Although Ossama counted himself among fate’s privileged few, this magnificent bounty was the last thing he’d expected. He reread the letter several times with fierce satisfaction until he realized he was holding a bomb in his hands and he did not know how to explode it.
II
The taxi left Ossama on the outskirts of the Sayeda Zenab district. He was born in this poor quarter and had grown up here, and it was neither proper nor decent for him to be seen getting out of a taxi by people who had known him barefoot and dressed in rags. In fact, the young man only came back to this squalid neighborhood to visit his father, a former factory worker blinded when a policeman’s club struck him on the head during a riot following the rise in price of certain staples necessary for the survival of almost everyone in the country. That riot had happened before the military revolution and, since then, he had been living like a recluse in a second-floor apartment in a patched-up building, still standing thanks to the constant prayers of its tenants. Never voicing the least complaint or slightest curse against those responsible for his infirmity, old Moaz spent his days in peace, the revolution having strengthened his conviction that his sacrifice had at least served to establish a more just society for its workers. His blindness prevented him from realizing what had become of this revolution — and Ossama, who had eyes to see, refrained from informing him of its results, not wanting him to despair about long-forgotten events.
The crowd was sparser than in the city center’s wide thoroughfares, for the neighborhood did not exactly encourage strolls. There were no shop windows to entice passersby with their wares and their air of prosperity; there was nothing to see but small craft stalls, vegetable sellers, falafel stands, and other similar sorry-looking shops. A number of people who had managed to escape the world of work lounged about in the shaded sidewalk cafés, men of leisure oblivious to the hour and the rising prices. The voice of a chanteuse wailing love songs emanated from several radios at once, drowning out with a voluptuous melody the commotion of the street. As he walked, Ossama was greeted by several shopkeepers who cried out in admiration of his fancy clothes and how well he looked, and he responded to their compliments with urbane modesty. Everyone in the neighborhood, especially on his father’s street, was aware of his success in business and they congratulated him at every opportunity. Buoyed by these words of praise, he reached the house of uncertain future; it seemed unchanged since his last visit. With the air of a dying man facing his mausoleum, he stopped and inspected the front of the house propped up by beams that seemed just as rickety as the walls they were meant to support. Ossama was reckless — but not to the extent that he’d allow himself to die from a foolish mistake, with all the posthumous shame of having his body, as it was exhumed from the rubble, associated with the corpses of the lowly: that would have been such an insult to his intelligence. On many occasions he had beseeched his father to move to a more solid place, but old Moaz stubbornly refused, claiming that wherever he went it would still be the same dark night. The fact that he was unable to see the warning signs of an impending catastrophe justified his decision to ignore it. Ossama took this to mean that in certain cases blindness was a blessing. He prayed to the heavens to keep the building from falling down while he was in it, then passed through the entrance and cautiously went up the stairs, holding his breath for fear that exhaling would lead to an untimely collapse. Happily there was but one flight to climb and he quickly arrived at his father’s lodgings. The door was never locked. Ossama opened it carefully and entered a room arranged to resemble the living quarters of an honorable retired civil servant.
Old Moaz sat in front of the open window in an armchair of gilded wood and red velvet, craning his neck in the direction of the never-ending hum of the street, which seemed to be the only thing that still tied him to mankind. His noble attitude, combined with the splendor of the seat he occupied, brought to mind a fallen monarch who had carried into exile nothing save his throne, a symbol of his lost authority. Ossama’s intrusion did not in any way change the expression of pleasure on Moaz’s face as he listened to the discordant sounds of the traffic and the street peddlers’ colorful calls. Without turning around he asked:
“Is that you, Zakiya?”
“It’s only me, Father.”
The blind man turned his face toward his son, focusing on him with the intensity of a man trying to find his way in the dark, as if he were attempting to make out some signs of joy or sadness. His eyes still looked normal, for only his optic nerve had been damaged by the notorious club. Still, over the years Moaz had acquired the mask of solemnity and profound wisdom that can be observed in blind men with sunken eyes, and that so fascinates and distresses most of the sighted. Ossama often wondered if blindness made men wiser, or if that was nothing but a silly superstition. He had never managed to resolve the question.
“Welcome, my son. I was just thinking about the gains of the revolution. I have the sense that there is more movement, more activity in the neighborhood. I hear people laughing and joking with each other, as if life had become agreeable to them. It comforts me every day to realize that happiness no longer belongs exclusively to the powerful.”
Ossama sat down on a chair near his father and cast a disabused glance out the window. The blind man was right, except that what seemed to him to be a kind of energy resulting from the benefits of the revolution was in fact merely the hum of a population growing uncontrollably. No doubt Moaz had forgotten that his compatriots always kept their sense of humor regardless of ideological considerations. It was as if the blow from the club had not only blinded him but also dimmed his memory. As usual, Ossama avoided any discussion of the merits of a revolution that existed only in his father’s mind. He thought it more reasonable to bring the conversation around to some trivial matter, and he asked about the absence of the maid, that awful Zakiya who did as she pleased during working hours.
“Hasn’t Zakiya come yet?”
“She’ll be here soon. She’s a good woman and she tends to me with great compassion.”
Ossama had to admit that the room was clean, the furniture nicely polished, and his father’s robe meticulously washed and pressed. Nonetheless he suspected the “good woman” of having matrimonial designs on the invalid. With all the money Ossama provided for his father’s care, she probably thought old Moaz was a banker or a counterfeiter. And on top of all that, she had the repellent face of a woman who had been successively repudiated by all the husbands she’d managed to hoodwink with her magic spells. The idea of having Zakiya for a stepmother was so repulsive that he didn’t hesitate to caution his father — by means of an aesthetic opinion — against the schemes of this female all too happy to wed a blind man.