The bookshop owner was a man over fifty, bearing no resemblance to the photograph. Covering his mother’s face, he showed him the picture.

“No, I don’t know this man,” said the bookshop owner.

Saber explained that the photograph was taken thirty years before.

“I don’t remember seeing him.”

“Is he perhaps a relative?”

“We are Alexandrians, and all my relatives live here. Some of my relatives on my mother’s side live in the countryside. Why are you looking for this man?”

He hesitated a moment, then said quickly, “He’s an old friend of my deceased father. Do any of the Reheimys live elsewhere?”

The man looked at him suspiciously and said, “El-Reheimy is my grandfather, and there are only my sister and me.”

There was no other course but to be patient. He had only two hundred pounds, and these were dwindling away with every passing hour. When they were gone, so went the hope of an honorable life. His eyes ached from scrutinizing every passerby. He consulted a lawyer of his acquaintance, who suggested that his father might have an unlisted number. “Ask the local Sheikh el-Hara,”* he suggested.

“My father is an important man,” retorted Saber indignantly.

“Strange things can happen in thirty years. I was going to suggest that you ask about him in the various jails.”

“Jails!”

“Why not? A jail is like a mosque, open to all. Sometimes people go to jail for noble reasons.” With a short laugh, the lawyer continued: “Let’s start with the registry offices, then the jails and the property registrars. If there is no trace there, we have no alternative but to ask the local sheikhs.”

Saber rejected the idea of an advertisement in the paper. This would give his enemies an opportunity to make fun of him. The advertisement would have to wait until he left the city. He made the rounds of the local sheikhs, from one end of Alexandria to the other.

“What does he do?”

“I don’t know anything about him except that he is a well-known personality and of ample means. This is a photograph of him taken thirty years ago.”

“Why are you looking for him?”

“He’s an old friend of my father’s and I’ve been asked to look for him.”

“Are you sure he’s still alive?”

“I’m not sure of anything.”

“How did you know he’s in Alexandria?”

“Only a hunch, nothing more.”

Then the final answer would resound like the clanging of a cell door, “Sorry, we don’t know him.” He did not cease his scrutiny of every passerby, in a continuous whirlpool of searching, without success. The raindrops forced him to retreat from the seashore and move on to Miramar. He looked up to the late afternoon sky with the first shades of darkness gently edging away the remaining daylight. A voice cried out in welcome, “Come.”

He shook hands and sat down.