When he woke the following morning to the sound of his uncle’s call to prayer, he felt as if his skull had detached itself from his body. He had a hammering headache, and when he tried to move the fluid in his brain seemed to swell and shift about as if it could ebb and flow like the sea. This was no headache, but something else he had never known or suffered in his life before, and to top it all he was suffering from continual and wretched nausea. He attended prayers with his uncle without performing his ablutions. He could have excused himself the trip to the mosque, but really he wanted to go. Afterwards he went back to his room and made himself tea and a cheese-and-melon-jam sandwich. The tea made him feel a little better, but he only took one bite of the sandwich. He had completely lost his appetite.
He went to college and listened to the morning lectures, but the hammering wouldn’t stop; nor would the sickness, although it was less violent. He didn’t go to the afternoon lecture on Islamic civilisation, but instead sat in the canteen with a glass of strong tea with lemon juice. He felt nauseous whenever images of the previous day’s outing entered his mind, and the very thought of arak provoked in him a violent urge to vomit. It was only with crippling twinges of conscience that he could remember what he had done with Raqiyya, and when he recalled how he had wanted to slap the image of his mother he was horrified. But the strange thing was that all these painful emotions mingled with the extraordinarily pleasurable recollection of his orgasm.
He lived that whole day waiting for the next, in the hope that when a new day dawned the hammering would stop and the nausea disappear. He went home and tried to relax, but the slightest movement started off the hammering and the tidal movements in his head. He didn’t eat lunch with his housemates. Abd al-Rahman came looking for him because he hadn’t slept with them on the roof the night before, and now he didn’t want his lunch. Something was up. Hisham reassured him that everything was okay, but that he wasn’t hungry because he’d had a sandwich at college. Abd al-Rahman left and then Hamad arrived, evidently very worried. He asked him how he was and when Hisham told him that he’d been drinking arak Hamad laughed. ‘Welcome to the Friendly Club,’ he said. Then he explained that what he was feeling was quite natural for someone who’d been drinking for the first time, and that he’d get used to it and after a while it wouldn’t have any effect. At this Hisham shouted, ‘The first and last time, by your father’s head!’ But he couldn’t finish the sentence; the hammering had started again. Hamad went out laughing after giving Hisham a look that he thought a little strange. ‘Okay … we’ll see,’ was all he said.
Moudhi came in several times that day to check how he was, as there was obviously something wrong. Each time he told her he was fine, though he was stretched out stiff on the bed like a lifeless corpse. Whenever she came in he tried to smile and get up, although he knew that the hammering would start again. Every time she asked him if he needed anything, he said no. Finally she brought him a pot of hot mint and a lemon chopped in two. She put the tray on the desk, squeezed half a lemon and poured the juice.
‘It must be a touch of cold,’ she said. ‘Sleeping on the roof isn’t safe these days. You must drink it all,’ she added as she handed him the glass of mint. ‘God willing, you’ll get your health back quicker than you think. Come on, drink!’ She pushed the glass towards him, her smile visible behind the veil. He got up slowly and drank the mint without really wanting it, while Moudhi stood beside the bed, refusing to leave before he had drunk it all. He finished the glass and lay down again while Moudhi wiped his brow with the other half of the lemon. He actually did feel a little better. He imagined he could see the face of his mother smiling from behind Moudhi’s veil, but he felt a little embarrassed at Moudhi being in his room even though he had begun to feel familiar with her. He got up from the bed and walked over to his desk, where he picked up a book at random, sat down and pretended to read.
‘I feel completely recovered,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’ Moudhi smiled and made to leave.
‘Praise be to God,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you a glass of hot milk that will make you sleep like a little lamb.’ She rushed off without waiting for a reply. Hisham smiled as the image of his mother teased him again. He had no idea why Taha Hussein’s story of Oedipus* came into his mind at that moment. He wished that he had brought it with him to read. Not that he needed to, as he had read it more than once and listened to it as a radio serial on ‘Voice of the Arabs’, so he could remember it perfectly. Right now he saw himself as Taha Hussein’s friend. He felt like a shattered marble statue whose parts he was trying to reassemble, but he didn’t know how, because the pieces were tiny and there were fragments scattered everywhere. Even if he succeeded, would it be the same old statue? Something that is smashed can be gathered up and put back together, but would it be the same thing? If his mother knew that he had tasted forbidden fruit, that he had known politics, women and the curse of drink, what would she do? Would she expel him from her tenderness and affection, or would she forgive him his lapses? Would she forgive his mistakes, or would he be cursed? Would he end as Adam or Satan, or neither, as a previously unimaginable mixture of the two? Or maybe even in nothing at all?
Moudhi brought in the hot milk. He didn’t want it, but she gently cajoled him. He sipped the milk quietly, now and then stealing a glance at Moudhi standing in front of the desk, unwilling to move until he had drunk the last drop.
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* Taha Hussein (1889–1973), leading Egyptian writer and intellectual.