He often looked at a small mirror which was nailed to the wall between the window and the clothes stand to examine his appearance and reassure himself on this point. Certainly his appearance would not be an obstacle. He was well built like the people of his alley. He had a dark, longish face with a high, clear forehead and well-trimmed hair. On the whole, his physique would qualify him to fill any position, no matter how important.

He drew courage and strength from the depths of his soul and thought to himself: Not a bad start—and the road is endless.

FOUR

The tryst on the edge of the wasteland was also sacred. He hastened to it with ardent heart and with the gaiety of one who has cast aside the heavy weight of life’s burden. There on the skirt of the desert stood the ancient, abandoned fountain at the foot of whose steps they would sit side by side in the infinite bosom of the afternoon. Before them the desert stretched as far as the foot of the mountain and silence would sing in its unknown tongue. Her dark brown color resembled that of the tense evening, a hue inherited from an Egyptian mother and a Nubian father who died when she was six. Their old companionship in the alley reached back into the remote past until it vanished into the very spring of life. When he looked into her big, wide eyes or saw her small, firm body brimming with vitality, he felt himself in the presence of an ideal which excited his whole being and awakened in his instincts a kind of humble yearning. She was his childhood friend in the alley and on the roof. Although hardly sixteen, she was considered a good housewife. In fact, she had been her mother’s only helper after all her seven sisters had married.

Sayyida smiled. Her face was always smiling, her eyes radiant and her limbs constantly moving with a sort of restless grace. Tresses of her thick, curly hair danced in the dry breeze coming down from the mountain. The silence was sweet. Breaking out of it she said, “My mother is pleased that you have joined the civil service…”

“And you?” he asked teasingly.

Her smile grew bigger, but she did not reply. He put his arm around her and their lips met, hers full, his sharply defined. No mention of love had been made between them, but whenever they were alone together they expressed it through kisses and embraces. She satisfied in him that aspect of his soul which craved the simple pleasures of life. He also loved her with his mind because he appreciated her virtues and her sincerity and had an instinctive feeling that she could make him happy.

“You are now a government employee…” Her voice disclosed her admiration and he kissed her again. “No one in our alley has ever achieved that,” she added.