September. The beginning of autumn. The month of preparations and rehearsals. In the stillness of the manager’s office, where the closed windows and drawn curtains allow no other noise to intrude but the soft hum of the air conditioner, the voice of Salim al-Agrudy, our director, erupts, scattering words and ideas, sweeping through the scaffolding of our silent attentiveness. Before each speech his glance alerts the actor or actress who will be playing the part and then the voice goes on, sometimes soft, sometimes gruff, taking its cue from whether the part is a man’s or a woman’s. Images of stark reality rush forth, overwhelming us with their brutal directness, their daunting challenge.
At the head of an oblong table with a green baize top, Sirhan al-Hilaly, our producer, sits in command, following the reading with his hawklike features fixed in a poker face, staring at us while we crane in al-Agrudy’s direction, his full lips clamped around a Deenwa cigar. The intensity of his concentration makes any interruption or comment impossible; the silence with which he ignores our excitement is so arctic that it compels us to repress it.
Doesn’t the man understand the significance of what he’s reading to us?
The scenes that unroll before my imagination are tinged with bloodshed and brutality. I’d like to start talking with someone to break the tension, but the thick cloud of smoke in the room deepens my sense of alienation; and I am sodden with some kind of fear. To hold back panic, I pin my eyes to the impressive desk in the rear of the room or a picture on the wall—Doria as Cleopatra committing suicide with the viper, Ismail as Antony orating over the body of Caesar—but my mind shows me the gallows. I feel devils inside me carousing.
Salim al-Agrudy utters the words “Final curtain,” and all heads turn toward Sirhan al-Hilaly in bewilderment, as he says, “I’d like to know what you think of it.”
Doria, our star, smiles and says, “Now I know why the author didn’t come to the reading.”
“Author?” I venture, convinced that somehow the world has come to an end. “He’s nothing but a criminal. We ought to hand him over to the public prosecutor.”
“Watch yourself, Tariq!” al-Hilaly barks at me. “Put everything out of your mind except the fact that you’re an actor.” I start to object, but he cuts me off irritably—“Not a word!”—and turns back to Salim, who murmurs, “It’s an alarming play.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m wondering what kind of impact it’ll have on the public.”
“I have approved it and I feel confident.”
“But the shock is almost too much.”
Ismail, the male star of the troupe, mutters, “My role is disgusting.”
“No one is crueler than an idealist,” says al-Hilaly. “Who’s responsible for all the carnage in this world? Idealists. Your role is tragic in the highest dimension.”
“The murder of the baby,” Salim al-Agrudy interjects. “It will destroy any sympathy the audience might have had for him.”
“Let’s not bother with details now. The baby can be left out. Not only has Abbas Younis persuaded me at last to accept a play of his, but I also have a feeling that it will be one of the biggest hits in the history of our theater.”
Fuad Shalaby, the critic, says, “I share your opinion,” and adds, “But we must cut out the baby.”
“This is no play!” I exclaim. “It’s a confession. It’s the truth. We ourselves are actually the characters in it.”
“So what?” al-Hilaly retorts, dismissing my objection. “Do you suppose that escaped me? I recognized you, of course, just as I recognized myself. But how is the audience going to know anything?”
“One way or another, the news will leak out.”
“Let it! The one who’ll suffer most is the author. For us, it can only mean success. Isn’t that right, Fuad?”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“It must be presented,” al-Hilaly says, smiling for the first time, “with the utmost subtlety and propriety.”
“Of course. That goes without saying.”
“The public,” Salim al-Agrudy mutters. “How will it go down with them?”
“That’s my responsibility,” replies al-Hilaly.
“Fine. We’ll begin at once.”
The meeting is over, but I stay behind to be alone with al-Hilaly. On the strength of the fact that we’re old friends and comrades as well as former neighbors, I take the liberty of urging him to put the matter before the public prosecutor.
“Here’s an opportunity for you,” he says, ignoring my agitation, “to portray on the stage what you have actually experienced in real life.”
“Abbas Younis is a criminal, not an author!”
“And it’s an opportunity that could make you an important actor. You’ve played supporting roles for so long.”
“These are confessions, Sirhan. How can we let the criminal get away with it?”
