“I trust it’s good news.”

“I came to congratulate you on the play.”

“Thanks,” he replies lukewarmly.

“Rehearsals begin tomorrow.”

“Your producer is full of enthusiasm.”

“Not like our director.”

“What’s he say?”

“The hero is a disgusting creature and the public won’t like him.”

He shrugs, frowning.

“Why weren’t you at the reading?” I ask him.

“That’s my business.”

“Didn’t you stop to think? What takes place in the play could create suspicion about you.”

“I don’t care if it does.”

“They will think, quite understandably, that you’re a murderer, and a traitor to your parents.”

“That’s ridiculous. And anyway, why should I care!”

Losing control, I blurt out, “You’re a self-confessed murderer!”

“And you’re nothing but a shit,” he mutters, looking at me with scorn.

“Will you be able to defend yourself?”

“I haven’t been accused. I don’t need to defend myself.”

“You’ll be accused—sooner than you think.”

“You’re an idiot.”

I get up. “She may well have deserved to be killed,” I say. “But you deserve to hang.”

—

The next day, at the first rehearsal, I’m welcomed by one of al-Hilaly’s tantrums. When our producer gets angry he’s a hurricane! “You! You! You’re behaving like a ten-year-old!” he shouts. “An imbecile! If you weren’t so stupid you could have developed into a fine actor. But you insist on turning yourself into a public prosecutor. Why did you go see Abbas Younis?” Has that bastard been complaining about me? I choose to say nothing until this storm blows over a little. “You’ll never get a grip on your role,” he yells, “until you concentrate on it, instead of on him.”

“Today’s the first day,” I mumble. “It’s just as important that the criminal gets what he deserves.”

“There’s not one of us,” he bellows sarcastically, “who hasn’t got some misdeed hanging around his neck for which he deserves to go to jail.”

“But we haven’t gone so far as to commit murder!”

“Who knows? Tahiya—if it’s true that she was killed—had more than one man possibly involved in her murder. And you are chief among them.”

“He doesn’t deserve your defense.”

“I don’t consider him accused. Have you got one bit of evidence against him?”

“The play.”

“No play is devoid of some charge or other. The office of the public prosecutor demands quite a different kind of evidence.”

“In the play he commits suicide.”

“Which means that in real life he does not commit suicide. And it’s our good fortune that he’ll be around to write some more.”

“He never created one line, and he’ll never write one. You know perfectly well what kind of plays he offered you before.”