BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (32)
  1. Cover
  2. PART ONE
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. PART TWO
  18. 1
  19. 2
  20. 3
  21. 4
  22. 5
  23. 6
  24. 7
  25. 8
  26. 9
  27. 10
  28. AFTERWORD
  29. 1
  30. 2
  31. 3
  32. 4

Leila clutched at my hand; we turned and jogged quickly across Talaat Harb toward Abdeen, but there, too, our way was blocked by armored cars and soldiers. They waved us back. So we turned down Qahqary Street and into the alleys that link Gawad Hosni with Sherif and Qasr El Nil. On either side, barbed wire was being rolled out to block off Qasr El Nil, and my eye was caught by the towering bulk of a half-built hotel, then the weary lean of the building next to it, and I said to Leila, “I know that building.”

We went straight in through the front doors. No one was in the lobby and we began to climb the stairs. The doors were all shut fast and the deathly quiet made the apartments seem abandoned. Fleetingly, I wondered whether the residents had passed away. On we climbed, up the spiral staircase until we came to the room on the roof where Bahr and I had spoken to the neurotic tenant, what seemed like an eternity ago. I knocked and the door inched open. I pushed and we went in.

There was no one there. As we looked out through the wide window onto the square—distant and shuttered and dark—I told Leila that the last time I had come here, with Bahr, the building had been full of residents. In the light from the huge hotel next door, lit up but silent, I saw her watching me with an expression that ranged between doubt, anxiety, and trust.

She reached out and took my hand. She said, “Let me tell you something…” She paused.

“Let’s say the whole thing is what I think it is. That you’ve been writing a story, a fiction. I’m talking about Bahr and the expedition. All that.”

She fell silent again. When she resumed, she was trying to smile:

“Thank you for giving me a part in it.”

And before I could answer, the roaring began.

3

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MALFUNCTION

Only once did I get the chance to look through Bahr’s notes. He had gone with Yehyia to look around the department and left me waiting in a café on the corner of Gomhouriya Street. More importantly, he had left his bag with me, and had left it only half-closed, too. Through the unzipped opening I could see the words The End Days at the head of a sheet of paper. I slid it out carefully and began to read: