Isa thanked him. He knew perfectly well the man was lying. Eight years of dealing with civil servants was quite enough to make him expert at translating their stock phrases of courtesy into what they really meant. There was his file thrown down on the desk with his name written on the cover in Persian script: ISA IBRAHIM AD-DABBAGH. In his imagination, he pictured it being thrown into the Records Office, where it would be buried forever, along with old signatures that testified to his distinction and gave promise of a happier future. He asked the director how much his pension would be.

“Twelve pounds,” he was told, “but you’ll also receive your full salary for a period of two years.”

He left the ministry building, his eyes fixed on something inside his head, resigned to the fact that he had been destined to live through one of those lurches in history when it makes some important leap forward but forgets about the people it bears on its back, not caring whether they manage to hang on or lose their balance and fall off.

He wandered aimlessly for a while in the sunlight, oblivious of the identity of the streets he walked along, then thought of his favorite café, El Bodega, and headed in that direction. As it was noon, there was no hope of finding any of his friends there, and so he sat down and ordered a tea by himself, with his own melancholy image in the polished mirrors to keep him amused. A group of backgammon players, hovering with bated breath over the next throw of the dice, provided an appropriate example of the total indifference with which the world regarded his troubles.

He turned away from them and from the other people there who were drowning themselves in nargila26 smoke. He stared at his own dismal reflection. If this image could speak, he thought, then I would really find a person who understood me. Tell me, what have you done? Why didn’t you read the future when it was only a few hours away from you, you who can confirm things that happened on this earth millions of years ago? This face, with its big head and triangular shape, praised by a poet and likened to the Nile Delta; this face which had been a contestant for front-page coverage in the newspapers, how could it possibly fall into oblivion like some dinosaur? Or like the tea you are drinking which has been pulled out of the good earth in Ceylon to get stuck eventually in the Cairo sewers? If you go up several thousand feet into space, you cannot see anything living on the earth’s surface or hear a single sound; everything fuses into a cosmic insignificance. All indications point to the fact that the mighty past which is still breathing around your face will dissolve in the near future and decay. All that will remain will be a foul smell.