When Qadri grew friendlier and more trusting toward Arafa, he began to invite him to his private soirees, which usually began at midnight. Arafa attended a strange party in the great hall, which abounded with all the most delicious foods and the finest wines; beautiful women danced naked, and Arafa almost lost his mind, with the liquor and the sights he saw. That night he saw the overseer’s riotousness go beyond any limit, like a wild beast. The overseer invited him to a party in the garden, in a luxuriant bower encircled by a stream whose surface was bright with moonlight. They had wine and fruit, and two beautiful servant girls, one of them for the brazier and the other for the pipe. The tender night breeze was laden with the fragrance of the flowers, the lute melody and singers’ voices.
Carnations as fresh as mint in the garden
Soothe the manly men who smoke hashish.
There was a full moon whose perfection could be seen whole when a verdant mulberry branch bent with the breeze, and its rays of light shone through the branches and leaves when the branch was still again.
The scent from the pipe in the girl’s hand made Arafa as dizzy as a star in its orbit. “God rest Adham,” he said.
“And God rest Idris,” the overseer said, smiling. “What made you think of him?”
“Sitting here like this.”
“Adham loved dreams, but the only ones he had were the ones Gabalawi put in his head.” He laughed. “Gabalawi, whom you spared the trouble of old age!”
Arafa’s heart contracted, and his happiness flickered out. He muttered sadly. “I never killed anyone in my life but one criminal gangster.”
“What about Gabalawi’s servant?”
“I was forced to kill him.”
“Arafa,” Qadri sneered, “you are a coward.”
Arafa concentrated on the moon through the branches, leaving the drug party to the lute melodies, then stole a look at the beautiful servant’s hand as she compressed the lump of hashish.
“Where are you?” cried the overseer.
Arafa turned to him with a smile. “Do you usually spend the evening alone?”
“No one here is worth spending the evening with.”
“Even me, I have no one but Hanash.”
“If you smoke enough, you don’t mind being alone,” said Qadri disdainfully.
Arafa hesitated a moment, then spoke. “Aren’t we in a prison, Your Excellency?”
“What do you want?” said the man sharply. “We’re surrounded by people who hate us!”
He remembered what Awatif had said, how she preferred Umm Zanfil’s room to his house, and sighed. “What a curse.”
“Be careful or you’ll ruin our fun.”
“May life be fun forever,” said Arafa, reaching for the pipe.
“Forever?” Qadri laughed. “It would be enough if we could breathe one breath as young men in our whole lives, with your magic!” He filled his chest with the smell of the garden, sweetened by the moist late-night air. “Lucky thing Arafa is not without his uses,” he said.
The overseer left the pipe in the beautiful girl’s hand, and exhaled the thick smoke, silver in the moonlight. “Why do we get old?” he asked regretfully. “We eat the most wonderful food, drink the most delightful drinks and live the best life, but old age creeps up on us in its own time. Nothing can stop it. Like the sun or the moon.”
“But Arafa’s pills can make the cold of old age hot!”
“There is something you cannot do.”
“What is it, sir?”
The overseer seemed mournful in the moonlight. “What is the most hateful thing to you?”
The prison he lived in, maybe; or the hatred all around him; or the goal he had failed to reach. “Losing my youth.”
“No, you don’t worry about that.”
“Why not, when my wife is mad at me.”
“She’ll always find one reason or another to get mad.”
The breeze grew brisker, the rustle of the branches grew louder, and the coals glowed in the brazier.
“Why do we die, Arafa?”
Arafa looked at him gloomily but said nothing.
“Even Gabalawi died,” the overseer went on.
It was like a needle piercing his heart, but he managed to speak. “We’re all dead, the children of the dead.”
“You don’t need me to remind you what you said,” he said grumpily.
“Long may you live, sir.”
“Long or short, the end of it is the grave that worms love.”
“Don’t let your thoughts ruin your fun,” said Arafa.
“It never leaves me, death. Death, death, always death. It could come at any moment, and for the slightest reason, or without any reason at all. Where is Gabalawi? Where are the men the poets sang of? This was one death that shouldn’t have been.”
Arafa looked at his pale face and terror-stricken eyes. His mental state was the opposite of this place. “The important thing is that life is how it should be,” he said gently.
Qadri made an angry gesture and spoke with a sharpness that killed their pleasure. “Life is how it should be, and better. Nothing is missing. Even youth can be restored with pills, but what good is that when death follows us like a shadow? How can I forget it, when death itself reminds me every hour?”
He enjoyed his discomfort, but quickly was disgusted by his own feelings. He watched the beautiful girl’s hands with love and longing, asking inwardly, Who can promise me I’ll see another night’s moon?
“We probably need another drink,” he said.
“We’ll still wake up in the morning.” Arafa despised this man, and sensed an opportunity he wanted to seize. “If it weren’t for the resentment of the deprived people all around us, our life wouldn’t leave a bad taste in our mouths.”
The overseer laughed contemptuously. “You talk like an old woman. If we were able to make the alley people’s lives better, up to our level, would death stop hunting us?”
Arafa nodded resignedly, until the man talked out his irritation, then said, “Death prospers in poverty, misery and bad conditions.”
“And everyplace else, stupid.”
“Yes.” Arafa smiled. “Because it’s contagious, like some diseases.”
“That’s a strange view to defend your ignorance.” The overseer chuckled.
“We don’t know anything about it,” said Arafa, emboldened by his laughter. “It might be that way. As people live better, the pain lessens, life gets more valuable and every happy person wants to fight death to keep as much of his happy life as possible.”
“None of that helps a dead man.”
“But magicians will get together and dedicate themselves to resisting death. Everyone who’s able will work magic. Death will be threatened with death.”
The overseer emitted a peal of high-pitched laughter, then closed his eyes to dream. Arafa took up the pipe and sucked at it for one very long breath, until the coals glowed. The lute started playing again, after a silence, and the lovely voice began to sing, “Tarry, O night.”
“You’re a hash-head, Arafa, not a magician.”
“This is how we kill death,” said Arafa simply.
“Why don’t you do your work alone?”
“I work every day, but he doesn’t prevent me from working alone.”
The overseer listened to the music for a while, without enthusiasm. “If only you succeeded, Arafa! What would you do if you succeeded?”
“I’d bring Gabalawi back to life,” he said so quickly that the words seem to speak of their own accord.
The man curled his lip listlessly. “That’s your own business, in your capacity as his killer.”
Arafa frowned, pained, and murmured inaudibly. “If only you succeeded, Arafa!”