38

Ariel

Ariel wished there’d been an elevator so he could avoid climbing the stairs. He’d walked a lot already and was tired. He got to the third floor and stood before Alaa’s door. He rang the bell. He didn’t know why. Then he slipped the key in the lock quickly. The light was on in the living room. His heart leapt as he craned his head in and called:

“Alaa? Alaa? Are you there?”

But then he remembered that he himself had left the light on before leaving. He walked inside the apartment nimbly and cautiously, scanning it with his gaze. He entered the bedroom and placed his bag next to the bed. He sat on the little sofa facing the bed. He turned the lamp on and remembered that he had to buy a light bulb for the one that is out in his apartment.

He noticed the jasmine next to the bed, right under the window. He didn’t remember seeing it before then. Alaa was fond of Jasmine and used to talk about his grandmother’s house and how it was full of Jasmine pots. He went over the day’s events. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes, as if to listen to the night’s silence.

He got up and took out his laptop from his bag. He lied down on Alaa’s bed and rested his back on two puffy pillows. He flipped open the laptop to check the news. He e-mailed some links to himself to read the articles in the morning. He got out of the bed and went toward Alaa’s stereo. There were two shelves of CDs above it. A lot of jazz and blues, as well as Um Kulthum and Fairuz. He heard these tunes at times when he passed by Alaa’s door. There was some classical music too. He chose Rimsky Korsakov.

He took off his shoes and made himself more comfortable. He tried to expel the thoughts crowding his head as he listened. Music makes the world more serene and less complicated. He regretted, for the thousandth time, that he didn’t continue his piano lessons. It would’ve made his mother very happy.

He is too tired to go up to his apartment on the fourth floor. He almost dozed off. It feels like he hasn’t slept in ages. Maybe two hours of sleep will reinvigorate him. He set the alarm next to Alaa’s bed to nine in the morning. Fearing that there might be an electricity outage, he set the alarm on his cell phone as well. He took off his clothes and felt the fatigue and insomnia pulsating in his whole body. He fell asleep right away and his snoring was so loud it competed with Korsakov.