Where have all your principles gone now, Rauf? Dead, no doubt, like my father and my mother, and like my wife's fidelity.
You had no alternative but to leave the students' hostel and seek a living somewhere else.
So you waited under the lone palm tree at the end of the green plot until Nabawiyya came and you sprang towards her, saying, "Don't be afraid. I must speak to you. I'm leaving to get a better job. I love you. Don't ever forget me. I love you and always will. And I'll prove I can make you happy and give you a respectable home." Yes, those had been times when sorrows could be forgotten, wounds could be healed, and hope could bring forth fruit from adversity.
All you graves out there, immersed in the gloom, don't jeer at my memories!
He sat up on the sofa, still in the dark, addressing Rauf Ilwan just as though he could see him standing in front of him. "You should have agreed to get me a job writing for your newspaper, you scoundrel. I'd have published our mutual reminiscences there, I'd have shut off your false light good and proper." Then he wondered aloud, "How am I going to stand it here in the dark till Nur comes back near dawn?"
Suddenly he was attacked by an irresistible urge to leave the house and take a walk in the dark. In an instant, his resistance crumbled, like a building ready to give way, collapsing; soon he was moving stealthily out of the house. He set off towards Masani Street and from there turned towards open wasteland.
Leaving his hideout made him all the more conscious of being hunted. He now knew how mice and foxes feel, slipping away on the run.
Alone in the dark, he could see the city's lights glimmering in the distance, lying in wait for him. He quaffed his sense of being alone, until it intoxicated him, then walked on, winding up at last in his old seat next to Tarzan in the coffee-house. The only other person inside apart from the waiter was an arms smuggler, although outside, a little lower down, at the foot of the hill, there was considerable noise of people talking.
The waiter brought him some tea at once and then Tarzan leaned over. "Don't spend more than one night in the same place," he whispered.
The smuggler added his advice, "Move way up the Nile."
"But I don't know anyone up there," Said objected.
"You know," the smuggler went on, "I've heard many people express their admiration for you."
"And the police?" Tarzan said heatedly. "Do they admire him too?"
The smuggler laughed so hard that his whole body shook, as if he were mounted on a camel at the gallop. "Nothing impresses the police," he said at last, when he'd recovered his breath.
"Absolutely nothing," agreed Said.
"But what harm is there in stealing from the rich anyway?" the waiter asked with feeling.
Said beamed as if he were receiving a compliment at some public reception in his honor.
"Yes," he said, "but the newspapers have tongues longer than a hangman's rope. And what good does being liked by the people do if the police loathe you?"
Suddenly Tarzan got up, moved to the window, stared outside, looking to left and right, then came back. "I thought I saw a face staring in at us," he reported, clearly worried.
Said's eyes glinted as they darted back and forth between window and door and the waiter went outside to investigate.
"You're always seeing things that aren't there," the smuggler said.
Enraged, Tarzan yelled at him. "Shut up! Can't you? You seem to think a hangman's rope is some sort of a joke!"
Said left the coffee-house. Clutching the revolver in his pocket, walking off into the open darkness, he looked cautiously around him, listening as he went. His consciousness of fear, of being alone and hunted, was even stronger now and he knew he must not underestimate his enemies, fearful themselves, but so eager to catch him that they would not rest till they saw him a corpse, laid out and still.
As he neared the house in Sharia Najm al-Din he saw light in Nur's window.
It gave him a sense of security for the first time since he'd left the coffee-house. He found her lying down and wanted to caress her, but it was obvious from her face that she was terribly tired.
Her eyes were so red it was obvious that something was amiss. He sat down at her feet.
"Please tell me what's wrong, Nur," he said.
"I'm worn out," she said weakly. "I've vomited so much I'm exhausted."
"Was it drink?"
"I've been drinking all my life," she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
This was the first time Said had seen her cry and he was deeply moved. "What was the reason, then?" he said.
"They beat me!"
"The police?"
"No, some young louts, probably students, when I asked them to pay the bill."
Said was touched. "Why not wash your face," he said, "and drink some water?"
"A little later. I'm too tired now."
"The dogs!" Said muttered, tenderly caressing her leg.
"The fabric for the uniform," Nur said, pointing to a parcel on the other sofa. He made a gesture with his hand affectionately and in gratitude.
"I can't look very attractive for you tonight," she said almost apologetically.
"It's not your fault. Just wash your face and get some sleep."
Up in the graveyard heights a dog barked and Nur let out a long, audible sigh. "And she said, "you have such a rosy future!"
" she murmured sadly.
"Who?"
"A fortune-teller. She said there'd be security, peace of mind." Said stared out at the blackness of night, piled up outside the window, as she went on, "When will that ever be? It's been such a long wait, and all so useless. I have a girl-friend, a little older than me, who always says we'll become just bones or even worse than that, so that even dogs will loathe us." Her voice seemed to come from the very grave and so depressed Said that he could find nothing to reply. "Some fortune teller!" she said. "When is she going to start telling the truth? Where is there any security? I just want to sleep safe and secure, wake up feeling good, and have a quiet, pleasant time. Is that so impossible — for him who raised the Seven Heavens?"
You too used to dream of a life like that, but it's all been spent climbing up drain pipes, jumping down from roofs, and being chased in the dark, with mis-aimed bullets killing innocent people.
"You need to get some sleep," he told her, thoroughly depressed.
"What I need is a promise," she said.
"A promise from the fortune teller. And that day will come."
"Good."
"You're treating me like a child," she said angrily.
"Never."
"That day really will come!"
TWELVE
Nur watched him as he tried on the uniform, staring at him in surprised delight, until he'd done up the last button. Then, after a moment or two, she said, "Do be sensible. I couldn't bear to lose you again."
"This was a good idea," Said said, displaying his work and examining his reflection in the mirror. "I suppose I'd better be satisfied with the rank of captain!"
By the next evening, however, she'd heard all about his recent dramatic adventure and seen pictures of him in a copy of a weekly magazine belonging to one of her transient male companions. She broke down in front of him.
"You've killed someone!" she said letting out the words with a wail of despair. "How terrible!
Didn't I plead with you?"