“I assure you that money is only one of his assets. It’s true that I was rich, but I never provided you an honorable life, and all you did was go about using your fists to defend your mother’s and your own honor.”

I must be dreaming, he thought. “Do you really believe that I’ll find him?”

“Something tells me that he is alive, and that if you don’t despair, you’ll find him.”

He shook his head, torn between bewilderment and hopelessness. “Should I really start searching for him? If my enemies know of this, won’t they treat me as an insane freak?”

“And what will they say if they find you pimping? You have no alternative but to look for him.” She closed her eyes, muttering about how exhausted she was, so he begged her to sleep, saying that they would resume their talk tomorrow. He took off her shoes and covered her, but she tossed off the cover with a nervous gesture and fell into a deep sleep punctuated by light snoring.

He awoke at nine o’clock next morning after a restless, sleepless night. He went to her room to wake her, and found his mother dead. Had she passed away in her sleep, or did she cry out in the night? An unheeded cry. No matter. Here she was, dead, in the same clothes as those in which she had left prison the day before. He looked closely at the wedding photograph. The only evidence of the existence of a father thirty years ago. How true. He was the image of his father. A handsome, virile-looking man, his tarboosh slightly tilted to the right, enhancing an already impressive figure.

The guests had started to arrive at the neighbors’, the sound of music blending with the chants of the Qur’an in the dead woman’s bedroom.

Where is reality, and where is dream? Your mother, whose last words are still echoing in your ears, now lies dead. Your dead father is seeking resurrection. And you, penniless, persecuted, tarnished with crime and sin, looking for a miracle that will lead you to a life of honor, freedom, and peace of mind.

CHAPTER TWO

Better to let the matter remain secret for the moment. Should he despair of the search, he could seek aid from his acquaintances. He’d start with Alexandria, although it was unlikely that someone like his father would be in Alexandria without his mother’s knowing about it.

The telephone directory for a start. The letter S, Sayed el-Reheimy. Aha…if only luck were on his side. Sayed Sayed el-Reheimy, owner of el-Manshiya bookshop. Very unlikely for a person of his father’s social condition. In any case, el-Manshiya was an area worked by his mother for more than a quarter of a century. Still, this might be a useful clue.