“It’s an exciting play. It’s bound to attract audiences and that’s all that matters to me, Tariq.”
Anger and bitterness well up inside me; past sorrows, with all their attendant regrets and failures, spread over my consciousness like a cloud. Then a thought comes to me: now I’ll have a chance to get back at my old enemy. “How do you know all this?” “Pardon me, but we’re going to be married.”
“What are you going to do?” says Sirhan al-Hilaly.
“My primary concern is to see that the criminal gets what he deserves.”
“Better make it your primary concern to learn your part.”
I give in. “I won’t let this chance slip by me.”
At the sight of the coffin, a sense of defeat overwhelms me, and to everyone’s astonishment, as if it were the first coffin I’ve ever seen, I burst into tears. It is neither grief nor contrition I suffer, but temporary insanity. The contemptuous expressions of the other mourners waver like water snakes in my tear-filled eyes, and I avoid looking at them, afraid my sobbing will turn to hysterical laughter.
What melancholy engulfs me as I plunge into the crowd—the men, women, and children, the dust and the din—at Bab al-Shariya!*1 I haven’t gone near it for years, this district of piety and depravity, where everything under the clear autumn sky seems draped in contempt and depression. My memories of this place—bringing Tahiya here for the first time, her arm gaily tucked in mine—disgust and pain me, as much as the way I live now, mixing with scum, crouching under Umm Hany’s wings. Damn the past and the present. Damn the theater. Damn its bit parts. Damn my hopes of success in a lead role—at my age, over fifty, in a play by my enemy, who is a criminal! I walk down the narrow serpentine length of the gravel merchants’ market, past its ancient brooding gates and its two apartment buildings, stark and new, to the place where the old house, a dark and bloody past locked up inside it, still lurks.
Some changes have been made, though: the ground-floor reception room has been converted into a shop where watermelon seeds are roasted and sold, and Karam Younis sits in it ready for business, with his wife, Halima, beside him. Prison has transformed them completely. Their faces incarnate resentment and at the very time their son’s star is on the rise they seem to have sunk into total despair.
The man catches sight of me, the woman looks in my direction, and their gazes are neither affectionate nor even cordial. I raise my hand in greeting to Karam, but he ignores it. “Tariq Ramadan!” he rasps. “What brings you here?” Hardly expecting a better reception, I pay no attention to his brusqueness. She jumps to her feet, then immediately sits down again on her straw-bottomed chair. “The first visit we’ve had since our return to the face of the earth!” she says coldly. Her features still clutch at some memory of beauty and he seems to have his wits about him in spite of what he’s been through—this pair who have engendered the criminal author.
Feeling that I should say something to soften the situation, I remark that the world is full of trouble and that I am merely one of the lost.
“You’re like a nightmare,” says Karam.
“I’m no worse than anyone else.” Since neither invites me to sit down in the shop, I have to stand there like a customer, which makes me more determined to stick to the purpose of my visit.
“Well?” Karam barks at me.
“I have bad news.”
“Bad news doesn’t mean a thing to us,” says Halima.
“Even if it’s about Mr. Abbas Younis?”
Her eyes become apprehensive. “You’ll always be his enemy,” she spits at me, “right to the end!”
“He’s a devoted son. When I refused to return to my old job at the theater, he set us up in this little shop.”
“And his play’s been accepted,” Halima adds proudly.
“It was read to us yesterday.”
“I am sure it’s a marvelous piece of work.”
“It’s horrible. Do you know anything about it?”
“Nothing.”
“He couldn’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Why?! Because his play takes place in this house of yours! It tells exactly what went on inside. He exposes a crime. And it throws new light on everything that’s happened!”
Karam is suddenly concerned. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“You’ll see yourselves in it, just as the rest of us do. He shows everything. Everything! Don’t you want to hear about it?”
“Even prison?”
“Even prison—and Tahiya’s death. It shows who betrayed you to the police, and it shows that Tahiya didn’t just die. She was murdered.”
“What kind of nonsense is this?”
“It’s Abbas, or the one who represents him in the play, who kills her.”
“What do you mean?” Halima screeches in sudden fury. “You hate Abbas!”
“I’m one of his victims, and so are you.”
