One afternoon Hisham was sitting in the canteen munching a sandwich of boiled eggs with tomatoes and hot peppers. He was looking quickly through his notes on legal principles – he was going to be tested on them in less than an hour. He was engrossed in his revision, but deep down he was extremely agitated: spying on the house opposite had become a nightly habit that distracted him from revising as he ought to have. He started when he felt a hand patting his shoulder. ‘Hisham,’ said a voice. He stopped chewing and turned round. What a surprise! It was Adnan al-Ali, looking just the same, his face as pale as a mummy’s and wreathed in smiles. Hisham leapt up and embraced his childhood friend warmly, his mind full of memories. His stomach shrank as he remembered the organisation. He invited Adnan to sit down, and examined him closely. He hadn’t changed much, though he had got thinner, and he had left the downy hair on his chin to grow as it pleased. Hisham quizzed him about Dammam and Adama and everything else. Then, as if the question had just occurred to him, he asked, ‘What brings you to Riyadh? How long have you been here? And how did you know where I was –?’
‘Slowly! Slowly, my brother!’ said Adnan, stopping him with a wave of his hand and smiling. ‘Slowly!’
‘I’ve been here for five days,’ he said quietly, once he had caught his breath.
‘Five days? Five days, and you only looked for me today! You’re a fine friend!’
‘Didn’t I say “take it easy”, my brother?’ Adnan caught his breath again and continued. ‘I’ve been here for five days. I gave my papers in to the College of Agriculture. They only accepted me after a lot of pleading and beard-kissing – and the intervention of some high-up people. They’re right, of course – I am very late. The important thing is, I’ve been staying with some relatives who are students, and here I am … that’s all there is to it.’
‘But what about Rome and the arts? Why are you entering the College of Agriculture when you loathe applied sciences?’
Adnan smiled and crossed his hands in his lap. ‘Father was right,’ he said. ‘Art is a waste of time. Working in a secondary school has no real future and my marks won’t qualify me to enter medicine or engineering. So there you have it.’ Adnan spoke in his usual calm, quiet voice, but with a strange new confidence Hisham didn’t recognise. Could people change in less than two months? He couldn’t stop himself from objecting.
‘But you are talented, Adnan. God forbid that you should waste your talent!’
Adnan smiled and said nonchalantly, with no obvious emotion, ‘No talent, no nothing. Everyone will find his own destiny. God’s choice is best.’
‘Anyway,’ he added, after an interval of silence, ‘I’ve thought seriously about this question of art. What’s the point of art, really? It’s a waste of time God doesn’t approve of. And I don’t want to waste time that I shall be held accountable for on the Day of Judgment.’
Hisham was so staggered he was struck dumb. Was this the same Adnan he had left less than two months ago? Adnan, who had once found his only refuge in drawing, now refused to draw! Almost everything about him seemed changed, except for his pale face and that expression of his that was more like the expression of the dead, even if his eyes sparkled more than before. Then again, what was this constant talk about God and the Day of Judgment? Even their friend Salim, the most religious of them all, didn’t mention these things much.
‘That’s not true,’ said Hisham, trying to escape his questionings. ‘Art isn’t a waste of time. It’s an expression of all that is sublime in our lives and our souls; a philosophical expression, if you want. Art is an expression of the absolute in us: the poet in his poem; the artist on his canvas; the musician in his composition. All of these are expressing the sublime aspect of human existence, far removed from the details of deadly mundanity. You yourself only discovered your true nature with brush and paints when life was choking you. Why? Because that is where you found yourself. And I believe,’ he added, after a short pause, ‘that you are still like that, but I don’t know what has happened to you. I haven’t been away for more than a couple of months, but, I don’t know …’ He tailed off hopelessly.
Adnan seemed confused but tried to smile, while looking into the distance. ‘You haven’t changed, Hisham,’ he said. ‘All your life you have liked to argue and keep certainty at arm’s length. As for me, I’ve settled things.’ He was silent for a little as he gazed straight ahead. ‘Yes,’ he continued firmly. ‘I’ve left things to the Master to do as He wishes. We are only weak creatures, and this world is only a passing station. We have forgotten God. We have forgotten Him.’
He stopped speaking. Hisham’s eyes nearly started from their sockets. This wasn’t Adnan, even if it looked like Adnan. His face took on the expression of a simpleton.
‘My God, how you have changed, Adnan! I don’t recognise you!’ Adnan gave a short laugh.
‘No, my friend,’ he said. ‘I haven’t changed, but I’ve reached the sort of stability from which there can be no future change.’ There was another short silence. The two friends gazed at each other. Then Hisham looked at his watch and began to gather his books together.
‘You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an exam in less than five minutes. Tell me … where do you live?’
‘In Halla,’ came the answer.
Adnan described the place to him as they walked towards the college building, where they parted as Hisham prepared for the cold bath in which Doctor Najar al-Shatartun would soon be drowning him.