By the time Said had returned to the flat, dressed in his officer’s uniform, and left, it was well after one o’clock. He turned toward Abbasiyya Street, avoiding the lights and forcing himself to walk very naturally, then took a taxi to Gala’s Bridge, passing an unpleasant number of policemen en route.
At the dock near the bridge he rented a small rowboat for two hours and promptly set off in it south, toward Rauf Ilwan’s house. It was a fine starry night, a cool breeze blowing, the quarter-moon still visible in the clear sky above the trees along the riverbank. Excited, full of energy, Said felt ready to spring into vigorous action. Ilish Sidra’s escape was not a defeat, not as long as punishment was about to descend on Rauf Ilwan. For Rauf, after all, personified the highest standard of treachery, from which people like Ilish and Nabawiyya and all the other traitors on earth sought inspiration.
“It’s time to settle accounts, Rauf,” he said, pulling hard on the oars. “And if anyone but the police stood as judges between us, I’d teach you a lesson in front of everyone. They, the people, everyone—all the people except the real robbers—are on my side, and that’s what will console me in my everlasting perdition. I am, in fact, your soul. You’ve sacrificed me. I lack organization, as you would put it. I now understand many of the things you used to say that I couldn’t comprehend then. And the worst of it is that despite this support from millions of people I find myself driven away into dismal isolation, with no one to help. It’s senseless, all of it, a waste. No bullet could clear away its absurdity. But at least a bullet will be right, a bloody protest, something to comfort the living and the dead, to let them hold on to their last shred of hope.”
At a point opposite the big house, he turned shoreward, rowed in to the bank, jumped out, pulled the boat up after him until its bow was well up on dry land, then climbed the bank up to the road, where, feeling calm and secure in his officer’s uniform, he walked away. The road seemed empty and when he got to the house he saw no sign of guards, which both pleased and angered him. The house itself was shrouded in darkness except for a single light at the entrance, convincing him that the owner was not yet back, that forced entry was unnecessary, and that a number of other difficulties had been removed.
Walking quite casually, he turned down the street along the left side of the house and followed it to its end at Sharia Giza, then he turned along Sharia Giza and proceeded to the other street, passing along the right side of the house, until he regained the riverside, examining everything along the way most carefully. Then he made his way over to a patch of ground shaded from the streetlights by a tree, and stood waiting, his eyes fixed on the house, relaxing them only by gazing out from time to time at the dark surface of the river; his thoughts fled to Rauf’s treachery, the deception that had crushed his life, the ruin that was facing him, the death blocking his path, all the things that made Rauf’s death an absolute necessity. He watched each car with bated breath as it approached.
Finally one of them stopped before the gate of the house, which was promptly opened by the doorkeeper, and Said darted into the street to the left of the house, keeping close to the wall, stopping at a point opposite the entrance, while the car moved slowly down the drive. It came to a halt in front of the entrance, where the light that had been left on illuminated the whole entranceway. Said took out his revolver now and aimed it carefully as the car door opened and Rauf Ilwan got out.
“Rauf!” Said bellowed. As the man turned in shock toward the source of this shout, Said yelled again: “This is Said Mahran! Take that!”
But before he could fire, a shot from within the garden, whistling past him very close, disturbed his aim. He fired and ducked to escape the next shot, then raised his head in desperate determination, took aim, and fired again.
All this happened in an instant. After one more wild, hasty shot, he sped away as fast as he could run toward the river, pushed the boat out into the water, and leapt into it, rowing toward the opposite bank. Unknown sources deep within him released immediate reserves of physical strength, but his thoughts and emotions swirled as though caught in a whirlpool. He seemed to sense shots being fired, voices of people gathering, and a sudden loss of power in some part of his body, but the distance between the riverbanks was small at that point and he reached the other side, quickly leapt ashore, leaving the boat to drift in the water, and climbed up to the street, clutching the gun in his pocket.
Despite his confused emotions, he proceeded carefully and calmly, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Aware of people rushing down to the water’s edge behind him, of confused shouts from the direction of a bridge, and a shrill whistle piercing the night air, he expected a pursuer to accost him at any moment, and he was ready to put all his efforts into either bluffing his way out or entering one last battle. Before anything else could happen, however, a taxi cruised by. He hailed it and climbed in; the piercing pain he felt as soon as he sat back on the seat was nothing compared to the relief of being safe again.