“Isn’t it just a play?” says Karam.
“It leaves no doubt about who squealed on you or who the murderer is.”
“Nonsense!”
“Abbas can explain everything,” Halima says.
“Go see the play for yourselves.”
“You crazy fool! You’ve been blinded by hate!”
“Not by hate. By the crime.”
“You’re nothing but a criminal yourself. And it’s only a play.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You’re a spiteful lunatic! My son may be stupid, but he’s neither an informer nor a murderer.”
“He’s an informer and a murderer, and not at all stupid.”
“That’s what you want to believe.”
“Tahiya’s murderer must be brought to justice!”
“The same old spite. How did you treat Tahiya when she was with you? Did you treat her right?”
“I loved her, that’s enough.”
“Yes, the love of a layabout.”
“I’m a better man than your husband or your son!” I shout.
“Just what do you want?” Karam growls, his voice harsh with loathing.
“A piastre’s worth of melon seeds!”
“Go to hell!”
As I wade back through a swarm of children and women, my thoughts are fixed on the play. I am certain that Abbas has not revealed the plot of his play to his parents, which in itself is a proof of his guilt. But why should he divulge such a dark secret when nobody dreamt of suspecting it? Yearning for success at any price? Will he be rewarded with fame, I wonder, rather than the gallows? “Tariq! What can I say? It’s fate. And luck!” At the corner where the road meets Sharia al-Gaysh, I turn to the left in the direction of al-Ataba, walking toward the apartment building down a street that over the years has become shadowy, pockmarked, and constricted.
Tahiya, you got what was coming to you. If the man who killed you is the one you left me for, that’s justice. Soon it’ll be so crowded that people will start eating each other. If it weren’t for Umm Hany, I’d be a derelict. The height of your glory, Abbas, will be the hangman’s noose. And what about me? The only distinction I have is virility. My failure is otherwise indelible. Is there any meaning in the life of a third-rate actor?
—
Lust was my teacher in the good old days and it was lust that educated me in the sweet talk of a perfect man-about-town. Our affair was born backstage: I got Tahiya’s first kiss while the others were onstage plotting the death of Rasputin.
“Tahiya, you deserve to be a star, not a second-rate actor like me.”
“Do you really think so? You’re exaggerating, Mr. Tariq.”
“Not at all. It’s the voice of experience.”
“Or the eye of approval?”
“Even love doesn’t color my judgment.”
“Love!”
We’d been walking after midnight along Sharia Galal, oblivious to the biting cold, intoxicated by the warmth of our dreams. “Of course,” I answered. “Shall we take this taxi?”
“It’s time for me to go home.”
“Alone?”
“There’s no one else in my little flat.”
“Where do you live?”
“Sharia al-Gaysh.”
“We’re almost neighbors. I have a room at Bab al-Shariya, in Karam Younis’s house.”
“The prompter?”
“Yes. Are you going to ask me up to your flat, or shall I invite you to my place?”
“What about Karam and Halima?” I laughed, and she smiled. “There’s no one else in the house?”
“They’ve only got one kid. He’s a student.” She was pretty. She had a flat. And her salary was the same as mine.
—
Why has Sirhan al-Hilaly sent for me in the middle of rehearsals? Leaning across the conference table in the warm sunlight, he speaks before I have a chance to say anything: “You’ve asked to be excused from rehearsals twice, Tariq?” I say nothing, and he goes on: “Don’t mix friendship with work. Isn’t it enough that you have driven Abbas into hiding?”
“Perhaps the reason he fled is that he’s been exposed.”
“Are you still clinging to those strange ideas of yours?”
“He’s a criminal. No doubt about it.”
“It’s a play. And you’re an actor, not a public prosecutor.”
“But he’s a criminal. And you know it as well as I do!”
“Your judgment is blinded by hate.”
“I don’t bear any grudge.”
“Haven’t you recovered yet from unrequited love?”
“Our rehearsing is going to bring success to a criminal!”
“It will be our success—and your chance after years of obscurity to be seen in the limelight.”
