Excitement crept into Umaima’s face, after a long absence, as she asked Adham earnestly, “Hasn’t your father ever told you about the book before?”
Adham was sitting cross-legged on their sofa, gazing out the window at the shadow-shrouded desert. “He has never told anyone about it.”
“But you—”
“I’m only one of his many sons.”
“But he chose you to run the estate,” said Umaima with a light smile.
Adham turned to her and spoke sharply. “I just said he never told anyone about it.”
She smiled again to soften his irritation. “Don’t trouble yourself about it—Idris doesn’t deserve that much,” she said slyly. “All the terrible things he’s done to you can never be forgotten.”
Adham turned to the window and said sadly, “The Idris who visited me today is not the same Idris who did terrible things to me. He was so sad and repentant—I can’t get the sight of him out of my mind.”
“That’s what I thought, from what you were saying,” Umaima said in plain delight. “And that’s why I’m concerned, but you seem so depressed, and that’s not like you.”
He gazed at the impenetrable blackness, his busy head unable to think. “There’s no use worrying.”
“But your repentant brother is asking you to take pity.”
“ ‘My eye sees far but my arm is short.’ What can I do?”
“You should make up with him and your other brothers, or someday you’ll find yourself all alone before them.”
“You’re thinking of yourself, not Idris.”
She shook her head as if to banish any thought of cunning. “It’s my right to think of myself—in doing that I’m thinking of you too, and of my baby.”
What did this woman want? And this blackness—it obliterated even the massive Muqattam. He relaxed in silence until she spoke again.
“Don’t you remember ever entering the little room?”
He broke his short silence. “Never. I wanted to go in there when I was a boy, but my father didn’t let me, and my mother wouldn’t let me near it.”
“You must have really wanted to go in.”
He was discussing the matter with her because he expected her to help him resist Idris, but she was pushing him toward him. He needed someone to support the correctness of his stand against his brother; this he needed badly, yet he was like a man calling in the dark for a watchman and having a robber emerge instead.
Umaima was asking him another question. “Do you know the drawer with the silver box in it?”
“Anyone who’s been inside the room knows it—why do you ask?”
She slid seductively down the sofa nearer to him. “Can you swear that you don’t really want to see the room?”
“No,” he said crossly. “Why would I?”
“Who wouldn’t want to see the future?”
“Your future, you mean.”
“Mine and yours, and that of Idris, whom you feel so sorry for in spite of all he’s done to you!”
The woman was expressing his own thoughts; that was what made him mad. He stretched his head toward the window as if wishing to escape from it.
“I don’t want anything my father doesn’t want.”
Umaima’s penciled eyebrows rose. “Why should he hide it?”
“That’s his business—you’re asking so many questions tonight!”
“The future!” said Umaima, almost to herself. “To know our future—to do something for poor Idris—and all it would cost us would be reading a sheet of paper, with no one the wiser. I dare any friend or enemy to prove any bad intentions if we did that, or to show that it hurt your dear father in the least!”
Adham was watching a star brighter than all the others and paid no attention to her words. “How beautiful the heavens are! If it weren’t for the night mists I’d be sitting in the garden, watching it through the branches.”
“Those conditions of his must benefit somebody.”
“I don’t care about benefits that only cause problems.”
“If only I knew how to read,” sighed Umaima, “I would go look in the silver box myself.”
He wished she could; this made him twice as angry at her and at himself too. He felt as though he had already succumbed to the forbidden deed—as though it were already a foregone conclusion. He turned to her, frowning; by the light of the suspended lamp which danced in the breeze from the window, his face looked gloomy and weak despite his scowl.
“I was lost as soon as I told you about it!”
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, and I love your father as much as you do.”
“That’s enough of this talk—don’t you prefer to rest at this time of day?”
“I guess my heart won’t rest until you’ve done this simple thing.”
“O God, give her back her sense!” groaned Adham.
She looked at him calmly. “Didn’t you disobey your father when you met with Idris in the reception hall?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “He was standing there in front of me! I had no choice!”
“Did you tell your father that he visited?”
“What’s with you tonight, Umaima?”
“If you can disobey him in something that can hurt you,” she said in a triumphant tone, “why can’t you disobey him in something that can help you and your brother and hurts nobody?”
He could have ended the conversation there if he wished, but this was a steep slope. And the truth was that he had let her go on like this because part of him needed her support.
“What do you mean?” he asked irritably.
“I mean stay up until dawn, or until the coast is clear.”
“I thought pregnancy had only taken away your sex drive—now I see it’s taken away your sense too,” said Adham angrily.
“You are convinced by what I say—I swear by this new life inside me. But you’re afraid, and fear does not become you.”
His face darkened with a look very different from the profound resignation inside him. “This is a night we’ll remember as our first fight.”
“Adham,” she said with special tenderness, “let’s really think about this.”
“It won’t do any good.”
“That’s what you say now, but you’ll see.”
He felt the heat of the fire he was moving into. “If you burn,” he said to himself, “your tears will never put it out.” He looked toward the window and imagined that the dwellers of that twinkling star were lucky to be so far from this house.
“No one has ever loved his father as I love mine,” he muttered weakly.
“You would never be capable of hurting him.”
“Umaima, go to bed.”
“You’re the one who won’t let me sleep.”
“I was hoping you’d talk sense to me.”
“I did.”
He said to himself in a near-whisper: “I wonder—am I headed for my ruin?”
She stroked the hand that rested on the arm of the sofa and chided him. “Our fate is one—you cold thing!”
He answered with a resignation that indicated his decision: “Not even that star knows my fate!”
“You will read your fate in that book,” she said impetuously.
He looked out at the wakeful stars and the skeins of cloud illuminated by their serene light, and imagined that they had heard his conversation. “What a beautiful sky!” he mumbled.
“You taught me to love the garden,” he heard Umaima say flirtatiously. “Let me return the favor.”