He laughed briefly. “Weren’t you afraid that I’d confess?”

“Mustapha urged me to flee with him; then we thought of hiding. We went through a few miserable days. But you proved to be superhuman. We were and remain nothing.”

As a man gets used to hell, he gets used to the sacrifice of others. However disgusting the rat is, the sight of him in his cage is pitiable.

Othman alluded to the assistance his parents had received from Omar before their death. Omar seemed not to want to listen, so he went on. “I don’t want to lament the past, for I chose my fate, fully conscious of what I was doing. But now you must tell me what’s been happening in the world.”

Omar said enigmatically, looking for an escape, “Let the future be our main concern.”

“The future?…Yes, I’ll have to dust off my law degree.”

“My office is at your disposal.”

“Excellent. The authorities have no objection to my practicing.”

“Then why not start right away?”

“Many thanks…but tell me what’s been happening.”

He doesn’t want to budge. How strange, it’s as though you’d never been associated with him, as though you’d never wanted this meeting at all. You share nothing but a dead history, and he arouses in you only feelings of guilt, fear, and self-contempt. He hasn’t yet discovered that philosophical works have replaced the socialist tracts in your library. Here he sits obstructing you like fate while you try to flee from your people and from the world.

Tiring of the silence, Othman coaxed, “Tell me about our friends.”

“Oh, they’re all gone their own ways. I haven’t kept up with any of them except Mustapha al-Minyawi.”

“And what have you all done?”

How distasteful is this calling to account.

“Actually the years that followed your arrest were characterized by so much violence and terrorism that we had to resort to silence. Then each of us became involved in his work, we grew older, the Revolution broke out, and the old world collapsed.”

Othman rested his broad chin on his hand, and his eyes gleamed coldly. Perhaps he was lamenting the lost years. What an unpleasant situation! How often the thought of it had disturbed his sleep like a nightmare. He said, “I often asked myself why, yes why, and it seemed to me that life was a revolting swindle. The feet that kicked in my head belonged to the very people for whose sake I went to prison. Were cowardice and folly, then, what life was all about? But this wasn’t true of the ants and other creatures. I won’t prolong the speech. In the end I regained my faith.”

“How unfortunate.”