“Please, Sirhan, life…”
“Don’t talk to me about life. Don’t start philosophizing! I hear that stuff onstage every night and I’m sick of it. You’ve neglected your health. Sex, drugs, and the wrong kind of food. In that play about the female martyr you took the role of the Imam*2 when you were drunk, without the slightest twinge of conscience.”
“You’re the only one who knew it.”
“There was more than one member of the faithful out front who could smell your breath. Are you going to force me to…”
“Don’t treat the friendship of a lifetime as if it were nothing,” I break in, alarmed.
“And you recited a verse from the Qur’an incorrectly. That’s unpardonable.”
“Nothing happened.”
“I beg you, please. Forget this obsession of yours, this prying and spying, and concentrate on learning your part. It’s the chance of a lifetime.” As I leave the room he adds, “And you’d do well to treat Umm Hany better. If she leaves you, you’ll really be in a bad way.”
She’s the same age as I am, damnit, and doesn’t have the sense to feel grateful. She watched Tahiya die, and couldn’t see that she’d been murdered, leaving me to play the role of the forsaken lover night after night, to cry again and again—in front of her coffin, because she died without remorse, without even thinking about me, without knowing herself that she’d been murdered, killed by that idealist who commits suicide in the play, and should be hanged in real life.
This crime is creating an author and an actor in one stroke.
“Isn’t Tahiya coming?”
“No.”
“I didn’t see her at the theater.”
“She’s not going to the theater.”
“What do you mean, Abbas?”
“Mr. Tariq—excuse me—Tahiya isn’t coming here and she’s not going to the theater.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Pardon me, but we’re going to be married.”
“What?!”
“We’ve decided to get married.”
“You son of a bitch. Are you crazy? What are you saying?”
“Be reasonable. We wanted to be nice to you, to treat you with respect. Allow me…”
I slapped his face and all of a sudden he became a tiger, snarling with hatred. He punched me—a powerful young man despite his clouded left eye—and my head swam.
Karam Younis and Halima came up yelling, “What happened?”
“It’s ludicrous!” I shouted. “A joke! Mama’s boy is going to marry Tahiya!”
“Is that so?” said Karam in the dim voice of an addict still on a high, remote and uninvolved.
“Tahiya!” Halima exploded at her son. “What kind of lunacy is this? She’s ten years older than you?”
Abbas said nothing.
“Kids’ games!” I shouted. “I’ll find a way to stop this!”
“Don’t make matters worse!” Halima screamed.
“I’ll bring destruction on this house and everyone in it!” I shouted.
“Take your clothes,” she told me coolly, “and get out.”
“You can stay here and rot!” I shouted, storming out of the house.
—
I was shattered, though. My self-esteem went down like a stallion biting the dust. And it was just at this point, when my spirits were at rock bottom, that my heart leapt aflame with love. I’d thought my feelings were smothered in routine. I’d taken it for granted that Tahiya belonged to me, like a comfortable old shoe. I’d harangued her, demeaned her, and beaten her, but she couldn’t live without me, I thought, and she’d sacrifice her life rather than leave me. Now I knew that if she walked out on me—so cunningly and so cruelly—she was taking my trust in life, my confidence, and my sense of mastery with her. What replaced them was madness—in the shape of love, which broke out of the dark corner of its lair, shook off the lethargy of long hibernation, and went to seek the food it had been missing.
When she appeared at the judas, summoned by my ringing, Tahiya’s eyes showed confusion, as if she might be faltering. But they didn’t flinch, there was no sign of cringing from challenge at this crisis in her life. And in what seemed a new personality, courageous, freed from continual submission, looking forward to a new life, I sensed that she was slipping across some kind of border into a region of potential violence.
“Open the door, Tahiya,” I pleaded.
“You know everything now.”
“Are you going to leave me outside, like a stranger?”
“Tariq, what can I say? Perhaps it’s for the good of both of us. It’s our fate.”
“This is some crazy joke.”
“I should have told you myself.”
“But I don’t believe it. Open up!”
“No. I’m treating you honorably.”
“You’re nothing but a whore!”
“Fine, then. Leave me in peace.”
“I’ll never do that.”
“We’re getting married right away.”
“A student. Mad. Half blind.”
“I’ll try my luck.”
“Open the door, you fool.”
“No. It’s all over between us.”
