His senses all screamed out: Leave Elham. She’s like your father, full of promise but only a dream. Karima is just an extension of your mother. She represents pleasure and crime. Go back to Alexandria. Pimp for your enemies. Kill. Take Karima; take her money. Draw Reheimy out of the darkness. Marry Elham. Cairo winters are cruel. Streets are crowded, a marketplace of humanity. There you are lost in a fruitless search. You can have any woman you choose, offering a life of pleasure and no worries. But instead you choose Reheimy. Maybe he’s just a charlatan who convinced your mother he was somebody.

You must have seen your father a thousand times every day while scanning the countless faces in the Cairo streets. He rejects you, or perhaps fears you. Maybe he’s dead? Winter speeds up the darkness. It springs upon you suddenly and closes over you like the waves, drawing you in.

The porter of the hotel had told him of a soothsayer; perhaps he might help. He had gone to him, only to find that he had been arrested as a humbug. Since when was that a crime? The hotel became his prison. The lounge was filled with people, smoke, and noise. The faces changed, but the conversation always remained the same. He heard a man ask, “But doesn’t that mean the end of the world?”

“To hell with it,” said another.

Laughter and smoke filled the room. A man asked him, “Are you for the East or the West?”

“Neither,” he replied disinterestedly. Then he remembered his plight and said, “I am for war…”

CHAPTER NINE

Karima didn’t come that night. He lay on his bed in an alcoholic stupor imagining the absent lovemaking, trying to quench his lust. It was past midnight and still no Karima. She had never missed a night in his arms before. He kept a constant vigil all night, gradually losing all hope of her turning up. The dawn prayer announced the end of his hopeless wait. He slept for a few hours and woke up at ten.

As Saber breakfasted in the lounge, he watched the old man chat with the doorman. When will he wake up and find the old man not at his desk? How was he going to ask Karima about her absence last night? A heated argument broke out between two of the residents. He watched the vigorous gesticulations and the empty threats. Intensely annoyed, he got up and walked out of the hotel.

At lunch Elham looked serious. He felt much better than he had earlier. He always did when he saw her. “Our meeting every day is the only meaningful thing in my life,” he told her with happiness clearly ringing in his voice.

“I don’t cease to think about us,” she said, looking at him with love and tenderness in her eyes.