He decided that as of today he would know life as it really was. He was lonely, without friends, work, or family, and he was left with nothing but a dreamlike hope. He must as of this moment fend for himself; that was previously his mother’s domain, and he had been free to enjoy life to the fullest. Only yesterday thoughts of death could not have been further from his mind. It was yesterday, too, at about the same time, that the carriage had arrived bringing his mother home. He led her into the house, the house she had prepared for her son. She was weak and haggard, looking thirty years older than her fifty-odd years. That’s how he remembered Basima Omran, as she was when she came home the previous day after having spent five years in jail.

“Your mother is through, Saber.”

Carrying her effortlessly in his arms, he said, “Nonsense, you are in the prime of your youth.”

She lay down on the bed fully clothed, leaned over to look in the mirror, and repeated, “Your mother is through, Saber. Who would believe that this is Basima Omran’s face?”

How true. A round, handsome face, and the pink coloring of a ripening apple. Her laughter that had reverberated through every drawing room in Alexandria now failed to cause the slightest ripple on her large, fat body.

“May God curse sickness and disease.”

Wiping her face, despite the cool weather, she said, “It’s not sickness, but jail. I fell ill in jail. Your mother wasn’t made for jails. They said it was my liver, my blood pressure, then my heart, curse them. Can I ever again be what I was?”

“And even better, with rest, and medicine.”

“And money?”

He winced and said nothing.

“How much have you got left?”

“Very little.”

“I was wise to register the house at Ras el-Tin in your name; otherwise they would have taken that, too.”

“But I sold it when I ran out of money. I told you at the time.”

She groaned and placed her hand on her forehead. “Oh, my head, I wish you hadn’t sold the house. You had a lot of money; I wanted you to lead the good life, to live like the aristocracy. I wanted to leave you a fortune, but…”

“Everything was lost in one stroke.”

“Yes, may God forgive them, a mean revenge from a mean man, a man who enjoyed my wealth, then dropped me for a worthless slut. Suddenly he remembered the call of duty, law, and honor and discarded me, the bastard. I spat on him in court.”

She asked for a cigarette; he lit one for her, saying, “It’s better that you don’t smoke now. Did you smoke in there?”

“Cigarettes, hashish, opium, but I always worried about you.” She drew on the cigarette breathlessly, wiped her damp face and neck, and said, “What about your future, my boy?”