“It can’t be.”
“That’s life.”
“You’ll never know love except with me.”
“We couldn’t go on living like that.”
“You’re not old enough to have given up hope. Why are you acting in this stupid fashion?”
“Please, let’s be friends, I beg you.”
“You acted in a fit of despair. It was a mistake.”
“No.”
“People like you—I know what odd phases they go through.”
“May God forgive you.”
“You lunatic! When did you change?”
“I haven’t committed any sin against you.”
“You’ve lived a lie for quite some time.”
“Don’t keep on insisting. It’s no use.”
“You’re the biggest whore around.”
She clicked the judas shut.
—
For a while I actually stayed on at Karam Younis’s house—Abbas Younis had left, taking over his father’s job as prompter, which the old man no longer needed, being content with the earnings the house made for him—and the atmosphere to begin with was somewhat strained. Sirhan al-Hilaly took me aside. “Don’t spoil our soirees,” he whispered. “Be sensible. You can get Umm Hany back with a wink, you know. She earns twice as much as Tahiya.” Al-Hilaly is crazy about women and he’d had Tahiya once or twice, but he knows nothing about love and can’t see any connection between suffering and sex, which he ordains or disdains as if it were a matter of administrative routine. When he wants it, it’s simply served up immediately. I had no doubt about his good intentions toward me: he’d given me many chances, all of which came to nothing only because of my own limitations—and now in Abbas’s play he believes I’ll finally be a success—so that when he told me he’d already given hints to Umm Hany about my returning to her, I went back to the company’s seamstress. I did it more for the sake of escaping loneliness and shoring up the sad state of my finances than to get over any bitter emotional experience. The fact was that I expected Tahiya’s marriage to fail: she’d always had attachments—she needed the money—but I was sure she’d never love anyone except me, in spite of my poverty. On the face of it she belied my expectations, keeping up her marriage until her death. The play, however, unveils her secret: she is shown confessing on her sickbed that she’s sold herself to a foreigner, whereupon her husband decides to kill her by replacing her medicine with plain aspirin. So my doubts were justified without my knowing it. This man, whose idealism had been a thorn in our flesh, killed her—this man who, if it is left to me, will never escape punishment.
—
What have I hoped to gain? I’m face-to-face with Abbas in the flat that was once Tahiya’s, having gone there the day after the reading, after seeing his parents in their shop. So he’s now a playwright—a playwright at last, after dozens of rejections—this scribbling phony who plunders reality without shame. He’s astonished to see me.
Don’t be surprised, I want to tell him. What’s past is past, but its aftermath, thanks to you, is going to be felt far and wide, all over again.
Al-Hilaly made peace between us one day and we’ve shaken hands, but we haven’t buried our feelings. Here in his study—the flat consists of two rooms with a little foyer—we look at each other sullenly until I say, “No doubt you’re wondering why I came.”
“I trust it’s good news.”
“I came to congratulate you on the play.”
“Thanks,” he replies lukewarmly.
“Rehearsals begin tomorrow.”
“Your producer is full of enthusiasm.”
“Not like our director.”
“What’s he say?”
“The hero is a disgusting creature and the public won’t like him.”
He shrugs, frowning.
“Why weren’t you at the reading?” I ask him.
“That’s my business.”
“Didn’t you stop to think? What takes place in the play could create suspicion about you.”
“I don’t care if it does.”
“They will think, quite understandably, that you’re a murderer, and a traitor to your parents.”
“That’s ridiculous. And anyway, why should I care!”
Losing control, I blurt out, “You’re a self-confessed murderer!”
“And you’re nothing but a shit,” he mutters, looking at me with scorn.
“Will you be able to defend yourself?”
“I haven’t been accused. I don’t need to defend myself.”
“You’ll be accused—sooner than you think.”
“You’re an idiot.”
I get up. “She may well have deserved to be killed,” I say. “But you deserve to hang.”
—
The next day, at the first rehearsal, I’m welcomed by one of al-Hilaly’s tantrums. When our producer gets angry he’s a hurricane! “You! You! You’re behaving like a ten-year-old!” he shouts. “An imbecile! If you weren’t so stupid you could have developed into a fine actor. But you insist on turning yourself into a public prosecutor. Why did you go see Abbas Younis?” Has that bastard been complaining about me? I choose to say nothing until this storm blows over a little. “You’ll never get a grip on your role,” he yells, “until you concentrate on it, instead of on him.”
