She was screaming and I screamed too as I went out, saying, 'I'm not going to wait!'
She followed me with her cries.
At the station I saw Captain Wasfi again.
He came towards me as I was adjusting the horse's saddle and hanging the satchels on either side. He didn't ask me where I was going but stood in front of me and said, his face ashen and a look of determination in his eyes, 'Your Excellency, I wanted to explain to Your Excellency…'
'Explain nothing,' I said. 'I don't want to hear any explanations. It's life itself that's at fault.'
'Pardon. I didn't understand Your Excellency's meaning. What is life at fault about?'
'You'll work everything out on your own. Or rather, you worked it out long ago.'
And as I mounted, I said, as an aside, 'But I advise you all the same to set things straight with Salmawi.'
Contemptuously he said, 'Salmawi? And who might he be?'
'He is who he is. Forget what I told you and do as you wish, but don't send him or anyone else after me. Or, better still, send him and Sergeant Ibraheem to the house immediately. The madame may need something from them. Understand?'
'Yes, sir!'
I spurred the horse on and exited the station. I didn't stop at the house but took the road to Aghurmi, galloping through the gardens in the late afternoon light. As usual I saw a few zaggala and boys standing in front of the gardens but I paid them no attention. I drew close to the place where one turns off to the left to go to Sheikh Yahya's garden. Your advice was of no use to me, you goodly sheikh, and your medicines were of no use to Fiona. Maybe the medicines will work for Fiona, and it was just your advice to me that didn't. What's to be done, Sheikh Yahya, when all the wisdom in the world cannot bring rest to the heart? The fault indeed lies with life itself. I didn't choose my life. I didn't choose to come to this oasis or that Maleeka should enter my house or that Fiona should come to the heart of the desert.
All I asked was that she live, nothing more. I came to you so you could help me, but you didn't see me.
I suddenly became aware of the noise of donkeys and an army of zaggala riding them appeared in front of me, deliberately taking up position so as to block the road. The horse suddenly reared, then stopped and started impatiently pawing the ground. They were looking at me challengingly, in silence, shaking their legs where they dangled in their long white trousers with a monotonous motion. I patted the horse's neck as I shouted in fury, 'No!'
I have waited for you to do something for an age and you did nothing, so don't delay me now! Then I spurred my horse on, saying, 'Don't let me down now, my friend!' I charged towards them at full gallop and the zaggala were seized by sudden terror and jumped to the ground, while their donkeys collided and brayed and cleared the road for the horse, which dashed through the middle of them, knocking into them on either side, and they started running off in all directions, their owners shouting and uttering curses.
Do what you like. Nothing will do in this faulty world but what is itself faulty.
I galloped till I reached the temple.
Its columns stood out very clearly in the ruddy rays of the sun, which was preparing to set.
The entrance columns, from which the stone flew to smash Ibraheem's leg, seemed tall to me, but I couldn't see the carvings engraved on them, the carvings that had so preoccupied Catherine that it hadn't bothered her, as she deciphered their spells, to see her sister dying before her eyes. No, don't talk of death! But anyway, could these carvings really deserve such concern? All that foolishness, and around her sister she could see the shadow of death?
On! No time to lose. The sun's disc had started to drop below the horizon of immortality that Wasfi extols. We won't let it go alone!
I leapt from the horse. There were many ghosts here around this temple. I could feel them without seeing them. Ghosts of the pharaohs? Ghosts of the palm trees? Ghosts of the murderers? Who had sent them after me? Sabir and Wasfi? Tal'at? Harvey? Catherine?
A murmuring and a muttering filled my ears. Braying of donkeys, horses' hoofs, singing and the beating of drums. All the sounds of this small, closed world. No! I must finish the job before I lose my mind. I must settle accounts swiftly.
I grasped the horse's neck and turned its head towards me, and it stared at me with its bloodshot black eyes. What are you trying to tell me? That there's no time left? That maybe you can take me to some other place where we can make a new start? But it's not in my fate to be saved. If pain, toil and the thrusts of betrayal and injustice were a price that could purchase salvation, I would have been saved, and everybody else would have been saved with me. So off with you! I took the saddlebags, smacked his rump and shooed him away, but he dawdled, unwilling to move. I chased him to the edge of the palm trees and left him on the road, where he remained standing, snorting and pawing the ground with his hoofs. Let him. The important thing was for him to be far enough away.
I returned to the temple and stood for a moment contemplating it, the bags over my shoulder. So this was the glory the British were revealing to us so that we could know we had once been giants and were now dwarves!
The ancestors, jolly good! The grandchildren, though — fit for nothing but occupation.
Wasfi was very proud of this discovery, which kept the masters masters! This nightmare had to end. I didn't believe what Sheikh Yahya had said of Maleeka, that she had loved these accursed ruins and seen beauty in them, and that he had loved them for her sake.
I didn't believe it! Maleeka and Wasfi could have nothing in common!
The sheikh, as his mind wandered, imagined things, and all these phantoms of the past had to disappear.
I took the sticks of dynamite out of the saddlebags and entered the temple. A lot of sticks here, beneath the entranceway that supports the whole structure. Then to the inside. Here remains of columns formed entrances and chambers full of carvings, carvings of the dead.
All was well. What I had was enough. More sticks beneath the walls themselves. Not a trace must remain of the temple. We had to be done with all the stories of the ancestors if the descendants were to wake from their delusions of greatness and their false complacency. One day they'd thank me! They'd have to thank me!
I extended a fuse from beneath the columns and the edifice to the outside.
The horse was still where I'd left it, snorting angrily. All was well. Was that the sound of his hoofs pawing the ground, or of other hoofs, or more of those tricks that my hearing played on me?
It didn't matter. I had to make haste. I lit the end of the fuse that extended from the bottom of the structure and stood and waited. Why did the spark move so slowly? On, holy fire! Devour the holy temple so that we can be done with all these fables!
Then something happened. Much hubbub and many approaching voices. On!
Explosions and a shower of stones flying through space. I would have preferred the whole temple to catch fire. What do you say, Catherine? Will these stones do to build a new, solid flight of steps? Will they do for a house?
Or perhaps another tomb? Do what you like with them but you won't find any carvings on them from now on. I swear I'll not leave you a single carving!
Forgive me, Maleeka, you were braver than I. And forgive me, Fiona, because I couldn't wait, and forgive me, Ibraheem, for I've gone on ahead of you as I promised you I would, though the stones fall around me and not on top of me. Why, then, am I waiting outside? Is cowardice going to take me again at the last moment? No! I'm coming! On! Into the temple!
I run but fall to the ground before I get there. Before I fall, I see it bounding towards me. The stone smacks against my head, I fall, and sleep overcomes me, but I wake again and put my hand to my head and neck and feel the stickiness and warmth of blood and touch the large splinter that has fastened itself in my neck. I try to pull it out with my listless hand but fail. There is no pain. And suddenly a light blazes up inside me. Yes, now I see everything, understand everything in life that I failed to grasp. I try to raise my head but can't. The light dies down to be replaced by the onslaught of heavy slumber and I hear a deep, tremulous voice crying my name as though weeping, and I say, as I close my eyes, 'Thank you. Thank you for coming too late.'