The streets had the look of any urban slum — conspicuous poverty, puddles of water in the dirt lanes, chickens and ducks running around outside the houses, small children playing barefoot, and veiled women sitting at the doors. The sheikh strode out with the confidence of one who knows a place well and entered one of the houses, Taha behind him. They went through the door into a spacious room empty but for a small desk and a blackboard that hung on the wall. On the floor were spread large yellow rush mats on which were sitting a group of bearded young men in white gallabiyas who all jumped up to greet Sheikh Shakir, embracing him and kissing him one after the other. The oldest among them, a huge, tall man aged around forty with a large black beard and wearing a dark green sash over his white gallabiya hung back a little. He had a scar extending from his right eyebrow to the top of his forehead like the remains of a large old wound and this prevented him from fully closing his eye. On seeing Sheikh Shakir, the man whooped with joy and said in his husky voice, “Peace be upon you! Where have you been, Master? We’ve been waiting for you two whole weeks.”
“Only urgent necessity has kept me from you, Bilal. How are you and your brothers?”
“Praise God, we’re fine, God willing.”
“And how is your work?”
“As you will have read in the newspapers — from success to success, thanks be to God.”
Sheikh Shakir put his arm around Taha and told the man, smiling, “This is the Taha el Shazli whom I spoke to you about, Bilal. A fine example of the courageous, pious, observant young man — and we give precedence over God to none.”
He brought Taha forward to shake the man’s hand and Taha felt the man’s strong grip and looked at his disfigured face as Sheikh Shakir’s words resounded in his ears, “Taha, God willing, I introduce you to your brother in God, Sheikh Bilal, the commander of the camp. Here with Sheikh Bilal you will learn, God willing, how to take what is yours and how to wreak vengeance on all the tyrants.”
Souad woke up and opened her eyes with difficulty. She had stomach pains, nausea, and a headache, and her throat was dry and hurting her. Little by little she realized that she was in a hospital. The room was large, the ceiling high, and there were old chairs and a small table in the corner. The double doors with two round glass portholes looked like those in an operating theater in an Egyptian movie from the forties. Next to the bed stood a stout nurse with a snub nose. She bent over Souad and put her hand on her face, then smiled and said, “Praise God you’re fine. God’s been good to you. You hemorrhaged badly.”
“Liar!” shouted Souad in a strangled voice. The nurse leaped back. “You aborted me by force. I’ll see you get hell!”
The nurse left the room. An insane anger swept over Souad and she started kicking her feet and shouting in a loud voice, “Criminals! You aborted me! Get me the Emergency Response Police! I’ll put you all in jail!” The door soon opened and a young doctor appeared. He came up to her, the nurse following. Souad shouted, “I was pregnant and you aborted me by force!”
The doctor smiled, obviously lying and scared. He said in an embarrassed voice, “You had a hemorrhage, Madame. Calm yourself. Excitement’s not good for you.”
Souad exploded again. She shouted and abused them and wept. The doctor and the nurse left. Then the door opened again and her brother Hamidu appeared, with Fawzi, Hagg Azzam’s son. Hamidu hurried in and kissed her. Clinging to him, she burst into passionate tears.
Hamidu’s face crumpled and he shut his mouth tight and said noth ing. Fawzi calmly pulled up the chair from the end of the room and sat down beside the bed. Then he leaned back and said in measured tones, enunciating the words clearly as though he were giving a lesson to children, “Listen, Souad. Everything is fated and allotted. Hagg Azzam agreed with you about something and you broke the agreement and ‘the one who begins is the more unjust.’ ”
“God take revenge on you and on your father, you criminals, you sons of bitches!”
“Shut your mouth!”
Fawzi shouted these words angrily, his face frowning and looking stern and cruel. Then he said nothing for a little, sighed, and resumed his lecture.
“Despite your rudeness, the Hagg has dealt with you as God’s Law requires. You had a hemorrhage and you would have died, so we took you to the hospital and the doctor was forced to carry out an abortion. The hospital paperwork is on file and the doctor’s report is on file. Tell her, Hamidu.”
Hamidu lowered his head in silence and Fawzi’s voice rose again.
“My father, Hagg Azzam, is a God-fearing man. He has divorced you and given you more than your rights, God recompense him. The deferred payment and the support money we have calculated as God’s Law requires, and there’s something extra as a gift from us. Your brother Hamidu has a check for twenty thousand pounds. The hospital bill is paid and we’ve taken all your things from the house and we’ll send them to you in Alexandria.”
A deep silence prevailed. Souad, broken now, was weeping quietly. Fawzi got up. At that moment, he appeared strong and decisive, as though everything in the world depended on whatever utterance he might make. He took two steps in the direction of the door. Then he turned as though remembering something and said, “Captain Hamidu. Get your sister to calm down; she’s a bit unbalanced. The whole thing’s over and done with and she’s got what she’s owed to the last cent. We started on a friendly basis and we’ve finished on a friendly basis. If you and your sister make problems or start talking, we know how to put you in your place. This country is ours, Hamidu. We have a long reach and we have all kinds of ways of dealing with people. Choose the kind you want.”
He walked slowly and deliberately away until he exited the room, the flaps of the door slapping behind him.
As a man will flick off with his fingers a few flecks of dust that have clung to the breast of his smart suit and continue on his way as though nothing had happened, so Hagg Azzam got rid of Souad Gaber and was able to erase his affection for her. It was the memory of her delectable, hot, supple body that kept coming back to him and he made a massive and painful effort to forget her, recalling deliberately her savage, hateful face during the final scene and imagining the problems and scandals that would have plagued him if he hadn’t got rid of her. He consoled himself with the thought that his marriage to her, while providing him with wonderful times, hadn’t cost him a great deal. He also thought that his experience with her might be replicable. Beautiful poor women were in good supply and wedlock was holy, not something anyone could be reproached for.
By means of such thoughts he had tried to wipe the image of Souad from his memory, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, and he had thrown himself into the maelstrom of his work in order to forget. With the opening of the Tasso automobile agency due in a few days he had set up an operations room in his office with his sons Fawzi and Quadri. As though going to war, he had overseen the preparations for the huge party at the Hotel Semiramis, personally inviting all the big shots in the city. All had come — present and former ministers, high ranking civil servants, and editors-in-chief of the main national newspapers, their friendship costing him dozens of cars that he gave away free or for a symbolic price. This was done with the agreement of the Japanese officials and sometimes at their suggestion.