He crept up to Nur’s flat in complete darkness and stretched out on one of the sofas, still in his uniform. The pain returned now, and he identified its source, a little above his knee, where he put his hand and felt a sticky liquid, with sharper pain. Had he knocked against something? Or was it a bullet, when he’d been behind the wall perhaps, or running? Pressing fingers all around the wound, he determined that it was only a scratch; if it had been a bullet, it must have grazed him without penetrating.
He got up, took off his uniform, felt for his nightshirt on the sofa, and put it on. Then he walked around the flat testing out the leg, remembering how once he’d run down Sharia Muhammad Ali with a bullet lodged in the leg. “Why, you’re capable of miracles,” he told himself. “You’ll get away all right. With a little coffee powder this wound will bind up nicely.”
But had he managed to kill Rauf Ilwan? And who had shot at him from inside the garden? Let’s hope you didn’t hit some other poor innocent fellow like before. And Rauf must surely have been killed—you never miss, as you used to demonstrate in target practice out in the desert beyond the hill. Yes, now you can write a letter to the papers: “Why I Killed Rauf Ilwan.” That will give back the meaning your life has lost: the bullet that killed Rauf Ilwan will at the same time have destroyed your sense of loss, of waste. A world without morals is like a universe without gravity. I want nothing, long for nothing more than to die a death that has some meaning to it.
Nur came home worn out, carrying food and drink. She kissed him as usual and smiled a greeting, but her eyes suddenly fastened on his uniform trousers. She put her parcel on the sofa, picked them up, and held them out to him.
“There’s blood!” she said.
Said noticed it for the first time. “It’s just a minor wound,” he said, showing her his leg. “I hit it on the door of a taxi.”
“You’ve been out in that uniform for some specific reason! There’s no limit to your madness. You’ll kill me with worry!”
“A little bit of coffee powder will cure this wound even before the sun rises.”
“My soul rises, you mean! You are simply murdering me! Oh, when will this nightmare end?”
In a burst of nervous energy Nur dressed the wound with powdered coffee, then bound it up with a cutting from fabric she was using to make a dress, complaining about her ill-fortune all the time she worked.
“Why don’t you take a shower?” said Said. “It’ll make you feel good.”
“You don’t know good from bad,” she said, leaving the room.
By the time she came back to the bedroom, he had already drunk a third of a bottle of wine and his mood and nerves felt much improved.
“Drink up!” he said as she sat down. “After all, I’m here, all right, in a nice safe place, way out of sight of the police.”
“I’m really very depressed,” Nur whimpered, combing her wet hair.
“Who can determine the future anyway?” he said, taking a swallow.
“Only our own actions can.”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing is certain. Except your being with me, and that’s something I can’t do without.”
“So you say now!”
“And I’ve got more to say. Being with you, after being out there with bullets tearing after me, is like being in Paradise.” Her long sigh in response was deep, as if in self-communion at night; and he went on: “You really are very good to me. I want you to know I’m grateful.”
“But I’m so worried. All I want is for you to be safe.”
“We’ll still have our opportunity.”
“Escape! Put your mind to how we can escape.”
“Yes, I will. But let’s wait for the dogs to close their eyes for a while.”
“But you go outside so carelessly. You’re obsessed with killing your wife and this other man. You won’t kill them. But you will bring about your own destruction.”
“What did you hear in town?”
“The taxi driver who brought me home was on your side. But he said you’d killed some poor innocent fellow.”
Said grunted irritably and forestalled any expression of regret by taking another big swallow, gesturing at Nur to drink, too. She raised the glass to her lips.
“What else did you hear?” he said.
“On the houseboat where I spent the evening one man said you act as a stimulant, a diversion to relieve people’s boredom.”
“And what did you reply?”
“Nothing at all,” Nur said, pouting. “But I do defend you, and you don’t look after yourself at all. You don’t love me either. But to me you’re more precious than my life itself; I’ve never in my whole life known happiness except in your arms. But you’d rather destroy yourself than love me.” She was crying now, the glass still in her hand.
Said put his arm around her. “You’ll find me true to my promise,” he whispered. “We will escape and live together forever.”