A peaceable enough place to sit. No greenery or water, no birds singing on branches, just the bleak, hostile desert ground, which at night wore such mysterious blackness that a dreamer could imagine it to be whatever he wished. The dome of the heavens, studded with stars, the woman inside the hut, and solitude that speaks. Sorrow like coals buried in ashes. The high wall of the mansion repelling the sad exile. This tyrant father, how can I make him hear my cry? It is wisest to forget the past, but the past is all we have; that is why I hate my weakness and curse my depravity. I can stomach misery as a mate and beget children for him. A sparrow, which no power can bar from the garden, is more fortunate than I am in my dreams. My eyes yearn for the water that gushed between the rosebushes. Where is the fragrance of the henna plants and jasmine, where the peace of mind, my flute, you cruel man? Half a year has gone by—when will your icy cruelty thaw?
From a distance Idris’ raucous singing could be heard: “A strange world, God, a strange world!” And here he was, lighting a fire in front of his hut, a flame that shot high and then sank into the ground. His hugely pregnant wife came and went, bringing food and drink. Overcome by a wave of drunken resentment, Idris broke the silence with a bellow directed at the mansion: “Time for your roast chicken and greens, people! I hope it poisons you!” Then he resumed singing.
“Every time I manage to be alone in the dark,” Adham said sadly to himself, “that devil stokes up his fire and makes noise and ruins my peace.” When Umaima appeared at the door of the hut, he realized that she had not slept, as he had thought; her pregnancy had exhausted her, and hard work and poverty had worn her down.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asked tenderly.
“Just let me enjoy the only hour I have to enjoy life,” he snarled.
“You’ll be out pushing your cart first thing in the morning—you need to rest.”
“When I’m alone I’m a respectable man again, or I can pretend to be. I contemplate the sky and remember days gone by.”
She sighed audibly. “I wish I could see your father leaving the house or going in—I’d throw myself at his feet and beg him to forgive me.”
“How many times have I told you to forget that idea?” asked Adham impatiently. “That way will do nothing to get us back in his good graces.”
Umaima was silent for a long time, then said, “I’m thinking of the fate of this thing in my belly.”
“That’s all I think of too, even though I’ve become one of the lower beasts.”
“You are the best man in the world,” she murmured sadly.
Adham laughed derisively. “I’m no longer a man at all. No one but animals think only about food.”
“Don’t be sad. How many men have started out like you, and then got rich and ended up owning stores and houses.”
“Are you having labor pains in your brain?”
“You’ll be an important man someday,” Umaima persisted. “Our child will grow up rich.”
Adham slapped his hands together in sarcastic despair. “Will I make us rich selling beer, maybe? Or hashish?”
“By working, Adham.”
“Working to eat is the worst curse in the world!” he snapped. “In the garden I used to live, and do no work except for looking at the sky or playing my flute, but now I’m just an animal. I push that cart in front of me day and night to earn some garbage to eat in the evening, and to shit in the morning. Working to eat is the worst curse of all. The only life is in the mansion, where no one works so they can eat—everything there is fun and beauty and singing.”
Idris’ voice split the air. “That’s the truth, Adham, work is a curse—it’s a humiliation I haven’t learned yet. Didn’t I invite you to team up with me?”
Adham turned toward the voice and saw Idris standing nearby. He often sneaked over unnoticed in the dark and eavesdropped for as long as he pleased, and joined the conversation when he felt like it.
“Go home,” said Adham irritably.
“I was just saying,” Idris pronounced with mock seriousness, “as you were, that work is a curse which impairs the dignity of man.”
“You’re inviting me to be a thug, which is more disgusting than a curse.”
“If work is a curse and crime is disgusting, how is a man supposed to live?”
Adham said nothing; he hated this conversation. Idris waited for him to speak, and when he didn’t, he spoke again.
“Maybe you want to get along without working. That would have to be at the expense of others.”
Adham persevered in his silence.
“Or maybe you want to get along without working and without hurting anybody!” He cackled. “It’s a puzzle, slave boy!”
“Spite the devil and go home,” shouted Umaima angrily.
Idris’ shrill wife called him home, and he left as he had come, singing, “Strange world, O God, strange world!”
Umaima turned pleadingly to her husband. “Please avoid arguing with him at any cost.”
“He just appears. I have no idea where he comes from.”
Silence fell and soothed their irritation. Again Umaima spoke up tenderly. “I know in my heart that I’ll make this hut into a mansion like the one we left, right down to the garden and nightingales, and our child will be happy and secure there.”
Adham got up with a smile she could not make out in the dark and brushed the dirt from his clothes. “ ‘Sweet pickles! Get your cucumbers here!’ And the sweat pours off me, the children harass me, the ground burns my feet—all for a few coins.”
She followed him into the hut. “But someday we’ll be rich and happy.”
“If you had to work, you wouldn’t have time to dream.”
As they lay down on their straw pallet, Umaima said, “Isn’t God mighty enough to turn our hut into a mansion like the one we left?”
“All I want is to go back to the mansion,” Adham said, yawning. Then he yawned more deeply. “Work is a curse!”
“Maybe so,” whispered Umaima, “but it is a curse that can only be defeated by more work!”