SIXTEEN
Dawn was close, but Nur had not returned — though the waiting and all his worry had exhausted him, bouts of insomnia kept crushing against his brain — and now the warm darkness was splitting apart to reveal one flaming question: Was it possible that the promised reward was having some effect on Nur?
Suspicion had tainted his blood to the last drop now: he had visions of infidelity as pervasive as dust in a wind storm. He remembered how sure he was once that Nabawiyya belonged to him, when in reality she'd probably never loved him at all, even in the days of the lone palm tree at the edge of the field.
But surely Nur would never betray him, never turn him over to the police for the sake of payment.
She had no interest now in such financial transactions. She was getting on in life. What she wanted was a sincere emotional relationship with someone. He ought to feel guilty for his suspicious thoughts.
The worry over Nur's absence persisted, nevertheless. It's your hunger, thirst, and all the waiting that's getting you down, he said to himself.
Just like that time you stood waiting beneath the palm tree, waiting for Nabawiyya, and she didn't come. You began prowling around the old Turkish woman's house, biting your finger-nails with impatience and so crazy with worry you almost knocked on her door. And what a quiver of joy when she did emerge — a feeling of complete exhilaration, spreading through you, lifting you up to the seventh heaven.
It had been a time of tears and laughter, of uncontrolled emotion, a time of confidence, a time of boundless joy. Don't think about the palm tree days now. They're gone forever, cut off by blood, bullets and madness. Think only about what you've got to do now, waiting here, filled with bitterness, in this murderous stifling darkness.
He could only conclude that Nur did not want to come back, did not want to save him from the tortures of solitude in the dark, from hunger and thirst. At the height of a bout of remorse and despair, he at last fell asleep. When he opened his eyes again he saw daylight and felt the heat slipping through the shutters into the closed room.
Worried and confused, he stepped quickly into the bedroom, to find it exactly as Nur had left it the day before, then roamed around the entire flat.
Nur had not returned. Where, he wondered, could she have spent the night? What had prevented her return? And how long was he to be sentenced to this solitary confinement?
He was feeling distinct pangs of hunger now, despite his worries, and he went into the kitchen.
On the unwashed plates there he found several scraps of bread, bits of meat sticking to bones, and some parsley. He consumed them all, ravenously gnawing on the bones like a dog, then spent the rest of the whole day wondering why she had not returned, wondering if she ever would. He would sit for a while, then wander about and sit again. His only distraction was gazing through the shutters out over the cemetery, watching the funerals and aimlessly counting the graves. Evening came, but Nur had still not returned.
There must be some sort of reason. Wherever could she be? He felt his worry, anger, and hunger tearing him apart. Nur was in trouble, there was no doubt of that, but somehow she simply had to free herself from her difficulty, whatever it was, and come back. Otherwise what would become of him?
After midnight he quietly left the flat, and made his way over the waste ground to Tarzan's coffee-house. He whistled three times when he arrived at the spot they'd agreed on and waited until Tarzan came out.
"Do be extremely careful," said Tarzan, shaking his hand, "there are agents watching everywhere."
"I need some food!"
"You don't say! You're hungry then!"
"Yes. Nothing ever surprises you, does it?"
"I'll send the waiter to get you some cooked meat. But I'm telling you it really is dangerous for you to go out."
"Oh, we had worse trouble in the old days, you and I."
"I don't think so. That last attack of yours has turned the whole world upside down on top of you."
"It's always been upside down."
"But it was disastrous of you to attack a man of importance!"
They parted and Said withdrew a little. After some time the food was brought him and he gulped it down, sitting on the sand beneath a moon now really full.
He looked over at the light coming from Tarzan's cafe on the little hill and imagined the customers sitting there in the room chatting. No, he really did not like being alone. When he was with others his stature seemed to grow giant-like: he had a talent for friendship, leadership, even heroism.
Without all that there was simply no spice to life.
But had Nur come back yet? Would she return at all? Would he go back to find her there or would there be more of that murderous loneliness?
At last he got up, brushed the sand and dust from his trousers and walked off towards the grove, planning to go back to the flat by the path that wound around the south side of the Martyour's Tomb. Near the tip of the grove, at the spot where he'd waylaid Bayaza, the earth seemed to split open, emitting two figures who jumped out on either side of him.
"Stop where you are!" said one of them in a deep urbanized country accent.
"And let's see your identity card!" barked the other.
The former shone a flashlight into his face and Said lowered his head as though to protect his eyes, demanding angrily, "Who do you think you are? Come on, answer me!"
They were taken aback by his imperious tone; they'd now seen his uniform by the flashlight.
"I'm very sorry indeed, sir," the first man said. "In the shadow of the trees we couldn't see who you were."
"And who are you?" Said shouted, with even more anger in his voice.
"We're from the station at al-Waily, sir," they answered hastily.
The flashlight was turned off now, but Said had already seen something disturbing in the expression of the second man, who had been peering very quizzically at him, as though suddenly filled with doubt.
Afraid he might lose control of the situation Said moved decisively and with force, swinging a fist into both their bellies. They reeled back; and before they could recover he'd sent a hail of blows at chins and bellies till he felt them unconscious, and dashed away as fast as he could go. At the corner of Najm al-Din Street he stopped to make sure no one was following, then he continued along it quietly to the flat.
Once there he found it as empty as when he'd left, with only more loneliness, boredom, and worry there to meet him. He took off his jacket and threw himself down on to a sofa in the dark. His own sad voice came to him audibly: "Nur, where are you?"
All was not well with her, that was obvious. Had the police arrested her? Had some louts attacked her? She was bound to be in some sort of trouble.
Emotions and instincts told him that much; and that he would never see Nur again. The thought choked him with despair, not merely because he would soon lose a safe hiding place, but because he also knew he'd lost affection and companionship as well. He saw her there in the dark before him — Nur, with all her smiles and fun-making, her love and her unhappiness — and the terrible depression he felt made him aware that she had penetrated much deeper within him than he had imagined, that she had become a part of him, and that she should never have been separated from this life of his which was in shreds and tottering on the brink of an abyss. Closing his eyes in the darkness, he silently acknowledged that he did love her and that he would not hesitate to give his own life to bring her back safe. Then one thought made him growl in anger: "And yet would her destruction cause so much as a single ripple anywhere?"