Blinking in confusion, she replied, “Give me one piaster’s worth of Tahania sweets.”
He took a knife, cut an ample portion, and, slicing a little extra piece, he said to her in a low voice, “This slice is for you alone, Miss Nefisa.”
He wrapped up the sweet in a paper and handed it to her, then took the piaster, watching his father out of the corner of his eye. Noting that his father was busy working on his ledger, he became encouraged.
“I shall keep your piaster for good luck.”
She smiled faintly and went away. She had smiled deliberately as if she wanted to encourage him. That cost her a great effort. He is no longer content with the language of the eyes, and he did well when he spoke, she thought, and in spite of his humble position and appearance, her heart beat with delight and she was overcome with excitement. Before it actually happened, she had played the scene over in her mind while she was engaged in her work for the bride. Reality turned out to be only slightly different from her imagination. She had imagined herself standing before him to buy Tahania sweets, and he, devouring her with his eyes, had said to her, as he was taking the piaster, “You are sweeter than sweet.” He hadn’t actually said that, but he’d said something similar. She sighed with relief and her imagination flew to the memories of her past loves! Her first was a minister whose picture she had seen in Al Musawar magazine, and she had embroidered around his picture some rosy daydreams in which she imagined herself begetting a unique child by him. The second was Farid Effendi Mohammed himself, and because of her love for him, she quarreled with his wife and family. As for Soliman, he was the worst of the lot. Yet he was the only one who actually existed.
When she reached the middle of the courtyard, she began to fear that her mother would scold her for spending the whole day outside the house. This aroused her resentment and she imagined herself replying: “Stop scolding me, I can no longer bear it. What I am suffering from is enough.”
Her voice rose, ringing in the staircase. Cautiously, she looked around her, and with her fingers suppressed a laugh that almost escaped her lips.
TWENTY-ONE
Hassanein left Farid Effendi Muhammed’s flat and closed the door behind him. He was extremely depressed. He walked toward the stairs, suffering with despair and frustration. But he stopped, putting his hand on the banister. He raised his head to follow the rustle of a dress. He saw the hem as the wearer climbed the last flight of stairs leading to the roof of the house. Who was it? He knew all the occupants of the house very well. Which of them was it, dressed in that red color? His heart beat violently, and he felt some power urging him to climb upward. He cast a wary look at the closed door and listened with attention and anxiety. On tiptoe, he crossed the corridor in front of the flat and walked toward the last flight of stairs leading to the roof. Perhaps it was she. He had seen her no more, either in the room or in the hall, since he threw his folded letter at her feet. She had disappeared in anger, and was, undoubtedly, indifferent to his letter and emotions. Thus the teaching hours became tedious and a torture to him. Noiselessly he climbed up the stairs until he reached the last flight. He saw the slanting rays of the setting sun level with his eyes. Waves of gentle breezes blew on his forehead. He looked all over the roof, from its front ledge overlooking the alley to its back ledge; but he found no trace of a human being. There was nothing on the roof but two wooden chicken houses. One of them faced the door to the roof, and the other, which belonged to Farid Effendi’s family, stood in a corner beside the back ledge. He silently approached the second chicken house and stood near the door, pricking his ears. At first, he heard only the cackle of chickens. Then he heard a voice clucking to the chickens. He could not tell whose voice it was. Afraid that the girl’s mother might be inside, he retreated a step. He was about to flee. But the door opened, and on its threshold appeared Bahia in a red overcoat. Her blue eyes widened in amazement, and they were fixed dumbfounded on him. She blushed so intensely that her face resembled the red velvet of her overcoat, but her blush lasted only for a few moments. Then, controlling her feelings, she crossed the threshold and closed the door. She went away from him, walking toward the door of the roof. But he did not allow her to escape, leaping to block her way. She gave him an angry look and indignantly straightened her head.
“This is too much!” she exclaimed.
In a mixture of daring and tenderness, he replied, “Always angry! I wonder at my bad luck, always finding you angry.”
She looked annoyed. “Let me pass, please,” she said.
He stretched out his arms as if to block her way altogether. “This is an opportunity I couldn’t dream of,” he said. “So I can’t allow it to slip from my hands. After your deliberate disappearance which caused me the most painful torture, I have the right to keep you for a while. Why do you disappear? Let me ask you: How did you like my letter?”
She frowned. “You mention that paper!” she said sharply. “How brazen of you! I don’t approve of it.”
His look at her wavered between hope and fear, and he thought: Should I believe this anger? My heart tells me that it is exaggerated. Perhaps it is a symptom of shyness. Surely it is. If she had really wanted to force her way, I couldn’t have stopped her. I don’t want to believe it. But why did she insist on disappearing?
“My brazenness is the result of exhausted patience!” he said to her beseechingly.
She shook her head with annoyance. “Patience,” she muttered. “Do not play with such words, and let me go, please!”
“I have told you nothing but the truth,” he said with warmth and sincerity, “and it was my true feeling alone which urged me to write that short letter. Every word in it is true. So I am terribly offended to find that you recoil so angrily at my feelings.”
Panting, he swallowed hard, then corrected himself. “Yes,” he said with a sob. “I love you.”
She turned her head away, still frowning, her brows closely knit and her lips tight. But when she kept silent for a while, a fresh gleam of hope revived in him. Then she said in a voice that was softer than before, “Let me go. Aren’t you afraid someone may come up to the roof and find us?”