers. A little digging somewhere else and he found two small glasses, then busied himself over a dusty pile of primitive phonograph records, all of them warped by time. When he found the one he was looking for he placed it on an old-fashioned phonograph with a wind-up crank and a flaring sound trumpet. He vigorously worked the crank and a faint voice screeched from far away. Immediately Ahmad went into a crouch, his straw hat askew, one ear almost inside the gaping mouth of the sound trumpet.
How lovely, he said with profound satisfaction. It's Gounod's Faust and the Bulgarian who sings the part of Mephistopheles is superb. What do you suppose ever happened to him?. .
***
On the wall facing Joe, a large heroic poster from the time of the First World War advocated membership in the Young Men's Moslem Association.
WE WANT YOU, said the authoritative mullah depicted on the poster, as he pointed a bony forefinger out at the viewer. Behind the mullah a group of plumpish Moslem youths lounged beneath a flowering tree in the courtyard of an imaginary Cairo mosque, happily admiring each other's large gold wristwatches. In the distance rows of sturdy industrial smokestacks puffed thick white smoke into the air, while overhead a small primitive triplane came racing in above the pyramids, bearing the morning mail to Cairo. In all, life was humming and exceptionally clean in the poster.
Ahmad glanced up from his crouching position next to the sound trumpet. For a moment he too contemplated the poster.
What do we get from the art that obsesses us? he shouted.
I firmly believe, he shouted again, that most abstractions are simply our pseudonyms, and that we are therefore time. For surely it is in our fancy, not in reality, that the basis of our lives is to be found. .
He laughed.
Which can only mean that in addition to everything else reality is, it's also unreal.