But these are memories of a past life, a carefree life. Now I am mired in the past, plunged into a hideous war, crushed by horror, tormented by my own father. Egypt will never again be a dreamlike country, a picture postcard. This was where my father came, his crimes packed up in his suitcase and, from what I can tell, he had a wonderful life, he became a new man here and found a position in the Egyptian secret service. What I need to understand is how, arriving from a hell of your own making, from the bleak horror of life in the camps, does this man adjust to a shimmering world of sweltering sun, gentle humility, affably shambolic poverty, where a hookah and a glass of mint tea are always to hand, a bellydancer’s navel is always at eye level, where your bed is always open to the stars? What does he think, this man? Are there regrets that haunt him? What pleasures can help him forget the pain he so lavishly meted out in the cruel, sinister world of his former life, an absurd, insane, incessant mechanical ballet where every day was reduced to nothingness, to listening to agonised howls bleed through the walls, to watching the columns of black smoke rising into the heavens? I know this man is unscrupulous enough to forgive himself everything, but surely no pity, no compassion, no mercy can absolve such vile, unspeakable things? Or maybe this man is not a man, nor even the shadow of a man, perhaps he is the Devil incarnate. My God, who will tell me who my father is?