The red cafeteria. Walls and ceiling painted deep red, tablecloths and a thick carpet of the same color. I sat down at the barman’s counter on a high leather stool, next to a young woman I hadn’t noticed at first. Amm Ahmad Burgal, the barman, brought me the usual fava beans and a sandwich with a cup of tea and inevitably I glanced sideways, to be instantly dazzled by a young creature of extraordinary beauty. It struck me that she must be an employee of the theater, like myself, since the public wouldn’t show up at the theater until well after eight o’clock. I heard Amm Ahmad ask her, “Any news about a flat, Miss Halima?”

“Searching for gold is easier,” she replied, in a voice that oozed honey.

“Are you looking for a flat?” I butted in, bewitched.

She nodded, took a sip of tea, and Amm Ahmad introduced us. “Mr. Karam Younis, the company’s prompter. Miss Halima al-Kabsh, the new cashier.”

“Getting married?” I said with my usual brashness.

Amm Ahmad answered for her. “She’s living with an aunt in a cramped little apartment and dreams of having a small place of her own. But there are the problems of rent and key money.”

“I have a house,” I piped up at once.

She turned to me, interested for the first time. “Really?”

“A large house. It’s old, but it has two floors.”

“Is each floor an apartment?”

“No. It isn’t divided into flats.”

Amm Ahmad asked me if she could have a floor to herself.

“Of course she could.” She asked if that wouldn’t inconvenience the family. “I live there alone,” I replied, at which she raised her eyebrows and turned away, prompting me to explain, in defense of my good intentions: “You and your family would find yourselves quite safe there.”

She made no comment, but Amm Ahmad asked me, “What’s the rent?”

“No one’s ever taken it before. I’m not at all greedy.”

“Shall I bring you a tenant?” he inquired solicitously.

“Oh no, I don’t want that. It’s the family house and it has its memories. I just wanted to help out the young lady, since we both work here in the theater.”

Amm Ahmad laughed. “Give us a chance to think about it.”

The young woman went out, leaving me charged with pangs of desire.

There she is now, sitting bent over in her chair with her arm folded, disgust and anger in her eyes, her forehead knitted in a scowl like a curse. Wouldn’t it be better to live alone than share a life of wrangling? Where is the old enchantment—the sparkle, the foaming intoxication? Where in this world has its mummified corpse been interred?