How would he find the time to look for a flat and furnish it? He let days go by without doing anything. He forgot the matter altogether until one day he found Asila standing in front of his desk. He received her with a smile, though silently cursing her.
“Excuse my boldness…” she said.
He smiled without comment.
“I couldn’t get any sense out of you on the telephone.”
“I’m much too busy these days,” he said with a solemnity to match the official surroundings.
“What have you done?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Work doesn’t give me a free minute. Believe me!”
“I expected to find you more eager.” She spoke with a boldness which sounded like desperation; like one whose patience was ebbing as his fears increased.
“I am eager enough, but I have no time.”
“There’s a flat in Rawd al-Faraj…” She held out a folded piece of paper as she went on: “Here’s the address. Go and have a look at it yourself. And if you like it, go ahead and have it furnished.” Then temptingly and beseechingly: “I hope you’ll like it. Who knows, it may bring us happiness.”
He felt the crackle of approaching fire. When the woman had gone, he thought of the long nights that would be added to The Thousand and One Nights rather than of the nights he was accustomed to spend studying, translating, and performing services for His Excellency: nights of sacrifice on the path of glory. That path which he had chosen from the first day as an emblem to which his infinite yearnings could legitimately aspire. His desire for the woman subsided as a result of her thoughtless impetuosity and the way she had freely offered herself. Actually she was not bad as a substitute for Qadriyya. But in her he felt the crackle of approaching fire, eager to swallow him up together with those sacred hopes linked to the mystery of God’s word. He would not let himself be destroyed by any power on earth save death itself—which was another of God’s mysteries, like His inspiring glory. And while he had not been accepted by that unknown wife after whom he had striven for so long, it would be wrong to give up the struggle and surrender to pathetic widows and spinsters.
One night he heard a knock on his door. He was dumbfounded to see Asila sneak in, stumbling over her shame and humiliation.
“I was determined to come and told myself that if somebody saw me I would make for Omm Husni’s flat as if it had been her I had come to visit.” She spoke in tones of embarrassment as she sat down panting on the settee.
“Well done!” he said, trying to comfort her.
“Do you mind my coming?”
Life had begun to stir in his depths.
“Of course not. I’m more pleased than you imagine.”
“Omm Husni will soon be going to bed,” she went on. “Do you mind if she suspects what’s happened?”
“Not at all!”
They exchanged a long look. Beneath its darkly flowing current she seemed without a trace of pride, merely a woman in love with her defenses down.
“What’ve you done?” she asked in tender expectation.
He recovered completely from his surprise. He did not want to talk about anything at all; all he was aware of was carnal desire embodied in a woman prepared to give herself to him. He took her soft hand. It felt cold; the contraction of her heart had stopped her blood from circulating. He squeezed it repeatedly, as if passing a secret message. She wasn’t expecting this—or so she pretended—and tried to take her hand away. But he did not let her.
“What’ve you done?”
“We’ll discuss that later.”
“But you haven’t tried to get in touch with me.” He bent toward her and kissed her cheek as he whispered in her ear, “Later…later…”
“But this is what I’ve come for.”
“You’ll get what you’re after…but later…”
She opened her mouth to speak but he stopped her with a long and heavy kiss, saying sharply, “Later.”
Nature played one of her infinite tunes with joyful bravura, which seemed like a miracle. But soon the tune died away, receding into oblivion and leaving behind a suspicious silence and a feeling of languor full of sadness. He lay on his side on the bed while she stayed where she was on the settee, exposing her slip and the drops of sweat on her forehead and neck to the unshaded light of the electric bulb. He looked at nothing and wished for nothing, as if he had accomplished what was required of him on earth. When his eyes turned in her direction, they denied her completely, as though she had been some strange object sprung from the womb of night, and not that enchanting person who had set him on fire: a dumb thing with no history and no future. He said to himself that the game of desire and revulsion was no more than an exercise in death and resurrection, an advance perception of the inevitable tragedy, matching in its grandeur such fleeting revelations of the unknown, in its infinite variety, as are granted. The position of Director General was one such revelation, but it could only emerge in response to a soaring effort of the will, not to its capitulation, however attractive. Thank God he was barricaded behind sensible impassivity, lethal though it was. Here was this woman, eager beyond question to return to her important subject but hesitant and ashamed. She must have hoped that he would make the first move; but despairing of this, she cast him a wistful beseeching glance and mumbled, “So?”
The unfamiliarity of her voice astounded him with its intrusion on his sacred solitude. He felt a steady repulsion toward her which nearly turned into hatred. What she was seeking to do was to pull down the edifice which he had been constructing stone by stone.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Nothing!”
The roughness of temper characteristic of the back streets, and latent in him, was discernible in his voice.
“But surely you must’ve done something!”
“Nothing at all.”
“Haven’t you even had a look at the flat?”
“No.”
Her face darkened with chagrin.
“Forgive me for saying this, but…should I put the money in your hands?”
“No!”
“Frankly, I don’t understand you.”
“I’ve spoken clearly.”
“What do you mean? Don’t torture me! Please.”
“I don’t intend to do anything.”
“I thought you had agreed and promised,” she said in a trembling voice.
“I don’t intend to do anything.”
“If you have no time now…”
“I have no time now, nor will I in the future.”
Asila breathed heavily and said with a break in her voice, “I thought you felt differently.”
“There’s no good in me,” he confessed. “That is the fact of the matter.”
She shied away as if she had been stabbed. She put on her dress in a hurry, but she collapsed again onto the settee, overcome by fatigue. She rested her head in the palm of her hand and closed her eyes; he thought she would faint. His heart beat violently, rousing him from his impassive cruelty. If the unthinkable happened, he might well face a scandal with profound repercussions. The path was rough and arduous enough in spite of his good reputation. What would happen if he suddenly found himself involved in a scandal of the kind the newspapers like to gloat over? He nearly changed his whole attitude and risked a new lie, but at the last moment she moved. She got up with some difficulty, made her way, subdued and crestfallen, to the door and disappeared from his view. He sighed deeply with relief, then stood up and walked to the window. He looked out at the alley, nearly covered in darkness, until he saw her pass, swiftly and ghostlike, out the front door. She went on through the alley toward the end leading to al-Jamaliyya and soon vanished completely into the dark.
Nobody, he told himself, knew the unknown, and for that reason it was impossible to pass comprehensive judgment on any of our actions. Yet for man to define a goal for himself provided him with a guide in the darkness and a justification in the clash of fortunes and events. It was also an example of the design Nature seemed to adopt in her infinite progression.