“From one war to the next,” Inayat Hanem protested, “life is lost. Sirens, antiaircraft guns, bombs. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for us to seek refuge in another country?”

They stayed there in the darkness with dry throats. Four guns boomed out in the distance.

“This generation will enter paradise without any Day of Reckoning!” her mother continued.

How could the Jews dare to attack Egypt, Isa asked himself in despair, when she had prepared herself with such an army?

TWENTY-THREE

The next evening he rushed to El Bodega with his head full of comforting and encouraging news from the newspapers. The weather was really marvelous as they clustered together around the table on the pavement. A warm and powerful force drew them all together, a force restless with the combined feelings of danger and hope. Ibrahim Khairat drew his small frame up to its full height. “Do you think,” he asked excitedly, “that Israel will just make this one move?”

They looked at one another in a strange way which expressed their inner feelings clearly, as though some kind of drunkenness had put them all into a daze.

“France, England, and America are all behind Israel,” Ibrahim Khairat continued.

Isa wondered anxiously how he could define his own position in the midst of such turbulent thoughts and emotions as these.

“It looks as though our army will be finished,” said Samir Abd al-Baqi, “before our allies declare themselves.”

They all laughed. The evening brought with it a quiet and secrecy. Ibrahim Khairat lowered his voice. “Things are clear now,” he said. “This is the end!”

They listened to him with a sense of nervous joy, and some of them even felt a little guilt. Abbas Sadiq raised his head from the nargila. His bulging eyes were gleaming brightly. “They have supporters behind them too,” he said.

“No one could be so crazy,” said Ibrahim Khairat scornfully, “as to think seriously that a world war is going to flare up over a spot which can hardly be seen on the world map.”

Isa found that their feelings reflected some of what he himself was thinking. He decided, however, that the other side of it should be voiced. “Do you really want the Jews to defeat us?” he asked.

“There will be a superficial defeat,” Ibrahim Khairat said, “which will rid us of the new occupation army. Then Israel will be forced to retreat and maybe even to be satisfied with taking over Sinai and making peace with the Arabs. England and France will intervene to settle the problems connected with the Near East and return things to normal in Egypt.”

“Doesn’t that mean a reversion to Western influence?” Isa asked.

“That’s better than the present situation, at any rate.”