“My vacation is usually so interrupted that the summer months hardly seem more than one prolonged weekend.”

“No, take a real vacation, practice the new regime, and you’ll be on the road to recovery.”

“Perhaps.”

“Trust in God. You’ve been given a warning from nature. Listen to it. You should lose forty pounds, but gradually, and without strain.”

Omar pressed his hands on his knees and leaned foward in preparation to leave, but the doctor responded quickly, “Wait, you’re the last visitor today, so let’s sit together a while.”

Omar sat back in his seat smiling. “Dr. Hamid Sabri, I know what you want—to bury a quarter of a century and laugh again from the depths of your heart.”

“Ah, the days of the past.”

“Actually, Doctor, all periods except ‘now’ have their appeal.”

“You’re right. Memory is one thing, the experience another.”

“So it all passes and scatters without meaning.”

“Our love of life gives meaning.”

“How I’ve detested life these last days!”

“And now you’re searching for your lost love. Tell me, do you remember those days of politics, demonstrations, and dreams of Utopia?”

“Of course, but those too have passed and are not held in much esteem these days.”

“Even so, a great dream was realized. I mean the socialist state.”

“Yes…”

The doctor smiled. “You’re a man of many faces: the fervent socialist, the great lawyer, but the face I remember most vividly is that of Omar the poet.”

Omar dissembled his sudden agitation with a wan smile. “That’s unfortunate.”

“You’ve abandoned poetry?”

“Of course.”

“But, as I remember, you published a collection of poems.”

He lowered his eyes so that the doctor wouldn’t see his tension and discontent. “Childhood play, nothing more.”

“Some of my physician colleagues have given up medicine for the sake of poetry.”

The memory disturbed his consciousness like ill-omened weather. He wished the doctor would drop the subject.

“I remember one of our friends was Mustapha al-Minyawi. What was it we called him?”

“Little Baldy. We’re still very close friends. He’s now a prominent journalist and writes for radio and television.”

“My wife is a great fan of his. He was an enthusiastic socialist like you, but the most committed of all, without question, was Othman Khalil.”

Omar’s face clouded as memory hammered at him. He murmured, “He’s in jail.”

“Yes, he’s spent a long time in jail. Wasn’t he your classmate in the Faculty of Law?”

“We graduated in the same year, Mustapha, Othman, and I. I don’t really like the past.”

The physician said decisively, “So take an interest in the future.” Then, looking at his watch: “From now on you’re the doctor.”