“A good idea. I admire your high ambition.”

Othman abandoned his hesitancy, determined to escape even if it meant stifling the man’s hopes.

“My cares are greater than you imagine,” he said.

The man looked at him apprehensively and said, “Heaven protect us! What’s the matter?”

“It’s not ambition I care about as you think. My concerns are of a humbler kind.”

“Really?”

“If circumstances weren’t so difficult, I would desire nothing more simple or natural than marriage.”

The old man failed to disguise the disappointment which choked him. “What sort of circumstances, if I may ask?” he said.

“Huge responsibilities.” Othman sighed wistfully. “People like me, brought up in poverty, cannot escape its grip…” With bowed head he added in a voice of melancholy, “How I wish…”

He fell silent as if overcome by emotion. The old man leaned back out of the lamplight till he was in shadow. Othman could not retract what he had said but he must preserve the man’s friendship as best he could. Out of the shadow the man’s voice came to him: “And when will you be able to stand on your own feet?”

“I have small children and widows to look after,” he said in a tone of despair. “I’m just an ox tied blindfold to a waterwheel.”

Everything went dead. Even the banging of backgammon pieces was no longer audible. He murmured again, “How I wish…”

The old man did not utter a word. He wanted to pay the bill but Othman would not let him. He paid out of his own pocket, feeling utterly miserable. All enjoyment had gone from the party and no pretense could revive it. They left the café and walked up to Bab al-Sha‘riyya Square, where the man took his leave and went off toward his home.

Othman was left in a wretched state of nervous tension. A surge of lunatic rashness swept over him, driving him to desperate extravagance of a suicidal nature.

Without wavering he made his way to the prostitutes’ quarter, where he could bury his tensions and sorrows and his pangs of conscience.

“Even the sins of man must be hallowed,” he said to himself in his misery.

NINE

Omm Husni stopped him as he was going downstairs. She would not do that without a good reason. He looked at her face furrowed with wrinkles, her hair dyed with henna, and her body still strong in spite of her old age. It made him think of his mother, and he shook her hand smiling.

“I’ve got news,” she said.

“I hope it’s good news.”

Narrowing her single eye (the other one she had lost in a fight in the alley), she said, “There’s nothing good in it.”

He looked at her intently.

“A suitor. There’s now a suitor standing in your way.”

“Eh?”

“Somebody has proposed to Sayyida.”