That was how I came to understand heroes and villains in plays. Neither of my parents had time to give me any guidance; my father took no interest in education in any case, while my mother was content to repeat her only piece of advice—“Be an angel”—explaining that to be an angel was to love good, not to harm other people, and to have a clean body and clean clothes. My real tutors were, first, the theater, then books, when their time came, and finally people who had no relation to my parents.

As soon as I started school I loved it: giving me so many companions, it rescued me from my loneliness. I had to be self-reliant, though, at every step. I’d wake up early in the morning, eat my cold breakfast of cheese and boiled eggs from a plate that had been covered with a napkin the night before, dress, and leave the house quietly so I wouldn’t arouse my sleeping parents. I’d return in the afternoon to find them getting ready to leave for the theater. I’d stay alone doing my homework, then amuse myself with games or books, at first only looking at the pictures, then reading the printed words—I’ll never forget the generosity of Amm Abdu, the secondhand bookseller, who crouched on the sidewalk beside Sidi al-Sharany Mosque—and finally, after a supper of cheese and halva, I’d go to bed.

So I never saw my parents except for a while before sunset, and even part of this brief period was lost as they got ready to go out. Perhaps because there was so little intimacy or attention given to me, I was all the more attached to them. I yearned for them. My mother’s beauty, sweetness, and tenderness bewitched me and I was enthralled by a vision of that angelic nature she urged me to acquire. His gentle way of playing with me and his hearty laughter likewise made my father seem wonderful. He was full of jokes, full of fun, and the limited time we had together was never spoiled by instructions, threats, or warnings. There was only an occasioned reminder. “Enjoy being alone,” he used to say. “You’re the king of the castle. What do you want more than that? The only son, independent of everyone. That’s what your father was like, and you’ll be even more wonderful.”

“He’s an angel,” mother would hasten to add. “Be an angel, dear.”

“Did Grandfather and Grandmother leave you alone, too?” I asked him once.

“Your grandfather?” he replied. “He left me before I ever knew him. And your grandmother—she worked at home.”

Mother glowered, and I sensed that these words carried a secret meaning. “Your grandfather died young and your grandmother joined him, so your father was left alone,” she explained.

“In this same house?”

“Yes.”