“You’re going to write about me?”

“Of course.”

I crow with laughter.

Answering his questions as we walk, I tell him about my past: “I was born in Manshiyyat al-Bakri. There were two villas side by side—the Ramadan family and the al-Hilaly family. My father, Ramadan, was a major general in the cavalry, one of the pashas of the old order; al-Hilaly’s was a landowner. I was the eldest in our family, and Sirhan was an only child. One of my brothers is a consul, another is a judge of the High Court, and the third is an engineer. My story in a nutshell is that we were expelled—Sirhan and I—from school. Not that we’d learned much, except about whorehouses, taverns, and drugs. My father left me nothing. Sirhan inherited seventy feddans,*4 though, and to satisfy his craze for bossing and for girls, he founded a theatrical troupe. I was one of his actors. My brothers cut off relations with me completely. A low salary. Debts all over the place. If it hadn’t been for women….”

Umm Hany sighs, “Ah.”

Fuad asks, “You were active politically, of course?”

I laugh again. “I have no affiliation with any entity but life. You know what Karam Younis is like. He and I are twins in spirit. People say in his case that being brought up by a mother who was a prostitute has made him what he is. Well, I grew up in a respectable family. So how do you explain our similarity? Environment can’t change natural gifts. We despise respectability, both of us. The difference between us and other people, in fact, is that we’re honest and they’re hypocritical.”

“Are you going to write this drivel?” asks Umm Hany, turning to Fuad.

“Fuad belongs to the same breed himself!”

“You’re a real bastard,” she bubbles gleefully. “Don’t you believe there are any decent people at all?”

“Sure. Mr. Abbas Younis, for example, the author of Afrah al-Qubbah. He’s such an idealist, you know. That’s why he throws his parents into jail and kills his wife and baby son!”

“What are you going to write?” Umm Hany asks Fuad.

“I’m not a lunatic like him,” he says, guiding us to his Fiat.

We drive to the Citadel quarter. At the corner where our alley meets the main road, we get out of Fuad’s car, unable to take it any further because of overflowing sewers. The stench accompanying us as we stumble over the crumbling pavement drives the drink from our heads.

Can the success I have now be sustained? Will I ever be able to escape from this slum, from this woman in her fifties who weighs a hundred kilos?

—