Shaking, Saber sat down. Automatically, he took out the photograph, his birth certificate, and the marriage certificate. The man looked at each document calmly, placed them in a neat pile on the table, and just as calmly tore them to pieces. Saber jumped up and grabbed the man by his jacket, screaming, “You are denying my existence!”

“Get away from me! Don’t ever let me see your face again! You’re a good-for-nothing, just like your mother. I’ve got nothing to do with you!” He pushed him violently; Saber staggered back, fell, and banged his head on the lunch counter.

He woke up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. He was in his hotel room, naked under the bedclothes. The sun was seeping through the shuttered window. The search; was it a dreamlike hope? A fantasy, as Karima suggested? He would have many more dreams like this one.

* Karima means “generous.”

CHAPTER SIX

Every night the dreams haunt him. He wakes up tired and depressed, a silence continuously surrounding him. A deepening, gravelike silence. Similar to a wave before it rolls and breaks. What then? Another wave follows. His father appears in every dream. But the search is no longer the main aim of his life. Rather, it is the snatched moments of love. Love in the dark, savage, passionate with an animal desire. Darkness brings back the memories of his early youth when he was almost fatally ill.

He had panicked when he met death face to face. It was this panic that became his driving force, that drove him to a life of violence; swimming, maybe drowning, in a sea of sin, lust, and pleasure, continuously having to use his fists to defend his mother’s fictitious honor.

He went to the newspaper offices and was greeted by Elham’s calm smile. How refreshing she looks. A rock in his stormy sea.

“Any news?” she asked.

“I’ve come to renew the advertisement even though I doubt it will be of much use.”

“Have you thought of any other method?”

He smiled. Little did she know that the search was now of secondary importance in his life.

“We’ve got a surprise for you,” said Tantawi.

He sat down, his curiosity aroused.

“A woman inquired about you.”

“A woman?”

“She asked about the advertisement.”

“Who was she?”

“She didn’t say anything; she just asked about the advertisement.”

“Maybe she knows of him. Reheimy, I mean,” Saber said hopefully.

“Maybe, and maybe…”

“What’s the other maybe?”

“She might know you.”

“Or maybe someone’s playing a trick. It’s happened before,” he said bitterly. Could she be his wife? His widow? Maybe it was Karima, just curious. That woman was a volatile mixture of passions and emotions, cunning and destruction.

Saber and Elham sat at their usual table in the neighboring café. He remembered his strange dream.

“You don’t seem as enthusiastic as before,” she remarked.