* Kamelia converted to Islam and changed her name to that of the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter, Zeinab. By marrying Omar, she also cut herself off from her family.

SIX

At the end of August, the family returned to Cairo. The view of Al-Azhar Square on his way to work the first day was upsetting. It remained a depressing thoroughfare, unchanged since his departure. He was warmly welcomed at the office, especially by Mahmoud Fahmi, his assistant, and the files were soon brought out, the postponed cases and those under review. September had its sticky days, but a gentle breeze had arisen and the early mornings were shaded by the suggestions of white clouds. Mustapha embraced him at length. They stood face to face, Omar towering above his friend, whose bald head, tilted back, was spotlighted by the silver lamp.

He said, sitting on the leather couch before the desk, “You’re as slender as a gazelle. Bravo.”

He took out a cigarette from the box—a wooden box ornamented with mother-of-pearl which played a tune when opened—lit it, then continued. “I often thought of visiting you in Alexandria, but family obligations called me to Ras el Bar. Apart from that, I was tied up in preparing a new radio serial.”

Omar looked at the case files, then at his friend’s eyes, pleading for an encouraging word. He smiled enigmatically, then finally said, “I worked without stop this morning.”

Mustapha breathed a sigh of relief, but then Omar murmured, “But…”

Mustapha inquired anxiously, “But?”

“Honestly, I’ve regained no desire to work.”

An uneasy silence prevailed. Mustapha exhaled the cigarette smoke with a tense expression, then suggested, “Maybe you should have taken more rest.”

“Let’s stop kidding ourselves. The problem is more serious than that.”

Then he lit a cigarette in turn and continued to the echo of new tunes. “The problem is more serious, for it’s not only work which has become unbearable. This illness is consuming other things, far more precious than work—my wife, for instance.”

“Zeinab?”

He said with something like shame, “I don’t know how to put it, but sadly enough, I can’t bear her now. My house is no longer the happy abode.”

“But Buthayna and Jamila are part of it.”

“Fortunately they don’t need me…”

Mustapha frowned and blinked his round, filmy eyes. In his inquisitive glance was a sorrowful, pressing desire to solve the riddle. “But someone of your intelligence can discover the secret.”

He said, smiling bitterly, “Maybe the universe in its eternal, monotonous revolving is the primary cause.”

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating, at least as far as Zeinab is concerned.”

“It’s the appalling truth.”

He asked with solicitude, “What’s to happen in this state of affairs?”

“I live, questioning all the time, but with no answer.”

“By now, you must be convinced, at least, that you’re going through some sort of psychological crisis.”