“Today’s the first day,” I mumble. “It’s just as important that the criminal gets what he deserves.”
“There’s not one of us,” he bellows sarcastically, “who hasn’t got some misdeed hanging around his neck for which he deserves to go to jail.”
“But we haven’t gone so far as to commit murder!”
“Who knows? Tahiya—if it’s true that she was killed—had more than one man possibly involved in her murder. And you are chief among them.”
“He doesn’t deserve your defense.”
“I don’t consider him accused. Have you got one bit of evidence against him?”
“The play.”
“No play is devoid of some charge or other. The office of the public prosecutor demands quite a different kind of evidence.”
“In the play he commits suicide.”
“Which means that in real life he does not commit suicide. And it’s our good fortune that he’ll be around to write some more.”
“He never created one line, and he’ll never write one. You know perfectly well what kind of plays he offered you before.”
“Tariq Ramadan, don’t be so tiresome! Pay attention to your work and take advantage of this opportunity, because it isn’t going to come your way again.”
I become absorbed in my role. Rehearsing that murderer’s play, I relive my life with Tahiya, from its beginning backstage and the old house in the gravel market where we made love in my room, to the denunciation of Karam and Halima, and finally to my crying at her funeral.
“You’re acting like you never acted before,” Salim al-Agrudy remarks, “but you must stick to the text.”
“I’m repeating what was actually said.”
He laughs. “Forget about real life and live in the play!”
“You’re lucky to have the right to change it.”
“Just the necessary cuts. I dropped the scene about the baby.”
“I have an idea!” Al-Agrudy looks annoyed, but I go on anyway: “As the heroine is dying, she asks to see her former lover.”
“What lover? Every actor in this theater was her lover at one time or another.”
“I mean the lover whose part I’m playing. He goes to see her, and she apologizes to him for her infidelity and dies in his arms.”
“That would mean introducing major changes in their personalities and in the relationship—the bond of affection—between the husband and the wife.”
“But…”
“You’re inventing a new play. The heroine here forgets her former lover altogether.”
“Impossible. And unnatural, too.”
“I told you to live in the play and forget about life. Or go ahead and write a new play. There’s quite a lot of sloppy, offbeat writing on the market these days.”
“But you cut out the baby!”
“That’s different. It has no connection with the basic plot, and the killing of an innocent baby is enough to deprive the hero of any sympathy.”
“But he kills his wretched wife.”
“Listen, hundreds of men in the audience wish, in their hearts, that they could kill their wives, too!”
—
Isn’t that Karam Younis? That’s him, for sure, leaving al-Hilaly’s office. Only two weeks to go before the play opens. At the doorway of the cafeteria I stand chatting with Doria, the star of our company, the two of us with coffee cups in hand. As Karam approaches, dressed in his old suit, the neck of his black sweater pulled right up to his jawline, I call out, “Glad to see you here.”
Casting a look at me, he growls, “Get out of my sight,” nods at Doria, and goes on his way.
Doria breaks off what she was saying about the high cost of living to remark, “He must have come to ask about Abbas’s mysterious disappearance.”
“Abbas is hiding because he’s a criminal.”
“He didn’t kill anyone,” she assures me with a smile, “and he hasn’t committed suicide.”
“He may not have committed suicide. But he’s certainly going to hang.”
“Victory*3 should have led us to a more prosperous life,” Doria goes on, returning to the subject at hand.
“Only the corrupt have it easy. The whole country’s become one huge brothel. Why did the police bother to choose Karam Younis’s house for a raid? He was only doing what everyone else does.”
“We’re living in times when sex has become a national pursuit,” Doria says, laughing.
—
“I’m a man so sunk in corruption that I’ve been disowned by an old respectable family. So why am I still bogged down in failure?”
“The eternal failure! Poor man. No field of operation left to exploit but Umm Hany!”
—
On opening night, the tenth of October, the air outside is mild, but inside it feels as though it’s going to be steamy. Karam and Halima, al-Hilaly, and Fuad Shalaby are among the audience. Though I’m the only one acting out on the stage what he experienced in reality—Ismail has the part of Abbas—the life of the old house is lived again in all its shamelessness with new and more brutal crimes added. Scandals follow one after another—the producer takes the risk of actually sneaking into Halima’s bedroom—and are crowned with betrayal and murder. And during all this, for the first time in my career, my acting is greeted with applause. Is Tahiya watching us from her grave?
Pouring us out success like wine, the crowd either listens in deathly silence or bursts into wild applause. The author, of course, criminal and cowardly, is absent. But how are Karam and Halima taking it? Before the final curtain they’re going to have a few more wrinkles in their faces.
—
After the show, when we have our usual celebration in the cafeteria, people, for once, seem aware of my presence. I am altogether a different person. From a nobody, Tahiya has made me more than a man. The broad grin on Umm Hany’s face spreads until her mouth is as wide as a bulldog’s. Behind every great man there’s a woman.
“Didn’t I tell you?” says Sirhan al-Hilaly.
“A great actor has been born,” adds Fuad Shalaby.
Ismail’s simper shows his jealousy: it’s I who’ve played the complex role of a lover, a madman, and a heel. I fill my stomach with shawerma and cognac; and the cognac reacts with the wine of success to the point where, seeing Halima in a suit she’s rented from Umm Hany, I even drink a toast to the absent author.
Around three o’clock in the morning I leave the theater, arm in arm with Umm Hany and Fuad Shalaby. “Come on,” says Fuad. “Let’s take a stroll around Cairo at the only time it has a chance to be respectable.”
“But we’re a long way from home,” protests Umm Hany.
“I have my car. I need to get some information.”
“You’re going to write about me?”
“Of course.”
I crow with laughter.
Answering his questions as we walk, I tell him about my past: “I was born in Manshiyyat al-Bakri. There were two villas side by side—the Ramadan family and the al-Hilaly family. My father, Ramadan, was a major general in the cavalry, one of the pashas of the old order; al-Hilaly’s was a landowner. I was the eldest in our family, and Sirhan was an only child. One of my brothers is a consul, another is a judge of the High Court, and the third is an engineer. My story in a nutshell is that we were expelled—Sirhan and I—from school. Not that we’d learned much, except about whorehouses, taverns, and drugs. My father left me nothing. Sirhan inherited seventy feddans,*4 though, and to satisfy his craze for bossing and for girls, he founded a theatrical troupe. I was one of his actors. My brothers cut off relations with me completely. A low salary. Debts all over the place. If it hadn’t been for women…”
Umm Hany sighs, “Ah.”
Fuad asks, “You were active politically, of course?”
I laugh again. “I have no affiliation with any entity but life. You know what Karam Younis is like. He and I are twins in spirit. People say in his case that being brought up by a mother who was a prostitute has made him what he is. Well, I grew up in a respectable family. So how do you explain our similarity? Environment can’t change natural gifts. We despise respectability, both of us. The difference between us and other people, in fact, is that we’re honest and they’re hypocritical.”
“Are you going to write this drivel?” asks Umm Hany, turning to Fuad.
“Fuad belongs to the same breed himself!”
“You’re a real bastard,” she bubbles gleefully. “Don’t you believe there are any decent people at all?”
“Sure. Mr. Abbas Younis, for example, the author of Afrah al-Qubbah. He’s such an idealist, you know. That’s why he throws his parents into jail and kills his wife and baby son!”
“What are you going to write?” Umm Hany asks Fuad.
“I’m not a lunatic like him,” he says, guiding us to his Fiat.
We drive to the Citadel quarter. At the corner where our alley meets the main road, we get out of Fuad’s car, unable to take it any farther because of overflowing sewers. The stench accompanying us as we stumble over the crumbling pavement drives the drink from our heads.
Can the success I have now be sustained? Will I ever be able to escape from this slum, from this woman in her fifties who weighs a hundred kilos?
—
Tahiya and I had left the old house in the gravel market and were on our way to the theater, braving together the cold blast brought by the evening darkness, she with her black coat tightly wrapped around her voluptuous curves, I with the thought that her body was made for bed, not the theater, and that we were both in the wrong profession.
