She gave a hoarse laugh, and then quickly her look darkened and she said wistfully, “It’s hopeless!”

“How do you mean?”

“We can’t hope to have a child. It’s too late.”

He was conscious of sharing her sorrow but said, “We can still live happily.”

She made a halfhearted attempt to keep off the drink but went on much as before. Indeed, Othman’s renewed absorption in his work and her brooding about the dreadful emptiness of life without companionship may have made her an even worse addict than she already was. One evening Othman was appalled to see her taking opium.

“No!” he screamed.

“Let things be!” she said sharply.

“Since when have you been…” he inquired anxiously.

“Since Noah and his Flood.”

“But…”

“Oh, lay off! It’s stronger than death.”

“But death and opium are one and the same.”

“I don’t care,” came the reckless answer.

He was overcome with horror. What had he done with himself? He had gone after illusory happiness and now he had to pay the price. It was useless to think of divorce, for that would lead him into a fierce dispute which could finally destroy him.

“How do you get it?” he asked her.

She did not reply.

“So you’re going to those old contacts that were always suspect. Don’t you know how dangerous that can be?”

“Don’t exaggerate!”

“Qadriyya, think about it, please! If you do not change your lifestyle, it will be the end of us.”

To protect his reputation and his future he managed, by a great effort of will and after what nearly amounted to a fight, to get her to a rehabilitation center in Hilwan, where she stayed for a few months until her addiction was cured.

He imagined she had come back a new woman. But now food became the only consolation in her life and she ate gluttonously. She kept putting on more and more weight until her body became so grotesquely fat as to invite not just ridicule but pity. He never ceased to worry about her. All day long his attention was divided between her and his work. And he would say sadly to himself, “I have even lost the one thing that made those nights of animal behavior enjoyable, for all that’s left of her now is a miserable wreck: no manners, no faith, no sense, and no taste.”