Later, at nightfall, he went to Shukri Pasha28 Abd al-Halim’s palatial house, a quarter of an hour away from his own home in Dokki.13 The Pasha received him in his study and they sat down facing each other. The Pasha’s stubby form seemed almost lost in the big chair and his small, round, smooth-skinned face showed gloom wrapped in the tranquillity of old age. His gray English suit was extremely smart and he wore a red tarboosh on his babylike bald head. The greetings they exchanged were cursory, a sign of the critical nature of the situation. Isa felt awkward at first: the Pasha had had his eye on the ministerial position, but for a month or more Isa himself had hesitated about putting his name forward for the first cabinet reshuffle; and wondered what this old man would be thinking. He’d waited so long for a ministry. But the Pasha’s energies for office work had sunk to their lowest ebb and he no longer had any real job except to serve on the Finance Committee in Parliament. Isa felt as sorry for him as he did for himself and looked at him diffidently, as though it were a kind of consolation. After a rest at home some of Isa’s color had returned and he felt better as he sat there in the chair, while the Pasha kept turning the wedding ring on his finger. The worst kind of loss was one that affected both private and public life at the same time.

“We’ll be dating things from today for a long time to come,” the Pasha said.

“I saw some of it myself,” Isa said, eager to hear any news. “What a black day!” He lowered his head—which looked large and elongated in the mirror across the room—until his black wavy hair came close to the Pasha’s eyes. Then, frowning, he lifted it again so that he could look straight at the Pasha.

“So Cairo was burning when you came in?”

“Yes, Pasha. It was pure hell.”

“How terrible! What were things like over at the Canal?”

“The young men were all full of enthusiasm, but they need weapons desperately. The massacre of the policemen shattered everyone.”

“That was a criminal affair. A disaster.”

“Yes,” Isa replied angrily. “We’re being pushed toward—” The rest of his sentence needed no saying and his words faded away. Their eyes met sadly.

“What are people saying about us?” the Pasha asked.

“Nationalist feelings are running very high. Our enemies are saying that we manufactured a battle to take people’s minds off us.” He lowered the corner of his mouth in contempt. “They’ll always find something to say,” he went on. “Miserable wretches—scoundrels!”