I’d heard that American and European writers used typewriters instead of pens, so I’d learned to type. On my way to the theater I used to pass by a typing bureau called Faisal, and I applied there for a job. The owner immediately accepted me on his terms: I agreed to work from eight in the morning to two in the afternoon and to be paid by the piece.

Tahiya received the news with mixed feelings. “You’re going to go to bed at three in the morning, wake up at seven, at the latest, instead of ten, work from eight until two, then come home at three to get another two hours’ sleep, at most, between four and six. You won’t get any rest. You won’t have time for reading or writing.”

“What can I do?”

“Your father has lots of money.”

“I’m not going to accept one filthy millieme,” I said indignantly.

I refused to go on arguing. She was certainly an exceptional woman, but she was quite practical when it came to matters of living, preferring in the depths of her heart to ask my father for help rather than see me bury myself in work that would impinge on my time, my creativity, and my strength.

I took two days off from work at Faisal in order to finish my play, which I offered to Sirhan al-Hilaly. He looked at me smiling. “You haven’t given up?” he asked.

During the days of waiting for his reaction I lived with my beautiful dreams. Art had become not only the one way I had of satisfying my deepest longings but also my only route to actual living. I’d begun writing this particular play, however, before I’d had the idea about the house as a brothel; it hadn’t yet jelled, but I’d finished it anyway, still happy with its idealistic moral philosophy.

Sirhan al-Hilaly returned it to me with one remark: “You still have a long way to go.”

“What does it lack?” I asked, sighing.

“It’s a story,” he said crisply, “but it won’t do as drama.” There was no encouragement for me to continue.

What unparalleled agony! Worse than what I’d gone through in the old house. Failure in art is death itself—that’s the way we’re made—and art, in my case, was not just art but the surrogate for the action that an idealist like me is unable to take. What will I have done to combat the evil around me? What will I do if I have not the strength to carry on the struggle in the only field granted me, the theater?