“I caught the boy during tea break sneaking hungry looks at you,” I said.
“Abbas? He’s only a kid.”
“He’s going to make an expert pimp someday.”
“He has nice manners. And he’s not to blame for what goes on in his house.”
“He’s Karam and Halima’s son. And in these times what can you expect?”
I realize now that I hadn’t understood at all what was going on in her mind.
“I never pictured you as the grieving lover,” Sirhan al-Hilaly said with a chuckle.
“Did you ever imagine that one day we’d cross the Canal and win?”
“She’s as poor as you are.”
“Tell her—please…”
“You imbecile! She’d already decided to leave the stage. What’s turned the trick is the fascination of marriage.”
“Go to the devil! I’m almost out of my mind.”
“You’re angry, that’s all.”
“Believe me.”
“The clever operator can’t take a defeat!”
“It’s not like that.”
“That’s all it is. Go back to Umm Hany right away, because you’re not going to find anyone else to support you.”
I hesitated before answering, “Sometimes I almost believe there is a God.”
Sirhan guffawed. “Tariq son of Ramadan, even madness has its limits!”
Afrah al-Qubbah proves to be a real hit, with success confirmed night after night. Sirhan al-Hilaly has at last found the play that will enrich his theater, and the daily wage he agrees to pay me revives both body and soul.
Fuad Shalaby asks me, “Are you pleased with what I wrote about you?”
I press his hand gratefully. “After more than a quarter of a century I finally have my picture in your magazine.”
“You’ll never look back from now on. But did you know that Abbas has come out of hiding?”
“Really?”
“He paid a call on al-Hilaly yesterday at home. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“He demanded a share of the profits.”
I laugh so loudly that Amm Ahmad Burgal, behind the bar, almost jumps out of his skin. “Halima’s son! What did al-Hilaly say to that?”
“He gave him a hundred pounds.”
“Hell! He doesn’t deserve it!”
“Abbas has no job and he’s working on a new play.”
“Bloodsucker! He’ll never write anything new that’s worthwhile.”
“The future’s in God’s hands, not yours.”
“Where was he hiding?”
“He didn’t tell anyone.”
“Fuad, my friend, aren’t you convinced he’s guilty?”
“Why would he kill Tahiya?”
“Because she confessed her infidelity.”
He shrugs his shoulders and says nothing.
—
When I saw her coffin being hauled through the entrance of the apartment building, a terrifying sensation of emptiness slammed the pit of my stomach and spread until I felt my whole self turning to nothing. Then came an attack of weeping, catching me unawares. It was only my sobs that disturbed the other mourners. Even Abbas was dry-eyed.
I left in Sirhan al-Hilaly’s car. “When I heard you crying,” he said, “when I saw what you looked like, I almost burst out laughing, God help me.”
“It surprised me, too.”
“I can’t remember ever having seen you cry before.”
I smiled. “Every racehorse has a tumble.”
Death brings back memories of love and defeat.
—
The news arrives at the artists’ coffeehouse where I always stop before leaving for the theater, and I rush to Sirhan al-Hilaly’s room to ask if it’s true.
“Yes,” he says guardedly. “Abbas was staying in a pension in Helwan. He hadn’t been seen for a long time. A suicide note was found in his room.”
“Has his body been found?”
“No, they haven’t found any trace of him.”
“Did he give any reason for committing suicide?”
“No.”
“Do you really believe he’s killed himself?”
“Why should he have gone into hiding at exactly the time when success invites him to display himself along with his work?” There is a depressing silence. Then I hear him ask, “Why would he commit suicide?”
“For the same reason the hero of the play does.”
“You’re determined to accuse him.”
“I challenge you to find any other reason.”
Among artists and theater people the news spreads like wildfire. The usual measures, in such circumstances, are taken, but the search for Abbas uncovers nothing, at which I feel a deep sense of relief.
The success of this play, I say to myself, will be limitless.
*1A quarter in the northwest section of the old Fatimid quarter of Cairo.
*2Prayer leader in Muslim prayers.
*3Refers to October 1973.
*4A feddan is roughly equivalent to an acre.